Translator: Nox

Chapter 3

“Meow?”

Pudding meowed cutely. I want to bite it! So what if it has three eyes? It’s just this adorable. I gave up on owning a cat in my previous life due to circumstances, but I never imagined I’d get to raise one here.

I was going to have it checked out separately, but the Butler brought Holy Water and said just making it drink this would suffice. What? Is this a world where one sip of Holy Water cures all infectious diseases? Then why did they kill all the cats? What’s going on with isekai animal ethics?

I poured the Holy Water into a bowl, and Pudding lapped it up deliciously with its tongue. But why is one of its eyes closed? Maybe because of its fur, it just looked like it had two eyes.

Come to think of it, it only opens all three eyes in front of me. Ah, so two eyes must be the default, and the third one opens occasionally.

The Butler confirmed that Pudding had drunk all the Holy Water and left. Is that it now? Hooray!

“Good job drinking your water.”

I sat Pudding on my lap and patted its butt.

***

Pudding seemed to think I wasn’t the lady of the house, but the innkeeper. One with free room and board included….

Pudding has a free spirit. I’m a total shut-in hikikomori, but Pudding’s an extrovert who roams outside all the time. Still, it always comes back before bed to sleep with me. Why does a cat love walks so much? Is it because it was originally a stray?

I wanted to put a collar on it so it wouldn’t get into trouble while wandering. A maid gave me one. It was soft fabric embroidered with the Count’s family crest. She suggested embroidering Pudding’s name on it myself. Apparently, Evangeline was good at embroidery.

But I’m illiterate and don’t know how to embroider?

Before I could make excuses, the maid shoved it at me and bolted.

The maid I asked to buy letter books for me hasn’t come back for days already. She said it’d take just one day, so they must be deliberately not giving them to me.

I thought the servants were just trembling because I was a tyrannical villainess, but apparently there’s a setting where she’s subtly bullied too. Makes sense—lately in romance fantasies, even villainesses get tons of harassment. That’s why when you possess one, you slap cheeks first to establish order. Of course, I didn’t hit anyone.

“Sorry I’m such a lousy lady who can’t even write your name….”

I want to learn letters quickly. This isekai possession is so half-hearted….

***

I woke up and could suddenly read letters.

What is this? An automatic skill? If it’s a possession bonus, why apply it now and not earlier! I was annoyed, but I decided to think positively—better late than never.

The crying fit because I couldn’t read my pet’s name must’ve triggered the AS effect. Tears streamed down. Now I can read and write Pudding too!

I picked up the needle. Since I’d learned letters through the body, maybe Evangeline’s embroidery skills would come too.

Yeah. No.

The result was disastrous. I wrote Pudding, but it was unrecognizable.

Should I scrap it and start over? I hesitated briefly, but Pudding meowed impatiently, urging me to put the collar on. This angel cat!

I put the collar on Pudding. They say if a cat wears a leash well, it’s a blessed owner, and Pudding was already docile, so it didn’t resist much. The size was perfect, and I’d made the clasp weak just in case. Pudding could break it with a little tug.

“Like it?”

Pudding went to the mirror and looked at itself. Then it meowed happily, as if pleased.

Suddenly feeling something off, I thought about it. Pudding knows mirrors. Isekai cats are ridiculously smart…. Or no? Is our Pudding just special? Well, our cat is the best in the world.

***

Count Rohanson had gone down to his territory.

It was closer to fleeing, really. He’d left in such a hurry that he’d only packed a few clothes, like a midnight escape. While in the mansion, he’d been terrified, saying “eyes” kept watching him. Not just the Count—Daisy the maid too. That maid wouldn’t even open her eyes.

When I asked if she wanted a letter of recommendation to another house, she shook her head and insisted on going to the Convent. With her eyes closed and hands clasped, she looked like she was praying. She won’t see the eyes once she leaves the mansion, so she’ll be fine mentally at the Convent.

With the Count away, the mansion’s duties fell to the Butler. He’d handle family matters from the territory, so the Butler had just one responsibility: regarding Lady Evangeline.

The elderly Butler gazed at the garden cherry tree outside the window. The snow-white Lady was strolling in the garden, followed by a cat. That must be the cat she wanted to raise. It looked peaceful at a glance.

There was a fresh red handprint on the Butler’s shoulder. Was the cat raised by that Lady truly an ordinary animal?

His vision blurred. The mansion he’d lived in his whole life felt like the belly of a monster.

He drew the curtains and sat. Across from him, a maid was drinking tea. Her hand trembled as she held the cup, but she seemed better off than Daisy.

“I hear a cat meowing.”

Hena was the next to attend Lady Evangeline after Daisy. No one wanted the job after what happened to Daisy, so they raised the pay. Hena, desperate for money, took it. But she probably wouldn’t last long either. The Butler looked at the girl before him with pity.

A perfectly fine girl had come back mentally broken after just one day, making it even harder to find maids now.

The Butler opened his mouth to speak, but to Hena, no human voice came—only a meow. She couldn’t hear what he said but opened her mouth hoping it was the answer he wanted.

“Lady asked if there was a cat. I said they were all dead, but they were definitely all killed—why do I hear it meowing?”

Hena had helped dispose of the cat bodies when the Count’s house killed them. It creeped her out, but they paid extra, so she volunteered. Bags and bags of cats lured by food, all dead and silent. Now they seemed to be meowing belatedly.

The Butler heard no cat. As he added to the report for the Count, he asked if he should write Hena a recommendation letter. It was a kind offer, but Hena’s ears still heard only cat meows. The Butler wrote on paper and showed her. She shook her head.

If she said she heard cats here, it’d be okay now, but transferring elsewhere would get her treated like a lunatic and fired.

“I’ll keep working. I can’t hear it, but I can read lips.”

Hena had a younger sister. For her sick sister, she needed to keep working.

***

A reply came from the Count. He was throwing a tantrum, telling them to at least make the cat drink Holy Water to check if it was a monster. Holy Water didn’t work on Lady Evangeline—would it on the cat? Doubting it, the Butler still followed orders. Holy Water was quite expensive. Only nobles could buy it without hesitation.

Hena was stunned, knowing that. If there was Holy Water, her sister could recover. Wasting something so precious on a mere cat.

“Want it?”

How long since she’d heard a human voice? Hena turned and looked around—no one. Just a cat grooming itself. The cat?

Was that the one Lady Evangeline raised?

“I asked—answer me.”

Huh?

“You want that water, right? You can have it. I’ll tell you how.”

The cat opened its eyes. Three eyes stared at Hena.

Monster, monster. Hena ran. She had to tell the Butler. Lady Evangeline’s cat is a monster! Maybe she’d get a reward.

Then Hena stopped.

A mere reward wouldn’t buy Holy Water. What did the cat say? It’d tell her how? She pictured her sister healthy, laughing and running around. Then she turned back. As if expecting it, the cat waited there.

Hena switched the Holy Water as the cat instructed. She didn’t know how it prepared it, but even the bottle’s intricate patterns matched perfectly.

The Butler watched the cat drink the fake Holy Water without reaction. Unlike Lady Evangeline, the “real” Holy Water worked on the cat—only Hena realized that.

Afterward, the cat occasionally sought Hena out with various requests.

Last time, it made her give the collar to the Lady so she’d embroider it herself. Terrified the Lady would get mad, Hena handed over the collar and embroidery set and fled. Turns out the Lady really took the needle for the cat. The cat proudly showed off the messily embroidered collar.

The Lady had written weird letters on the collar but called the cat Pudding anyway.

After attending the monstrous cat by day and the terrifying Lady whose gaze she couldn’t meet, her workday ended.

The pay for attending the Lady was incredibly good. It covered both their living expenses with plenty left over. Thanks to that, Hena could splurge on her sister’s favorite market treats on the way home.

She’ll like it, right? Hena’s heart melted softly. Her sister, after drinking the Holy Water, was recovering day by day. Just days ago, she couldn’t even eat soup, but now she was whining about being hungry.

Heading home, her sister was waiting outside the door.

“Sis!”

“It’s cold—why wait outside?”

“I missed you. Good work. Let’s go in!”

“Okay, Kanna, stop fussing.”

Her sister jumped into Hena’s arms. The dreamlike moment easily erased the day’s horrors with the creepy cat and scary Lady.

Hena thought she’d done well accepting the cat’s offer back then. Was it because she’d pleased it? Now she no longer heard its meows.