The Misfits meet System-san

Drayden:

The morning after Alice's misadventure found Cassy and Drayden deep in a conversation.

"I mean, look at it. There is suddenly a brand new ability called [Regeneration]. If that doesn't sound ominous, I don't know what does!" said Cassy.

"Well, of course, it is ominous. But what does that have to do with my plans for the day?"

"It means this place is dangerous, and we should be more careful. I don't want to go charging off inland. We should take it slowly."

"We will be taking it carefully! And, note that we now have much higher strength, speed and toughness stats!" said Drayden, "So I still say today we should hike for a few hours away from the sea and see what's there."

Bloody hell. She might look good, but she has been entirely unreliable so far. How long before she learns that she must defer to my lead?

"Right, let's go, Cassy."

He set off, travelling inland. Cassy followed, muttering to herself.

Cassy:

At least this [Emotional Control] stuff means I can keep my temper much easier than before.

As she trudged along just behind Drayden, something occurred to her.

Isn't sex supposed to be all about losing one's control? At least for a little while. But then, we have no sexual feelings anyway, so I guess that is irrelevant.

They were walking towards the distant wall, the ground gradually rising. It was surprisingly clear of thick undergrowth for a location that was so hot and had so much rainfall. But there were a lot of trees, main trunks going straight up then branching out with leafy tops.

At least it's shady under the trees. It is still stinking hot; hooray for [Heat Resistance]!

Also, why are there so many blood otters around? Aren't the numbers increasing?

The characteristic tracks of otters were scattered all over the sand as they walked. And every so often, they would see an actual otter. Sometimes, the otter would also see them. One such decided to charge them immediately. Drayden's body blurred, and there was one dead, punctured otter at his feet.

"You have to admit our combat abilities are phenomenal!" he said.

"They certainly are."

"Let's stop here and have breakfast."

Drayden and Cassy surveyed the local vegetation at their picnic spot, using lots of [Inspects].

"Just grass. And more grass. And some poisonous mushrooms; sure is handy knowing what's edible and what isn't. And this is a caterpillar-infested shrub."

Drayden gave up and set to butchering the otter and cooking the meat using his Fireball ability. Cassy kept on checking out any interesting plants.

"Hey, this plant has got edible tubers! They're called Spudnips," she said.

She excitedly materialised her shovel and rapidly excavated the roots, sending sand and dirt flying in all directions.

Gardening was never this easy back on Earth!

They had flame-singed otter with flame-singed spudnips. They had to sit back to back while they ate, all the better to keep a lookout for otters.

"They're everywhere; surely they can't be like this all the time?" said Cassy as she dispatched yet another one.

Drayden grabbed its body and tossed it away with a casual overhand throw. It landed twenty metres out, and another passing otter immediately attacked it.

"Uck. They're not too particular about what they eat, are they?" said Cassy.

They relaxed for a bit.

This bit is nice. Feeling his back against mine.

"Hmm, Cassy..."

"Yes?"

"Ahh, even without the slightest bit of sexual feeling, it is still nice to be with you."

"I agree. It is nice."

She wiggled her back against his.

"Isn't it amazing that we can just accept having tails as a completely natural thing?" she said.

Since both of their tails had pointed to the same side, she waved hers and patted it against his.

He responded by curling the end of his and holding the end of hers.

A giggle from Cassy. "This is like holding hands! We should try this while walking along!"

"I know what, what happens if I twist my entire tail around yours?" said Drayden.

He started to do this, and Cassy also started twisting hers around his - then they both grimaced and flicked their tails away.

"Err, what?" said Drayden.

"That felt kind of inappropriate or something?" said Cassy.

"That's weird."

Feeling slightly out of sorts, they stood up and decided to continue. That is, Drayden was the one to choose to continue, and Cassy went along with it.

"But let's try holding the tips of our tails together and holding hands," said Cassy.

"At least this feels good. Strange but good," said Drayden.

They moved through the light undergrowth, walking around trees and checking the occasional interesting plant with [Inspect].

"Seriously, Cassy, our abilities are way overpowered! It's like in all of the Isekai stories: the reincarnated hero is granted what can only be described as cheat abilities. I'm sure we'll be all right."

Cassy tried to remember as much of her literary theory as she could. Not that it was much; she hadn't paid much attention to any of her classes.

"Yes, but, in those novels, isn't the whole purpose of being given overpowered powers because the protagonists fight against overpowered enemies?"

Drayden shrugged off this irritating little fact and kept charging ahead. He went over a small crest and discovered a lake, perhaps a hundred metres in diameter, straight ahead. The trees thinned out, leaving an open space along the lake's edge. Cassy noticed some details that Drayden hadn't.

"Say, why are there no otter tracks along the shore? I mean, the bloody stupid things leave their tracks everywhere."

Drayden stopped and considered this, then shrugged his shoulders.

"I dunno, maybe they don't like the place?"

But why don't they like the place?

"But, anyway, let's walk along the shore; there doesn't appear to be anything exciting here. Maybe further out, there might be something. Perhaps some more plants that we can eat."

Narrator:

The Kraken was hungry. It was always hungry. However, it hadn't eaten anything for several months, so now it was starving. Since it was the hot season and just before the Blood Otter breeding frenzy, it looked forward to a feast soon. Buried in the sand in the lake's shallow water, it waited patiently, listening carefully for the footprints of something, anything, to come by.

Cassy:

She was currently a step behind Drayden, on the side away from the lake, still holding hands and tails.

I don't know; it isn't as if I dislike him leading or anything. It's just that he doesn't seem to want to accept any input from me at all.

We didn't know each other very well back on Earth, did we?

Sigh.

We never got the chance.

A blur of motion and something streaked out from the lake shore and slammed into Drayden's head. Before he could even yell, it had latched onto his entire face. Cassy received a confused impression of something stretched out from Drayden back to the shore. A something that contracted and started pulling Drayden with it. It was so fast that he was partially lifted off his feet as his head was jerked forward.

Ding! [Strength] increased to 60, [Speed] to 70, [Toughness] to 60, [General Combat] to 50.

Combat reflexes kicking in, Cassy managed to materialise her sword and cleave the tentacle a metre away from Drayden's head. There was a scream from somewhere, but not from Drayden. He couldn't open his mouth to produce any sound. Instead, two more tentacles erupted from approximately the same spot, one each for Drayden and herself. Feet skidding across the sand as she adjusted her position, she lashed out with her sword twice more and cut the ends off both.

Bloody hell, they are fast.

This time, three tentacles appeared. Plus more screaming. She hacked off the ends of two, but the third evaded her slashes. She blocked it with her other arm -

Arrrrgh! That hurts!

Then she cut off the end. However, she still had a nasty set of spring-loaded jaws clamped around her arm.

Ignore that! Where is the body of this terror?

She looked towards the water and saw a patch of sand just under the shallow water at the lakeside. All six amputated arms were frenetically waving around, and something a metre across with a nasty jagged beak was thrashing through the sand and water.

Is that oversized ugly octopus trying to escape? Like bloody hell!

She raced forward and hacked at the tentacles, reducing their lengths considerably. She kept slashing and hacking at the body, producing a lot of blood, until the animal became still and silent.

Got him!

Except there still wasn't silence. Something was making a lot of thrashing sounds behind her.

Oh shit.

She remembered she had to check up on Drayden. She dismissed her sword and jumped around and to Drayden. He was rolling on the ground, hands on the jaws that were locked on his face, trying to get them off. She wasted no time in helping.

No eyes, ears, or nostrils were present, just the end of the tentacle and two hinged jaws big enough to clamp around Drayden's entire face. Cassy saw, to her horror, that one set of teeth was aligned precisely across his eyes.

Both eyes were punctured, blood and fluid dripping out.

Cassy's [Emotional Control] turned fully on.

The other side of the jaw had its teeth across the back of Drayden's head. He was using both hands to prise the jaw off his face but wasn't succeeding. So Cassy gripped the jaws, one hand on either side, and exerted her full strength to help him.

Just how strong are these jaws, anyway?

Finally, something snapped in the jaw hinges. The two jaws flew apart, pulling apart the remains of the tentacle with them.

At last, Drayden could breathe. He took in a huge breath and then screamed in pain.

Cassy looked around in fear. Were there any more of these horrors? So she boldly lifted Drayden and ran like hell away from the lake, heading back to their treehouse. After several hundred metres, covered in a speed that would shame an Olympic sprinter, she decided to stop and see to Drayden's condition.

Oh shit.

She cradled him in her arms and thus had an excellent close-up view of his face.

It's an absolute mess.

There was a band of slashed skin across his face, and his eyes were destroyed. The back of his head was bleeding all over her supporting arm. One ear was still sticking up by its usual ten centimetres, but the other was cut off; it was now only two centimetres high.

Oh.

She finally remembered that the jaws of one of the tentacles were still clamped firmly onto her arm. And it hurt. But at least she wasn't bleeding much, so she ignored it.

Drayden was still screaming in pain and fear and threshing around. She was about to try to calm him again, only to see another bloody otter charging at her.

She kicked it. It went flying through the air and thumped into the trunk of a tree thirty metres away.

Bastard!

"Drayden! It's all right! I'm taking you back to the tree house right now! There's too many otters around to stop here."

He must have tried to control his emotions, as he did calm down. Cassy started sprinting.

She returned to the treehouse in a considerably shorter time compared to their walkout.

"Drayden? I'm going to climb the tree. Can you hang off my back?"

"Ah, but don't hold my neck so tight I can't breathe."

Next problem: to get that blasted jaw off her arm.

"Shit, I can't move it just by myself... Drayden, if you can put your hands here and here and pull."

Snap. The jaws broke apart. She tossed the remains out from their platform as far as she could manage. There were some nasty-looking gouges on her arm, but the bleeding had already stopped, and she could bear the pain, so she concentrated on the crucial part.

"Drayden?"

"Cassy! Where are we? And why can't I see?"

"Ah, well, we're back at our little house, and those tentacle jaws made a right mess of your face."

Drayden:

Drayden was on the verge of panicking. He would have started to panic if not for the effects of his [Emotional Control] and also because Cassy wrapped her arms around him and her tail.

"Drayden, it's all right. It's all right. Remember, we have [Regeneration] now, so your eyes will grow back.

Ding! [Regeneration] set to max! Your eyes and ear will be back to normal in about nine days.

Ding! You have earned 57 points for killing a junior Lakeside Kraken. They are nasty little creatures. In future, you should be more careful when around them.

Oh, yeah. A junior Lakeside Kraken? Shit, a full-grown adult would have probably killed me.

He was in the dark. On an alien, hostile planet - well, Ringworld.

But he had Cassy. He tightened his arms around her back. He could feel her breasts pressing against his side.

"Cassy. Please don't leave me. Just don't leave me!"

Right next to his face, her voice replied in a comforting, soothing tone.

"Course I won't leave you. I need you as much as you need me. There's no way I'm going to abandon you."

Nine days of blindness.

"How are we going to cope? What about food? And water?"

"Well, there appears to be plenty of blood otters scampering around, and it still rains quite often, so I don't think there will be any problems."

"But, but, I'm blind. I can't do anything!"

"My dear, I can do it for you. I'm sure. I'm quite capable, you know."

"Ah, well..."

"After all, I managed to kill that bastard Kraken. I cut off all of its tentacles, then slashed and stabbed its body. It certainly looked hideous, you know."

Drayden decided that he had no choice but to let himself be looked after by Cassy.

"Just keep holding me, OK? Also, now that we have enough points, can we allocate more to [Heat Resistance]? It is still bloody hot."

Cassy did the honours -

Ding! [Heat Resistance] is now 77.

"That's better," said Drayden.