These fish clearly weren’t all clamping down on the same line. Fortunately, they weren’t cannibalizing each other’s tails, either. They appeared to be simply…tapping each other’s backfins lightly with their fish lips, in several huge conga lines. Weird, but not unpardonable.

Except in the context of fair play.

I was learning this all in the span of a second. When the dots had all connected for me, I knew I couldn’t let the witch’s plan go un-ruined.

I let loose my wrath.

Slash.

My front paws grew flaming hot. Literally—a fire trailed through them, undiminished by the pond. I could feel the flames trailing into my very wrists, my shoulders, even weakly into my bloodstream. It was as uncomfortable as it was empowering.

But I knew that the strongest part was my claws. They glowed red with a furious charge, and couldn’t have been hotter if they’d been taken out of a blacksmith’s kiln.

And yet, I wasn’t advanced enough to have thought all of these things coherently in the brief moment I had to use Slash. If anything, I just thought, “Orangish-red, maybe hotter than usual—cool.”

Then I bore down on the koi in front of me.

The claws tore through, obliterating the fish as easily as an eraser destroys pencil.

“Eraser” is the word. Solid, thick chunks of the fish seemed to be torn out from reality. I almost wouldn’t have believed the sight—but the bloody fog billowing from the body afterward told the truth.

That claw, unlike my crash earlier, had sent a huge shockwave through the line, both ways. It rattled before my Level 14 might…all while I hovered in the water and coughed and stared wide-eyed and had no clue what I was doing.

Clearly I had just scored a critical.

Get out of here, Taipha, said a tiny voice in the back of my skull. I kept hovering there.

Taipha…

I coughed and took in water.

SURFACE SURFACE SURFACE!

Next thing I knew, I was gasping for air above choppy waves in the middle of a bigger commotion than I’d ever expected. Ducks honked and flew away in clumps, and Reed was screaming things I couldn’t make out, all while Bayce…

She was standing, huffing, no doubt baffled by the confusion I’d sent up her line. She was directly in front of me, along with the remains of her trail of cheater-fish, which were scattering in the water and, as they came back to their senses, darting away. Her fishing pole was gone, and all I saw on her expression was—not anger, not shame, but worry.

Oh geez. I-I didn’t…

All I’d wanted to do was hurt Bayce’s little feelings!

In my distress, and my craving for big gulps of life-giving air, it took a while for me to notice that Bayce wasn’t looking anywhere near the fishes, but at a point beyond them and beyond me, around the center of the pond. Was she in a daze of distress?

Okay, this could all be solved in like a minute—I’d just swim up to the shore and convince her, with a series of charades, that it was all a mistake and a misunderstanding and nothing would come out and harm us—

Something roared, and the roar shook the water into a near-tsunami.

Grgh! How could I have known that landing a crit would send yet another superdeadly legendary creature jumping in and ruining things?! I seemed to have forgotten this was the wacky fantastical Vencian Wood and the exact same pond where I’d just seen a mystery spirit lady who’d ambiguously threatened me.

I must’ve had some incredibly unlucky stars today. Whatever was in the water behind me, it had to have been the third…possibly sixth legendary beast I’d encountered within approximately seventy-two hours.

Message from Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata Taking into account your birthdate, birth location, and the birthplace of your father, yes, your ruling constellation is in a particularly dicey spot and will stay there until sundown.

…I couldn’t even bring myself to comment.

Thinking about how deeply you wish not to comment is, in itself, a comment!

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Anyway, I feel I should end your confusion here and say that’s not a legend over there, it’s just a really terrifyingly huge and powerful carp.

Thanks. Give me back my eyes I need them!

Predictably, that last line just made Sierra pop up even more text boxes all around the main one, obscuring my entire vision.

Moving around without eyesight is a valuable skill, Taipha!

So is becoming human when you least expect to.

Don’t test me!

Go big or go home!

WAAAAH—

I got myself back to shore as fast as I could. Honestly, that was easy enough, since I’d been looking toward it just before Sierra capriciously called, and I was fueled with enough terror to not take all day. I pulled myself onto the jetty where Bayce was standing and sifting through her bracelets the way Earth humans would fumble through scores of keys.

She was relieved to see me, despite my expectations. “Get back,” she told me. “I can take this.”

“And me,” Reed cried, not far behind us. I heard her snatching something either out of thin air or from her tote. I hoped it was something huge and dangerous.

I did back up, but only a couple of steps. They didn’t have to be my actual bodyguards, and I would prove myself if it came to that.

What rose from the center of Mirror Pond at first looked so flat and massive that it could’ve been an island, its back brown and red and warty and cracked with old, damaged scales. Sand, grime, and small waterfalls dripped from its rising sides, which sent torrents of water sloshing over two edges of the pond, drenching half the trees but sparing us. Finally, the face of the carp revealed itself, eyes fierce red, mouth seeming to snarl.

It was so big and close that it filled my field of view.

“I shouldn’t have tried anything big here,” Bayce said, her words rapid-fire.

“Maow!” I cried.

“What are you wailing for?” Her face twitched with realization. “Oh, now, don’t beat yourself up for anything, you’re new here! Besides, you didn’t do anything, it was my Spell that—”

“RRRUUOOOOOAH!”

Either milliseconds were passing like centuries, or Reed and Bayce were fumbling about while I seemed to be the only one staring down our foe. I considered activating another Slash, remembering how powerful it’d been the first time…but if I did that, I wouldn’t have enough SP to Leap and quickly bridge the watery gap. All this ran through my mind as I stepped closer to the brink of the jetty.

“No! Stay back!” Reed cried.

At the same time, Bayce flicked off one of her bracelets—I could tell by the jingle and the burst of wind. Along with the siren-loud, strangely car-like “HONK!”

The carp’s eyes squeezed shut. Instead of charging us for this annoying sound splurted right in its face, though, the carp shivered and made a heaving sound like a sigh. Then it began to sink.

The monumental creature was dipping back into the pond with a huge but tranquil sloosh.

Soon the pond was perfectly empty, sparkling and ready to welcome its animals again.

Glad I didn’t jump and try for a kill, I turned to Bayce with a look of not worry, not shame, but disappointment mixed with gratitude. Which is an odd mix. Bayce kneeled to my level and said, “You alright?”

“Meow.”

“Do you mind if I give you rubbies?”

…

“Rub-rubs?”

.....

“That’s what I call it when I rub animals affectionately?”

Reed interrupted, squatting right behind us. Her sword was at her hip, unused (aw…) right next to dangling pompoms. “Bayce, I think she’ll answer you when she’s less frazzled.”

“Right… I’m frazzled too. I think the Geographic Carp sensed that I was catching too many of its brethren. Which is fair!” Bayce cried in a burst of sudden self-conscious nerves. “It’s true, I was using magic to catch a whole chain of catfish.”

Reed gasped soundlessly. “But you know—”

“Hey, I thought that since no humans had come this way in a while, it’d work out.”

“You don’t have any way of knowing that.”

“Except…” Bayce pointed to the invisible stars. “But yeah. If the carp could speak my language, I’d’ve said I was sorry.”

I started to feel sorry too. The huge fish seemed to have come straight out of the dirt, as if it’d been a rising continent. Without my Slash startling the Geographic Carp, it might never have left whatever deep slumber it’d been submerged in.

Bayce knew the mood had gone sour, so she dispelled it with a laugh. “Guess that means I caught nothing! I’ll try again later this week—at a totally different body of water—without going overboard.”

I replied with a low meow-purr that I hoped passed for a grumble.

“Don’t be so bitter or whatever!” Bayce added. Her spirits were still high—clearly there were no hard feelings on her end—but I felt like the day had been broken in half. “Aww,” she said, clearly picking up on my body language enough to tell. “Please don’t worry about it. This is my fault. I have nothing, and that means I caught nothing. You’re the winner, fair and square, emphasis on the ‘fair.’ And you don’t even have to cook.”

“Yep! That’s up to me,” Reed said.

“And me,” said Bayce.

“Um…you’re my guest too, and you have to study.”

Bayce furrowed her brows. “Yeah, but you’re, like, resting?”

Those two could settle that on their own.

Quest: Collect Ingredients for the Reading Cantrip Progress: 33% (1/3)