Free Web NovelChapter 317: Meow Meow Village
Sunlight filtered down through the layered canopy of the Ancient Forest, dappling the ground below with shifting patches of gold and shadow.
Andrew led Hoshimi Miyabi along a narrow trail through the dense woodland. The path beneath their feet had gradually changed — where it had once been choked with undergrowth, it grew steadily more even and well-worn, and the trunks of trees and the faces of rocks to either side had begun to bear markings: cat-paw prints and simple stick-figure Felyne drawings, all rendered in a dark reddish paint.
These were the trail markers used to guide travelers through the jungle. Catching sight of them meant the two of them were not far from their destination.
"Almost there."
Andrew pushed aside a curtain of hanging vines and glanced back at Miyabi, who followed a half-step behind him. Her black armor caught the sunlight and threw back a faint, dark-violet shimmer. The girl’s fox ears twitched softly in the forest breeze, and her deep-crimson eyes swept across the unfamiliar sights surrounding her — carrying a thread of wariness, and something far more prominent beneath it: pure, unguarded curiosity.
The faint discomfort she had felt when first wearing her new armor in those early days had been thoroughly worked away over the past several days of training alongside Andrew. By now, she had fully settled into it, wearing the armor as naturally as her own skin.
In the time before they had arrived at the Stellar Outpost, Miyabi had also gradually acclimated to the environment of the Ancient Forest. Even now, the sudden snap of an unexpected sound would occasionally draw her body taut in an instant — but at the very least, she no longer lost consciousness simply from the disorientation of her surroundings.
Even so, the habit she had built over these past days made her unconsciously press close behind Andrew whenever they moved, trailing him like his shadow.
Then her footsteps faltered.
At the edge of the dense forest, the world opened up all at once.
Wooden houses had been built into the embrace of the trees themselves — staggered at different heights, some nested like birds’ nests between the thick forks of great branches, others hollowed out from massive trunks and remade into homes. Connecting them all were walkways of woven vines and swaying rope bridges that swung gently in the breeze.
Felynes of every coat color bustled through the village below. Some hauled baskets bigger than themselves, filled with freshly mined ore. Others shouldered hoes and headed out toward the fields beyond the village perimeter.
And quite a few simply crouched atop rooftops, sprawled in the sun with the particular boneless contentment that only cats ever manage to achieve.
The sunlight fell across their carefully groomed fur — it shone like the surface of impossibly smooth silk, scattering tiny points of light in every direction.
Miyabi’s fox ears gave two small, involuntary twitches.
"The... Felyne Village is really... all Felynes..." She hesitated for a moment, and then, after a brief pause, added: "...Thiren?"
Even after that slight hesitation, she still appended the word. Because even by the standards of New Eridu’s citizens, Felynes really did look an awful lot like oversized housecats.
Her voice carried a hint of surprise she couldn’t quite conceal — but her tone remained its usual measured calm, save for the way she had unconsciously placed just a little more weight on the word "Felyne."
Andrew smiled and nodded.
"That’s right. This is a village founded by Felynes. When I left, it had only just been officially established — I never expected it to have grown this much."
He walked and talked, turning occasionally to address Miyabi as she kept close behind him.
"At the very beginning, this was nothing more than a small settlement outside the Stellar Outpost — a place Felynes built so their families could have a safe, stable home, and so they’d have a staging point for coming and going. But as the truth behind the Elder Dragon migrations was gradually uncovered, and with the old man settling in to keep watch, life in the New World became a great deal safer."
"So the Felynes decided that if they were going to be here for the long term, they might as well do it properly — raising and educating the kittens born in the New World, and giving the Felynes who’d earned retirement somewhere worthy to spend their years. They pooled their efforts and expanded the whole settlement into an actual village."
He paused for a moment, then added:
"Though honestly, the biggest and most important function this place serves is probably training and pairing Felynes who want to become hunter partners."
That was likely also the reason the old man had specifically pulled this request out of the Guild’s main headquarters and directed it here.
Though, speaking of which — Andrew had heard from the old man that Granny Cat, owing to her advanced age and all the time she had spent working tirelessly in the bitterly cold Icefields ever since the discovery of that region, had finally been persuaded by the Guild Master to return to the New World for a proper rest. The man had been genuinely worried about her health.
She was apparently staying in the Felyne Village right now, if he remembered correctly.
Meanwhile, Miyabi gave a quiet nod of understanding. Her curious gaze swept from one treehouse to the next before finally coming to rest on the largest ancient tree standing at the very center of the village.
Its trunk had been hollowed out across several stacked levels, each one hung with colorful pennants and glowing lanterns.
It looked like the village’s communal gathering space.
Without thinking about it, Miyabi drifted half a step closer toward Andrew’s side, her fox ears rotating slightly, alert to every sound around her.
The days she had spent out in the wild had gone a long way toward acclimatizing her to the noise of nature — but the Felynes of the Felyne Village, with their constant meowing and the occasional burst of puffed-fur bickering, still left her with a certain overwhelmed sensation, unsure of where to look first.
But... it was fine.
Because Andrew was here.
They followed the stone-paved path into the village. At the gate, a wooden torii-style arch bore a sign with characters carved in an unmistakably paw-written hand — crooked, uneven in stroke-weight, but filled with the unmistakable earnestness of whatever cat had made it. It read: "Warm and Cozy Felyne Village."
The moment the two of them stepped through the village entrance, a grey Felyne who had been chopping wood by the roadside raised its head and peered at them with wide, curious eyes.
Then it spotted their gear — and immediately lit up.
"Myaah! It’s Hunters! There are Hunters here, myah!"
"Really, myah?! More new Hunters, myah?!"
"Are they here looking for partners? Are both of them here to find partners, myah?! That means I might have a chance, myah!" freёwebnovel.com
"That tall Hunter looks so strong, I want to be his partner, myah!"
The little Felynes came swarming in from all directions, chattering over each other in a great excited chorus. They crowded around his feet, spinning in eager circles, and one particularly bold kitten leapt straight onto his shoulder, perching atop his armor and peering down at Miyabi with a look of supreme, lofty assessment.
Andrew was clearly well-acquainted with this sort of welcome. He reached up, lifted the little Felyne off his shoulder by the scruff, set it back on the ground, gave both its ears a gentle ruffle along with those of the others jostling nearby, and then said:
"Sorry to disappoint you all — I already have a partner."
But before any of them could deflate into disappointment, Andrew immediately pivoted:
"However — the young lady beside me doesn’t!"
The words had barely left his mouth before every little Felyne that had been crestfallen a moment before burst back to life in an instant. They abandoned Andrew entirely, surging as one toward Miyabi, rubbing their heads against her with the full force of feline affection.
For a moment, Miyabi — abruptly engulfed by a flood of Felynes — looked genuinely at a loss. But then the habit she had formed over the previous day of petting every last Felyne in the Stellar Outpost kicked in on its own, and her hand was already moving before she had consciously decided to act, reaching out to scratch the ears of the nearest one.
This sent the Felynes into an even greater frenzy.
Desperate to be next, they began jostling and shoving each other forward, plunging Miyabi into a state of happy, frantic busyness — finish petting this one, move to the next, and the next, and the next.
Though — Andrew noticed the tiny, barely-there curve at the corner of her mouth, and decided she was probably enjoying this more than she let on.
It was just then that a voice drifted across from somewhere deeper in the village — a voice Andrew would have recognized anywhere, aged and unhurried, yet carrying within it a warmth that had never faded.
"Little Mo?!"
Andrew looked up, and the smile that had been on his face softened even further.
Beneath the great ancient tree at the heart of the village, in front of a small wooden cottage hung with a blue cloth curtain, a stooped figure was slowly making her way out through the door.
Her eyebrows had gone completely white. Her movements were careful and measured. Everything about her spoke of great age — of years accumulated into a gentle, unhurried weight.
A uniquely crafted, brilliantly colored shawl draped over her entire head, leaving only her kind, worn face visible beneath it. The shawl was embroidered with patterns of intricate complexity. Her eyes had narrowed with age to the point of near-disappearing, and on the bridge of her nose rested a pair of round magnifying spectacles. A wooden ladle hung at her side, and an open pouch of seasonings told him exactly what she had been in the middle of doing before coming out.
"Granny Cat — it’s me."
Andrew’s voice came out a shade softer than usual. He moved to close the distance, stopping in front of Granny Cat and crouching down so she could see him more clearly.
He said, quietly:
"I’m back."
Granny Cat squinted at him for several long seconds. Then the rims of her eyes went red.
But in the end, she said nothing. She only reached out with both paws, trembling faintly, and took his hands in hers. The paw-pads against his skin were warm and rough — and she held on tight. She did not let go.
As though she were afraid that if she loosened her grip even a little, Andrew would vanish all over again.
It was the small Felynes and their clamoring that eventually drew the two of them back to the present.
Granny Cat glanced around at the little gathering, and when she confirmed that it was indeed just the two of them, a note of worry crept into her voice.
"Little Mo — where is Meow-Da? Why didn’t Meow-Da come back with you? That child grew up right before this old lady’s eyes — nothing’s happened to it, has it, myah?"
"Nothing’s wrong, Granny. Meow-Da is more than fine — it found me in the world I crossed over to and came with me. It’s just that things are a little dangerous on that side right now, so I asked it to stay there and keep watch over my friends."
Andrew smiled as he reassured her.
"Next time, when there’s a chance, I’ll bring it back to visit you."
"Next time, next time — you and your ’next times,’ child, every single time it’s next time, myah..."
Granny Cat grumbled. But the smile spreading across her face refused to be contained.
Andrew shifted slightly to the side, stepping out of the way to reveal Miyabi, who had been standing half a pace behind him all along.
"Granny, this is my friend — Hoshimi Miyabi. She came back with me this time."
Miyabi, who had been petting Felynes off to the side, straightened up at once upon hearing her name. She gave a measured bow, and then, expression composed yet earnest, said:
"How do you do. It is a pleasure to meet you."
At the sight of her visitor, Granny Cat tilted her spectacles up and squinted hard, giving Miyabi a long, thorough look from head to toe. Finally, her gaze came to rest on the distance — or rather, the lack of it — between Miyabi and Andrew.
Then, without warning, she broke into a grin.
"This young lady... she looks really wonderful, myah."
She patted the back of Andrew’s hand meaningfully, her voice carrying a weight between the words.
"Much better than this old lady imagined. I was worried that with Little Mo’s personality, you’d end up just like your master — nearly forty years old and still no result to speak of, myah."
Miyabi is indeed very impressive.
Andrew didn’t catch the subtext embedded in that remark. He only nodded in reflexive agreement, and then tilted his head with a genuinely puzzled look.
"Though Granny — what kind of ’result’ are you talking about, exactly?"
This time, however, Andrew received no answer from Granny Cat.
On the other side of him, Miyabi’s fox ears gave a small, subtle twitch. She wasn’t entirely sure what Granny had meant by "much better" — but those words had left something stirring in her chest, something she couldn’t quite name.
...Happy?
Why should she feel happy over something like this?
Miyabi was quietly puzzled. freёwebnovel.com
After a moment’s reflection, she arrived at a conclusion she felt satisfied with: it must be because she had been recognized — as Andrew’s friend — by his family. That was why she was pleased. Yes. That was it.
Miyabi filed this explanation away in the quietest corner of her heart, and decided it was settled.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Andrew steered the conversation toward the matter at hand.
"By the way, Granny — what exactly is the request from the Felyne Village this time? Would you be willing to walk me through it?"
Andrew’s expression had shifted into something more serious, carrying the focused gravity he wore whenever he was approaching a commission as a Hunter.
Seeing the look on his face, Granny Cat’s own demeanor grew more serious in turn.
"The mushroom fields, myah."
Granny Cat nodded, the ladle in her paw swinging to point toward the southeast.
"You know that mushroom field on the east side of the village, yes? It is one of the village’s most important food stores for winter. We have spent years cultivating a variety of matsutake there — high yield, excellent flavor, so good that even the canteen at the Stellar Outpost places regular orders with us, myah."
"But starting last week, the field has been getting destroyed. Something has been breaking in every single night, tearing the beds apart and leaving the whole thing in chaos. The villagers have been on edge, myah."
She paused, removed her spectacles, wiped the lenses clean, then settled them back on her nose with a quiet sigh.
"The last batch of Felyne trainees just found their partners and moved on not long ago. Most of the Felynes in the village right now are still green — they can scrap well enough, but experience-wise they’re still far too raw to complete a commission like this on their own, myah."
"So I posted a request. I figured it would take at least three to five days before anyone came to take it — but I never expected a response this quickly. And I certainly never expected the one who came to be you, myah."
Granny Cat reached out and patted Andrew on the shoulder, her old eyes warm with a satisfaction that went beyond words.
"This is truly the best news this old lady has received all year, myah."
Andrew smiled.
"Good timing on my part — lucky, I suppose."
Then he rose to his feet, gave a firm nod, and said:
"Leave this commission to us, Granny."
"Good, good, good."
Granny Cat clapped his hands happily, nodding with evident relief.
"With you here, this old heart of mine can finally rest easy, myah."
Andrew paused — and then shifted gears entirely.
"That said, Granny — there is something else I’d like to ask your help with."
To hear that Andrew was — after such a long time — actually asking her for a favor, Granny Cat’s expression shifted at once into one of curious delight. She tilted her head to the side and asked:
"What is it, Little Mo? Whatever it is I can help with — just say the word, myah."
Andrew didn’t stand on ceremony. He got straight to it.
"Granny — does the Felyne Village still have any Felynes suitable to become a Hunter’s partner?"
He glanced back at Miyabi, who had already been re-engulfed by the little Felynes clustered around her, and then turned back to continue:
"She has the will to become a Hunter — so she’ll need a reliable partner."
"Her base abilities are already exceptionally strong, though, so an average Felyne graduate probably won’t be able to keep up with her at all. Ideally, her Felyne partner would already have a solid foundation of their own strength to build from."
"As for the finer techniques of using hunting tools — once they’re in place, Meow-Da can teach them directly. So that part isn’t a concern."
After all, only when two partners were of comparable ability could they truly be called partners — working together, spurring each other forward. If the gap in strength was too wide, it stopped being a partnership in any real sense. It became one-sided instruction, and you could hardly call that growth for either of them. For both the Hunter and the Felyne, that kind of arrangement did more harm than good.
So if he was being honest, Andrew hadn’t held out much hope for this trip to the Felyne Village to find Miyabi a partner. Aside from the retired veterans, most Felynes here — even graduates — were at roughly the level of a fresh-recruit Hunter, nowhere near capable of keeping pace with someone of Miyabi’s caliber.
But what happened next was something Andrew had not expected at all.
The moment Granny Cat heard his words, her eyes lit up. She narrowed them slowly, as though a thought had surfaced from somewhere in her memory, and the corner of her mouth began to curl upward — wearing the unmistakable expression of someone who had the perfect candidate already in mind.
"A child who fits those conditions..." she said. "There just so happens to be one here in the village, myah."
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