Chapter 10 Cat and Mouse Game "Thank you for the treat, little kitty~"...
Lucas Dwyer is going through the most miserable moment of his life, or rather, the most miserable moment of his life.
He never imagined that one day he would miss the courtly days when he was locked in his study studying economics, politics, and geometry.
Ha, back then he would lie on a velvet bed, staring at the ornate ceiling, complaining about how boring life was.
Lucas was never the kind of prince who went out camping and waging war. He knew that most lords' sons were actually both politicians and warriors, and probably rarely complained about the conditions of life in the wild.
But he was just a pampered, healthy but sickly bookworm who was now forced to catch mice for a hideous woman just to sleep in the barn for one night.
barn!
Can people sleep in barns?
That was clearly a dormitory for grain.
Ashlin's unwavering "Deal!" felt like a complete betrayal to him. He had just said he didn't hate her! That wretched witch.
He will never share dried fish with her again next time.
Lucas was pressed for time. He had about an hour to turn back into a human, and he preferred the cat form to crouching behind a haystack like a freak in human form, catching a damn mouse.
He placed a small piece of goat cheese and the mousetrap together next to the haystack, found a secluded corner, and waited quietly.
Twenty minutes passed, and there was still no movement.
Lucas realized he had underestimated the rat's intelligence.
Clearly, Charlotte had tried everything—all sorts of traps and poisons—but to no avail, which is why she had to ask a cursed cat for help.
But how smart can a mouse be? After becoming a cat, he had never even seen his own kind, so how would he know what a mouse was like?
Lucas sat crouching, his claws tucked under his body, his eyes half-closed.
The air in the barn was fresh and filled with the aroma of wheat. He felt as if he had entered a bakery and was about to eat the freshest baked bread.
In a daze, he saw Elaine secretly taking him to skip class and go to the ranch outside Helian City, only to be reported by a passerby... His father was furious and ordered him to stay indoors for a month... He was trapped in his dormitory, and the guard refused to let him out no matter what... Every day, he had to watch those boring...
bump!
Lucas was jolted awake as a dark shadow flashed past.
The cheese on the mousetrap disappeared.
Damn it.
He immediately stood up, cautiously surveyed his surroundings, and sniffed the air.
There was nothing there.
Then comes the most unfortunate thing in the world.
He then discovered that we had tied a pink ribbon to our tail, making a pretty bow.
The ribbon bore tiny, crooked words: "Thank you for your hospitality, little kitty~"
On the right side, there is also a standard heart drawn.
Mice can actually write and draw hearts?!
Is this really a rat?
However, since wizards can communicate with animals using magic, perhaps animals really can learn to write.
Lucas slumped down, lost in deep self-doubt.
He, the prince of Helian City, even if cursed, was still a grown cat, yet he was harassed by a mouse.
No one taught him that mice could sneak up behind him while he was napping, stealing cheese and creating art along the way.
"I will never say that mice are stupid again."
Lucas frantically scratched at his tail with his paws, trying to untie the ribbon, but couldn't reach it.
This is so embarrassing for a cat! His least favorite color is pink.
The wooden bucket contained hay, and inside the hay was a cat. The cat's ears were pressed tightly against the rim of the bucket, and its eyes were fixed on the piece of meat.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
Lucas leaped out suddenly, like an elegant black shadow (in his view), descending from the sky and viciously pouncing on the slices of meat.
He only caught air.
The mousetrap was still there, intact. But the bacon was gone.
He paused for half a second, then looked around warily. Suddenly, he heard a soft squeaking sound, as if it were mocking him.
That bastard.
"Come out and fight me one-on-one if you dare, you coward!" Lucas hissed.
"Newbie".
In the darkness, a tiny voice chuckled softly.
Lucas instantly located the source of the sound and assumed an attack stance.
Just then, he saw it.
This was the strongest rat Lucas had ever seen in his life, its body massive, no smaller than a kitten. Its dark eyes gleamed eerily in the shadows, like a little ghost.
No, do mice exercise while learning to write?
Lucas charged again, but the rat took off like lightning.
They ran over haystacks and sacks of oats, out of the barn, circled it three times, and then came back.
Lucas was exhausted and dizzy. He stopped, vaguely sensing that something was wrong. He thought for a moment—he was human, after all; how could he be so easily fooled by rodents?
This dead rat is just teasing him.
First, it specially tied a pink bow on Lucas's head while he was still alive and wrote a message for him.
Secondly, it could have easily gone straight into its old home instead of being chased by cats outside the barn for exercise.
It was bored and wanted to run around and play.
When faced with such an enemy, one must deliberately ignore him, feigning a desire to capture him while simultaneously letting him go.
So Lucas closed his eyes, lay down on the haystack, and pretended to be asleep.
Sure enough, Lucas soon smelled the rat. This time he didn't act rashly, but waited until the rat was close enough.
Close enough...
enough……
"Got you!"
Lucas held the mouse's tail triumphantly, about to bite its neck, when the mouse suddenly shouted.
"Wait, don't do that! You'll regret it!"
No, how could he do that?
The idea of repeatedly toying with one's prey is tempting, but it's also a little creepy.
Human reason suggested that he should listen to this thing's last words.
"I'm listening."
"I am not a mouse," said the mouse. "I am the master of this place!"
Lucas felt mocked again.
"Wow, so I'm still a prince of Helian."
"I'm not joking."
"Coincidentally, I don't have any either."
The cat and the mouse stared at each other, wide-eyed.
Now, Lucas had no choice but to listen carefully to what it was saying.
Indeed, a real mouse couldn't possibly know so much. Otherwise, how could it write?
“Go on.”
"That's how it is. A few years ago, a strange young man came to the village..."
The young man was very tall and thin, with black hair, and looked to be in his early twenties. He looked like a vampire and was dressed in luxurious clothes. When he first appeared, we were all terrified, thinking that some young master of a lord had come to see us.
“Dragon Tooth Village is my hometown,” the young man said. “Twenty years ago, my father died in the Dragon Clan War when he was young, and my mother took me to the bottom of Silver Tree Valley and raised me to adulthood.”
Of course, at first, no one believed him, because his mannerisms and speech didn't seem like those of a countryman at all. But then he said, "My name is Knox, the same as my father's. Does any of you know him?"
Then the village elders and middle-aged men remembered. The blacksmith's son, Knox, had died at the age of twenty-six, and his body had never been found; it was probably burned to ashes by dragon fire. At the time, the king's dragon warrior army had just left the battlefield, and people were still complaining that the king's brother hadn't participated in the war, which had deprived them of strength and led to the deaths of so many innocent people.
However, everyone in the village thought Knox was a bachelor and never imagined he would have a child who had grown up so much. The old folks said that little Knox did indeed look a lot like his father, with the same black hair and black eyes.
Knox's father also died in the Dragon War, which resonated with me, so we naturally became friends.
One evening, he asked me out, saying he wanted to go to some kind of maze, but without a map, he couldn't solve the puzzles and hoped I could help. But I grew up on a farm; how could I possibly be of any help?
“I am actually a powerful magician,” he said mysteriously to me that day. “If you are willing to help me find the map, dear Zack, I will grant you the power to find the map and also grant you one wish.”
"Can you bring my father back?" I asked.
"Of course, anything is fine."
"Are magicians really that powerful?" I asked, puzzled. "Can they bring people back to life?"
“Not all magicians are this powerful,” he told me. “Only me. My magic is different from that of those who diligently practice magic, even from the most powerful divine offspring in the kingdom. My magic is unrestrained. You’ll see.” Then he gently touched my forehead with his hand, which was as cold as a dead man’s.
I saw my father. Or rather, a phantom of my father.
My father smiled gently at me and patted my head. “One day, you will become a knight of Helian City,” he said. “This is part of your knightly training, Zach. That map is hidden deep in the basement of Helian Castle, long forgotten by the Deville family, because it is a product of magic. The Deville family doesn’t like magic, you know that.”
I was utterly astonished. "You want me to... infiltrate the castle and steal the royal treasures? What kind of knight is that?"
“The knight of magic,” said the phantom of his father. “My knight. The map rightfully belongs to the magician. This is not theft, but simply its return. You will be my pride.”
I admit I was naive. I believed him, I believed little Knox. He turned me into a mouse, promising to turn me back once I got him the map. By day I was a mouse, and by night I was a human.
So, at midday on the Feast of the Sun and Moon, while everyone was preparing for the dinner, I sneaked into the basement of the castle in Helian and stole the map of the Edoro Labyrinth. What was difficult for a boy was easy for a little mouse.
The map was very old, probably hundreds of years old, and the patterns on it were so complicated that I couldn't understand them at all. It seemed to show the route to the center of the maze, as well as various mechanisms for imprisoning monsters.
Little Knox got the map, but he didn't turn me back. He stared at the map, his dark eyes bulging out, like he'd gone mad.
“Finally, finally…” he murmured, “I can free her now.”
"Liberation? Liberate whom?"
He didn't answer me.
“There’s just one more thing to do. I need to tell that elf… um, right, the unsealing spell.” He frowned. “It might not be as simple as I initially thought, but we can discuss that once we’re inside…”
I had no interest in spirits or spells. I yelled at him, "It's time to fulfill your promise! Turn me back and bring my father back to life!" But he just laughed, locked me in a cage on the table in his hut, and left.
Since I was put in the cage, I haven't been able to turn into a human at night. For so long, I've been a caged mouse, struggling in vain every day.
One day, I pushed over the cage and accidentally knocked over a bottle of purple potion next to it. The potion spilled onto the cage, and the cage suddenly shot up, growing like a tree, even breaking apart Little Knox's house, shattering it into pieces. The cage replaced the house, taking on the shape of a house.
After that, I escaped and ran all the way back to Dragon Tooth Village... Anyway, I am human, you can't kill me.
"You idiot!" Lucas held back for a moment, but finally couldn't hold back any longer. "Knox is a terrible dark wizard, a fanatical follower of the dark witch Cynthia!"
The mouse lowered its head in shame.
Zach resolved Lucas's earlier doubts. According to Sanova, no one was originally capable of solving the maze's mechanisms. But if they had the secret map within the castle…
The map was left to the Deville family by the dwarven architect and the ancient great wizard, but it was stolen by Zach.
That's how Knox stumbled into the labyrinth.
Fortunately, even though Knox knew how to enter the maze and how to solve the mechanisms and puzzles, he couldn't find a way to lift the curse, and finding the Dark Witch's location was of no use.
At least not now.
However, there are other things to worry about.
The Labyrinth of Edoro holds more than just Cynthia. Monsters bred from the shadows are also trapped within its walls.
Monsters and dark wizards often have a mysterious connection. If Knox were to master the method of traversing the labyrinth, would he accidentally, or intentionally, unleash some monsters?
Cassandra's words before she left echoed in his ears:
"All sorts of demons and monsters seem to be stirring, excited about the arrival of something..."
Lucas shook his head. There's no point in thinking about it now.
"No!" Zack shouted immediately, "I can't let my mom and Lucy see me like this! My dad is a Dragon Warrior, and I should look like a Dragon Warrior, not..."
He gestured with his short claws to indicate his entire body.
“I was meant to be a knight of Lord Korie, but now, I’m cursed to be a rat because of my stupidity. I’m an insult to my whole family, and an insult to Dragonfang Village. Let them think I’ve disappeared.”
Lucas was both annoyed and amused.
But he knew what Zach felt like.
"Would you rather be killed by a stray cat here?"
"No problem, I've been here for months and there haven't been any issues." The mouse smiled confidently. "There aren't many cats in Dragon Tooth Village, and you're the first one this month. I was hoping to play with you."
"Hopeless. Your mother specifically sent me to kill you! What if I really kill you? Then I'll be a murderer, and your mother will have killed her own son."
The idea sent chills down Lucas's spine.
If he had actually taken a bite, how would he be any different from a man-eating vampire?
Zack remained stubborn: "No matter how much you try to persuade me, I will not reveal my identity until I find a way to turn back into human form."
"But……"
However, the only way to break the curse is likely through a riddle, and it can only be used once.
Lucas was unsure whether he should tell the truth.
Normally, a curse cast by a wizard can be revoked by the wizard himself, but a believer like Knox would certainly not come to revoke a curse.
Mistakes made by Ashlin, due to her unintentional casting of the spell, cannot be reversed.
Curses resulting from errors are not traditional curses; some can have unexpected, even opposite, effects that seem illogical. Lucas recalls a book about a wizard who intended to curse his nemesis into a toad, but mispronounced a few lines, thus fulfilling his nemesis's greatest wish and filling his pockets with gold coins.
However, Lucas wasn't an expert in curses. Could the spells grow stronger over time, becoming indistinguishable from day to night?
"No buts. If you insist on taking me to see them, I'm running away right now!"
This thing is so annoying.
"Okay, whatever you say. But... at least do me a favor, right?"
A note from the author:
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
