Trash in the Apocalypse

Chapter 209: Picking a Kitten Up

The house cat pounced forward and slashed with its sharp claws. The mutated dog barely dodged the attack by lunging forward. The cat clawed in midair while the dog tried to land a bite.

Both animals landed their feet with no damage dealt with one another. They merely traded positions which became advantageous for the mutated dog.

An arrow flew in a straight line followed by a bolt. Both attacks hit the body of the mutated cat which caused it to screech in pain. It turned around while hissing and baring its fangs at them.

When it saw that Anna and Emman were aiming once more, it quickly jumped back and landed on top of a nearby wall.

Jennie finally regained the strength to stand up at this time. Feeling a bit groggy after being sent away, the first she did was to assess the situation.

The Mutated Cat was getting pelted by arrows as it used the walls as covers. The mutated dog took this chance to jump over the wall and tackle the mutated cat into it.

The difference in traits showed at this moment. A dog typically overpowers a cat while cats were much agile than a dog unless cornered.

With the cat pounded into the wall, it shrieked in pain before hissing at the dog with widened eyes, fangs bared sharpened like daggers.

As the mutated dog continued to grind the cat against the wall, the cat started clawing at its head.

This time, the difference in rank came in. Even after getting ambushed and tackled into the wall, the mutated cat was still hanging on, unlike the mutated dog who was starting to slow down due to pain and injuries.

To escape from being pinned to the wall, the mutated cat's sharp claws dug into the dog's head. Pieces of flesh were scraped off which caused the mutated dog to tremble and take a step back.

The mutated cat saw the opportunity to kill the dog and lunged at it.

Unbeknownst to the two mutated animals, a small bullmastiff has been watching the entire scene since earlier.

When Takaw sensed that his fellow dog was losing, he quickly lunged forward to intercept the mutated house cat.

While in mid-air, Takaw's body crackled with red-white lightning. The saggy brown skin slowly tightened as his body grew in size. The forelimbs, the hindlimbs, the chinsall the sagging skin were gone. and all of a sudden, Takaw's body became tone and muscular. He became a two-meter tall Bullmastiff.

He swatted the lunging mutated cat to the ground with his paws and stepped on it. Although the cat was pinned to the ground this time, it did not want to give up and tried to claw at its attacker.

Roar! Until Takaw let out a ferocious snarl filled with murderous intent which sent the mutated cat's hair to rise in horror. It stared at the beast stepping on it and meowed as if asking for mercy.

Takaw bit the mutated cat's back of the neck and carried it towards Anna's group. It was quite a sight to see a massive dog carrying a massive cat while its legs were getting dragged on the ground. 

Emman and Erin had their jaws almost dropped to the floor. Never for once have they ever thought that the playful dog they had with them could transform into something like this. The two turned to Anna wanting to complain about not telling them ahead of time of Takaw's ability when they noticed that she was also having the same expression as them: shocked. 

Jennie only frowned in surprise but had no other reaction. Then she noticed the mutated dog who was limping towards her, so she quickly ran towards it while crying.

"Auu! au..." 

The mutated dog sat down after the two of them met again and this time its eyes were filled with warmth as it stared at its only friend.

Jennie noticed the wounds on top of its head due to blood flowing down from it. She stretched her arm towards it but the sitting dog was too tall for her to reach its head.

The mutated dog remembered that its past owner liked to pat its head, and so he lowered itself slightly to Jennie's level. It saw the tears flowing down on her cheeks and simply licked her tears off. At the same time, Jennie tried wiping the blood flowing down from its nose but it only reddened her hand unable to erase the trail.

Takaw placed the mutated cat in front of Anna before shrinking back to his regular size. The white-furred cat looked around searching for the dog that caught it but it was nowhere to be found.

Before it even tried to get up and escape, Takaw barked once and caught its attention. The scheming cat that wanted to run away immediately became submissive after hearing the soft bark. It felt threatened as it watched the small dog in front of it.

To prevent the white-furred house cat from doing anything troublesome, Takaw jumped and sat on its body.

"So what are we going to do about this?" Erin asked. 

"If we bring it back to town, it would be slaughtered in a second due to the number of casualties it caused. We can't leave it alone since it could kill more people." Emman turned to Anna and said, "Should we kill it?"

Jennie heard their discussions through her enhanced hearing and turned to them in shock. The whole time she fought the mutated cat, she only felt that it was angry about something, and fought her playfully. It was her inattentiveness that caused her to get hit.

Feeling down and worried, she stepped forward wanting to object but someone beat her up to it.

"Wait! Please wait!"

A high-pitched voice of a woman from the other end of the street wearing a black cloak resounded. The three-meter mutated dog she rode dashed towards the group while dangling its tongue to the side, swaying with the wind. Several seconds later, it halted a few meters away from them and sat down.

The cloaked woman was hanging on dear life as she hugged the neck of the mutated dog. The mutated dog ran towards them from the end of the street while dangling its tongue to the side swaying with the wind. It had black fur but unlike other mutated dogs, there were no empty patches of fur to be found.

When the dog stopped a few meters away from the group, the cloaked woman slowly unclasped her trembling frail arms, then slid down the mutated dog's smooth back and landed wobbly on the road.

"Hello everyone. I'm... I'm someone not important. I've been trailing this mutated cat for so long. Can you give it to me? I'm willing to pay for it." said the cloaked woman straightforwardly.

"Whoa, she seems loaded. Do you think we can trade the cat for a lot?" Emman remarked as he whispered to Erin.

"Do we even need money?" Erin replied with displeasure. After getting recruited to Black Haven Elite Scavenger Squad, they have enough allowance and gear to not worry about whether they have money to spend on their leisure.

Emman who didn't understand what she was hinting on, pouted and looked ahead.

Anna saw that the cloaked woman was looking at the three of them as if looking for the deal maker, so she spoke and decided for the group.

"We're about to kill the cat, so we don't need your money. At the same time, we can't give you the cat unless you show us that you're capable of handling it. It's quite ferocious at the moment and it injured a lot of people who were clearing this barangay."

"I apologize." the woman bowed immediately when she heard that a lot of people were injured, then continued, "I think it's partially my fault that people got injured. You see, I was trying to tame this cat and it got away."

"You can tame mutated animals? How did you do it? Have you submitted this to the Black Haven Information Desk?" Emman excitedly asked. Just thinking of owning such a huge dog made him gleeful and forget about the recent troubles.

"Uhh..."

When Erin noticed that the other person was not comfortable in answering the question, she nudged Emman with her elbow and apologized. "I'm sorry, this guy's a bit bad in the head."

"Hey, that's rude. I'm not an idiot!"

"Ssh! Just shut up! You're embarrassing!"

The woman was uncomfortable at first but smiled in the end after seeing how close they were to each other. She waved her hand and said, "It's fine, its nothing too important and it's quite crude so not a lot of people use this. Besides, I already submitted this to the Information Desk."

"I found two ways to tame a wild animal. Since animals that ranked up have become more intelligent, its either you convince them or beat them up."