As I walk across the garden, I watch the contents of the palm of my hand. My first pocket money. I just received it from William, and I mean… it’s not the highest amount but! Free money is free money, nonetheless.

It’s been a week since I returned from the capital, not much has happened after that. The teacher returned with us and is teaching me more than before. He returned with some textbooks, and he is not letting me slack off.

I passed a group of the servants shoveling snow out of the road. The weather here was always very snowy, I barely got a look at the garden before it was covered with snow.

As I turned the corner, I saw a little girl with a watering can. "There she is..." I looked for her. "Emily, good morning, how are you?"

“Hi, I am doing well.”

Emily is still training to be a maid, and I heard that she is progressing quite well with her training. At this rate, it won’t take long before she can start working for me officially. Having a personal maid is certainly a requirement for any proper isekai scenario, so I am looking forwards to it.

“When will you finish your work? There’s something I need you for.”

“I will be done soon, I just need to do the last one.” She is holding a watering can, and she is pouring water on top of a big pile of snow.

Too curious not to ask, I gave her the obvious question. “What are you doing?”

“I am watering the flowers.”

There are flowers under that? “I see, don’t mind me. Feel free to continue.” She is not doing it just to mess with me, is she? But she seems totally serious about it.

Emily continued pouring water on top of the snow pile at a very slow rate while intently staring at it. It took her around thirty seconds of perfect focus before she stopped. She looked kinda cute because of how seriously she acted. “I am done.”

“Great, let’s go inside first. You can go ahead, I will be right there, I just need to do something first. You can wait for me in my room.”

“Alright.”

Right as she left my line of sight, I moved towards the alleged flower spot. “I will get to the bottom of this.” Using my bare hands, I carefully pushed away the snow from the snow pile, only to reveal actual flowers under it.

As I pushed away the snow, a cluster of white pedal flowers emerged. Tiny droplets of ice clung from them and as sunlight reflected off from them, it created an ethereal glow.

“She didn’t make it up after all!” But flowers that bloom while ankle deep under the snow. Is this there a such a thing? Well, the more you know. But on the other hand, maybe not. Let’s not think about it.

I should get going so she doesn’t wait for me too long.

After returning inside, I went towards my room but on the way there, I walked past the Alexander’s office.

“Wait.” I haven’t blessed him with my presence for quite a while. I immediately turned around and knocked on the door.

“Enter.”

“Surprise! I am back! Be pleased to meet me, as always.” After I finished my greeting, I sat in front of Alexander, who was sitting behind his office table.

“…”

“You won’t even greet me? We haven’t seen each other for so long, It might have been more than a week, maybe even two!”

“So, what do you want?”

“Well you see, I subtly asked William for pocket money, he took the hint, and now I got some.” I showed him my coins.

“Why are you telling me that?”

“It’s just that you seemed poor, so I came here to flex.”

“Do you plan to go here every time you get something new?” He asked with an exasperated tone of voice as he held his head.

“I don’t know what you are talking about. Anyway, that’s all I wanted. I’ll be on my way, I have an important meeting to attend to.” I stood up and prepared to leave, but I stopped myself as I noticed something. “Nice map. It looks little better than mine, maybe we should do a swap?”

 

When I arrived in my room, Emily was already waiting for me.

“I am here.”

“So, what do you need?” She asked eagerly.

“You see, in the future I will be obviously a very famous person and I will have a lot of fans. They will be eager to learn about me an every little detail. That’s why it’s prudent to prepare for this inevitability.”

“Ooh.” Emily looked impressed.

“It is only a matter of time before someone will ask for an interview with me. That’s why I need to practice ahead of time, so I can be prepared for it.”

“Interview?” She cutely tilted her head to the side.

“Yes, an interview, you will ask me questions about myself, and I will answer them.”

“That sounds fun.”

“You can start asking the first question.”

“Yes. What about… What’s your favorite vegetable?”

“No that won’t do, questions like this won’t do, they need to be spicier and more memorable. Good questions make great interviews.”

“Alright, I will do my best. Let me think…” Emily put on a serious expression. “What about… What’s your least favorite vegetable?”

“That’s a good one. Taste vise it’s obviously a carrot, but ignoring taste as a factor and going by a pure evil alone, it would be kohlrabi.”

“Kohlrabi, what’s that?”

“You don’t want to know. Next question.”

“Alright… What is your favorite color?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

She looked at my hair and said. “Pink?”

“That’s not pink! And my favorite color is black, obviously the best color. Purple close second place. Pink overrated.”

“I see. What animal you like more, cats or dogs.”

“I never had either, but still, that’s a dangerous question. I won’t be picking a side here, I don’t want any stake in this conflict. Next.”

“Hmm. What is your favorite shape?”

“Interesting, I will have to go with the one, the only, the hexagon. Objectively, the best one, hands down.”

“What is your favorite number?”

So many questions about things I like. Did she just want to know more about my preferences? That’s not what this interview was supposed to be about. “Why are you asking only about what things I like? There have to be other questions you could ask.”

“…” Emily hesitated before responding. “Head maid said that I should learn about the preferences of the people I serve.”

“I see that explains it, and to answer your question… my favorite number is a top secret. It must be kept hidden in case some time travelers would show up.”

I hate time travel movies so much. I always hate when some people show up, claiming that you sent them from the future, and they spill out your secrets as proof. As a precaution, I have a number that I haven’t told to anyone. When someone from the future shows up, claiming that my future-self sent them, I will ask them to tell me the secret number. No fake time travelers will fool me.

Not that I believe in time travel to begin with, but… one can never be too sure. Well, in case I am wrong, and I will need to send someone to warn my past-self, I can always convince myself with the secret number. It’s a win, win.

Emily seems to be confused about my response. I guess she hasn’t seen any time travel movies… Well, it’s not like she’s missing out.

“Don’t worry about it. I think this is enough interviewing for today, but I still have some time, do you want to play some games with me?”

Emily nodded vigorously.

---

 

It is late afternoon, and I am waking across the city. Currently, I am on an important mission.

I thought back to my time with Emily earlier today. We played many games, she even showed me her room, and we had plenty of fun together. She also showed me her plushy cat toy.

But that reminded me that I have only seen a single cat girl in this world, and I didn’t even get to pet her. Maybe there will be other cat girls in the capital. That sounds great, it’s decided, I have to go there!

I was complacent, I saw a cat girl not too long after I arrived in this world. It didn’t occur to me that I won’t be able to find another one. I looked into my wish list book.

 

…

42. Pet a cat girl.

…

 

While I was in the capital, I tried to look around if there were any cat girls but… It was there that I realized the cruel truth, an unfortunate fact that cat girls aren’t a common occurrence in this world. Or at least in this area of it because so far, I have seen mostly humans everywhere.

The one from back then should still be somewhere around here, right? All I need to do is to find her. That shouldn’t be so hard, should it? I mean, it’s a decently sized city, but she will stand out among the regular human populace. All I need to do is to ask around, someone must have seen her. So that’s why I am here.

I asked if I could go to the city and surprisingly, Adeline let me go. Well, she was worried about letting me go out alone, but I glared at Alexander, and he helped me out. Having the right connections is handy.

As I walked across the town’s square, I stopped in front of the former king’s statue.

Teacher mentioned it before, but it’s my first time seeing it in person. He taught me a bit about him. This nation was crated around three-hundred years ago, and somehow he was the only king. No one ever replaced him, even after his death. History is crazy sometimes. Back in my world, this would never happen.

I sighed to myself. Whatever, that’s not why I am here. I am here to locate my cat girl. Let’s just pick someone at random and ask if they have seen her.

“Excuse me sir, haven’t you happened to see the precious coveted white furred fluffy cat girl?”

“What? I don’t have time for your nonsense, kid.”

“What nonsense? This is serious stuff! Your beard is nonsense!” I point at him angrily, but he just walks off.

“…” He ran away, coward.

Humph, I can always ask someone else. There’s some shady looking woman in the dark alleyway. Maybe she will know something. Shady looking people should have connections.

“Excuse me mam, I am looking for pointy fluffy ears, a long cute tail, white fur and about this high. Does it ring a bell?”

She responded in a hush tone. “We are currently out of stock, come back tomorrow.”

What? What is she on about? I fold my arms and glare at her. “Lady, that’s not helpful.”

“What can I do? The next delivery doesn’t arrive until then. You can always place an order, and we will deliver it as soon as we can.”

My words aren’t getting through her, it’s like she is speaking to herself. Ah well whatever, let’s ask someone else, I am wasting my here. “Just order me ten. Bye.”

Like, was she even listening to me? Maybe I should go about it differently? For some reason, they aren’t cooperating. Is it really that difficult to tell me whether you have seen her or not?

I asked more people, but each and every one of them was useless. They either said no or pretended not to understand the question. It is getting dark, and I got nowhere. Zero cat girls found.

Does this world suffer with the great cat girl shortage? That’s certainly a crisis to be had!