The Eve of the Hunt
Before the first light of dawn, the great exodus of Hamster Wheel Village began.
More than a hundred beastmen slipped out through the forest under cover of darkness, packs slung over their shoulders.
They walked the long road, and by daybreak the first place they reached was the Grand Cathedral of the Pantheon in the capital.
"Forgive us for bringing so many without any warning, Your Grace."
The one who met us through the morning mist was the same upright, white-haired Archbishop we had spoken with only days before.
"Oh, Goddess of the Hearth..."
The Archbishop swept his gaze over the refugees' wretched state and let out a deep sigh.
"Apostle of the Hamster Wheel, Loti. Raise your head."
He traced the holy sign across his chest and offered a gentle smile.
"This is the bosom of the Pantheon. We have cleared the cathedral's chapels and temporary lodgings, so you may stay here in safety for the time being. A baron's private soldiers would never dare search the cathedral's undercroft. Rest easy."
"Thank you...!"
The moment the Archbishop's assurance landed, Sena and Mani, who had been standing beside me, sank to the floor as if their legs had given out, exhaling in pure relief.
The biggest headache is solved.
For the day or two of the decisive battle, we would have a perfect sanctuary. At the very least, no one would loot our empty homes or strike our rear and pin us down. Our Rat Rangers could throw everything into striking the enemy's heart without looking back.
We were just finishing the evacuation of the non-combatants and heading out through the cathedral's back door when it happened.
"Myaaow."
From the darkness, a sleek black cat with a glossy coat leapt lightly down from the wall. It padded up to my feet, tail swaying.
"Wait. Don't tell me you're...?"
Looking closer, the face was familiar. It was the very same cat that had cast a concealment spell on us when we fled the baron's villa a few days ago.
The cat gave a short affirmative meow and spat something from its mouth onto the ground.
A crisp letter sealed with red wax.
I've got something to discuss, so come find me at this address, little mouse!
—Perfect Felicia
Elegant handwriting on the letter. And a sticky, luxurious perfume that set my nose vibrating.
I clenched the letter tight.
What is this?
The address on the letter led to the most expensive high-noble residential district in the capital of Dunholm, where land prices were said to be the highest of all.
Before a massive iron gate, Mani swallowed dryly, her face tight with nerves, and knocked on the heavy knocker.
Creeeeak.
"...You must be the guests the Lady spoke of. Enter."
The moment the gate opened, our entire party flinched and took a step back as one.
A towering bulk a full head taller than any of us. A vicious scar cutting across one cheek. Round leopard ears pricked high, and a thick tail swaying behind him — a predatory beastman stood before us.
His attire was impeccably neat and stiff, the sort of formal dress that marked him as nobility at a glance. And yet, draped over those clothes in a strangely adorable fashion, hung a pink frilled apron that was utterly mismatched to his frame.
"Um, is this Felicia's residence...?"
"It is. The Lady awaits you within."
The leopard-eared man folded his pot-lid-sized hands politely over his navel and guided us into the mansion.
Inside, at the center of a spacious drawing room laid with the finest carpets, Felicia lounged on a plush sofa in a luxurious house robe, her long legs crossed, tail swaying at her leisure.
"Oh my, you're early! My adorable little mice!"
"That man who just opened the door..."
I jerked my chin toward the firmly shut door, still half in disbelief.
"He's clearly a rich noble, right? You can just work him like a servant?"
"Oh my, why so surprised?"
Felicia snapped open a feathered fan and tilted her chin with arrogant grace.
"Isn't it the most natural law of the great outdoors that feline beastmen serve the great Cat Goddess? Whether human or beastman, becoming a kitty's butler is the glory of one's house!"
She laid out the sophistry with total confidence, but my doubts refused to fade. And it wasn't just that one beastman in the drawing room.
Everywhere I looked, feline beastman men of solid build, dressed in unmistakably expensive suits and formal wear, were attending to Felicia's every need. High nobles and big shots who clearly each held a seat of real power.
Don't tell me she used her divine authority for a honey trap?
The absurd reason revealed itself at once.
"Come! My faithful butlers! Approach and receive my blessing!"
At Felicia's gesture, the big shots in their sharply pressed suits dropped to their knees in unison beneath the sofa. Felicia smiled with maternal benevolence and stroked each of their heads in turn.
"Worship me and offer your tribute with devotion! Then hair shall sprout from dead follicles, and wealth shall roll of its own accord to your feet!"
"Ooooh! Long live the Goddess!"
Every last one of them had the blind, rapturous eyes of men ensnared by a cult leader. The leopard beastman in the apron stroked his newly lush crown and nearly wept with gratitude.
"Ooooh... Black Cat Goddess! To think you would grow hair upon my barren scalp!"
"Adlerheim Empire stocks are at a peak for the time being, so do not buy them! Purchase Valois Republic stocks instead! There will be market movement within a few days!"
"Ooooooh!"
...What. Don't tell me this is—
Right on cue, Rodentia explained.
"That's right! Apostle! I don't really know what stocks are, but that cunning Felicia has a taste for bestowing those petty, worldly blessings directly upon a small number of followers. She's a very peculiar one who milks tribute quite handsomely that way!"
The Cat Goddess was openly trafficking in miracles.
Once the brief rite was over, Felicia waved the nobles away with an air of boredom. She rose from the sofa and approached me.
"Loti! You wouldn't happen to have any cute little ones to bring me, would you? Hmm? With even a scrap of my power, I could throw off that baron's pursuit with ease!"
"We left them all at the Grand Cathedral."
"Tch!"
So that was her scheme. She'd meant to divert every last resident of Hamster Wheel Village into her own mansion.
"What a shame! If you only knew how lavishly our little darlings are cared for here, you'd have brought them at once."
"Cared for?"
Felicia crooked a finger with lazy confidence.
Following the guide, we opened a massive door deeper in the mansion — and Sena and I both stood with our mouths hanging open.
"Kyahaha!"
"Look at this, I drew it!"
An enormously wide, warm playroom. Inside, some dozen small beastman girls — rabbits, squirrels, hamsters, and more — were running about with pure, sunny joy.
"This Felicia scooped them up thriftily from the capital's back alleys!"
Every child wore soft, high-quality indoor clothes. Their cheeks were plump, their hair glossy. At one table, a cluster of beastman children even sat chewing cheese while taking arithmetic lessons from a professional tutor.
"All right, what's thirteen times thirteen? Who wants to answer?"
"Squeak! Me! Me!"
The children in class pricked their ears at the sound of visitors. The moment they spotted Felicia by the door, they broke into bright smiles and came rushing over in a pack.
"Felicia's here!"
"Today's snacks were so good!"
They clung to the hems of Felicia's splendid dress, laughing in peals.
"Kyaaaa! So soft and fluffy! The best!"
Felicia swept the children into her arms and rubbed her cheeks against them in pure rapture.
And the instant Rodentia witnessed that scene—
"Ah, aigoooo...!"
The golden phantom of Rodentia burst from my arms, clutched the back of her own neck, and staggered in midair.
"You sly, wicked thief-cat! So you've finally gone and stolen all my poor people away with money and sweet snacks...!"
Rodentia glared at the children with resentful eyes, looking ready to seize Felicia by her black hair at any second. But then her shoulders slowly sagged.
Perhaps it was the sight of the mouse girls, full-bellied and laughing without a care in that warm room.
"...Well. Even so."
Rodentia plopped down in midair and muttered in resignation.
"Better that they rest full and safe like that than starve and shiver on a cold street... That is enough. I may be a poor, forgotten goddess whose faithful have been taken from her, but if my children are that happy..."
Was this how a mother felt, holding back tears as she sent her child to a wealthy adoptive home?
Rodentia's pitiful monologue was just starting to cast a strangely solemn mood over the room when—
"Puhahaha!"
Felicia, who had been watching the whole sorry spectacle, clutched her stomach and burst into peals of laughter. She shot forward and swept the airborne Rodentia into a fierce hug.
"You foolish mouse! Stop that maudlin crying and take a proper look at what they do before they eat over there!"
Following the tip of Felicia's finger, Rodentia's gaze and mine both turned toward the snack table.
One hamster beastman girl, reaching for a sweet macaron, had pressed her hands together and closed her eyes, murmuring.
"Great Lord of the Hamster Wheel, Goddess Rodentia. Thank you for granting us this day our daily bread..."
A clear, earnest pre-meal prayer from those small lips. The other children, too, laid hands on their chests and called Rodentia's name in prayer before taking a single bite of their snacks.
"H-huh...?"
"I taught them thoroughly to offer every pre-meal prayer to you!"
"W-why?"
"Because I'm the proud goddess of cats, not the goddess of mice! Those are my precious pet mice, not my faithful, you know?"
Felicia winked cutely with one eye.
So she had simply cherished our kin that much, and nothing more.
"Waaaaah! You stupid dummy cat! I'm truly grateful!"
Overwhelmed, Rodentia poured out tears and buried her face against Felicia's chest. Felicia gently patted Rodentia's small back with her swaying black tail.
"There, there... Touched, are we, our Rodentia? You've calmed down, so I can lick you as much as I want now, right?"
"J-just a little licking is fine..."
As we finished our preparations to leave, Felicia handed us an unexpected gift.
"Myaaow~"
"Felicia? These ones are from back then...?"
Three black cats circled at our feet — the same kind as the one that had delivered the letter with the mansion address earlier.
Felicia planted her hands on her hips and puffed up with pride.
"My shadow cats! They're like those spirit horn-mice you handle."
From her explanation, they seemed to be agents of the Black Cat Goddess.
"You mean to break those poor mice free, don't you? These children will help with a safe evacuation!"
In short, they were cloaks of wide-area concealment and excellent guides all in one.
This is absolutely perfect.
We had even scored an unexpected tactical windfall.
Only a few days remained until the hunting festival. I assembled every Rat Ranger of the first and second classes — the ones who had already built bloody combat experience through defensive battles.
"All hands, attention."
I spread a wide map flat. My finger landed on a vast lake far to the north of the capital Dunholm, out on the borderlands.
"This is their stronghold and hunting ground — Ratstein Island."
At my briefing, the rangers craned their necks over the map.
"This island sits right on the knife-edge of the Winster Kingdom's northern border, while across the lake it also cleverly abuts Adlerheim Empire territory. It's a border enclave that straddles both."
Hilde, herself a former imperial noble, folded her arms and added the rest.
"In a position that ambiguous, neither kingdom's gendarmerie nor regular army can casually cross the lake. Move troops the wrong way and you instantly spark a serious diplomatic crisis over territorial violation."
Hilde tapped the center of the lake on the map with one finger.
"Baron Schwarzenstein exploited that geographic blind spot to perfection. He built a fortress-like villa and hunting grounds in a gray zone where neither nation's public authority can reach at all."
Mani scratched her chin and scowled.
"So that's why the gendarmerie and the Heresy Inquisition were so careful about it."
"Exactly."
I declared it without hesitation.
"If law and borders protect and hide them, then we who stand outside the law will strike first and cut their throats ourselves."
My gaze swept one by one over the rangers' venom-bright, resolute eyes.
"Our objectives are only two. The rescue of our fellow beastmen facing the threat of the hunt. And the certain assassination of Baron Schwarzenstein, the root of all evil!"
"The gendarmerie and the Pantheon will follow in behind us."
Sena took up the core of the operation.
"Using the chaos we create from within, the Heresy Inquisition and holy knights standing by, along with Inspector Coldwell's gendarmerie, will storm in under the pretext of catching a demon-worship site red-handed and arrest the baron. That's the heart of this joint operation. Everyone understand perfectly?"
If it meant stopping our innocent kin from being hunted like animals, we had no choice but to leap first into the middle of that blood-soaked hellscape ourselves.
"We will come back alive. All of us."
Preparations for the decisive battle complete, I and the elite Rat Ranger unit loaded ourselves into a wagon packed with weapons.
"Hyah!"
The ponies tore madly down the border highway into the pitch-black night.
A cool evening, just before the full moon rose.
At last our party reached the shore of the vast border lake, thick with dense fog.
Whooosh!
The night wind off the lake, heavy with moisture, swept roughly through the reed beds.
I jumped down from the wagon, raised a telescope, and stared beyond the thick mist.
"There."
In the middle of the lake, a massive villa thrust its sharp spires up through the ash-gray fog. All around the lakeside docks, the lavish yachts of the high nobles invited to this disgusting hunting festival sat moored in numbers, lights blazing.
A landscape of the enemy camp so overwhelming it made me swallow dryly.
But there was no fear.
Clack.
I yanked the loading lever of my bowgun and muttered coldly.
"We've arrived at the hunting grounds."
How many of our kin were over there? How exactly did the hunt work, that it led into a ritual? And above all — what was the purpose of the ritual?
Are they trying to summon something like Dragosius again?
Even the Grand Cathedral and the Heresy Inquisition had no firm answer on that point. Nothing of this scale had happened in recent times; the last similar incident was well over a century ago. The world must have been at peace for a long while.
Doesn't matter.
Coming to the capital of Dunholm had taught me one thing. I was not the kind of clever creature who could just leave these small, insignificant sister-kin behind.
So we kill them all. In the name of the Hamster Wheel!
It was time to reverse the places of prey and hunter.