Unchosen Champion-Chapter 327: Silent Meow

The territory of Ghost Reef had increased considerably at various points during the assimilation, but when it came to population, it had never experienced a period of such explosive growth. The previous influxes of refugees had seemed massive at the time, especially compared to the relative population of the island, but they hardly compared to the past month of change.

Ghost Reef was undergoing an unprecedented shift. New faces had become a fact of everyday life and new corners of the territory were constantly being claimed and developed, just waiting to be explored by those with enough curiosity.

Instead of a single burst of territorial expansion driven by an upgrade to the settlement, the current accruals were added piece by piece in an effort to keep up with the population increase. Mana pylons were daisy-chained one layer at a time in patterns that overlapped with the range of the civilization shard, and new people were already gathering all the way down the string of safety, assembling fresh bastions as they went, and they were often full of treats.

The venerated lighthouse cat, Jett Black, of course, was chief among those who kept track of every bit of progress. She thought it was about time more outlanders recognized the excellence of the carefully chosen and thoughtfully organized realm. As they built, she certified and approved, accepting their tributes and collating who would join her personal attendants.

There were countless meritorious individuals. She was supremely glad that word had eventually reached the ears of worthy countrymen. A grand reveal had been long overdue. Ghost Reef would claim its place as a laudable sanctum for the people of Earth; a place for all to rest their eyes, free from the incessant disturbance of life’s many nuisances.

The Underlayer Event had triggered a golden age, and Jett was hard at work making sure that everything progressed smoothly under her steadfast supervision. A kingdom was meant to have subjects, and a proper queen regnant should be responsible for her citizens. Ensuring that their lives were pleasing was her chief duty, just as it had been even before mana activated, she was awakened, and the assimilation began. That there were many more souls she was taking responsibility for was a matter of course. Anyone of her stature should be prepared for such grandiose obligations.

She had grown enough to reflect upon her past self, recognizing that even then, when she was a much simpler existence as she hunted pests and was pampered by her attendants, she had been properly fulfilling her duties. Not much had changed to her recollection. She was merely more effective and the intruders more insistent, but at the same time, there were more individuals willing to indulge her company and support her efforts.

The settlement had come a long way from the original trifecta of residents. None of Jones, Coop, or Jett could have imagined what the lonely island would become, but of the three, Jett may have been the most comfortable with the changes. She was completely satisfied with the evolution of her realm. Things were progressing splendidly.

Jett continued to carefully monitor her expansive territory, diligently patrolling hard to reach places on a routine that pleased her well-honed instincts. Gazing upon the wild frontiers and imagining how they would improve once her territory caught up had become something of a delightful hobby. It had been many nights since she concentrated merely on the lighthouse, but she had no regrets toward the changes.

She had been blessed with multitudes of new attendants, and they worked busily to make sure Ghost Reef was worthy of her presence while paving the way for future pilgrims. She couldn’t help but feel content. Her claws were sharpened, her fur was brushed, and her stomach was full. Life was good.

However, there had been a glaring absence in recent times, one that had increasingly stuck in her craw. The one blemish on the perfect mural was that her primary attendant was frequently sent afield. Even when he returned it was only for a brief period before he was off again. If there was one point of contention she had, it was that he was not home nearly enough.

Joyously, this time seemed slightly different. Her first attendant had returned from another period away from the lighthouse, but when he did, he was different. She couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason why, but when a proper cat’s curiosity was stirred, it was difficult to restrain.

Though he was finally fulfilling his domestic duties, refamiliarizing himself with the regions of pests that were already under control, she continued to fret. Even weaving through the shadows and crunching her fangs on the necks of the intruders in the underground left her unsatisfied. In the end, she couldn’t help but return to his side and investigate.

She was concerned that her first attendant had been damaged. She couldn’t explain his dedication to revisiting previously conquered enemies, and wherever he went, he seemed to have other attendants acting as minders, subtly showing concern for the one that had taken care of the rest of them for so long. It made her worry as well. The small bit of anxiety she felt was unpleasant as it marinated during the first days of his return.

So when the opportunity to investigate presented itself, in a rare break from routine, she took it. Jett accompanied Coop during a pause in his hunts, then followed after him as he went into the underground in search of level 50 to 75 Ruin Excavators. He had been guided by one of the more enterprising parties of treat providers, so she knew where to go, but the reason continued to evade her. The opponents were weak to the point of being unsatisfying, their shells not hard enough to provide the satisfying resistance felt through her claws, but her attendant sought them anyway. She couldn’t help but wonder why.

She was there, in the shadows, observing her loyal attendant as he fought on behalf of another fresh group of new residents. She listened as the so-called Metal Eagles giddily recounted the unbelievable feat they had witnessed when her first attendant casually completed their assigned task, and she followed as he continued to explore the darkness for the first time when they left.

Jett wrapped herself in the impenetrable cloak of umbral darkness, strolling through the vaporous fog that swirled in the aftermath of her devotee’s battles, undetected even to the champion of the mists. The black cat was simply that subtle. She was as close to undetectable as imaginable, and unless her whims left her wanting attention, she would stay undiscovered. No one else had accompanied her attendant, so she skipped her daily nap in order to supervise from the shadows. The mixture of curiosity and concern left her feline instincts fully stimulated.

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What she witnessed caused her tail to involuntarily flick back and forth at the tip, swinging her unique black ribbon in the gentle breeze of the underground. She was coming to the realization that she had been underestimating her first attendant. He had been working hard while he was away from home, honing skills that she found most pleasing. Approval for her champion came promptly.

Even though he was contending with some of the weakest underground monsters, he was progressing right before her eyes. In a single day, he exploded past many different thresholds, flashing white spotlights with such frequency that she might not have needed extraordinary senses to map the jagged caves. Even a human, lacking whiskers, relying solely on their eyes could have used the light to keep their feet steady.

Her attendant was gradually speeding up as she witnessed him, testing the boundaries of Excavator detection, memorizing the ambush patterns, and responding with Agility that managed to impress the Sentinel of Shadows. If she wasn’t mistaken, he had already surpassed her martial prowess when it came to dismantling the weaker monsters. She recognized his achievement and was glad for it. His victories were as satisfying as her own.

Her champion optimized a route, snaking through the darkness in a large loop that he repeated dozens of times, picking up speed as fog lingered throughout what could have been miles of unremarkable caverns. He flickered in and out of place, completely removing himself from any plane that Jett could detect, reappearing in a new location, already destroying the intruders even as she shadowstepped along his path. She had to admit, he was quite special.

Jett recognized that she could certainly teach him a thing or two about elegance and grace, but he was not lacking for enthusiasm. He dual wielded a pair of bug mashers, aggressively engaging with the dangerous monsters with a wide smile on his face whenever he manifested a physical form. Somehow, the expression did nothing to diminish the focus in his eyes. That they both subtly glowed with specks of black and ghostly light was another clue toward how the assimilation had pressured him to develop.

For a brief period on the first day, Jett felt some pangs of guilt, realizing that she hadn’t done enough to shield her first attendant from the dangers of life. She hung on to that failure until he completed his first day’s worth of circuits. He finally spotted her when she left the shadows on the surface of their island home, in the middle of the fort, and he swept her up as if nothing was wrong, showing the same affection he did every time she let their paths cross. His intense warmth was as infectious as the giddy happiness of their smelly mutual companion, Sunny, who diligently protected the lighthouse in their absence.

She let him pamper her to his heart’s content, recalling his experience in the underground to another group of residents, all of whom showered him with more advice. After gaining more than 25 levels in less than 20 hours, he was already planning his next mission. Jett was worried that he was pushing himself too hard, but he still took the time to bathe and sleep in one of the upstairs bedrooms of the Inn. She thought that as long as he did that much, it was probably fine, but like a flame in the lighthouse, she fussed that he would burn out.

When she woke up the next day he was already gone, but after a series of her own teleports, she detected the familiar fog that he dragged with him whenever he was in combat. He had already established another circuit, and she carefully traced his steps until she was in position to supervise once again. No one could hide from her, so long as they remained within her territory.

The second day was much like the first, except he was deeper in the underground, fighting the same variant of monsters, but ones that were slightly higher level than the previous swarms. The increase in levels provided no additional difficulty to his effort, and if anything, his swings were smoother, his speed more natural, his strength less taxed, as if he had grown disproportionately compared to the enemies. Level 100 intruders were crushed even faster than the level 50s the day before. His power was like a landslide, building in intensity as it collected debris.

Jett put the rest of her duties temporarily on hold, instead fulfilling an unspoken promise to make sure her first attendant continued to be safe. Perhaps she was worrying too much in her old age, but it didn’t feel right to leave a child alone in the dark, no matter how much of it was actually firmly her own. As far as he knew, they only reunited when the days were over and he had gained another burst of levels.

After each day of battle, he was tainted by the mana smoke expelled by the hundreds of thousands of monsters he defeated, sticky with sweat, and drenched in the aroma of damp caves and eroding minerals. He would eat and wash it off, sleep, and do it all over again. While Jett valued routine, her primary attendant took it to an almost unhealthy extreme.

On the fifth day, Jett silently cleared part of the way, preventing her attendant from stumbling upon a nest of the Primal Fiends that he intended to avoid. She didn’t completely understand his preferences, but she could respect that he had a clear path to follow. Her small contribution would make his path that much smoother, so she was glad for the opportunity to do it. Like the other attendants that came through the underground before, there were many who played a part in the champion’s routine.

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He was rapidly approaching the limit of the Ruin Excavators within the unofficial confines of territory claimed by the residents of Ghost Reef. Jett recognized that in order to continue, he would need to diversify his diet, including some of the more hidden variants further in the darkness, or otherwise taking a different tack. She waited to see what he would do.

The rate that he created spotlights of heavenly light, designating his advancing levels, were slowing noticeably. Contrary to what Jett viewed as reason, his only response to the natural deceleration was to intensify his hunt rather than move to more fertile grounds. He was competing with fundamental rules that even she failed to comprehend, no matter how advanced her instincts became. He struggled and clawed, exerting himself as if he believed he could break through, refusing to accept limitations, compensating for the inherent impeding forces with his own strength of will.

It was inelegant, but Jett couldn’t deny the results. The Ruin Excavators had never experienced such a thorough suppression. As the days passed, she was convinced that her supervision was unnecessary, but she continued to shadow her attendant, mostly out of curiosity rather than worry. What would he do next? Each time she woke from a nap, the question rang in her head, before she tracked him down and observed his new circuitous route for the day.

Rather than continue with the simplest escalation, proceeding deeper into the caverns, her first attendant started to double the distance he covered. As the levels of his targets escalated, the window that they provided experience grew wider and wider, so it wasn’t necessary to simply ignore the previous day’s targets. He began to cover more and more ground, eventually making it comparable to her own expansive patrols, but in her case, she only passed through them one time, but he cycled back and forth, over and over, as if possessed by a drive that could only compare to hearing the faint scratching of a pest in the crawlspace, just out of reach. It had to be captured, no matter what. She understood.

It wasn’t until the seventh day that he broke his routine, stopping long before even night had fallen. His abrupt departure from the pattern caught Jett by surprise. He dismissed his pair of weapons and shouted in celebration, accompanying the noise with a series of fist pumps that seemed to indicate a successful hunt had been completed.

Jett’s nose twitched, causing her whiskers to bounce as she followed him back toward the nearest underground settlement. She supposed she should spare some attention for the rest of her attendants now that she had satiated her curiosity. Her first attendant was as diligent as ever.