Chương 81: Cucumber

Vasil hummed.

"Personally, I would have gone with 'because curiosity isn't the only thing that kills the cat.'" That took the wind out of my sails a bit. Maybe that's what I should have said. Damn it. I turned back to Vasil.

"You're kinda killing the moment here!" I thought about still saying it, but two puns in a row would probably make it silly instead of cool and intimidating. A couple of seconds had passed while I was internally debating this conundrum, and I felt my initial threat had probably lost some of its bite already. I narrowed my eyes at Vasil.

"Did you just say that because you knew it would ruin the moment?" Vasil shrugged.

"You don't have to kill the cat," I looked at Kasia for support, but she just said, "He's right, you know. Why do you even care about the opinion of a cat? Especially one who's dumb enough to get itself stuck in a tree." I slowly nodded. Yeah, why would I care what a dumb cat thinks of me? I was doing it a favor, and it was too stupid to realize that without me it would die.

Of course, if I shot it it would also die, which wouldn't really be saving it unless it had more lives, but that wouldn't be very heroic of me. If it did have more lives I'd still be saving it if I shot and killed it, though. Just in a less heroic, more practical way. It definitely deserved to die for its transgressions, but Vasil and Kasia were right. It didn't have to die, and I shouldn't care what it thinks. I raised my hand.

"Alright, I've changed my mind. I won't kill you." I thumbed at Kasia and Vasil.

"You have them to thank for that."

"How benevolent of you," the cat said.

"Thanks for not killing me! Asshole!" The constant insults were making it pretty hard for me not to kill it. I could just shoot it in its annoying face and be done with it. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I glanced back.

"It's just a dumb cat," Kasia said. She was right. A dumb cat that would get me a Vortex runestone if I managed to get it out of the tree. Its owner would probably appreciate it back with all the lives it had before it foolishly got itself stuck in a tree. I decided to try a different approach.

"Don't be afraid," I told the cat.

"It w—""The only thing I'm afraid of is you killing me," it interrupted. Man, this cat was brainless.

"Look," I said, pronouncing the words slowly, hoping he would understand.

"I already said I wouldn't kill you. I get you're a little dense, but that's alright. I'll get you out of there safely."" You're dense!" it said. The insult slid off me like… honey off more honey. I was nothing if not calm and composed. Insults from lesser beings didn't affect me. Insults in general didn't affect me, actually. People could call me whatever they wanted and I wouldn't even blink. That's just how unbothered I was. Completely unbotherable.

Not like some people who get all worked up over every little thing. I was above that. Way above it. Like, so far above it that I couldn't even see it anymore, not even if I squinted real hard. That's how unaffected I was by petty insults from dumb cats who dumbly got themselves stuck in dumb trees because they thought it would be funny. Completely unbothered, I looked down at my revolver that I held loosely in my white-knuckled grip.

All on its own, the revolver jerked up and shot near the cat, missing it by half an inch. The tree shook and a small, flaming chunk of bark dropped to the ground. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"What the fuck!" the cat screeched.

"You said you wouldn't kill me!"

"If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead," I said calmly.

"That one was for the tree. Consider it a warning shot." The tree, however, did not respond. Perhaps because it was a tree, and trees can't talk. It also didn't release the cat, so maybe the message had been lost entirely. Made me wonder if I'd even get mana back if I killed this tree. Maybe I wouldn't even get experience. It was, after all, a tree. I decided to blow a branch off. If that worked I could just keep pruning it until it had no branches left to slap me with.

It would take a while, but I had [Reload] and I had time. I fired a shot and a branch dropped to the ground. Still no reaction from the tree. It wasn't cool or flashy, but if it worked it worked. It definitely beat getting my head caved in by an angry tree. I shot off another branch.

"That will take hours." the cat complained.

"The alternative is I shoot you instead of the tree." That shut him up. Another shot, and another branch dropped. I smiled back at Kasia.

"See? I'm c—" Right as I said it I felt a shift in the mana under my feet and a gnarled root tore out of the ground, wrapping itself around my leg. One bullet ripped it in half, and I shook the severed piece off of me. Calmer than the calmest cucumber I shook my head.

"Really, tree? That all you got?" It was not all the tree got. At those words, the tree, for a lack of a better word, bristled.

"I'm a cucumber," I whispered to myself.

"What?" Kasia asked.

"I'm a cucumber," I replied.

"And you should probably take a couple steps back for what is about to happen. Maybe a bit more than a couple. Actually, just start running." Kasia's eyes widened for a fraction of a second, then she turned around and took off.

"Wait! Don't leave me with the cucumber!" the cat shrieked as roots burst from the dirt all around me. I [Blinked], dodging their wild attacks, but at the same time the tree started hurling its wrinkly, ominous looking fruit at me. I shot one out of the air, and it exploded in a flash of purple light, then imploded, sucking in the debris around it. Dodging more roots, I fired off a couple of rounds that took chunks out of the trunk, setting it ablaze, but I wasn't recovering mana.

Apparently this bullshit tree didn't have any mana, so once again I'd have to be conservative with my blinks. Another fruit launched straight at me, I shot it, and once again a flash of purple light was followed by an implosion pulling at everything around it.

"Stop shooting the ones near me!" the cat howled.

"I'm a cucumber," I called out, jumping over a root and sliding in the dirt.

"Cucumbers don't care about gravity."

"Are you fucking insane?" the cat cried." Everything cares about gravity!" I popped another fruit near the cat and the implosion violently pulled at the branch that was holding it.

"Not this cucumber," I said. I shot a couple more fruits near the cat, and watched as it got pulled in different directions at the same time. I didn't do it to mess with the cat because it was annoying, honestly I didn't. I just didn't want to get hit by a chaos magic infused gravity fruit. Some more flaming bullets hit the tree, and the fire slowly started spreading. One of the fruits burst onto the ground next to me and I had to [Blink] to avoid getting pulled into the gravity well.

How many of these damn fruits did that tree have? From the looks of it, a lot of them. I probably only had eight or nine blinks left in me, so this could actually become a problem if I dragged it out any longer. Thankfully [Reload] was a pretty cheap skill. I decided it was time to go on the offensive and started firing at the fruit that still hung in the tree. See how the tree liked being exploded and pulled apart.

A couple of the fruits popped and pulled the tree in, branches cracking and disappearing into gods know where.

"Help! I'm being stretched! I'm going to be a long cat! A very long, dead cat!" the cat yelled. At this point the tree was properly on fire and being pulled apart by its own imploding gravity fruit. Any fruit it tried to throw was quickly pulled in by several implosions, causing more implosions and fire to spread. The cat did appear to be getting stretched a bit, and if I was petty I would have told it to tell me I'm smart. Since I'm not petty, I didn't do that.

"Still think I'm dumb?" I asked.

"No! No! I think you're a genius!" the cat cried. The words made me feel vindicated. It was always nice when someone saw the error of their ways and admitted their mistakes without needing any encouragement.