Chapter 16. A Somewhat Arduous Path

Due to their ocular abilities, Lucy and her clone had no trouble finding the signs left on the tree bark by the mercenaries, indicating the direction to the lionkins'village. However, they couldn't move at their maximum speed because the terrain was very rugged and filled with thorny thickets.

"Slash!"

"Slash!"

"If I hadn't known this was the right direction, I don't think I would have ever attempted to cross this area...", complained Lucy to her clone, while massaging the wrist of her hand which she had used for 20 minutes to cut thorny thickets with a ninja sword she had purchased from the Ninja Shop, worth 5000 points.

"At least we'll have the chance to perfect our swordsmanship techniques..." replied Lucy Beta, trying to see the silver lining.

"What techniques? So far, both of us have only used a single move..." said the original Lucy as she handed her sword to her clone to continue cutting the bushes in front of them.

"Well, you know that saying? 'I'm not afraid of someone who has practiced ten thousand kicks once, but of the one who has practiced one kick ten thousand times.'..." responded Lucy Beta, who began using the sword to cut through the thorny thickets with an aura of unwavering focus on the task at hand, like Bruce Lee whose words she quoted.

"I'll see if you still have the same opinion after half an hour..." said the original Lucy, trying to refrain from laughing at the seriousness with which her clone had begun to cut the thorny thickets as if she were giving a sword-handling demonstration in front of hundreds of people. "Anyway, I wonder how the mercenaries managed to cross these marshes without attempting to create a path through these thorns? Maybe they were wearing thick clothing?" she continued, although she didn't expect her clone to have a different answer from the ones she had thought of.

"Well, maybe they just had thicker skin..." her clone replied, proud of the explanation she had come up with.

"Haha, I don't know how I didn't think of that myself..."

.......................

In the end, after 4 hours, half of which they spent cutting through thickets, the two Lucys managed to reach a location from which they could see the walls made of wood and stone that surrounded the lionkins'village.

"Finally! I thought we wouldn't make it before sunset..." said the original Lucy, wiping the sweat from her forehead and then purchasing a cleansing potion for both her and her clone to freshen up.

After handing a potion to her clone, Lucy quickly drank the remaining one herself, and then began to think about the most suitable method to make contact with the villagers. Unfortunately, since she knew nothing about the people she was about to meet, except that they were humans with lion traits, and had no idea about their hospitality towards strangers, Lucy couldn't come up with a more complex plan than to head directly toward the village entrance, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible, and once she was noticed by the villagers, she will convey her good intentions.

'Well, I don't expect them to believe me so easily, but I hope the sacks of mercenaries' heads will help dispel some doubts...' Lucy thought to herself and at the same time, she started opening the soul connection between her and her clone, who had about half an hour left before disappearing, because Lucy wanted the two of them to merge into one entity before meeting the villagers, to allow the fusion of their minds to proceed as smoothly as possible.

With their minds connected, the two Lucys no longer needed words to communicate their thoughts and it didn't take them long to agree to proceed in the same manner as the last time they experienced the mind fusion process. So, they approached each other, and as their chests made contact, they began to kiss passionately, attempting to recreate the mind fusion process as a painting, using their lips as brushes and their saliva as paint.

Strengthening their soul connection more and more, the two Lucys, locked in a kiss so deep that they were breathing just the air exhaled by the other, gradually felt themselves becoming a single person residing in two bodies, who was feeling a pleasure so intense that she wished the moment would never end.

Fortunately for Lucy, who had surrendered to the pleasure and seemed incapable of recovering, her clone's body, which had reached its time limit, began to dematerialize, turning into a red mist carried by the wind toward the setting sun, and as a result, her entire consciousness had to return to her original body, which, for a few moments, felt too solitary and insufficient to contain her.

After standing in silence for a few minutes, watching as the red mist blended with the warm hues of the sunset, Lucy found solace in the realization of a perfect fusion between her and her clone, in which their minds had blended in the most harmonious way possible, making it impossible to determine whether one had been more dominant than the other in the process or had a stronger influence on the current Lucy.

'Though this skill that allows me to create clones worked perfectly, I have to admit that I didn't anticipate all the problems that could arise from using it. I didn't think about what my clone would feel when waking up in a body with limited time, nor how the fusion of minds between me and my clone could affect my mental health... Anyway, in the end, I believe I managed to overcome all these issues in such a way that I'll be left only with pleasant memories...' Lucy contemplated as she walked slowly towards the lionkins'village, giving them enough time to notice her and prepare to welcome her.

..................

When she reached about 50 meters from the walls that surrounded the village, Lucy noticed how one of the large wooden gates opened, and from it emerged 10 middle-aged lionkin men, dressed in worn armor and holding weapons in their hands, seemingly ready for battle.

"Don't worry! I've come with peaceful intentions!" Lucy shouted towards the approaching lionkin men, raising her hands in the air to appear as non-threatening as possible.

"Stop where you are! If you take one more step, our archers will bring you down instantly!" one of the men shouted, while three others raised their bows and aimed them at Lucy, their arrows infused with mana showing that they were not ordinary archers.

Lucy had no choice but to comply with their request, as she wanted to gain their trust. However, she continued to maintain all her ocular abilities responsible for analyzing the surrounding environment and opponents, ensuring she wouldn't be caught off guard by anything, even if her eyes which seemed like fragments of the night sky might make them see her as unusual.

"Catkin, in whose name have you come here, and what is the purpose of your master who sent you?" the man who had told Lucy to stop a few moments earlier asked her, looking at her with disdain.

Lucy didn't like the tone the lionkin man used or the content of his words, but she tried to keep her calm and explain the situation.

"I am nobody's slave, nor have I been sent by anyone. See? I don't have any collar around my neck...", Lucy told the lionkin men while raising her hair with one hand to show that she was telling the truth. "The reason I came here is to inform you that a team of mercenaries was sent into these woods to find the location of your village and to abduct as many women and children as possible while most of your warriors are away hunting. But you don't need to worry too much. Although they found the way to your village and planned to attack today, after I had a conflict with some of them and learned their intentions, I eliminated all of them before they could carry out their plan", Lucy continued, ignoring the skeptical looks from the lionkins.

"So, you, a catgirl, single-handedly took out a team of mercenaries? And how did you do that? Did you fuck them until they passed out? Don't tell me you're half succubus..." one of the archers sarcastically remarked, having noticed some bite marks on Lucy's neck due to one of his skills that allowed him to see better than ordinary lionkins.

Lucy, who had forgotten to consume a health potion after the interactions earlier that day between her and her clone, which had been quite wild at times, didn't realize that the archer had seen the fading marks on her neck when she lifted her hair and she thought he was only trying to humiliate her through his comment, alluding to the fact that many catgirls had been enslaved by humans and probably subjected to various perversions.

"Well, you can ask them how good they felt after meeting me..." Lucy said as she retrieved the two sacks containing the mercenaries' heads from her storage space and emptied their contents in front of the lionkins, disregarding the arrows that two of the archers sent towards her feet, as she had already activated the Phantom Body skill when she made that abrupt move that put the lionkins on alert.

Looking at the astonished expressions of the lionkins, Lucy felt a sense of pride at how quickly she made them swallow their words.

"What do you think now? Do you believe it's a good idea to keep mocking me?" Lucy said after kicking one of the heads and sending it directly to the feet of the archer who had insulted her.