Francesca was utterly dumbfounded. She’d been sincerely happy when Emma had said she was going to introduce them all to the cat she’d modeled her embroidery off of. After all, her embroidery was beautiful and absolutely adorable, and in Francesca’s seventeen years of life, she very rarely got to see such a pet. After all, even among nobles, not many could buy a pet expensive enough to trade for a mansion. Only a select handful who loved to show off their riches would let others see their cats at their afternoon parties, which meant Francesca had only seen them a small number of times. Francesca, who used to be part of the firstborn prince’s faction (which had a great number of show-offs in its ranks), had seen a normal cat before, however few times it had been. And that was why she was so dumbfounded.
Was the thing in front of her really a cat?
“It’s sooo fluffy, Caitlyn!”
“It’s purring so much, Catherine!”
“Why, this is the first time I’ve seen such a big cat.”
Catherine, Caitlyn, and Marion were all petting the catlike creature and admiring its soft, glossy fur.
“Er... Shouldn’t we confirm that that’s a cat first? It’s far too big, no matter how you think of it.” While Francesca could understand the relatively naive twins being so excited, it felt a bit quick for Lady Marion to be accepting it. Francesca felt a bit sad to be the only one left out, but she simply couldn’t accept that the giant beast before her was a cat.
“I heard if it meows, it’s a cat! Right, Catherine?”
“I heard if it meows, it’s a cat too, Caitlyn!”
They’d both been surprised by how big it was until it meowed, and that was all the convincing they’d needed to confirm it was a cat.
Do...they not have any cats in the Simmons region?
“Myah!”
“See, Lady Francesca? She’s meowing now!”
Apparently, the twins’ definition of “cat” was based solely on whether it meowed or not.
“Lady Francesca, see how cute General Kongming is? Something this adorable has to be a cat.” Marion was nuzzling so hardcore into the creature’s fur, it was hard to believe she’d been upset just moments before.
“Oh... So you believe it too, Lady Marion...” Even though Marion seemed very put together, she was the daughter of one of the four great dukes in the kingdom. In other words, she was living in an ivory tower. She was the very definition of sheltered, so it wasn’t all that surprising that she might have had some detachment to the real world. It was worrying that Marion would just believe this at face value.
“Wait, cats aren’t supposed to be this big?”
“Eep!”
“Huh?”
“What?”
They’d all heard a boy’s voice...but oddly enough, couldn’t see anyone anywhere.
“Myah!”
If it were just an auditory hallucination, then it was odd that everyone had heard the boy’s voice, and all of them were looking around to find the source. Kongming meowed and began staring at a spot with nobody and nothing in it.
“I wonder what General Kongming’s looking at, Catherine.”
“There’s nothing there, Caitlyn.”
“Wait, does she see something there? Like...a ghost?”
It wasn’t all that unusual for cats to stare at nothing, but after hearing that boy’s voice, it was giving the girls goose bumps.
“Emma, what’s Kongming saying?” Melsa asked Emma, who could translate kitty language.
“Hmm? She was saying like, ‘long time no see’ or something, but...” Emma didn’t seem like she understood what Kongming meant either, as she looked at the spot Kongming was staring at too.
“Wait... It’s translatable?!” Francesca absolutely picked up on Emma nonchalantly interpreting the cat language. She was honestly at a loss for words at this point.
“Mrowr!” Kongming slowly rose to her feet and started walking to the empty spot.
“Ah...” Marion, having lost her fluffy comfort, stretched her hand out toward Kongming longingly.
Then, Kongming licked the spot she’d been staring at, her tongue dragging along “nothing.”
“Aagh!” With a fwssh a boy suddenly appeared on the spot, clutching his cheek.
“Eeek!”
“Who is that?!”
“Where did he come from?!”
The girls, who’d all been fixated on Kongming’s movements, all let out shouts of surprise.
“Ugh, Kongming! I was hiding so you wouldn’t notice me...”
“Mrowr?”
The boy raised both his hands to show the surprised girls he wasn’t anyone suspicious as he chided Kongming. Meanwhile, Kongming meowed to say, “You call that hiding? You’ve got a long way to go. You’re far sloppier than Hattori.”
“Huh? It’s Hugh!” Emma tilted her head to the side, wondering what he was doing there. He was Huey, the boy from the slums who’d been training to be a ninja.
The boy grinned and waved to Emma. “Hey, Lady Emma! Long time no see.”
“Wait, I thought you were going to Simmons Harbor to meet Hattori!” Emma remembered Joshua weeping as he’d seen her off, saying ships from the Eastern Empire would be arriving during the field trip. Huey’s teacher Hattori, the leader of the ninjas, was meant to be riding those ships, so Hugh and Momochi (one of the ninjas residing in the kingdom) were supposed to be going to help Joshua with his work.
“Yeah, well... Somethin’ kinda big came up. I can’t find the king anywhere. You know where he is, Lady Emma?” Hugh came from the bottom rungs of the kingdom’s society, yet here he was looking for the king himself. It really must have been a big deal.
“Huh? The king? He’s, uh...” Emma looked at the forest.
“Huh? What?! He’s in the forest?! It’s like, super close to the barrier and there are monsters and stuff in there, right?! What the heck is he doin’ in there at a time like this?!” Hugh clutched his head in aggravation. It was common sense, even among the kids in the slums, that you never get close to monsters or the barrier.
Marion checked around her and put a finger to her lips before asking Hugh, “What do you need with the king, young man?” She gently warned him that if anyone heard him talk so disrespectfully about the king, he could be arrested.
Realizing how loud he’d been, Hugh covered his mouth with both hands and muttered his reply. “Nngh... Well, I got a letter from the queen. She said I had to give it directly to the king.”
“What?! From the queen?!”
“Did something happen, Hugh?”
Both Emma and Melsa were shocked when they heard the letter Hugh had brought was from the queen. They couldn’t see any situation in which the queen would have sent Hugh to deliver a letter.
“Er... Is there any chance this boy could be lying?” Though Francesca thought she was done playing the straight man, the way Emma and Melsa had just taken the boy’s story at face value had her wondering why they didn’t even question it.
“Wow, rude much, lady?! I know I used to be a thief, but I was never a liar!” Hugh barked.
“You’re not helping your case, Hugh...” Emma said, in a rare instance where she had to cut in.
“Nngh... Well, I’ve really gotta hurry this up... Oh! Look at the seal on the letter! See? It’s the royal family’s color!” Hugh pulled the letter out from his pocket to show them.
“Oh my goodness... Hugh...” Melsa’s expression grew stern the moment she saw the seal. It was a black seal that only the royal family was permitted to use, and on top was the tiniest drop of red. Melsa knew that among messages to the king, this was the kind that needed to be delivered with utmost haste. “This seal... This really is an emergency!”
“Uh, yeah? That’s what I said!”
“Then we need to get this to the king as soon as possible!”
“Yeah, that’s what I said!” Hugh puffed out his cheeks, annoyed that nobody had listened to him.
Maybe it was for the best that they didn’t know the king in question was currently laughing like a maniac and going berserk in the forest.
“But at the moment, the only ones left in this camp are noblemen and their guardians... This could be an issue...” Melsa started thinking. The king had to be protected above everyone else, and he was in the forest. Therefore, most of the able knights and hunters had gone into the forest with him to keep him safe. There were only a select few left behind.
They couldn’t ask the Monster Studies students and the guardians to go. The forest was far too dangerous for them.
“I don’t really stand a chance against monsters...” Huey wanted to get the letter to the king ASAP, but even as a ninja’s apprentice, he barely had any experience fighting monsters. “Hnnn... This is gonna be a lot tougher than I thought. I shoulda added a surcharge for the trouble, huh...?” Hugh clutched the letter in his hand and looked up at the sky. This had turned into a real pain.