The scene unfolding in front of Matt was comical, to say the least. An amused Tara, who seemed to be snickering at a panicking Kara, who was on the verge of a mental breakdown, all while an apathetic Lara, stood to the side, licking her paws.

  However, as soon as he spoke what could only be construed as magic words, all gazes shifted to him. One quizzical, one hopeful, and one lacking in interest.

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  “I have an idea,” he said, capturing the cats’ attention. “What if it wasn’t your official present?” He asked with a glint in his eyes.

  Tara looked at him amusedly. “I can guess what you’re thinking, and no, we can’t just hand you stuff. To keep the trials equal and fair for all takers, the guardians aren’t allowed to interfere or help in any way, even for something as menial as returning a shoe,” she stated.

  “It won’t be free though,” Matt corrected the tentative cat. “It’s a known custom on Earth to provide guests with a welcome gift of sorts, especially if it’s a first-time guest. It’s a part of hospitality and being a good host,” he added. “The welcome gift usually takes the form of a drink, but there is no rule against it being a shoe that said guest had lost on his journey and would very much appreciate having back,” he finished, posing the last part in the form of a question to see if it was enough to skirt the rules.

  Kara immediately turned her head towards Tara with hope-filled eyes, as if she had finally been given an out.

  Tara thought on his words for a few seconds, tilting her head from left to right, before starting to pace around in place. He knew things weren’t as simple as ‘we could try’. If it crossed any lines, it would just make things worse for an already terrified Kara, so Tara was probably considering it from all angles to see if there was anything wrong with his approach.

  After a tense minute of utter silence, where he could even hear his own heart beating, she finally spoke. “It… could work,” she confirmed. “While it’s not an inherent rule that should be followed, respecting a guest’s culture and belief reflects well on both Lady Bastet and the Pharaoh. And if the ‘welcome gift’ is a manaless item incapable of providing any advantages in, or out, of the trials, then there shouldn’t be an issue… probably,” she stated slowly, emphasizing every word to herself as well as to the others, making sure she hadn’t missed anything or broken any rules.

  Kara latched onto the statement like a drowning man to a lifeline. “I, Kara of the Unseen, hereby welcome you to the temple of Bastet. Please accept this welcome gift from us as a show of respect to yourself and your culture, oh honored trial taker. May the will of the pharaohs guide you, and Bastet’s protection reach you,” she spoke the words so fast that Matt had almost struggled to keep up.

  A few seconds of intense apprehension passed, with Matt and the trio of cats holding their breaths. He didn’t know what could end up happening, but Kara seemed too tense and worried for it to be nothing, so he decided to stay alert and on his guard.

  Just when he was about to breathe out in relief, a rumbling sound filled the clear skies.

  Kara’s face fell as if she had been handed her own death sentence. Her eyes went wide with alarm, her minute frame shivering as she flinched at every thunder strike as if it had been a gunshot.

  “T-Tara…” she said in a meek, panicked voice, turning her head towards her sister, who was slowly backing away from her.

  Just then, the rumbling stopped for a second, only for a lightning bolt to come shooting down from the now flickering skies and towards a terrified-looking Kara.

  “Aaaah!” she screamed while jumping out of the way with the nimbleness of a cat, dodging the bolt that slammed into the floor like a jackhammer, blackening the once pristine limestone.

  More and more bolts kept coming her way, with Kara jumping and dodging as best she could, screaming and yelling the entire time. “Tara!” she dodged another bolt. “Help me!” and another bolt. “You useless cat!” she yelled

  “Do you really think calling me useless will do you any favors?” Tara yawned, seemingly enjoying her sister’s predicament.

  “Please…help!... I’ll do… anything!” Kara stammered between jumps, doing her best to dodge the bolts of lightning that seemed to be coming faster and faster by the second.

  “I don’t know. I’m quite exhausted after all the thinking I had to do to find dear Matthew here a suitable gift,” Tara said while appreciating her claws as if they were the most interesting thing in the world.

  “Anything… you want… Please… hurry!” Kara pleaded, barely keeping up with the barrage of bolts that were coming at her with absolute vengeance.

  “Fine,” Tara sighed, relenting. “But know that it might not work,” she warned.

  Kara nodded frantically at Tara, who seemed to be taking her sweet time. “Hurry!” she cried out as a lightning bolt singed her immaculate sand-colored fur.

  Tara waved a paw towards her sister, and a light blue shimmer started forming around the panicked cat. It fluctuated with clear instability as it slowly surrounded the feline, before completely enveloping her in a spherical construct that vanished a second later.

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  Once the shimmering construct, which Matt assumed was a barrier of some sorts, disappeared, Kara immediately stopped in her tracks, burying her face in the stone floor and covering her head with her paws, hoping for it to work.

  They didn’t have to wait long to find out as a lightning bolt descended on the cat like the wrath of a god, showering the dark of night in a blinding light, but before it could zap the trembling cat, the spherical construct appeared once more, this time as a translucent bubble, blocking the bolt’s path, dispersing it into beautiful golden sparks.

  Kara removed her paws, opening a wary eye as more bolts continued to descend, before breathing out in relief. She got up and dusted herself before walking towards Tara and Matt with a jubilant smile on her face, as bolt after bolt continued slamming into the barrier, making it seem as if the wrath of Zeus was following in her wake.

  “So where were we?” she asked with the calmness of the sea on a moonless night, as if utter annihilation wasn’t a mere step away.

  “You do realize you’re merely stalling, right?” Tara asked quizzically. “Eventually it’ll be too powerful for even my barrier to block. You are only making it worse for yourself… or well, your future self,” she added, questioning Kara’s logic.

  “I am not getting zapped!” Kara adamantly stated. “Last time it took years for my fur to recover, and it’s your duty, as my sister, to shield me for however long it takes for this unfair punishment to come to an end,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Yeah… no…” was Tara’s response.

  “What? Why not?” Kara asked, appalled by the notion.

  “Assuming it’s possible, which it isn’t, and assuming I have the mana, which I don’t, it’s for your own good. The only reason it had taken so long for your fur to recover last time was because of your refusal to simply accept punishment,” Tara answered while slowly backing away from the panicking Kara, gesturing for Matt to do the same.

  “T-Tara… you can’t do this to me! You know cats and thunder strikes don’t mix!” Kara pleaded.

  “I’m pretty sure that applies to everything and not just cats,” Matt interjected, deciding to add his own two cents while slowly following Tara’s lead of stepping away from the hazardous cat.

  “You stay out of this!” Kara snapped at Matt with a pointed paw. “This is all your fault! You and your stupid shoe,” she growled, seemingly letting out some of her ire at him before looking back at Tara, who was now a good few feet away from her.

  “I’m allergic to electricity. It could kill me! You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?” she continued her pleas in a honeyed voice.

  “I’m pretty sure you can’t be allergic to electricity. People just die coz, you know, electricity,” Matt interjected once more, this time with a teasing smile. He didn’t know how bad it would be, but Tara didn’t seem concerned, so he guessed the other cat was being a bit overdramatic.

  Kara turned her head towards him, crazed wide eyes on full display. “Are you a doctor now? Is that it? Are you and your shoe going to restore my perfect fur, or will I have to be paraded around for who knows how long like a piece of burnt bread? I AM NOT A PIECE OF BURNT BREAD!” Kara lashed out while taking a few slow, threatening steps towards him.

  Tara, deciding she had created enough of a distance between her and the lightning rod cat, waved her paw once more, which was followed by the invisible barrier shattering into hundreds of sparkles, just as a bolt was about to slam into it.

  Kara’s eyes widened in absolute horror once she saw the barrier vanish, leaving her no time to dodge the incoming bolt.

  Lightning struck with a vengeance, as bolt after bolt came for the defiant cat, turning her into a light bulb.

  It was a frightening scene, and Matt feared the cat would truly suffer harm, but neither Tara nor Kara seemed even slightly concerned, so he simply stood there, taking in the scene of lightning bolts descending on the helpless cat, with stoic apprehensiveness.

  After a dozen thunder strikes had zapped Kara, the bolts stopped coming, followed by the rumbling subsiding as blackened clouds slowly started drifting away, making way for the clear skies of the night once more.

  “Huh, that was fairly docile,” Tara commented. “I think his trick worked,” she added with genuine surprise on her face.

  “Does this look like it worked?” Kara hissed through gritted teeth, pointing towards her once pristine, now blackened, fur.

  “You got off easy,” Lara waved her sister off, reminding them of her presence, which Matt had honestly almost forgotten. “A week or two and it will be back to normal,” she finished, although her response did nothing to alleviate Kara’s ire.

  “I imagine it was accepted as a cultural gift, and the lightning was merely a warning. You will still have to provide a gift for his achievements during the trial, I would imagine,” Tara added, seemingly lost in thought as she said those words to her sister, who just meekly nodded while trying to lick her fur back to life.

  Matt didn’t know much about the races of the system, but there seemed to be a lot of nonsensical rules in place. Things didn’t always follow logic back on Earth but it still made sense to some degree, but having to give a gift that wasn’t too good or too bad to someone you hardly knew, felt very arbitrary, and dishing out punishments for such an unreasonable requirement felt unfair to him.

  “I can try to heal it,” Matt offered, both for feeling bad about what had happened, and for thinking the cat hadn’t done anything to warrant such a level of severe punishment. Even if the cat seemed fine physically, the lightning strikes looked absolutely terrifying. He probably wouldn’t have been able to survive even one of them.

  “Hah, as if,” Lara scoffed, causing a vein to pop on Matt’s forehead. She really knew how to annoy him.

  “Your tier 9 skill is too weak to help,” Tara simply said before adding. “Also, attempting to obviate her punishment will only serve to anger.”

  It wasn’t the response he had been hoping for and only made him feel worse about the entire situation. Not because neither he nor Kara had done anything wrong, but because someone out there had simply decided to take offence at something he himself had found endearing. It just wasn’t right.

  “You okay?” Tara asked, breaking him out of his thoughts.

  “Hmm? Yeah, yeah. Just don’t like feeling so helpless,” Matt answered, a broken smile on his face.

  “Well, how about we try to raise your spirits with some of the rewards you’ve been promised then?” Tara asked with a smile, ignoring her sister’s continued whimpers.

  The word ‘rewards’ seemed to bring Matt back to life. With all that had happened, he had almost forgotten that this was supposed to be a reward floor. Not getting an A did sting, but the excitement of loot was simply unmatched. He had worked hard in the dungeon, and now it was finally time to be rewarded for all his efforts.

  “Lead the way,” was his only response.