The Cat's Favor
The dark corridor of the baron's villa.
"Kyaaa! My adorable little mouse!"
The being that seized me from behind in a tight embrace was the black cat goddess. Felicia's voice licked sticky and sweet against my ear.
"So cute! Still soft and fluffy!"
At the same time, a dazzling golden light burst with a sharp pung from the empty air behind me. Rodentia, suddenly solidifying into form, shoved herself right between Felicia and me.
"Heehee! I knew you were hiding here!"
"Eek—eugh..."
Felicia let her arms slide free of me and immediately scooped Rodentia up instead. Then she pinched the goddess's soft cheeks and stretched them wide, licking them with pure feline delight. Smoosh-smoosh. Lick-lick.
After a merry bout of grooming, Felicia suddenly sensed something off and tilted her head.
"Huh? Rodentia, are you sick? Is something wrong?"
Normally Rodentia would have bristled every hair, shrieked, and dived behind my back—or simply fled screaming. Today she offered not even the smallest resistance.
[...]
The Lord's thin, drooping shoulders trembled. Fat tears began to fall from her huge eyes.
[Uuu...]
Faced with that utterly defeated reaction, Felicia panicked and flailed.
"Huh? Y-you don't like being licked? Should I stop?"
I knew exactly why Rodentia was like this. Moments earlier I had seen the full horror of the basement through the shared vision of a horned mouse.
[...Do as you please, it is.]
"Nyaaang?"
Rodentia muttered in a hollow, emptied voice. Tears suddenly poured down her cheeks and soaked into Felicia's elegant dress.
[Just lick me and devour me as much as you like... it is...]
"...Why are you acting like this?! Rodentia? Are you hurt?"
[I am a goddess who deserves this... Not even a goddess—just a fool...!]
At last Rodentia broke. She burst into the sobs she had been holding back, a raw, gut-tearing wail.
[Because I... because I am a powerless, weak, forgotten god! That is why my poor people suffer such horrific fates every single day... it is!]
"...Huh?"
For the first time, genuine bewilderment clouded Felicia's seductive eyes.
"What's going on, Loti? Why is Rodentia crying so hard? Hmm?"
I clenched my teeth and laid out every filthy detail of the basement and the ominous demonic energy without holding anything back. When my dry, brutal report finished, the playful smile vanished from Felicia's face.
"...What?"
In that instant a fragment of her shadow peeled away like a snake and melted into the darkness of the corridor floor, vanishing. She had gone to see the basement for herself.
A short while later the shadow returned along the floor. Felicia's face was twisted into something bestial and terrifying.
"What...! These damn human pieces of trash...!"
Her voice was ice.
"This perfect, elegant Lady Felicia's refined taste is for plump, lively little mice that scurry happily on hamster wheels. Not that disgusting filth!"
She ground her sharp teeth with a sharp crack. At the sound, Rodentia lifted her head weakly and sobbed.
[Felicia... Felicia...]
"Yes! I'm listening!"
[You may lick me every day... Please help me, it is! I cannot bear to watch my pitiful children reduced to miserable chunks of meat...!]
Felicia clicked her tongue once, then gently licked the tears from Rodentia's cheeks. As her apostle I could no longer stay silent.
"Lady Felicia! I beg you as well, as an apostle. Those foundation bastards are vicious madmen!"
The murderous expression on Felicia's face instantly crumpled into something awkward.
"Nyaang...? Me?"
"Yes! You're a goddess, aren't you?"
Our desperate plea somehow seemed to put her in a very difficult position. Felicia rolled her eyes and made a strange face.
"Uh... well..."
"You can't? Why?"
[It is a request...! To drag the children out of that hell and bring the hammer of justice down on those trash, we need even one more pair of hands right now, it is!]
The answer that finally left Felicia's hesitant lips was:
"Uh... but I'm weak right now!"
"What? What did you just say?"
"I mean, I only woke up from my long sleep a little while ago, so my power is completely insufficient."
"No—when that great demon was summoned in Oakwood, you flattened every last one of those black mages!"
"That! Those idiots had scraped their mana dry summoning the demon, so they were easy pickings! Right now even a single sword cut would make me bleed and hurt, you know? Besides... from what I just scanned, that baron himself and the subordinates he keeps around are pretty heavy hitters! I absolutely hate pain!"
Felicia meowed and put on an exaggerated display of frailty.
"Then why in the world did you come to this dangerous place?"
"Well! I heard it was a refined charity party carefully looking after cute little mice! So I disguised myself properly, came to watch, and ate tons of free delicious food!"
I was speechless. For all her grand title of cat goddess, she was basically just a fancy stray. At that empty, disappointing answer, Rodentia's eyes went dead black with despair again.
[Aigoo...]
"Okay, okay! I'll help somehow! I have to protect our cute, fluffy mice."
"You'll really help?"
"Hmm, well? Somehow... in another way?"
Felicia shrugged and offered a troubled little smile. Still, in a situation where we had nothing, even one more ally was something to be grateful for.
Right then the vision of a spirit horned mouse synchronized in my mind flared with a sharp, urgent warning. The direction: the VIP lounge where the baron sat.
Huh? What's happening?
The firmly closed lounge door burst open and uninvited guests poured in. They wore neat suits, yet their heads were deeply hooded in dark robes—suspicious figures. The lounging nobles and bureaucrats, apparently familiar with them, paid the bizarre attire no mind.
The robed man hurried up and whispered urgently into Baron Schwarzenstein's ear.
"...Hm? Magical power? What? In the basement?"
The moment the word "basement" left his lips, the relaxed baron sprang from the sofa like a coiled spring. The robed man added in a shout:
"It appears a familiar has slipped through the detection net and infiltrated!"
The peaceful lounge erupted into chaos.
"What? Baron! Didn't you claim this place was a safe house guaranteeing perfectly private conversation?!"
"Everyone remain calm! I have already ordered a thorough search of the entire villa. There is no need for concern!"
Had the horned mice been discovered?
Everyone withdraw! Scatter immediately!
Felicia tilted her head.
"Oh my, did someone step on your tail?"
"Yes, we've been found out! We need to get out of here right now!"
As I spun to leave, Felicia snatched my shoulder and called out in a short, bright voice.
"Perfect! This flawless Lady Felicia will show you exactly how she can help, our cute little Loti!"
What the hell is she planning?
Before I could even finish the thought, Felicia's seductive silhouette melted smoothly into the shadow at her feet and vanished completely.
I returned to the banquet hall and gave Mani and Hilde the withdrawal signal with my eyes.
"Oh my, my stomach suddenly feels dreadful. The air is far too stuffy—I simply cannot remain. I must be going."
Hilde rose from her seat with perfect naturalness. Just as the three of us prepared to board the carriage, suspicious figures began to appear at the edges of the mansion garden. The same people who had reported to the baron were now combing the grounds inside and out with staffs in hand, hunting like they were after rats.
"Find them. They may still be nearby."
"I definitely felt it..."
An alien wave snagged against my sharpened senses—a cool, sticky energy that felt half holy power, half mana.
Is this the magical wave Hilde spoke of?
There was no time to analyze it. The search net was closing around our carriage, and the exit was already clogged with other vehicles.
We need to leave now...
Just as I considered abandoning the carriage and escaping on foot, a stray cat suddenly leapt lightly onto the empty coachman's seat.
"Meow!"
It was a tiny black cat with fur as dark as midnight. The moment its tail flicked, a thick, strange shadow poured out like spilled ink.
"This...!"
Something astonishing happened. The baron's men who had come right up to us walked straight past our carriage without so much as a glance, treating us as if we were invisible.
"...Did Lady Felicia send you?"
Instead of answering, the cat gave a single contented purr, then melted into the night like smoke and disappeared.
"Good. Let's get out of here before they catch on!"
There was still one more task. I pulled out a scrap of paper, gripped a piece of charcoal, and scrawled a message.
Baron Schwarzenstein's villa basement. Clear demonic energy and large quantities of beastman skeletons discovered. Immediate intervention requested.
I rolled the note tightly and secured it to the back of a spirit horned mouse with strong thread.
"You know the inn where Camilla is staying, right? Run there like a bullet and deliver this!"
"Squeak!"
The spirit horned mouse shot into the black bushes of the night street like a living arrow.
Only around dawn did we finally return safely to Hamster Wheel Village. Without resting, we spread every unsettling scrap of information gathered at the villa across the table and began piecing the puzzle together.
"But the more I think about it, doesn't something feel off?"
I grumbled while pressing my throbbing temples.
"Why go to the trouble of involving a remote place like Blackstone Mine for those horrific acts when they already have their own island right in their front yard? It only adds unnecessary transport costs and hassle."
Hilde and Sena, hearing my casual complaint, both opened their eyes wide at the exact same moment and stared at me.
"...Aha! That's right."
"Ah... am I actually an idiot? Why did I only notice now?"
Hilde slapped her own forehead as realization struck and let out an incredulous little laugh.
"Loti, you don't know Imperial language, do you?"
"Huh? Why are you suddenly talking about Imperial language?"
"In Imperial, 'Schwarz' means black, and 'Stein' means stone."
"Wait—then Baron Schwarzenstein is..."
Sena continued in a voice prickling with goosebumps.
"Blackstone! It means the Black Stone Baron! The name of that illegal mine was blatantly the nameplate of the baron's own house!"
No wonder. That was why the rotten police chief and every other high-ranking official had foamed at the mouth and blocked every search warrant for the mine. Blackstone Mine had been the baron's personal private property from the very beginning—his own front yard.
"By the way, according to what we overheard last night at the villa, we have exactly half a month left."
Mani spread a map of the kingdom's capital and border regions across the table.
"Creepily enough, the next full moon is the day it rises largest and roundest."
The site of the hunting event—Ratstein Island—lay in the middle of a vast lake on the border between the Winster Kingdom and the Adlerheim Empire.
"That's enough time to prepare."
If the report to Camilla worked, all the better. If it didn't, then we would have no choice but to insert ourselves into the event directly. Whatever hellscape unfolded on that island, we would smash the entire stage to pieces.
First we needed a clear picture of the hunting party those bastards had mentioned.
Hunting...
A certain horrific outline was already forming.
Wait—Camilla said she felt sticky demonic energy in the capital's back alleys.
The next day.
We began combing the musty back alleys of the poor districts near the capital, hunting the Ratstein Foundation's minions for live capture. Field mice and horned mice were scattered to form a dense, secret surveillance net.
...
Before long, an overt kidnapping scene filled the murky vision of a horned mouse.
This fast?
"Squeak!"
Beyond that shared sight, men deeply hooded in black robes were shoving a fainted mouse beastman girl into a black carriage like a piece of luggage.
"Those bastards!"
We hit the scene at once.
Thwip!
My bowgun spat arrows. Sharp heads mercilessly punched through the necks of the men climbing into the carriage.
"Gyaaaaah!"
"Damn it—ambush!"
The foundation's subordinates did not go down quietly. A sharp zing rang out as men who looked like mages hurriedly chanted, and blood-red barriers rose in perfect spheres.
"Everyone take cover!"
Arrows and magic crossed in a choking stalemate.
"Break those annoying barriers first!"
I drew the twin pistols from my belt. Just as my fingers found the triggers—
"Did you think this back alley belonged only to the mice?"
A woman's voice, languid and seductive enough to raise the hair on the neck, rolled through the alley like velvet thunder.
"This place has been our cats' most perfect hunting ground since ancient times as well!"
Hundreds of yellow and blue eyes flashed open all at once.
"Yaaaaooong!"
"Kyaaaaak!"
From rotting trash cans, from sagging rooftops, from sewer mouths—hundreds of stray cats that treated the capital's slums as their private domain poured down like a mad tidal wave and swarmed the baron's men.
"What the hell is this?! Damn crazy cats!"
"Get off! Ack! My eyes! My eyes!"
Hundreds of cats with razored claws latched onto faces and throats like living leeches. The mages still looked triumphant.
"Damn it! So these are the familiars! But they can't get through the barrier—"
The words had barely left their mouths when the impossible happened.
"Meow!"
The cats flattened. Literally. Cats are flexible enough to squeeze into narrow boxes; what followed looked like that ability taken to an extreme.
"Nyaaang!"
"Uwaak! The cats are inside the barrier!"
Cats squeezed straight through the magic shields. The mages flailed in panic as claws raked their faces. Moments later the barriers shuddered unnaturally and shattered. We seized the opening and pulled our triggers.
"Kheok...!"
The bloody chaos died almost at once. As if it had been waiting, a luxurious carriage trimmed in the finest ebony slid out of the darkness.
Huh?
The door clicked open. Felicia stepped down with elegant, sensual grace.
So that cat flood earlier was all her doing...
"Well? Just like last time! This Felicia always keeps her promises properly, you know?"
She covered her mouth with a feather fan and giggled.
"First I'll take that cute little mouse lady trapped in the carriage to my safe villa, wash her clean, and fatten her up nice and plump! Loti, you go ahead and twist those trash mouths open!"
"...Thank you for the support."
I seized the unconscious mage and bound him tightly.