Chapter 114: Pet 3
Chapter 114: Pet 3
Kim Ha-eun's rambling excuses and explanations, poured out like a confession, boiled down to this.
First, she'd been digesting nightmares as usual—caring for patients and absorbing their nightmares to make them her own. She was meditating behind a mana veil when suddenly—wasn't that the sound of a cat yowling?
She'd checked yesterday. None of the soldiers were afraid of cats.
And with an Incarnation already murdered inside the Academy,
here was this plainly suspicious black cat parked on her table, meowing its head off.
Apparently, black cats spelled curses and misfortune in this world, too.
She'd even used magic to chase it off or catch it, reaching both arms out toward the cat—
"So you're saying you came to outside the room?"
"Uh, I think I got smacked and flung out."
She'd passed out, she said, after a blur of a black afterimage and a sharp hiss from the cat.
After that, every attempt to re-enter the room had failed.
The racket I'd heard over the phone had been Kim Ha-eun hammering on her own door with magic.
"I'm not making excuses, it's actually strong, okay?"
Kim Ha-eun complained bitterly about being slapped unconscious and hurled out of her own room, but Lee Ha-rin's gaze stayed ice-cold.
Because her rest with me had been interrupted—by a woman who'd gotten herself smacked by a cat and called for help.
Kim Ha-eun hadn't been arrogant, but she'd always brimmed with confidence. Now she hung her head like a scolded child, looking so pitiful I tossed her a lifeline.
"That child is one I brought as well. She's a gift from Loyal Fang, a child with special powers, so don't be too hard on her."
If you factored in the gender reversal, this was the picture of a male student beaten up by a huge cat and chased out of his rented room, with his male friend here to mock him for it.
But to the eye, it was a slender woman—well, her chest and hips weren't slender, but her waist was—a beauty clutching her swollen cheek with tears welling up.
Tears of indignant fury, but my brain processed the sight rather differently.
"Ah, I knew it...!"
"I see. Just as the dog retrieved a lost document, the cat seems to possess the ability to expel things from its territory."
And so the two Incarnations, one dog, and I headed for the door in question.
"But what is this one?"
"A contracted animal from the Beast Constellations. A messenger. Like Incarnations with their Authorities, they have unique abilities. The cat that stole your room probably used one."
"Right? I didn't just get slapped and chased out by an ordinary cat, did I?"
"No, I mean, you definitely did get slapped and chased out by a cat. An Incarnate peer wouldn't have, but a cat did."
The two bickered back and forth, now on comfortable, informal terms.
Through it all, the Retriever had flopped down in front of the door with jerky still in its mouth.
When I moved to open the door and step inside, Kim Ha-eun started beside me.
"Careful, Constellat— I mean—"
Kim Ha-eun threw out a hand and made a huge fuss while Lee Ha-rin shot her a withering stare. The door opened smoothly, with absolutely nothing happening, making Kim Ha-eun's alarm a little embarrassing.
Well-maintained, it swung wide without a single ominous creak.
"What's your problem?"
"No, every time I tried to open it, something flew at me and smacked me!"
The Retriever squeezed between my legs into the room, and we all followed—into Kim Ha-eun's neatly kept room, as if the clamor I'd heard over the phone had been a lie.
'Hey, you didn't leave a dildo or something lying out, did you?'
'You crazy bitch, what are you talking about?'
'I'm asking if your room is fit to receive the Constellation.'
'How would I even get a dildo into the Academy? You want me to get publicly humiliated at the docks?'
The hushed voices behind me—I'd pretend I hadn't heard, for my Incarnations' privacy.
I liked seeing Kim Ha-eun like this, anyway—she who used to push herself to physical ruin with obsessive training.
The tidy room resembled the Academy's unadorned dormitory quarters.
Bed, table, desk and chair. Plain but orderly and clean furniture.
And in the middle of the room, on the table, sat a very large cat in the classic loaf position.
'Has it gotten bigger?'
A cat of pure black fur, looking big enough not to be outclassed even by the Retriever. It brought to mind photos of those one-meter-long Maine Coons or whatever they were called.
The phrase "there's a cat on the table" had never felt more literal.
"It's, uh, quite a bit bigger than I thought?"
Lee Ha-rin startled too, clearly not expecting the size. After teasing her for losing to a cat, she now seemed faintly embarrassed to be flustered by its bulk, even stumbling over her words.
Honestly, I wanted to call it a small panther, not a large cat.
"It really is strong, see? You didn't think I'd lose to a palm-sized kitten, did you?"
"It is definitely a cat, though."
Kim Ha-eun, desperate to salvage her pride by touting the cat's strength. Lee Ha-rin, diligently observing because the animal was, connected to a Constellation.
I left them to it and took a slow step forward, then another.
One step as I felt those bright yellow eyes, buried in black fur, fix on me.
One step as the cat yawned wide, glancing at the pure-white Fang.
And the Retriever matched my pace, step for step.
"Is this jerky a gift you brought?"
I asked, seeing it had gently set the jerky at my feet, and it nodded so vigorously its fur ruffled.
'This Retriever seems more dignified than my Incarnations.'
Feeling less like I was approaching a cat and more like I was offering food to a lion on safari, I picked up the jerky and took another step forward.
Behind me, I could sense both Incarnations stop talking and audibly swallow.
Still, maybe the elf body helped—I didn't get slapped unconscious by a paw punch the way Kim Ha-eun had when she got close.
I reached the table, close enough to touch, and only then had the thought.
"But now that I think about it, shouldn't Ha-eun be the one to give you this, not me?"
"Oh, right?"
We'd all been cowed by the cat's weird presence, but the key point was that this wasn't my pet.
Like it or not, it was a companion I, as a Constellation, had sent to her as an Incarnation.
Meaning it was Kim Ha-eun, not me, who needed to bond with it.
Seeming to agree, she swallowed hard, stepped forward, and took the jerky from my hand.
Her hand extended slowly, and we watched with intense seriousness.
It felt like a scene from a comedy or a zoo variety show, but it was genuinely serious.
Because this wasn't a relationship between a pet and a human—it was a horizontal one between a messenger and an Incarnation.
Kim Ha-eun was the only one inching forward with a deathly serious expression.
Lee Ha-rin and I watched from behind with faintly amused faces.
A cat sprawled lazily on the table and a beautiful woman lowering her posture to humbly offer jerky—it was a sight.
"Um...."
As Kim Ha-eun stealthily extended the jerky with one hand, the cat yawned wide and hissed at her.
She took the hint instantly and offered it with both hands instead.
Watching Kim Ha-eun go from deferential to outright groveling, Lee Ha-rin clamped both hands over her own mouth to stifle a laugh.
Was sincerity rewarded, as the saying went?
The cat leapt lightly off the table, snatched the jerky,
curled itself into a ball at Kim Ha-eun's feet, and gnawed at it with little chomping bites.
She crouched down, stealing glances,
and stroked the cat's long black fur with the happiest expression on earth.
So she'd tried to catch it because it was suspicious,
couldn't resist at all and got walloped by a paw punch,
and was, all along, utterly crazy about cats.
"Wow, so soft...."
She didn't even seem to realize her mouth was hanging open as she wrapped both arms around the cat like she was hugging a giant plush toy.
At first glance, almost comical—but in the end, looks won out.
A pale-skinned beauty buried in pure black fur looked like a magazine spread, stunningly beautiful.
"What are you staring at so intently?"
"Just thinking it's a relief I prefer dogs. Oh, and if you don't mind, could you take a look at this?"
As if she simply couldn't comprehend Kim Ha-eun's cat-person ways,
Lee Ha-rin—who'd been vigorously scratching the Retriever's scruff—held out her smartphone.
On the screen was a text message from a contact named "Han."
Since Kim Ha-eun was saved as "Kim," this "Han" was probably Han Ye-ji.
- hey me
- caught a bird
- not caught tamed?
- anyway caught a Korean Crow-Tit for the Constellation ggggg
Cats and dogs could understand human speech—why wouldn't a bird?
Some enraged bird was probably pecking at Han Ye-ji with its tiny beak right now.
And she, gentle-tempered as she was, wouldn't even think of beating a little Korean Crow-Tit to death—she'd just be fleeing with her arms wrapped around her head.
The scene painted itself so vividly in my mind that I let out a deep sigh. Lee Ha-rin smiled quietly.
"Kim Ha-eun looks like she'll be playing with her cat for a while. Shall we head back to the lodging?"
She meant I should send a clone to explain things to Han Ye-ji.
"Yes, let's return."
A Maine Coon photo for reference
