Chapter 164
Chapter 164
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 164
Chapter Title: Cat Lord (5)
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-Flash!
A blinding light turned everything white for a moment. I could feel my whiskers standing on end from the crackling flow of electricity.
‘If I run into Rausian right now, I’m dead.’
My whiskers’ instincts were blaring a warning. At the sharp, tingling alarm from those instincts, I quickly ducked into a clump of dark dust. But the kittens, distracted by the giant dog grass...
-Grrrrumble!
-Boom!
The hands shooting down from the sky weren’t just one or two. There were at least ten shining hands rummaging through the air in search of the kittens. The kittens clawed and bit at the goddess’s hands as they darted this way and that. But Rausian seemed to have come prepared this time; the shining hands ignored their attacks and seized the kittens.
-Hiiiik!
-Shaaa!
The kittens thrashed and hissed furiously, but Rausian wouldn’t care about something like that. She surely wouldn’t just crush them like that, would she? The horrifying thought made my body shudder.
The remaining hands began searching the surroundings. I quickly flattened myself over the quill and wrapped my shadow cloak around me. I wondered if a shadow cloak would even work in front of a goddess...
-Swish.
Fortunately, it did. The shining hand rummaging through the dark dust clump poked around right in front of my nose before vanishing. The other hands searching the area did the same. Apparently deciding there was no quill here, the shining hands slowly rose back into the air, clutching the kittens.
-Grrrrrr...
-Flash!
And once more, there was a terrifying roar and a flash that could blind anyone. When I opened my eyes again, the surroundings were silent.
-Whoooosh...
-Shaaa...
Only the innocent dog grass swayed in some inexplicable wind.
* * *
Rage.
Rausian trembled with surging rage.
The nine cats who could freely traverse the nine worlds with their ‘privilege.’ The ‘Cat Council’ was an existence even gods found distasteful. Creatures that ignored and toyed with ‘rules’ and ‘order.’ To the goddess who upheld restraint and order, the Cat Council was nothing more than eyesores covered in fur.
The feeling when she realized those detestable furballs’ successors had stolen her cherished quill...
Rage.
No other word could describe it.
She had to tend to thousands, tens of thousands of rules and laws every day. To safeguard the world’s order, she was busier than any of the twelve gods—had been since the moment she became aware of her own existence.
Just the laws she had written and revised with her quill outnumbered all the cats in the nine worlds combined, no doubt. That made the quill an invaluable companion that had shared everything with her. No, more like a comrade-in-arms than an object. If Arjan needed his sword to uphold justice, Rausian needed her quill to uphold order.
Yet these ‘Cat Council’ fools, who treated rules like stray hairs, knew full well their successors had committed the blasphemy of stealing her quill—and not only refused to apologize, but wouldn’t even offer the slightest cooperation. All under the excuse of ‘maintaining the world’s balance.’
To Rausian, it was utter mockery. Anyone could see that she, the goddess of restraint and order, was the one maintaining the world’s balance. Not those ‘furballs’!
-But, Goddess. How can you be so ‘certain’? Isn’t there a ‘possibility’ that you simply lost the quill?
The impudent words of that golden-furred cat were unforgettable, even if the world ended.
Rausian had submitted the stray hairs floating around her office as evidence, but the Cat Council dismissed it with ‘a few hairs aren’t enough to pin it on a cat.’ They even cheekily countered by pointing out that her beloved hunting hound Lairaphes had fur too, and slipped away.
The world could only be properly maintained under perfect order and law.
Without the rules written in the ink flowing from the goddess’s quill, the world would surely plunge into chaos. And if the world fell into chaos...
They would open their eyes.
「But you foolish creatures dare not grasp its gravity.」
Rausian gazed down at the world of chaos and manipulated one of her shining hands. At her command, the hand seized the golden-furred cat.
「I shall make an example of you.」
-Kkuk!
「I will teach your children of chaos what order is.」
After burning this example until not even dust remained, she would give the rest of that ‘Cat Council’ a bitter lesson. They would pay the price for scorning ‘order.’
「In endless torment, you will come to understand true order.」
-Zzzzt!
Vicious lightning began crackling around the hand gripping the cat.
「An ‘end’ that is equal for all...」
That was when it happened.
“Rausian!”
An unexpected voice halted the goddess.
“I’ve come to make a deal!”
* * *
Hm? That sounds like a line I’ve heard somewhere before. Or maybe not?
Anyway, that’s not what’s important right now.
With Kali on the verge of becoming grilled cat, I hoisted the quill high and shook it. Incongruous with the dire situation, faint starlight fragments scattered beautifully.
-Zzzzt...
The lightning about to crisp Kali began to fade bit by bit. Only then did I stop shaking the quill and calmly looked up at the sky. The sky, filled with storm clouds, resembled the face of an enraged goddess.
「A deal...?」
“That’s right! A deal!”
The shining hand tossed Kali aside and pointed its index finger at me.
「Your words are wrong.」
“Which part?”
「That quill is mine by right. So how could there be a ‘deal’?」
“It’s in my hand right now, isn’t it?”
「So return it, and I shall spare you.」
“I can’t do that.”
「Why?」
Rausian’s voice sounded genuinely baffled as she asked again. I gazed at the kittens dangling limply in the shining hand, too exhausted to struggle, then opened my mouth once more.
“I...”
「...」
“...am the Cat Lord.”
-Kaboom!!!
Flash! Thunder crashed again. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the light and roar to pass, then opened them and stared straight at the sky.
“Goddess, if the world learns you caused all this over mere kitten pranks, they’ll laugh at you!”
「‘Pranks’?」
“Yes. There was no malice in them! It was all just curiosity...”
-Grrrrumble!!!
A thunderclap that could rupture eardrums boomed, but I pressed on undeterred.
“Rausian. I know how much effort you put into upholding the world’s order.”
「And yet you dare speak so lightly?」
“But...”
「Silence, creature.」
“Isn’t order something that exists because of chaos?”
-Flash!
Lightning struck again. With the goddess’s rage at its peak, bolts writhed within the storm clouds as if ready to plunge down any second.
「If you utter another word...」
I dared to cut off the goddess.
“Don’t forget—you too were born from chaos!”
Indeed. The twelve gods had all been born from chaos. Without chaos, the twelve gods wouldn’t exist.
Chaos was ‘possibility’ itself.
Even the goddess of order had chaos at her roots.
As I said, order couldn’t exist without chaos.
In a world of perfect order, there’d be no need to uphold it.
“If you erase them, the very ‘order’ you seek to establish will vanish too.”
「...」
“So for your own sake, show mercy.”
I carefully lifted the quill toward the sky with both hands. A shining hand approached slowly and took it. At that, the kittens began meowing indignantly.
“Quiet!”
I sternly scolded them, then looked up at the sky again.
“As the Cat Lord, I politely request: release these little agents of chaos now.”
「I cannot.」
“That breaks our agreement.”
「Strictly speaking, no ‘contract’ has been made yet, ‘Cat Lord.’」
A contract, huh.
Figures—the goddess of order wouldn’t let it slide so easily.
I silently watched as the shining hand tore open the storm clouds and wrote something with the quill.
「‘Cat Lord,’ you are right. Order exists to rectify chaos. Thus, I, Rausian, shall establish another order here and now.」
“What is it?”
「The nine little chaos agents shall not traverse the nine worlds until they receive order’s education.」
「...」
I glanced at Kali for a moment. He shook his head, but I nodded.
As I said, order needs chaos, and chaos needs order. Even these kittens, chaos incarnate, needed to learn the world’s laws.
“Very well.”
The shining hand returned the quill to me. I took it, signed atop the storm clouds, and handed it back. Then the hands holding the kittens set them down on the ground. The kittens, now on the ground, puffed up their fur and hissed at the hands, but it was pointless.
「May we never meet again, ‘Cat Lord.’」
“...Likewise, Goddess.”
-Rumble!!!
With a final thunderclap, the storm clouds swallowed the shining hands. When I blinked, the sky had returned to its starry galaxy-filled state. Only then did my legs give out, and I collapsed onto the spot.
[Special Quest: Kitten Rescue Operation success!]
[Reward: Goddess of Luck Riadel’s ‘Key of Luck’]
...Wait, Riadel?