Chapter 350
Chapter 350
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 350
Chapter Title: Petting 100 Cats
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[System: Rationality score recovering through 'Fun Time with Cats'.]
[System: -9 penalty applied due to 'Repetitive Action Penalty'. Recoverable rationality score is 1~10-9 (values below 0 are treated as 0).
Mental fortitude check... Success. Recovery amount is 1 point.]
Scratched right down to the floor.
Can't recover any more with this method.
These damn things have bugs everywhere else, but they're annoyingly meticulous about managing rationality and madness.
For the record, it doesn't trigger once per cat. It's more like once every 7 to 13 cats.
"All done?"
"That was the 99th one."
Jang Hyun-deok let out a sigh.
"Hmm..."
Thanks to that last recovery, my rationality score must've crossed some threshold.
My mind felt clearer. Enough to start thinking about other things.
'Two days, right?'
I'd vanished without a word for two days, so it was natural they'd worry...
But wasn't the intensity of that worry a bit much?
I'm not a kid, after all. And I'm a fixer, aren't I? I can be gone for a week or more if I get tangled in something weird—and it happens pretty often.
'Ah. But this time was different from usual.'
Heo Sang-hyun must've sensed Shoggoth waking up and figured something happened to me.
Panicked, he'd have sent Jang Hyun-deok to check...
Two days was plenty of time to learn I'd crossed paths with Jeok-du and that disaster had struck Cheong-ho's mansion.
No idea what happened to Hyun-ah, but since her phobia hasn't changed, she's still alive.
But Hyun-ah's survival has a time limit.
[! Time Limit: Jeok-du will die in (1) day. !]
[! Time Limit: Jeong Hyun-ah will cease to exist in this world in (1) day. !]
Unlike Jeok-du, who's marked for 'death,' Jeong Hyun-ah is set to 'cease existing.'
Something huge is probably going down tomorrow.
Banished to another dimension? Or maybe transformed into something even worse than now.
'Ugh...'
Just picturing Hyun-ah made a wave of body-shaking fear wash over me.
Her madness-filled scream as the mansion crumbled.
"Hyun-deok. Did you swing by Cheong-ho's place too?"
Before I even finished asking, Jang Hyun-deok's face drained of color, his body trembling.
"Th-there was this massive pyramid there..."
A pyramid?
No clue what they're scheming, but at least they haven't fled far away.
Anyway—
'No wonder Jang Hyun-deok and Heo Sang-hyun were worried.'
From the info they had, it must've looked like Shoggoth ate me.
I stroked the butt of the calico cat nuzzling into my arms and said to Jang Hyun-deok,
"Worried about me?"
"Yeah."
"Sorry."
"Uh..."
Jang Hyun-deok scratched his head awkwardly.
"Had some trouble, couldn't reach out. Lost my smartphone too. And... hey."
Pretty sure I dropped it at Cheong-ho's.
"Yeah?"
"Stop scratching your head. Don't you know why you're wearing that bandage?"
He'd scratched so much the sloppy bandage was unraveling, exposing limp blond strands sticking out.
"Ah. Right."
I summoned mana to readjust the bandage wrapped around his head and said,
"Lend me your phone."
"Why?"
"Gotta call Sang-hyun too."
"Oh."
I dialed Heo Sang-hyun and gave him an update.
"I'm fine. Yeah. Oh, lost that. Yep. Mm. Makes sense. No, opposite. Thanks to the spell you cast, I survived. Impressive work. Triggered perfectly. What? No, what are you... C-calm down. Calm. Yeah. I'm really okay."
Meow~ Meow~
Ah, yeah, yeah.
I soothed the cats nagging me to pet them faster and kept talking.
"Yeah. Since I'm out, I'll wrap things up and head back. Probably around dawn. Yeah. Jang Hyun-deok's here— What? No. Don't expect that level of smarts from him. Mm, you know too, huh. Yeah. Got it. Okay."
I ended the check-in call at a good point and handed the smartphone back to Jang Hyun-deok.
"Wait, wizard! Why my intelligence?"
"Eh, not important."
"No, what does Sang-hyun know?"
"Nah. Nothing."
I brushed off Jang Hyun-deok's protests and picked up the last cat.
"Ah, the 100th? Right?"
Jang Hyun-deok's attention shifted elsewhere instantly.
Always so scatterbrained.
"Yeah."
"Home now?"
"Nope. You didn't catch what I said earlier, did you?"
He jutted his chin, frowning.
"Some challenge thing? Didn't we just finish?"
Petting 100 cats wasn't just to recover rationality. If that was it, there were faster, simpler ways.
"It's a ritual, I said. Now it starts."
As I spoke, I lightly kissed the tip of the 100th cat's nose—then blew breath into it.
Yeah.
This was a ritual to meet a god.
An absurd ritual that only works because this world's a game.
The moment the conditions were met, a message window obscured my vision.
[Achievement unlocked! You have gained favor from 100 cats.
You have obtained the 'Rare Achievement: Mad Cat Lover.'
As achievement reward, a hidden event triggers.]
An achievement you can't get by just petting and moving on.
Only a cat maniac who painstakingly earns cat favor 100 times could uncover this hidden event.
* * *
Meow~ Nyaa~
The 100 cats I'd bonded with over two days began surrounding me and Jang Hyun-deok.
"Wh-what?"
Jang Hyun-deok looked around in bewilderment.
Weong~ Eung~ Meow~
The cats stared at us with eerie, glowing eyes.
Completely different from before. Eyes holding wisdom beyond human, deep and uncanny.
Heterogeneous enough to instinctively terrify anyone who met their gaze.
[System: 'Madness of the Abyss' trait activates. Nullifies surreal fear and awe.]
Crackle!
"Urgh— Wizard? What's happening?"
Jang Hyun-deok edged toward me, trying to escape the encircling cats.
What good does that do? My lap's full of them too.
"Wizard? Uh, I— Wizard?"
"Wait. Let me stand."
They'd been cats until now, but they're Cat Lords from here on.
I carefully set down the cats in my arms one by one so they wouldn't be uncomfortable—finally managing to stand.
"And take this."
I pulled a mask from my pocket and tossed it to him.
"Huh? Isn't this the mask you use when eating?"
"Yep. Good for newbies. Full-face ones are hard to breathe in."
"Uh... Wear this? Am I joining the mask club?"
He didn't say it, but his face screamed reluctance.
I let out a short sigh and said,
"Remember when I said not wearing a mask is dangerous? Not a joke. Better put it on if you don't want your face ripped off."
"Eek!?"
Jang Hyun-deok slapped the mask on in a frenzy.
"What's going on?"
"Hm, suits you pretty well."
"Wizard?"
Ah, mask's not the point.
I shook my head lightly and answered.
"Ever heard you can't say your name in Cheon-geum-dang?"
"Oh... 'Cause the Myeong-geum Great King can't know your name?"
"Right. The one we're meeting can't see your face either."
"Meeting who?"
"[The King of the Cat Kingdom]."
"Wizard, you sure you're okay?"
Jang Hyun-deok leaned in suspiciously. I shoved his face away and replied.
"Not a fairy tale, so relax."
[Cat Goddess], [Elder of Cats].
Or [Bastet].
If [Scaled Schemer], aka [Sobek], is an [Abyssal Being] modeled after an Egyptian god—then [Bastet] is an [Ancient God] modeled after an Egyptian goddess.
In other words, a transcendent being hostile to Abyssal Beings, just like [Myeong-geum Great King].
Meow~
The cats surrounding us moved in unison. Toward the depths of this small forest.
Now, I'd meet that [Bastet].
* * *
"Something's off, right?"
Jang Hyun-deok, looking sharp in his mask, asked from behind me.
"What's off?"
"Was this forest—this big?"
The spot we were in was a small wooded area in Unjeong Lakeside Park.
Paju City had neglected maintenance, so trees and grass grew thick, but not this dense and creepy.
"This isn't that forest anymore."
Ghost Road.
Or Dreamland, if you want another term. Not the deep parts—just the outskirts.
The guiding cats had turned into abstract, bizarre silhouettes, fuzzy and amorphous.
Merging and splitting among themselves—deformed, but still evoking cats.
"How much farther?"
He sounded pretty anxious.
Jang Hyun-deok huddled, glancing around nonstop.
"Feels like something's watching us. This chilling gaze, super intense..."
That's the normal reaction, actually. Without [Madness of the Abyss], I'd feel it too.
This is Ancient God territory.
Plus, [King of the Cat Kingdom] isn't some nice fairy-tale figure despite the cute title.
Not evil, though.
"It's fine. As long as you don't harm cats, nothing happens."
More precisely, it ignores anything unrelated to cats.
"Then why'd it call us?"
"Not you. Me. I bonded with 100."
"Ah— Aha! That's why?"
Took him this long. Impressive.
The cats' movement halted at some point, forcing us to stop too.
"We're here."
"Huh? We just stopped, didn't we?"
No different from before. Just a gloomy forest.
No altars, symbols, temples. Not even an interactable object.
Just the middle of a wooded thicket.
But that's just human thinking.
I had Jang Hyun-deok step back, then addressed a random direction.
"Your kin led me here. If you're not hungry, would you hear me out briefly?"
If you're not hungry—
Jang Hyun-deok, realizing that meant we could be eaten if it was, yanked my clothes urgently, but I continued.
"100 of your kin vouch for my identity. If you're not absorbed in something more amusing, would you hear me out briefly?"
Srrrrr~
[System: 'Ancient God – King of the Cat Kingdom' shows interest in you.]
In endless darkness. Eleven, twenty-two.
In the dizzyingly vast forest depths. Thirty-three, forty-four.
Fifty-five, sixty-six. Eerie lights begin to bloom.
Seventy-seven, eighty-eight. Bizarre glows indistinguishable as stars or jewels.
Ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine.
Things cat-like, yet not cats.
Hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four, five, six.
Terrifying gazes igniting endlessly from all directions.
Thousand, two, three, four, five...
Nah, better stop counting.
Far too many eyes staring at us to count.
The whimsical, bored gaze of a predator.
Barely cat-like, ineffable abstract forms.
As if hundreds, thousands of cat souls gathered in one spot.
Soon, all the cats watching us opened their mouths at once—
* * *
Speak.
Hello. I'm Kim Shin-hwa.
No interest.
Some call it a feast offering.
No interest.
I'm fighting Abyssal Beings. Help in that fight would be great.
No interest.
One Abyssal Being forcibly turned a young human into its kin. A way to reverse that would be great.
No interest.
One Abyssal Being's power really bothers me. Sharing power to protect my mind and body would be great.
No interest.
I'm trapped in a weird world against my will. Teaching me how to return to my original world would be great.
No interest.
One Abyssal Being unfairly cursed my mind. Lifting that curse would be great.
Boring. Begone.
I have this amazing, cool tiger by my side. It's fought Abyssal Beings with me for ages.
Four-Tiger Sword?
Some call this tiger the Four-Tiger Sword. Born in sword form, but forged in Tiger Year, Tiger Month, Tiger Day, Tiger Hour—so a strong, beautiful tiger soul resides within.
I know.
If someone helped me, this tiger would be thrilled too.
Show me.