Prisoners of VR

"Let's go," Arriving at Larkrood Village, Rahu stared at Trot and spoke calmly.

"How far are we going this time?" Trot asked. They travelled exactly ten hours during every expedition and jotted down their paths with the markings on the tree barks.

Ten hours in Worldcraft equalled one hour in reality, so it was a perfect mix between both worlds. Besides, instead of travelling all over the place without a sense of purpose, they logged out and returned to Larkrood Village to start anew.

This way, they could cover the grounds around their spawn point. This was also a wise decision since if there existed a Dungeon beyond ten hours of journey on foot, it'll consume too much of their time. It wasn't cost-effective in terms of resource accumulation.

Besides, despite it being another world, Worldcraft still retained some basic game elements. That meant there ought to be many Dungeons located close to Larkrood Village. They only had to be discovered.

It was easy to find the Grass-Faced Monkey Dungeon due to the habitat formed by the Monkeys beyond the Dungeon. That and their proximity to Larkrood Village made their location well-known. Rahu was looking for such a habitat. Because, if it existed, it meant the presence of a Dungeon at the centre of said habitat.

"Meow!" During their tenth expedition, Rahu and Trot came to an abrupt halt as they heard a Cat's purr. Rahu raised his hand and motioned for Trot to maintain silence as they hid behind a large-trunked tree.

He gently peeked out and observed a brook flowing between a narrow clearing of trees. The brook barely spanned a metre in width at its widest parts. It was shallow, only reaching thirty to forty centimetres at its deepest depth.

The brook's path was redirected by a large root that protruded out of the ground. Perched on the root was a Cat, letting out lazy, annoyed purrs. It had dipped its right foreleg into the brook water and splashed the water lazily, searching for a fish.

It didn't have any luck, for the water was too shallow for a fish to swim through. But considering how it lay waiting at the location, it seemed that though barely, fish swam through the route, enough to serve as its snack.

Grey fur that was dull in nature, sporting patches of brown stripes throughout its body, it was a large Cat that spanned a length of ninety centimetres. Lodged on its forehead was an Invoker Crystal, having a decently bright sheen.

"Jackpot!" Trot whispered in excitement.

"Let's remain in hiding until it leads the way to its home," Rahu whispered as he gripped his wooden stick tighter. He had no idea about the Cat's Skill, so it was best to remain on guard. If it possessed a trap Skill similar to the Grass-Faced Female Mid-Boss, then they would lose their lives at a moment's mistake.

So, remaining in hiding while observing their target was the best course of action.

The Cat remained in wait for a good couple of hours. It seemed to have fallen asleep as Cats always do. Its right foreleg remained immersed in water though, seemingly waiting for something.

Its whiskers trembled as its ears shot up. The Cat sprang up and leaped deftly, grabbing hold of a tiny fish that it gobbled up in a matter of seconds. It then stretched its body relaxedly and let out a loud cry, "Meow!"

The Cat immediately sprinted downstream, meowing every ten seconds.

"Go, go, go!" Rahu shouted as he rushed out and tailed the Cat. They had to maintain at least a distance of twenty metres to avoid alerting the Cat, for despite their caution, their footsteps were loud. It was also hard to keep track of the Cat through the forest.

If not for its constant meowing, they would have lost sight of it already. The Cat ran a kilometre and arrived at a halt to drink some water from the brook. It suddenly turned around as its ears perked up, causing it to screech in alarm.

But upon failing to detect any other species, it relaxed soon enough.

"That was close." Rahu tapped his thumping chest as he hid behind a tree. Trot had slumped on the ground beside a shrub. Though, when he noticed an anthill nearby, he became nervous.

"Woof, if I stay here any longer, they might consider me food." Trot expressed his worry as he watched ants marching towards him. They stopped a couple of centimetres before him as their antennae flailed about. The ant scouts returned to their nest. But many more scouts came out soon after.

They were deciding whether or not to consider Trot as their dinner. And to him, that was a valid concern.

"Stay put and look for a safer location. I'll give a signal when the attention of the Cats is away. You'll move to safety after that." Rahu whispered. Yes, Cats, plural.

He peeked from behind the tree and noticed more than thirty Cats in a clearing. They had been working on something. The location they picked was a high ground. Downstream of the brook after that was a downward slope.

It was a great location to build a dam, which was exactly what they were working on here. Cats, working on a dam, they were building it, from scratch.

For a couple of minutes, Rahu stared at the scene, stupefied. He had never seen these lazy monarchs work on anything. To be honest, a good portion of human society had been enslaved by them through the sheer weaponization of their cuteness.

Thanks to their genetics, for a good portion of their history, Cats had been provided for, especially by humans. So, they could be lazy and still live a king's life. But here, they were toiling away to build a dam like beavers.

There were around a dozen Cats with an Invoker Crystal embedded on their foreheads. Based on the difference in their sheen, there were at least two Skills involved here.

"What...the heck?" He stared at the scene, flabbergasted. A decently fat Cat climbed a tree and licked its paws, standing still on a thick branch for a couple of minutes. It stared at the Cats moving on the ground, signalling with a soft purr as its tail lashed the branch.

Its Invoker Crystal glowed brighter as immediately, the branch was cleanly severed, causing it to fall to the ground. A group of Cats leaped onto the collapsed branch and in a matter of seconds, all extra protrusions on it had been trimmed out, smoothly.

The Cats weren't using their claws or anything of the sort. No, it was a Skill, meant to cut into wood. The branch was quickly broken down into uniform logs that were then rolled toward the dam.

The Cat they had been tailing all along arrived before a log placed in the dam as it leaped on it. its Invoker Crystal shone as it seemed to have activated a Skill, causing a pike to jut out of the log and stab into the ground. In a matter of seconds, the log transformed into a nail that pierced the ground, its head barely peeking out.

This was used as an anchor to hold the walls of the dam firmly.

The slope was four metres in length. It spanned from an upstream ground two metres above the downstream region. So, the slope wasn't steep. But it was enough for a dam wall that was raised to a height of two metres.

It was connected to the upstream ground, creating a wedge-shaped region where water could collect. An interesting mechanism was installed here. As the water filled the dam to the brim, the Cats installed a lid that was covered with tiny holes for water to seep through.

The water from the brook flowed over the lid and was sucked into the dam below through the holes, causing the tiny fishes swimming in them to be stranded on the lid.

The stranded fishes twitched due to a lack of water. At the sight, the Cats drooled as they meowed incessantly. One after another, they leaped over the dam's lid, gobbled up a fish each, and landed on the other side, content as they munched upon their snack.

With this, they didn't have to fret about food and could casually camp near this dam and gobble up the fish caught on the lid. The sheer intelligence they displayed here was frightening, for this was an innovation.

Beavers built dams, but that was a product of evolution where they gathered such a survival instinct genetically through countless millennia. That wasn't the case for Cats. Therefore, it only meant that they were smart enough to conceptualise an innovation for their needs and build things like humans.

They employed the Skills at their disposal to make their lives better.

Rahu had observed the rapid learning capacity of the Grass-Faced Monkeys. And now that he witnessed the Cats working on such an ingenious project, he muttered in assurance, "It will not be like Earth. Here, in Worldcraft, we alone won't be the overlords."

One of the Cats caught two fish and landed on the ground nearby the dam, preparing to eat. It set the two fishes on the ground and began to work on the former, slowly savouring the taste.

Suddenly, a leaf sprouted out of the ground right next to it as the plant grew to a height of a metre. The leaf spanned a square metre in area, massive. The plant arched as the leaf slapped the Cat in the face and sent it reeling away. The Cat slammed into the trunk of a tree and collapsed to the ground in a pool of blood.

A hole opened next to the large-leaved plant as a rat peeked out, grabbed the two fishes, and dragged them into the hole. It covered the entrance and ran away.