In Honkai with Tom Cat

On a road some distance from Nagazora City, two figures appeared.

Oh, it wasn't exactly two people—more accurately, it was one person and one cat.  

The person was a young man, about eighteen or so, with an ordinary face and a vacant yet aloof expression. He was dressed in a cheap-looking tracksuit, hands in his pockets, walking ahead.  

The cat was a large gray-blue feline, almost as tall as the man's legs, walking upright…  

Wait, upright?  

An unusual scene unfolded on the road as the cat casually walked on two legs. It was holding a stick over its shoulder with its right front paw, with a blue cloth bundle tied to the end of the stick.  

The cat, carrying the bundle, was closely following the man, tongue lolling out, sweating profusely, and walking hunched over as if utterly exhausted.  

The man in front turned around to look at the exhausted cat and stopped.  

"Tom, are you tired?"  

Tom looked at the man and nodded dramatically, feigning exhaustion.  

To prove its point, the cat used its free paw to wipe a layer of sweat from its head and flung it onto the ground.  

*Splat~*  

A long streak of moisture appeared on the ground, stretching about a dozen centimeters.  

"Wow, impressive."  

The man was startled by the amount of sweat and then helplessly petted the cat's head.  

"I'm sorry, Tom. It's because I'm such a useless owner, with not even a cent on me, that we couldn't take a bus..."  

Upon hearing this, Tom shook its little head vigorously, like a rattle drum.  

It seemed that Tom didn't think its owner was useless.  

"Hey, thanks for the encouragement."  

The man smiled gently and pointed at the city not far away.  

"Look, we're almost there. Once we get there, we'll have food and water."  

Hearing this, Tom's eyes suddenly lit up, resembling the spinning lights of a slot machine.  

For some reason, the sound of a slot machine spinning actually echoed in the air. The unexpected sound effect didn't surprise the man, who watched as the images in Tom's eyes stopped spinning and settled on—chicken legs and milk.  

"Meow————"  

With a loud cry that sounded nothing like a typical cat's, Tom, who had appeared exhausted just a moment ago, suddenly became extremely energetic. 

It leaped into the air, and its upper body suddenly swelled with muscle. A puff of white smoke appeared above its head, accompanied by the sound of a train whistle.  

Then, defying all logic, Tom floated in mid-air for a moment before its feet began spinning rapidly like wheels, racing at high speed towards Nagazora City.  

In the blink of an eye, Tom disappeared from the man's sight, leaving behind a trail of white smoke.  

"Damn it, wait for me!"  

Seeing himself left behind, the man chased after Tom, following the trail of smoke.  

As he ran after Tom, the man couldn't help but think to himself.  

That's Tom for you.  

[A matter of course, considering he's the highest-tier comedic character you lucked into drawing.]  

A voice without any emotion echoed in his mind.  

"Yeah, I'm super lucky, no need to remind me," he responded casually. "But could you not show up when I'm running? It's exhausting trying to keep up with Tom."  

[Why shouldn't I show up? You're almost at your mission destination, after all,] the voice replied, [Watching you two travel is tiring for me too.]  

"Bullshit, we're the ones doing the running! You're just a system, you're completely shameless, aren't you?"  

[Well, I'm just a system. I can't physically walk with you, but I'm embedded in you, so technically, I'm along for the entire journey.]  

Faced with this shamelessness, the man had only one thought.  

Screw you.  

He shook his head helplessly, giving up on arguing with the system.  

The man's name was Li Huan, just over nineteen years old.  

He came from an ordinary family—his parents were alive, he wasn't an orphan, and they owned a small house.  

He only had a college diploma, and because he didn't choose his internship well after graduation, he ended up in sales at a scammy weight-loss product company. 

Unable to stand it, he quit, leaving him as a miserable laborer with his major gone to waste.  

One day, after finishing work, a strange voice suddenly echoed in his mind.  

[Are you dissatisfied with your ordinary life? Do you want a chance to change your destiny?]  

Thinking he was hallucinating, Li Huan initially ignored it, but when the voice asked a second time, he realized it was real.  

Out of curiosity, he agreed.  

The next moment...he vanished into thin air, only to find himself by the side of a road he had never seen before.  

At the same time, the system appeared before him.  

For some reason, he had a vague sense that he had been tricked.  

[Don't think you were tricked. You chose to agree, so if anyone tricked you, it was yourself.]  

"Sigh, I shouldn't have agreed to this..."  

Li Huan sighed, and the system, seemingly displeased, retorted:  

[Besides, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and you're lucky enough to be assigned to my system.]  

The system seemed proud, as if it were something truly remarkable.  

Although Li Huan found the system's attitude a bit irritating, he had to admit one thing: the system was indeed extraordinary.  

Its full name was the [Comedic Character Compilation System], which, as the name suggests, compiled almost all comedic works to date.  

As everyone knows, comedic characters are the most powerful in the world. 

Invincible, omnipotent, immortal, reality-warping—any of these abilities would make someone a top-tier character in other stories, but comedic characters could wield them with absurd justifications.  

As an initial benefit, Li Huan was granted three chances to draw prizes. Although he complained that three draws seemed too few, the system explained that the rules were strict—only three draws were allowed, with one guaranteed to be at least SR level.  

Among those three draws, the grand prize Li Huan won was the very cat now running ahead of him—Tom, a comedic character of the highest rarity level, and one of the main characters from the legendary cartoon *Tom and Jerry*.  

In this unfamiliar world, the moment he drew Tom, Li Huan was certain of one thing.  

He and Tom were destined to bring something different to this world.  

Even though he had no idea where this place was.