Game Master in Another World

The next morning, we prepared to leave. Toby bundled his spare clothes and some food into a bag. Igasnov was strapping his armour on, and Juliana merely straightened her clothing; she never carried many possessions.

Once ready, we headed out the door, expertly changing to our cat form as we left.  The late summer morning was cool and refreshing. We carried on into the main courtyard, where some carts were being loaded with goods, draft horses already hitched to them.

I saw Vera sitting on one of the carts, looking excited; she had a massive smile plastered on her face. She was currently talking animatedly to her parents.

Igasnov walked up to her. “I had a discussion with Toby, and we decided you can come with us, Vera,” he said.

Vera practically squealed as she jumped off the cart and gave Igasnov a giant hug.

“Thank you! I’ve been wanting to get out of this village for some time! As promised, I will keep your bed warm at night, too.”

Igasnov sighed. “There is no need for that. I prefer to sleep alone.”

“Oh, well, I can leave you alone once we have finished, then,” Vera replied, still hugging Igasnov.

Igasnov sighed again and whispered to us, “This trip is going to be challenging.”

Once the two carts were packed and ready to go, and the villagers had said their goodbyes, we headed down the road. Toby and Igasnov were riding on the back of a cart amongst the goods, and we were sitting on Igasnov’s lap as a cat.

In total, we had five villagers with us. Vera, of course, was sitting as close as possible to Igasnov, whose face looked exceptionally uncomfortable.

Guard duty for a caravan was always a hard job; back in my life as Drisnil, I had taken on the odd contract doing this. The challenge was that the people you were guarding would often require protection while you were concentrating on helping out elsewhere. At least this time Juliana had a lot of raw power, so most threats should be dealt with quickly. The complexity was going to be keeping her identity a secret.

The road meandered through a light forest, and the sound of cicadas was deafening.

“Vera, I would like you to give me some space,” Igasnov pleaded after an hour.

“Why? Do you not find me beautiful?” Vera asked, still clinging to him.

“It is not that I don’t find you beautiful, Vera, but I’m just not ready for a relationship right now. And I do not want to be a deadbeat father who isn’t around.”

“I don’t mind. I just want a child from someone strong. It would be nice to have the father in my life, but I will be fine without him,” Vera retorted.

“But I don’t want to do that. When I have children, I want to be there for them. I’m sorry, but it is just something I cannot do.”

“Fine, but in return, let me hang off you at least.”

“Alright, but don’t assume you will change my mind, as I assure you, you can’t.”

I could see Vera smirk as Igasnov said that, but she did not speak.

My guess was she was going to try and win him over during this three-week-long trip, hoping to wear down his defences.

The rest of the day was uneventful, just the same winding road through a mosaic of forest and plains. We eventually came across our first rest stop in a clearing within a forest. Several logs were already set up around a fireplace, likely a common resting spot for people from this village.

Igasnov headed out into the forest to find some wood, and Vera followed him. Juliana decided to tag along as well, likely to get a firsthand view of the awkwardness.

Igasnov ignored Vera as he began to pick up some branches, snapping them into smaller pieces. Vera stood close by, picking up small twigs and making a small pile on the ground.

She made sure to pick up branches directly in front of Igasnov, deliberately leaning down while facing away from him. She even hiked her dress up a little, ensuring she showed some leg.

After Igasnov had a large pile of wood in his arms, he walked back to camp; Vera made sure to follow close behind. We trailed after them, just watching, and I felt the amusement rising within Juliana.

Back at camp, Toby had already started a fire and was watching a pot boiling over the stove while the other villagers pitched some basic tents. They had introduced themselves earlier in the journey: the older couple was Bevan and Xanthia, and the middle-aged couple was Frances and Myrra. They worked well together and seemed fairly adept at setting up the tents.

Igasnov sat down by the fire on a log; Vera immediately sat right next to him. Igasnov simply sighed.

We continued to watch as Toby made dinner. His skills had improved so much already. He had expertly cut up the foraged herbs and supplied meat, and had even added some flavouring to the stew.

Within an hour, we were all sitting down eating the well-made meal. Even as a cat, we had a small bowl of it ourselves. It didn’t take much food to fill our tiny belly.

“This is really good, Toby,” Xanthia said between mouthfuls.

“You’re welcome,” Toby replied meekly.

“You are quite the cook,” Frances added.

Toby went red in the face, looking down into his stew.

“Aw, you’ve made the poor lad a little shy,” Myrra said to Frances.

“No need to be shy, lad. I’m only trying to compliment you.”

“You’ve got yourself a good companion here, Igasnov,” Bevan said after swallowing a spoonful of stew.

“I reckon so. He certainly looks after me well.”

Once finished eating, Vera collected the plates and began to clean them. The thing I had noticed with washing up was that soap was rarely used. Items were mostly just rinsed off in a creek or with a pot of water, so that they merely had the appearance of being clean. The concept of microorganisms hadn’t really taken hold. I had tried to introduce the concept of germs to Faie, but she simply didn’t believe me; the lack of a microscope also made it difficult to prove. One thing about my past life on modern Earth was that I was good at software, but knew next to nothing about anything practical, rendering all my innate professional skills useless in this world.

“I’ll take the first watch, and my cat will take the second watch; she can wake me if needed. The rest of you can get a good night’s rest if you wish.”

“I’ll keep watch with you,” Vera said excitedly.

“Oh, you really don’t need to; you should go sleep over there by yourself.” Igasnov pointed at a small tent set up on the other side of camp, where Toby was currently crawling inside.

“No, I must insist! I can’t have you staying up alone, and anyway, I won’t sleep, so I may as well be up.”

Igasnov’s expression showed his stress building; his mouth was twitching slightly.

“Fine, but please behave yourself. Being on watch is important, and we don’t need any distractions.”

Juliana walked over to where Toby was sleeping and crawled in beside him. Toby pulled us in close, hugging our furry body before we fell asleep.

The next thing we knew, we were being gently shaken awake. Igasnov’s face was looking down at us before he whispered, “Juliana, it is your turn. No issues so far; if you do see anything, though, feel free to wake me up. I’ll be going to sleep now.”

Juliana stretched before slinking over to a spot by the fire and sitting down on a log. We watched as Igasnov pulled a blanket over himself, lying on the ground and falling asleep almost immediately. Vera, however, quietly began to remove all her clothing until she stood entirely naked. She then slowly crawled under Igasnov’s blanket, lifting his arm and placing his hand over her breast.

Juliana smirked as she watched the scene unfold. Vera was certainly persistent; however, her advances seemed highly unlikely to work.

We sat watching the dark. Our feline eyes were good at seeing in the darkness, though not quite as good as our Nhalyri eyes.

The night was always peaceful when you were up by yourself. Unfortunately, we could not risk shifting back into our humanoid form; someone might see if they woke up during the night, and we didn’t want to blow our cover without good reason.

The night passed slowly without incident. The fire extinguished after an hour, as our cat paws had no way to add any more wood.

The next morning, we watched Igasnov as he stirred awake, squeezing Vera’s breast instinctively before opening his eyes. It took a moment for the situation to register, but he quickly pulled his hand back, scrambling backwards as he noticed her complete state of undress.

Vera rolled over sleepily. Smiling with her eyes closed, she reached out, trying to pull him close again.

At that moment, I saw the large man move faster than I thought possible. He managed to quickly extract himself from the blanket, hastily covering her back up.

He then took a moment to glare in our direction, insinuating that we should have woken him to prevent this from happening—but honestly, it was far too much fun to watch it unfold.

The rest of this journey was going to be brilliant; the dynamic between Vera and Igasnov was going to be highly entertaining.

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