A (Not So) Simple Fetch Quest

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Oh great hero! The evil Demon Lord has once again arisen to terrorise our lands, and we have summoned you to save our people!

No, we don't want you to fight the demon lord! Of course not; we're the good guys! What sort of good guys kidnap people from other worlds and force them to take part in wars that have nothing to do with them? That would just be plain evil! We'd be no better than the demons!

Katie, after her summoning by an excessively loud mage suddenly takes an unexpected twist, is sent off on a simple fetch quest, with a promise that she'll be back home in five minutes at most. She doesn't even need to leave the building. Alas, when a goddess' blessing causes her wish for an actual adventure to be taken rather more literally than she expected, she finds herself lost in a dark cave, far away from the sword she was supposed to acquire and far too close to a population of giant bugs. Still, at least she wished her life wasn't in any danger. Among other things.

Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it.

This is a dark litRPG adventure, both in terms of Katie accidentally wishing all the lights out, and also in that she loses as often as she wins, often with horrific and disturbing consequences. Luckily, Katie isn’t the sort of person to let a mere grizzly death or two get her down, and is prepared to try, try and try again to get her hands on the holy sword and finally complete her ‘simple’ fetch quest. Or perhaps—with a few resistance skills under her nightie—she might even come to enjoy losing. Not that she’d ever consider forgoing revenge, even if she did.

I’ve ticked multiple content warning checkboxes for this one. Dark things happen to the MC, and she does dark things right back to everything else. There’s no explicit sexual content, but there are more than enough references to justify the warning, including to rape. Profanity happens rarely, but Katie isn’t averse to swearing when she gets particularly angry. As for gore/trauma, it doesn’t get much worse than the first few chapters, but there will be occasional chapters that have extra content warnings. There will be mind control.

Published here (Royal Road), Scribble Hub, patreon and Amazon.

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2021
Author: cathfach

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.7/ 5.0
Followers: 2,093
Views: 1,939,945

Reviews

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Community Reviews(10)

stratholmeRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Bravo on creating this story.
There is not much to say about thise one. It is worth reading. Yes it should be checked out.
If you are like me and are put off from reading some stories based on the image/title or description alone but still look at reviews, please give this one a read. It was absolutely worth my time and I completely enjoyed it. 5/5
AssidiousBlueRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I really enjoyed the structure of this story. although having many progression elements, the use of recurring characters, downstream effects and worldbuilding including introspection on the role of "hero" and what it means to have a wish fulfilled kept it going.
The protagonist does make mistakes, tries to climb to power quickly at the cost of long-terrm progress, and also suffers for those mistakes - and mistakes are always refreshing on this site.
As always, beware sleeping dragons
EiferRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This story was amazing.
I personally found the power scaling of the MC pretty balanced for a typical reincarnation/progression type story and the ending was very satisfying.
I think the author did a pretty stellar job at portraying the MC's struggles to remain true to herself and try to remain sane.
I don't really have much else to add. Apparently I'm really bad at writing positive reviews..
clearmuseRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
A great read for a very strange isekai journey.
The main character is very relatable, even as she suffers in the way so many main characters do. Repeatedly. Some of the situations are basically sitcom style misunderstandings, but with dramatic consequences. Main character a Katie goes through a lot of awful ordeals and definitely is changed as a result - in extreme, magic required kinds of ways sometimes.
This does get dark and grim in some places, though generally not deeply or for long. There are appropriate trigger warnings on a few chapters, but the do belong there. There's some mentions of adult activities as well, mostly in passing but also the way adults might mention them.
Ultimately I find the setting, characters, and plot a lot of fun and easy to keep reading one more chapter - and very hard to put down.
luda305Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Another killer fiction from cathfach. I originally read this book on KU and I'm pleased to see it rolling over to here.
The basic premise is
a double subverted Isekai. There's a MacGuffin to save the world, but only can be retrieved by a summoned hero. It's super simple though, so she should be done in 15 minutes then sent home. But, with a prayer/wish to the gods, the short jaunt becomes a massive dungeon filled with enemies while the protagonist gains a respawn mechanic. Of course, dying sucks. And having to deal with your own corpses too. And that's barely past the first few rooms.
The protagonist is really nicely done. The backstory is kept short because it's largely what happens to her in story that defines her as she rapidly changes and grows in both power and personality. A fair bit of effort goes into the psychological impact that her powers have on her, and I think that's very well handled.
On a technical level, the writing is excellent. Thematically, the story is a bit of horror, a bit of action adventure and a bit of comedy. Thundamoo-adjacent, and I mean that as a compliment.
Volume 2 is a fantastic continuation much along the same lines of Volume 1.
Volume 3 is... well, holy shit that gets trippy and philosophical. Writing anything about it is very difficult, because I need two levels of generalities to avoid spoiling anything and I don't even want to spoiler-box it.
That said, everything kind of comes together, but there's a bit of a lack of cohesion in the... mania. A new plot device is seemingly arbitrarily added in order to do so, and while that helps hold it together in a somewhat neat fashion with some emotional catharsis, you can't help but have a niggling feeling at the back of your head that it all kind of came together too neatly. Like, what happens to a character when you keep throwing powers at them until they can just Mary Sue their way through anything? Some crazy shit, that's for sure.
Going back to the beginning to read the synopsis or
onko342Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
So basically, the premise is that the MC gets isekaied, is sent on a "simple' fetch quest, and it turns out that she just accidentally wished for it to become much more complex with a whole dungeon to explore and infinite respawns to make sure that everything turns out ok in the end. But even with that much of a cheat, the stakes are still maintained. There are many things that can't be solved with a death or two, such as social relations, mental conditions, and the overall feasibility to complete the quest. All of these are demonstrated nicely, especially the ones dealing with her own mental state. The dungeon truly feels like a world of its own unlike anywhere else, some things that feel almost alien but in a good way. Many stories end up having a generic setting to go with their interesting premise, this novel is not one of them.
Style: The stylistic choices greatly improved the atmosphere of the story.
One minor detail that I really liked was that all creatuers, hostile or friendly, inside the dungeon have actual scientific names in latin. That adds to the realism and alien feel of the dungeon. Also, the mind control mini arc couldn't have been that good without its unique style.
Story: As I previously mentioned, I loved the setting, the overall vibe of the dungeon. Pacing and story structure is good, seems relatively straightforward at first but there is a fair amount of nuance to it. Progression is meaningful, the classes and skills are unique and defining.
Grammar: DIdn't find any grammar errors in the actual text, good job fixing everything that was already mentioned in the comments
Character: Characters were very realistic. It's very clear how all the events of the story changed her mindset, especially the many deaths. She gradually becomes more determined and definitely more unhinged as the story progresses. Also, mind alterting effects are well reflected. As for other characters, all characters that Katie interacts with deeply often have some defining qui
6's ArchiveRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I absolutely loved it, even with all it's weirdness. The protagonists really goes through some shit, she makes mistakes a lot but she pushes on. That being said, she's a delight in the weirdest ways and you cannot help but cheer for her on her quest.
If want a story where the protagonist struggles, but without you constantly grinding you're teeth because it's too much and the author won't give them a fxxking break read this.
HockeybeardRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Read it. Enjoyed it. Great story. Apparently I need fifty words to submit a review, so sorry in advance if you end up reading this whole thing. Still need twenty more words, sheesh. Wonder if short words fulfill the requirement. doe ray me fah so lah tee doe. That's it.
HyrielRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Once again, a very enjoyable story, wordsmith. I like this little multiverse you're building up. Looking forward to seeing more crossovers as I continue to read through your fictions. For people not the wordsmith, these stories are a mixture of dark humor, body hor...dys...stuff, and good world building. Give it a shot!
IstaNonCuroRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The synopsis caused me to be midly interested in the story, but I wasn't extremely on board with the premise.
Then I got a delightful and non-standard main character, great worldbuiding, humor, and a close-to-flawless execution.
I read the whole thing within a single day, even though I had to stay up till 05:00 for it.
I think that says enough about its quality.