Chapter 3
"Nyang?"
Puding meowed cutely. I want to bite it! So what if it has three eyes? It's just this cute. I had given up on having a cat in my past life due to circumstances, but I never expected to raise one here.
I was going to have it examined separately, but the butler brought holy water and said just making it drink this would be enough. What is this? A world where all infectious diseases are cured by a single vial of holy water? Then why did they kill the cats? What's going on with otherworld animal ethics?
When I poured the holy water into a water bowl, Puding lapped it up deliciously with its tongue. But why is it keeping one eye closed? Maybe because the fur was pressed flat, it just looked like it had two eyes.
Come to think of it, it only opened all its eyes in front of me. Ah, then two eyes must be the default, and the third eye only opens occasionally.
The butler confirmed that Puding had drunk all the holy water and left. Is it done now? Hooray!
"It drinks water well too, how admirable."
I sat Puding on my lap and patted its bottom.
***
Puding seemed to think I was not a butler but an inn owner. One with free room and board included....
Puding is a free soul. I'm a total hikikomori staying in my room, but Puding must be an extrovert since it roams outside every day. Still, it always comes back before sleeping and lies down together. I don't know why a cat likes walks so much. Is it because it was originally a stray cat?
I wanted to put a collar around its neck to prevent any dangerous incidents while it roamed around. A maid gave me a collar. It was made of soft fabric with the Count family's crest embroidered on it. She suggested I try embroidering Puding's name myself. Apparently, Evangelin was good at embroidery.
But I'm illiterate and don't know how to embroider either?
Without even time to make an excuse, the maid gave it to me and ran away.
The maid I asked to buy a letter book hasn't come back for several days now. She said it would take one day, so she must be doing it on purpose, right?
The servants were just trembling, so I thought I was a bullying villainess, but it seems there was also a setting where she gets secretly tormented. Come to think of it, in recent romance fantasies, even villainesses get severely harassed. That's why when you possess someone, you start by slapping faces and establishing discipline. Of course, I didn't hit anyone.
"I'm sorry for being such a useless butler who can't even write your name...."
I want to learn to read quickly. This insincere otherworld possession is too much....
***
I woke up from sleep and found I could read letters.
What is this? AS? If there's a possessor bonus, they should have done it earlier! Why only now! I was annoyed, but I decided to think positively that at least I got the bonus now.
Crying because I couldn't read my pet's name must have triggered the AS effect. Tears rolled down. Now I can read and write Puding's name too!
I picked up a needle. Seeing that I'd learned the letters, I thought Evangelin's body might also know embroidery to some extent.
No. It didn't.
The result was disastrous. I wrote Puding but it's unrecognizable.
Should I throw it away and start over? I hesitated for a moment, but Puding meowed nyang-nyang, urging me to put the collar on quickly. This angel cat!
I put the collar on Puding. They say if a cat wears a collar well, it's a blessed butler, but Puding was originally calm so it didn't resist the collar much. The size was just right, and just in case, I made the connecting part weak. Puding could break it with a little force.
"Do you like it?"
Puding went to the mirror and looked at itself. Then, seeming satisfied, it meowed.
It suddenly seemed strange, and when I thought about it quietly, Puding knows how to look in a mirror. Otherworld cats are incredibly smart.... Or is it? Is our Puding special? Well, our cat is the best in the world.
***
Count Rohanson went down to the territory.
Actually, it was close to running away. He left in such a hurry that it looked like he fled in the middle of the night with just a few clothes. While inside the mansion, he was terrified, saying 'eyes' kept watching him. Not just the Count, but a maid named Daisy was the same. That maid didn't even try to open her eyes.
When asked if they wanted a recommendation letter for another family, the maid shook her head and said she absolutely wanted to go to a monastery. With her eyes closed and hands together, it looked exactly like she was praying. It seems if she escapes the mansion, she won't see the eyes, so psychologically she'll be fine at the monastery.
With the Count away, the mansion's duties were entrusted to the butler. The Count would handle family-related matters well from the territory, so there was only one thing the butler had to take responsibility for. Regarding Lady Evangelin.
The elderly butler looked at the weeping cherry tree outside the window. The pale white lady was walking in the garden, and a cat followed behind her. That must be the cat she said she'd raise. At first glance, it was a peaceful scene.
A bright red handprint remained on the butler's shoulder. Is the cat that lady is raising really an ordinary animal?
His vision swayed. The mansion he'd lived in his whole life felt like the inside of a monster's stomach.
He drew the curtains and sat down. A maid sitting across from him was drinking tea. Her hand holding the cup was trembling, but she looked better than Daisy.
"I hear cat sounds."
Hena was the child who came to attend to Lady Evangelin after Daisy. After what happened to Daisy, no one wanted to attend to the lady, so they raised the wages. Hena, who needed money urgently, took the position. But it seemed Hena would also have difficulty continuing the work. The butler looked at the child sitting before him with pity.
A perfectly normal child returned after just one day with her mind disturbed, so it would become even harder to find maids now.
The butler opened his mouth to say something, but all Hena heard was the sound of a cat meowing instead of a human voice. Hena couldn't hear what the butler was saying, but hoping to give the answer he wanted, she opened her mouth.
"The lady asked if there were cats. I answered they were all dead, but I definitely killed them all, so why do I hear sounds?"
When the Count's family killed cats, Hena had cleaned up their corpses. It was unsettling, but she volunteered because they paid more. Several sacks came out filled with the dead bodies of cats caught by bait. All were dead cats that made no sound. Now, belatedly, they were crying.
The butler couldn't hear the cat sounds. The butler, who was adding content to report to the Count, asked if he should write a recommendation letter for Hena. It was a grateful offer, but Hena's ears still only heard the sound of cats crying. The butler wrote on paper and held it out. Hena shook her head.
Now that inexplicable things were happening here, saying she hears cat sounds might be fine, but if she transfers elsewhere, she'd definitely be treated as a sick person and fired.
"I'll continue working. I can't hear, but if I read lips, it'll be fine."
Hena had a younger sibling. For her sick sibling, she needed to keep working.
***
A reply came from the Count. He was throwing a tantrum, saying to feed the cat holy water to check if it's a monster. Holy water didn't work on Lady Evangelin, so would it work on a cat? The butler had doubts but followed his master's orders. Holy water was quite expensive. Only nobles could buy this without hesitation.
Hena was shocked when she learned this. If there was holy water, her sibling would get better. To feed such a precious thing to a mere cat.
"Do you want it?"
How long has it been since she heard a human voice? Hena turned her head and looked around, but there was no one. All that was there was a cat grooming itself. A cat?
"I asked you a question, so you should answer."
Huh?
"You said you wanted that water. You can have it. I'll tell you how."
The cat opened its eyes. Three eyes looked at Hena.
Monster, it's a monster. Hena ran away. She has to tell the butler. Lady Evangelin's cat is a monster! If she reports that, maybe she can get some reward from the butler?
And Hena stopped.
A mere reward money isn't enough to buy holy water. What did the cat say? That it would tell her how? She thought of her sibling getting healthy, smiling brightly, and playing. And she turned back. As if knowing she would, the cat was waiting for Hena in that spot.
Hena swapped the holy water as the cat instructed. She didn't know how it was prepared, but even the delicate patterns on the bottle containing holy water were identical.
The butler had no reaction while watching the cat drink the fake holy water. Only Hena realized that unlike Lady Evangelin, the 'real' holy water works on the cat.
After that, the cat would sometimes visit Hena and make various requests.
Last time, it told her to make the lady embroider the collar it would wear herself. Hena, afraid the lady would get angry, handed over the collar and embroidery set and ran away. It seems the lady really did pick up a needle for the cat. The cat proudly held out the horribly embroidered collar and bragged about it.
The lady wrote strange letters on the collar but called the cat Puding.
After attending to the terrifying lady during the day whom she could barely bring herself to look at, along with the monster-like cat, the workday ends.
The wages for attending to the lady were really high. There was plenty left over after covering living expenses for two. Thanks to that, Hena could splurge on foods her sibling liked at the market on her way home from work.
They'll be happy, right? Hena's heart melted softly. Her sibling who drank the holy water was getting better day by day. Just a few days ago, they could barely even eat soup, but now they were complaining about being hungry.
When she got home, her sibling was sitting in front of the door.
"Sister!"
"You waited outside in the cold?"
"I missed you. You worked hard. Let's go inside quickly!"
"Okay. Kanna, stop pestering me."
Her sibling jumped into Hena's arms. It was a dreamlike moment where she could easily forget about serving the bizarre cat and the scary lady during the day.
Hena thought it was good she listened to the cat's proposal back then. Maybe because she pleased the cat well? Now she doesn't hear the cat's crying anymore.