Fox, Meet Boss
"Meow-."
"..."
I lost.
Pathetic as it was, I had to say it again: I had lost.
And I was an Awakened... yet I had been defeated by a stray cat!
The stray cat was sitting on top of my head, where I lay face-first on the ground, calmly grooming its fur. It was the full, flawless humiliation of a victorious cat taunting the loser.
"Ugh... how could this happen..."
I ground my teeth in frustration and replayed the fierce battle that had just taken place.
At first, I had charged in with complete confidence, only to trip over the shirt I was wearing. Then the cat had slapped my fallen face with a flurry of paw strikes.
Even so, I hadn’t given up. I’d gotten back up and rushed it again, only for the cat to toy with me using its nimble movements before biting my exposed tail when I let my guard down.
And now.
Hungry and drained of even the strength to rise again, I was the one who had been defeated.
"Pathetic..."
It was so miserable, so humiliating, that even after becoming an Awakened and still losing to a stray cat, tears began to gather in my eyes.
"..."
Then the cat looked down at me in silence, sighed, and hopped off my head to walk over to a bowl of kibble.
It tapped the bowl with one paw and nudged it toward the tip of my nose.
"...Huh?"
"Meow."
"Y-you're giving that to me?"
I asked carefully, and the cat answered by staring at me with a puff of breath through its nose.
It looked as though it was telling me to eat, but the last scraps of my pride rose up to stop me.
"Don't be ridiculous! Move it! I'd rather starve to death than accept pity like this!"
I shouted with my final shred of pride, but the cat slowly placed a paw against my forehead, wearing that lofty, composed expression of its own.
"...Huh?"
"Meow."
It looked as though it understood my hunger, as if it were saying, It's fine to hold onto your pride, but if you survive today, there will still be a tomorrow.
To think I was being cared for by a cat, my eyes welled up, and I clenched my teeth before wolfing down the kibble it had yielded to me.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... Cat... no, from now on, I'll call you Boss!"
"Meow."
It felt like it was smoking a cigarette and asking, Tastes disgustingly good, doesn't it? but I thanked the cat... no, Boss, and filled my stomach.
It was embarrassing to say, but the kibble was really delicious.
A human losing to a cat and eating cat food might well make me unfit to be called human, but as Boss had said, I would have to survive if I wanted to remain one.
"Thank you, Boss!"
"Meow."
After I finished eating and thanked him, Boss, who had been watching while grooming himself, flicked his tail as if it were no big deal.
Then he got to his feet and started off somewhere. After a few steps, he looked back at me and sent me a clear, come-along look.
"You want me to follow you, Boss?"
"Meow."
"Got it."
I didn’t know why, but I had already received his grace once, so I trusted Boss and followed behind.
Boss climbed the back mountain with ease, while I huffed and puffed just to keep up.
Instead of taking the normal hiking trail, we cut through thick grass on the opposite side and eventually reached a place where two rocks had locked together.
Several other stray cats were lounging there, and when I appeared they jumped, wary, or ran away.
"Meow."
But at a single word from Boss, the cats cautiously began to observe me.
"So Boss is the boss here..."
I was admiring the way he could settle a flock of confused cats with one word when I finally came back to my senses and spoke.
"Um... would it be okay if I stayed here for a while?"
At my question, the cats stared at me as if considering something, then blinked twice.
Instinctively, I understood that this meant I had been allowed, and I blinked back in return.
The tension that had been hanging in the air vanished like melting snow, and everyone went back to what they had been doing.
I, too, leaned against a rock and sat down to rest like the other cats, and Boss stretched out on the sunniest spot atop the boulder to sunbathe.
"So this is Boss's home... Do the other cats live here too?"
"Meow."
Boss seemed to be saying that this place was his territory and that the others only gathered here regularly.
I had no idea cats even had social gatherings like that, but somehow it felt completely plausible coming from Boss.
"Haaah..."
Once I relaxed, fatigue caught up with me all at once, and instinctively I tucked myself into a crack between the rocks and curled up slowly.
"I'm tired..."
Too many things had happened in a single day, and exhaustion rolled over me in a wave. Then I suddenly remembered the status window I had seen that morning.
"Come to think of it, I never checked my status window."
I waved my hand at the air for a moment, then tried whispering just in case.
Name: Naru
Gender: Female
Job: Fox (F)
Skills:
Danger Sense (C)
Fluffy Tail (F)
"Oh, it came up."
I stared at the status window in wonder, but soon my expression stiffened.
"That's it?"
Startled, I looked closer, but nothing changed.
I had already guessed from the ears and tail on my head that my job was a fox, but the problem was the letter written beside it.
"Does F mean F-class?"
F-class.
It meant I was an Awakened, yes, but only marginally stronger than an ordinary person, an absolute bottom-tier rank that couldn’t even be compared to the E-class right above it.
In practice, I was treated like a normal civilian.
So even after awakening, I was stuck at F-class? I wondered if there was anyone with worse luck than me.
Well, I had lost to Boss, too, so it wasn’t exactly hard to understand, but it still annoyed me.
Still, I did have two skills, so I looked back at the window to check them.
Job: Fox (F)
You can use abilities based on the characteristics and habits of a fox.
The simple explanation made it hard to know how to react.
I wasn't sure I understood, but it made one thing even clearer: I really was a fox.
"If the F stands for 'fox,' that'd be nice, but that's not what it means, is it."
A fox's traits were ears and a tail, and its abilities... did foxes even have abilities to begin with?
I had my doubts, but I moved on to the skills.
"Danger Sense sounds good. Let's see what it does."
Danger Sense (C)
You instinctively detect situations that pose a threat to you. Synergy with the Fox job raises its rank.
"That doesn't sound bad."
Come to think of it, when I had first run from the alley to here, I hadn’t been able to see ahead because of the boxes, but aside from bumping into things a few times, I hadn’t been badly hurt.
Maybe I’d used this skill unconsciously.
I was too frazzled to remember clearly, but I was sure I had heard a car engine too.
Besides, foxes were naturally cautious animals, so it seemed like this danger-sensing ability had improved as well.
Honestly, it felt less like I was a fighter and more like I was a sensor-type.
"Then the next skill is..."
Fluffy Tail (F)
The fur on the tail is thick and soft. Touching it feels nice.
"..."
I couldn’t even tell whether this was supposed to be a skill.
No matter how low F-class was, shouldn't there be some kind of special power attached to it?
"Sigh..."
I wanted to get angry, but I didn’t want to waste any more energy, so I could only let out a sigh and give up.
"Fine. I heard I can get stronger in the Tower later, anyway. It’s not like I have no chance."
Once again I resolved to grow stronger and succeed, and using my soft, fluffy tail as a pillow, I closed my eyes.
"Meow."
"Kyaa?!"
Boss slapped my face with a paw, and I shot upright in surprise.
"B-Boss? What's wrong?"
When I looked around, the other cats had already left. Boss was the only one still there.
And somehow, night had fallen, leaving everything pitch black with not a speck of light.
"It's still night. Why did you wake me?"
"Meow!"
At my question, Boss yowled as if I were hopeless, then moved as though telling me to follow him.
"I'll come, Boss!"
Strangely enough, even though Boss had black fur and should have been hard to see in the dark with no light at all, I somehow never lost sight of his back as I followed.
No, it wasn’t just Boss.
I could also make out the surrounding objects, awkwardly but clearly.
"Is this awakening... the power of my fox job?"
The explanation had said I could use the habits and abilities of a fox, and now that I thought about it, foxes were nocturnal animals, so this much was only natural.
Still, it was impressive.
This was awakening!
This was a fox!
I am the strongest!
Thud-
"Kyaa?!"
Just then, my foot caught on a rock I had failed to see, and I tumbled end over end.
Fortunately, I landed in a soft patch of grass nearby, so I wasn’t hurt, but Boss, who had been leading the way, turned and looked at me with clear disappointment.
"Meow."
"I-I just made a little mistake. I'm not used to the ability yet..."
Boss scolded me to focus, then took the lead again. I followed behind him, carefully watching his movements.
And at some point, Boss slowed down and lowered his body swiftly.
I wondered what he was doing, but then his pupils widened, his hips and tail twitched, and he shot forward to seize something.
Rip!
"...!"
Boss appeared before me with a mouse in his mouth, looking magnificent and triumphant.
Only then did I understand what he had been trying to show me.
Boss was teaching me how to hunt.