Catgirl Isekai Gone Wrong

[The Radiance's Follower]

Edited: went and did that in fact. Honestly think it reads better. Granted, something to say for inhuman entities expressing emotions we recognize, but this is a case where it detracts.

Click to shrink...

I didn't read the first version but I got to agree that this is a way better choice. I thought of it like a smart beast/monster holding a grudge rather than anything truly smart. The thing that come close are the demons in frieren.

 

[HiddenMaster]

Chapter 18: Epilogue

Eliza made her way back below decks. Every step saw her trepidation grow and grow. No water was up to this this deck thus far, but it was only a matter of time.

Eliza swallowed heavily.

What she'd done was a necessity. Gwen would've been nothing but a target above and even hiding on the bridge would've seen her hurt or worse given the rampaging arms of the sandcrawler and shrapnel everywhere.

Logical reasoning did nothing to make Eliza feel better or for her chest to feel less heavy.

She opened the hatch and peered in.

For a moment the room was still. Then, mass of vests shifted and Gwen popped up. It'd almost be amusing how her daughter appeared if not for the utterly blank stare she had. Eliza approached, and—

Eliza narrowed in on one fact. Gwen was shaking.

Eliza felt her heart freeze. Gwen. Was. Shaking.

She rushed to Gwen.

"You left me." The words were strangely inflectionless, and that just made it so much worse. Eliza would gleefully accept Gwen's rage in comparison.

"I know, Kitten." Eliza reached out for Gwen. Gwen didn't respond. The lack of response made her feel like a failure as a mother. She'd rather be punched by an angry Taurus. "I know Kitten, it's—

"You had to," Gwen finished.

Eliza smiled sadly. "I did."

Gwen said nothing for a moment. "Did you kill it?"

Eliza studied her daughter's face. Were Gwen any other child, Eliza might think she didn't really know what she meant by those words. Yet, her precious kitten wasn't like most children, even when she tried to pretend to be. She was too smart, too aware, but Eliza could wait for her to open up.

"I hope so." Eliza wouldn't lie to Gwen. It was hurt. Dearly. A Storm Charge was hard to make, meant to be used to make an a larger area unpleasant to sandcrawlers, to stun them in place so the more directed storm charge could take them out, but used on top of one at point blank range was undoubtedly painful in the extreme. Unfortunately, it usually took a pair of destroyers to take down a sandcrawler, nor did she give it a coup de grace. Until she saw a corpse, she was going to assume it had limped back to its nest to recover.

Gwen nodded, and then, without ceremony, hurled herself at her Eliza's side in a hug.

They didn't have time for this. They needed to prepare, set up the life raft, but Eliza let Gwen have this minute where no words needed to be said. She just held her daughter close, if for a few moments.

~~~
​

Eliza did have some preparations for an emergency rafting to the landmass. The outrider was gone, but an improvised paddle and the smaller survival rafts could comfortably hold her, her daughter, and some supplies for a base camp while they travel along the coast in search of civilization. While there weren't more people, she did intend to load it up with as much of their preserved food as possible and other survival gear until they could get to civilization.

Reuniting with civilization would be amazing, if disorienting. Just seeing different faces would be an experience. She could only imagine what it'd be like for Gwen to see different faces for the first time in her life. If only Celia had…

Eliza cut the thought off. Mourning did nothing in the present moment.

By the time Eliza was able to lower the survival raft to the water and put Gwen in it, the ship was lurching at an awkward angle. Sandy had kept the ship running, but at some point the power petered out. Rushing back through the ship to grab Sandy from her cradle in the ship's heart had her sloshing through cold water.

She'd ignored the "thankyouthankyouthankyou" of Sandy's high pitched voice as she made her way back to the raft. She'd made up her mind already, and Sandy wasn't being left behind.

She'd already had a pack of supplies, mostly food, that survived the sandcrawler's thrashing, but on the way she gathered more essentials: ammunition, some water, some medical supplies, and anything else she could shove into her pockets given they weren't coming back. So much was still on the ship, equipment she didn't know when she would be able to see again, but she was just one cat folk woman and the water was getting higher by the minute. At some point she would be gambling with her own life if she could make it out.

The difference between a sinking ship and a sunken ship could be minutes.

By the time she plopped herself in the bright green life raft, the Sandcutter was half underwater. Gwen watched intensely from her seat on the raft, claws in her lap. The shore was close, and Eliza estimated the water wouldn't be more than twenty or thirty meters deep, a bit much to be easily salvaged and refloated, but within the realm of possibility.

Eliza held Sandy in their hands as they watched the ship take its final plunge beneath the waves.

Sandy choked up a little, sounding almost like she wanted to cry.

"Sandy," Eliza began.

"I…I know this is a fate that befalls many warships, of…of so many of my sisters. I always was aware it was a possibility. Heck, here I am, feeling like crying and I don't even have tear ducts. I am lucky, you know? Most of the time, cores like me would be going down with the ship and here I am. Just… can you put me down? I don't want to look at the water anymore," Sandy said.

"Maybe…maybe we can get you another ship?" Gwen suggested quietly.

"Maybe," Sandy acknowledged. There wasn't a smile to see or even a notable rise in cheeriness, but Eliza was happy Sandy took the comment at all.

The rest of the trip to the shoreline was quiet and mundane. Eliza rowed them. Fortunately, the current wasn't against them, so it just took time.

When the water got too shallow, Eliza jumped out and dragged the raft ashore, quite thankful this model was lighter than the older ones still made of wood. She continued until they got out of the tide and onto a solid beach, and then, only then, did she let herself fully take in the land while plopping herself on the sand somewhere to rest.

Eliza didn't know specifically where they were, but she thought they were somewhere in the Northern Dawnlight Expanse. Technically territory in the general vicinity of Illiana, but frankly, that meant almost nothing. The reason? The Northern Dawnlight Expanse covered a vast ocean that divided the world. That, and her first serious look at the land mass they'd beached on didn't do too much to tell her more than this is, in fact, land.



Gray, rocky hills lined with grass and the odd tree overlooked a beach covered in thousands of muddy brown and reddish splotches. The entire beach, in fact, was just an eye repelling shade of reddish brown. If anything, the beach looked like someone with an extreme hatred for pickled beets had committed an atrocity. The sole splash of green was the sludge-like piles of seaweed which, combined with the waft of sulfur from them, didn't particularly help. The sight felt insultingly anticlimactic given the effort taken to get here.



Eliza sighed.



"What's wrong, Mama?"



"Oh, nothing," Eliza lied, easily. This was a special moment for Gwen. There was no need to spoil it by stating that all their effort, all the tears, sweat, and painstaking effort to get Sandy semi-ship worthy, the life-threatening trip and the sandcrawler's attack, all to be greeted with an absolutely hideous beach.



Gwen looked back to the beach and sniffed the air before immediately jerking her head and locking eyes on the piles of seaweed near the shore. She raised one eyebrow. "Yuck," she pronounced solemnly.



Eliza couldn't help it. She laughed. When Sandy let out a confused "Huh?" and Gwen tried to glare but only looked pouty at her, Eliza laughed harder.



Sweet Stars she needed that.



A fatalistic part had assumed her desperate plan would have just resulted in her and her daughter's deaths. That it had worked as remotely well as it had, in another time, had her falling to her knees to praise the gods, if it wasn't for the fact they were gone and she'd failed to heed their final call for help.



Like a candle snuffed out, Eliza's mood crashed. She shook her head and straightened out an ear, careful not to let her ears fold like she so wanted to with Gwen watching.



She clapped her hands. "Okay, we got a lot of work to do to setup basecamp on land, so we better get started before the tide rolls in."



Sandy's iris oriented on her. "I don't suppose there's much of a role for me to do now, with the sandcrawler driven off and my, uh, lack of a body. I—"

Eliza coughed. "No use focusing on that. We survived. It didn't." She didn't voice the 'hopefully' after that. "For the time being, I want to leave you with Gwen to keep an eye on her. I want to scout around the local area first before we do much else. You can watch Gwen and—



"No! You aren't leaving me behind again!"



Eliza blinked. "Kitten, you know I—"



"I'm not dumb! It was dangerous below decks when you left me to fight and anything could be out there! You! Aren't! Leaving! Me!" Gwen stamped her feet.



Eliza stared at her daughter for a long moment before slumping. "You're right, Kitten. Let's head out together this time, okay?"



Gwen didn't beam, but instead scrutinized Eliza in turn before nodding.



"Sandy, can you keep an eye on the raft?"



"I am not exactly capable of much else. I suppose I can shout to scare off seagulls," Sandy said bitterly.



Eliza flinched, but couldn't refute her. She'd hoped they'd make it this far with her ship form intact, but, well, that didn't happen. She didn't press back, mostly because if anyone was entitled to feel upset and sassy, it was her.

~~~~

​

Eliza had several hopes regarding the new land they'd run into. Ideally, they'd have run into cultivated fields and a settlement of friendlies nearby immediately, but she'd have settled for a nice patch of gentle woodland with decent game.



Eliza sighed.



"Mama? What's wrong?" Gwen picked up her mood immediately.



"It's nothing, Kitten. I just miss red meat."



"'Red meat'?" Gwen asked slowly.



"Ah, hoofed or land animals, like a rousche," Elisa said.



Gwen furrowed her brow adorably, and not for the first time, Eliza cursed the lack of a good recording lens to take a picture. Then, Gwen brightened. "Oh! Like the pictures from the, um, the almanac?" she asked.



"Exactly," Eliza said. Those were maybe a bit idealized to the common livestock with cleaned up, show level wool and filed teeth, but they were close enough.



Eliza hid a smile as Gwen mouthed the words to herself, already adding them to her vocabulary. She ruffled Gwen's hair as they continued their hike past the hideous beach and into the surrounding hills revealed their first remarkable sight: living trees.



It should have been a small thing, utterly mundane thing, the sort of sight that tens of thousands of people saw everyday. These weren't the thousand year old Sky Splitters of the Ethereal Forests, or even the more ordinary but no less inspiring blue frosted tips of Illiana's royal woodlands. These were, as far as Eliza could tell, utterly mundane pine trees.



Eliza hadn't seen a living tree in years. The island simply hadn't had any on the island. She could make educated guesses about the island's sole species being a monoculture, perhaps a storm wrecking them so badly they all died one year, but the result was the same: while the island was wooded, absolutely none of the trees on it were alive. Her theory didn't explain everything and something about the entire limited ecosystem there that felt far too basic still struck her as off, but she couldn't hazard too many further guesses.



Marveling, she walked in a circle around a young sapling. She felt its spiny leaves in her hands and wiped away some dew. A smaller hand joined hers soon thereafter feeling the leaves and young, gray bark.



"Mama, what species are these?" Gwen asked, poking the spiny leaves on a few branches. They held bundles of needles along their branches that fanned out. There'd been some needle leaf plants on the island, but no pines at all so this was all new for Gwen.



"Not sure. Too young to tell," Eliza said. Dendrology wasn't her background, so she could only guess at the species. Given some time and a guide book she might be able to, but while they might have the former once they found an appropriate site for basecamp, she sure didn't have the latter. She had survival books that mentioned tree types, but very little that was so specific as to help identify individual pine species.



Part of her was curious if she could make tea from its leaves. She rather missed tea. She'd try it herself before Gwen, of course, and snagged a few bundles before moving on.



It didn't escape her notice how close Gwen was following her. She wasn't quite taking the same steps as Eliza, but Gwen was following close enough to latch on if the opportunity arose. Every move Eliza made was tracked and while Gwen did look away, she kept looking back as if to make sure Eliza was still there.



Eliza contemplated sighing again but knew Gwen would hear it. She settled for feeling bad. She knew intellectually it had been necessary to leave Gwen in the ship while she fought, but logical or not, it didn't make her feel any better. If anything, it made her feel inadequate for not protecting Gwen from being afraid in the first place.



Eliza just hoped the incident didn't leave any lasting marks on her daughter.



The sound of flowing water eventually brought them to a flowing stream. Eliza hadn't seen its output in the sea, but then again, they'd hardly explored the coast yet. She scooped up some water with her hand and gave it a sniff before Gwen suddenly hissed. Eliza whirled, unslinging her thrower in one smooth motion only to see Gwen with a small black crayfish latched onto her pointer claw pad, claw slightly extended. Gwen stared dubiously, shaking it but it held on stubbornly. Gwen quickly taught it the error of this decision when she spontaneously brought it to her mouth and chomped down with an audible crunch.



Eliza couldn't help herself. "...enjoy your snack?"



Gwen chewed thoughtfully, before spitting out the shell. "Kinda? Little guy surprised me. Taste kinda muddy." Almost as an afterthought, she added, "Think I'd prefer him cooked, though."



Eliza snorted. "Yeah, probably been living in or near the mud. I'll have to show you how to prep them later." Eliza glanced around and noted how the terrain near the stream was relatively flat, the surrounding pines formed a protective windbreak, and of course the water source. It was as good as any. She scratched a note in her journal before tucking it back into a pocket and told Gwen they were heading back.



A part of her marveled at being alive. She'd been trapped on that island, the last of the crew, for so long escape had begun to feel like a hazy dream, more myth than reality. In her darkest moments she'd thought she'd never leave there, or, perhaps more accurately, she didn't deserve to leave. Yet, here she was on the mainland with her daughter and Sandy. She hadn't even been sure Sandy could wake up after the damage she received on that day so long ago.



Unfortunately, despite things succeeding far, far better than she might have even dared hope given how horribly wrong everything had gone since she'd left port for a war patrol all those years ago, things were still less than ideal.



"Still, progress is progress," Eliza said aloud.



Gwen's ears shot up at the sudden sound. "Progress?" she asked.



"Oh, just thinking about how we're actually moving forward now. Back on the island it was a lot of…sitting around," Eliza said. "Feels like we're finally moving forward, just a bit."



Gwen tilted her head, flicking her ears as she thought in a way that made Eliza wish for a camera. "Oh!" her voice broke out in realization. "—like [stagnation]?"



Eliza's ears stood up. Once upon a time, Eliza would have assumed a child saying something incomprehensible was a mere product of nonsense noises children and mischievous adults sometimes make when no one is looking. Yet, the inflection, the careful ordered roll of the sounds off her tongue, and the meaning reminded Eliza far more of her time spent on shore leave in foreign locales.



"Interesting word, Kitten. Learn that in one of the manuals?"



Gwen, at this, lost her smile and nodded slightly. "Um, yes."



Eliza let her daughter have the way out. She was entitled to her own little secrets, after all.



The return trip was relatively uneventful. A songbird took umbrage to their passage, but Eliza was so taken with hearing something other than angry seagull squawking that she didn't shoot it, even if Gwen looked torn between enjoying the sound and wanting to scurry up the tree to chase it.



"What are we going to do after we set up camp, Mama?"



"Well, lots of things. We need to scout the area first, find more places to forage for food, and then look for signs of civilization," Eliza said. She didn't specify more than that. In part, this was due to not wanting to worry Gwen with issues like their limited food supply left. The other part was because her inner cynical self and her optimistic self were currently in all out war vying for top bitch.



In a best-case scenario, Gwen and she were taken in by Illiana authorities, she filed a report with the Admiralty, and was given administrative leave to take Gwen to her homeland to raise her in safety under the Surviving Scion Initiative. In a worst-case scenario, absolutely none of the former remotely applied as a bare starting condition as things were far, far worse than not qualifying for social welfare programs.



She was cheering her inner optimist on to brain the cynical inner bitch with a spanner even as practicality made her suspect and prepare for the worst and keep the cynical side's door open. Regardless, Gwen was her number one priority and the only one that really mattered.

~~~~

​

It took a couple hours, but we set up a camp according to Mom's directions. We didn't have a tent, but we did have a sleeping bag we could share. She also setup a kinda flimsy lean-to, which was nice. This, with a fire made our first camp on the mainland kinda cozy.



I sat with Mom on a dragged over fallen log. Balanced and angled with the help of a rock was a stick with impaled crawdads roasting the fire. I moved my claws like she showed me, digging into the already deshelled crawdad and pulled off a long, green vein thing.



"Like this, Mama?" I asked tossing away the green stuff.



"Yup! Add it to your skewer and put it on with the others."



She added another to her own and set up another to roast on another skewer.



Part of me felt kinda guilty about getting so many. I'm pretty sure we depopulated a nearby pond for our dinner. On the other claw, they smelled really good.



Sandy was silent. I didn't know what she was thinking. Mom said not to bother her.



I couldn't imagine what she felt. She'd lost her body. Only thing I had comparable were those memories of first waking up in this world, and even those I felt weren't really comparable.



My belly growled.



Mom smirked, and pulled the first skewer off. She blew on the foremost crawdad, and then pulled it off to hand to me.



This was not the first time I'd had shellfish by a long shot, but something about this tasted wonderful. Maybe it was the fresh water variety, maybe it was surviving the trip here, but it was lovely.



I inhaled the sweet, savory crawdad meat, and was practically ready to rip the skewer out of Mom's claws. She laughed and booped me on the nose.



…



I may have swiped at her with a little growl, but that only made her giggle more!



Pouting, I sat back and waited for the rest of the skewers to finish while Mom blew on the next crawdad for me.



A short, immensely satisfying while later we'd demolished the skewers, only held up by waiting for them to cool off. I felt satisfied and I think even Mom felt so too with how she ate.



Yet, as night drew on, I found myself unable to sleep, even snuggled up with Mom in her arms. I was careful not to move because I didn't want to wake her.



It wasn't that I wasn't sleepy. I was. My belly was full and I felt lethargic. But, every time I closed my eyes…



…a beautiful smile, such a lovely smile, if only I would trust her…



I barely suppressed a shudder I know Mom would have noticed.



I'd thought the fires of my first life would be the worst thing, that nothing could be worse.



I'd thought the fires of my first life would be the worst thing I'd see, I'd feel, that nothing could be worse.



This time, the shiver was entirely uncontrollable. Mom pulled me in closer, but despite her warmth, I nonetheless felt a chill deep inside me.

---

​

If you've paid to read this anywhere outside of Patreon, SubscribeStar, or Ko-Fi, then you've been scammed and someone is ripping you off as it is stolen.

If you're reading this on any other site than RoyalRoad, SufficientVelocity,Spacebattles, QuestionableQuesting, MZNovel, Wattpad, or Scribblehub or it's by anyone other than HiddenMaster, it's been plagiarized and stolen.

---

​

Chapter 18: Epilogue Author's Note

And with that I have completed the largest single work I've endeavored to write. There's a lot more to do-we've barely gotten started on Gwen's life (she's only five at this point!) but I think I have accomplished my goals in setting up a character driven isekai. Hopefully the setting is also coming into play as well, but we'll see more of that in the next arc.

I'll be honest, I started this as a one off joke and it's only grown and grown until it's become its own serious attempt at an original fantasy novel combining many of my favorite elements from fantasy, science fiction, and any other odd thing I happen to find interesting.

I fully realize that, relatively, this story has been very slow, but I wanted to have some time to focus on characters just making the most of an honestly shitty situation in a world that, hopefully, has its own storied history.

As for estimates on how long this will go, I have no idea. I initially planned about 10k-20k words for this first childhood arc. It ended up being 50k+.


Yup, nearly 50k words have all been just the Childhood arc of this story. I wanted to give time to let Gwen both shift from her initial reborn status where she was still very much the person from her old life but to develop as both a child and have memories of her old world, while also developing a clear and meaningful relationship with her mom and, to a lesser extent, Sandy.

All of that and the development of herself as a distinct character separate from her origins took time.

I find most isekai novels are frankly far too eager to get to the "good stuff" — the legendary monster slaying, good wrestling, harem making shenanigans. All these can be fun, admittedly, but I appreciate a slower start where real attention is given to character interactions and relationships are formed believably while the world slots into place. While this story started as something of a shitpost response to another catgirl themed story not going with the obvious joke of turning the MC into a catgirl, I have since had genuine fun developing this setting, and I have a lot more planned going forward.

I more than understand wanting a faster pace-and there are stories out there who are wonderfully fast-paced that they leave your pulse racing and feeling like you're part of a great adventure. But that's not exactly my goal here, and I intend to take my time to make the story and its characters fully realized to the best of my ability.

---

​

Obligatory author plug because I'd love to write more but society sadly says I need monies to keep living (and support my growing addiction to commissioning catgirl art)

Support me on Patreon, Ko Fi, or Subscribe Star. Check them out for seven advance chapters with a new one uploaded every weekend, too. Or check out my website for links to my other author accounts, contact, socials, etc. Anything is appreciated :3

Also I have a discord now! Check it out. I would love to chat with fans. :3

 

[Jon0278955]

Great story I enjoyed it so far.