“Meow.”

I…meant to say “hello,” but whatever. Surely the people in the cabin would know what I meant, right?

Surely they’d see my big cat ears and my wavy cat tail and see from my body language that I was horribly cold and scared and lonely?

I’d gone from timid to brash to timid again. Just moments ago I’d been so devoted to my goal of entering this cabin that I felt prepared to knock over its inhabitants and steal the territory. Or just dig into a corner and hiss at whoever tried to whack me with a broom. It wasn’t a very well-thought-out plan. Scratch that: it was never a plan to begin with, just me doing the best I could with the situation that Sierra and a bunch of raccoons, in their combined mischievousness, had thrown me into. And now I was doubting the not-plan. The zing of adrenaline was leaving me.

After I knocked, my fist hovered in the air, losing its fire. I tried to listen beyond the door, tried to sense whether anyone’s feet were coming.

Yes! Someone was there!

Light footsteps hurried to the door. Maybe they were excited to see me!

The door opened in a flash.

Behind it: a girl with a close-cropped cap of green-tinted, near-white hair who looked downright angry.

She took one look at me—a single scan, up and down—and slammed the door shut.

I couldn’t believe it.

“Meow!” I wailed, pounding on the door with both fists. “Meow mraow meooow!”

At first, my wailing was furious. Sooner or later, SP or no SP, I’d punch down this door.

But then my wails were choked with sobs. Tears streaked my face as I threw my fists against an unmoving door. My legs became weak, and I slid down to the ground, kneeling—and still pounding.

At that point, I wasn’t even speaking anymore. I was just sobbing.

Who was this new girl? Why couldn’t I make her understand!?

Then my SP ran out.

Cats can’t cry. The feeling of tearing up due to nothing but emotion was bizarre to me. Now that I had poofed back into a sad orange tabby, I just felt devastated. I almost wished I could have cried more.

I shrank into a ball right on those concrete steps.

If any raccoons were coming, they could have me.

Minutes passed. Five, then ten.

Nothing but the sounds of the forest had answered me. But dark skies had come and the night was long, and anything could have been out there.

And then…

Light footsteps returned to the door.

The door opened again, but slowly this time.

My ears twitched to attention. I lifted and turned my head.

The young woman was looking for a cat-eared human again, wasn’t she? But would she know that I was right here, that I didn’t look like that form anymore?

Maybe she wouldn’t, maybe it was a lost cause.

Poking her head out of the doorway, she sized me up again. This time, her gaze lingered. Then her eyebrows squinched together in confusion.

Of course, my fur was yellow and stripey, and so was the hair of my nekomata form. I had to hope she was putting the pieces together.

She looked out toward the woods and cupped a hand around her mouth. She called out a single, long word I understood immediately: “Hellooooo?”

What the heck was she doing? Was she trying to lure owls or something? I shivered with brief fear.

She said something to me in a dwindling voice. What was it? An apology? A threat? I had no idea. Her body language suggested nothing but irritation and, again, confusion.

Hm…maybe I could dart into the house while she still had the door open. Find a corner or a basement where she couldn’t get me out. Maybe find those other two girls.

Instead, the green-haired girl acted before I could. She seized me, gathered me in an awkward heap against her chest, and kicked the door shut.

She was taking me inside—and upstairs?

The cabin passed by in a blur. I flailed, trying to get a better view, but the green girl’s arms fought me for the whole walk. Did I see the red of that fireplace flame?

All I could gather about the staircase was that it was short and dark. Our destination, though, was glowing a delicate yellow.

When we got there, the girl dropped me onto the ground.

I landed immaculately on a white floor rug. No thanks to her.

This green one wasn’t showing me any respect (like the pink one did) or even any fear (like the witch one did). She was an out-and-out jerk.

Sure, I was inside the cabin, but I had to share it with a beast.

Immediately after dropping me, she paid me zero attention—flopped into a little rocking chair and pulled out a scruffy book. She studied it so intensely that her green eyes could’ve been meteorites. Black joggers did nothing to make her look relaxed. The gray turtleneck made her look downright severe.

She sat in a white rocking chair in a white-plush room of lace, doilies, bows, and sashes. One side was full of shelves and cabinets all covered in figurines, immaculately carved from wood and stone. They seemed to be animals because they had four feet, but were too smoothly abstract for me to know for sure. Eerie and cold, to my eyes, yet she probably saw them as cute or something. Another side was dominated by an incredibly large cottony bed. If this was her room with her decorations, then I figured she had some fussy aristocratic manners that I just hadn’t seen yet.

Or maybe I was biased because she had just thrown me.

Whatever. I was safe, and that should have been enough to make me happy. Or content.

I crawled into the corner of the room and hopped onto a marshmallowy ottoman, growling all the while. Then, for good measure, I whipped out my claws and casually scratched up the top of that ottoman. Would I get thrown out for this? Not tonight. The girl did not look up, though if she truly didn’t notice by now, surely she would by tomorrow.

I simmered in my anger for a while, but eventually I cooled off.

My body language relaxed when I reminded myself that everything here was perfectly calm. The green-haired girl was still. Rigid, and grimacing for seemingly no reason other than my existence, but still. And all the austere wooden figures almost looked like an audience of guardian angels.

I became aware of a ticking clock on a small table by the girl’s side.

…And all the questions I hadn’t yet answered!

The big one was the question of the pink girl’s doppelganger from Earth. Some person I recognized. I was sure that if I could just see her again, that déjà vu would come back to me and I’d get the answer.

Beyond that were countless questions about human society, manners, and norms. The one question that tortured me right now, though, was the identity of that Treasure I’d found.

Up to this point, I’d put things into my Inventory but never taken things out. This weird hyperspatial thing felt so uncertain. What if the whole thing went haywire?

…And sent random objects flying against this jerk’s walls? Okay.

Inventory.

Inventory: 1/3

Treasure: ???
Found in Rabbitfoot Hills.

No help at all. But at best, it proved the thing still worked. Inventory tip?

Error: “Inventory Tip” is an Invalid Request.

Gah! Inventory huh.

Message from Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata

I’m in shock. All that time forced into your nekomata form and you haven’t once insulted me.

Why wasn’t she telling me abo—wait, she had a decent point there—w-wait again! I wasn’t gonna insult Sierra just because she told me I should! I mean, that would defeat the whole point of an insult, if the insult-ee actually wanted it!

Sierra! I shouted mentally. You are amazing!

…It’s actually disturbing how well that worked. It seems my experiments have gone too far. You, Taipha, are the most gullible cat I’ve had the pleasure of tormenting to date.

…

YOU ARE THE WORST, MEANEST, MOST-DEVIL-IN-PLAIN-SIGHT-EST—

Hey, hey! That’s harsh. Just “say,” in your head, the name of the item while visualizing that item in front of you. Phew, it’s getting hard to think with you insulting me so cruelly! It definitely doesn’t feel like a first-grade playground in here! I better get myself to safety!

WILL YOU STOP INSULTING ME? I THOUGHT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE MY SAVIOR OR SOMETHING!

Error: Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata is unavailable. She is not accepting messages at this time.

That was simultaneously among the worst, the most bizarre, and the only conversations I’d ever had. Thinking back, that meant all the conversations I’d ever had were bad. Even the ones with other cats, if those even counted.

The System wasn’t gonna bother to tell me what my item actually was, but at least Sierra had told me, uh…something. What was it? Oh, right, visualize and say its name.

Wait…could I even visualize it?

Back in the burrow, I’d known that I was grabbing a box. But I’d been so focused on getting the box that I hadn’t registered its texture or material, or even really its weight. All I had in my head was the shape of it. And not even the colors, since I’d found it underground.

Well, I did have something. I had a mental image of a dark, solid, rectangular box slightly smaller than a prairie dog. Hopefully that would be enough. Now, here came the hard part.

How do I say this item’s name? Treasure, colon, question-mark question-mark question-mark?

…Poof!

A boxy thing half my size plunked onto the carpet.

It wasn’t a crate, though. I peered over the edge of the ottoman and saw what seemed to be a chunk of hard, dull, reinforced cardboard.

Ah, hold on… Twisting my head sideways, I could see the edge: aging, orange-with-age-and-dirt paper. With a cover.

So it was a book!

Too bad I apparently couldn’t read it…not even with Stage 1 Human Language. I mean, I looked at the shapes on the cover and knew they were letters—the same kinds of shapes I’d been reading in my System—yet all their curved lines swam in my mind like lost fish. Could I only read the System’s boxes so easily because they were a part of me?

I hopped off the edge and pawed the book open anyway. It was my Treasure, so I’d try my best to decipher it.

Then I flinched.

Not because of the book, but because somehow the green girl had snuck up behind me!

It made perfect sense that she’d hear and see this commotion, but I’d been hoping that she’d been so caught up in her book that she wouldn’t notice—or so adamant about ignoring me that she’d choose to stick to the bit.

She was standing with her torso arched over my head. Her shadow stretched over me and the book, and her face showed that same severe expression. She eyed this new book like it was the root of all evil.

For all I knew, maybe it was.

But I called it back into Inventory, because she was the last person I’d trust with it.

Poof—the book was gone again.

Her eyes darted back to me. I decided to stare into them.

Then her right eye started…twitching.

“What are you?” she whispered.

Wha…

W-wow. Two out of three cabin girls were afraid of me. Of weak, Level 3 me! I took that as a compliment.

The green girl straightened herself up, then dusted off her pants as if she’d gotten them dirty just by basking in my presence. As she did this, her gaze wandered and she noticed what I’d done to the ottoman.

Her eyes widened when she saw the scratch marks.

Balling up her fists, she stormed off to the other side of the room (making a tension-deflating U-turn around the cotton-white bed) and banged the window open. On the other side was the black and surprisingly gusty night.

Without a word, she pointed straight out the window.

She wanted me gone.

Eh, no problem. I knew what to do here.

I just put on my biggest, cutest eyes and whined: “Meaaaow…”

The green girl pointed. Kept pointing until the wind started to make her shiver.

And then she quietly closed the window again. Trying to be stoic, but I knew she was defeated.

A mumble escaped from her lips—too quiet and fast for me to catch the words—just before she left the room and swooped down the stairs.

Five minutes later, she was back with warm rabbit stew and a bowl of water.

Maybe this girl was the best of the three.

She used a real bowl!