# Re Episode 4
"Wait! Hey cat, hold on! Give my bag back!"
Ray in rabbit-eared, fluffy-tailed form was running like a relay racer, chasing the black cat through the big city.
The magic street lamps were dim and sparse. All the townspeople were asleep, except for people in the pubs and bars where people were partying, but those inside were completely wasted and didn't pay attention to Ray making a commotion in the middle of the night.
Ray chased the Shadowprowler all the way to Lugana city's drainage canal.
"No! Don't go down there! Meow meow!" Ray tried speaking cat language in case it would understand.
It turned to look at him once and gave a wickedly contemptuous smile.
Before he could finish speaking, the cat carrying the bag jumped down into the water pipe with swift speed.
"You crazy cat!" Ray shouted before jumping down the pipe after it.
-----
Darkness covered the entire area. The air was stuffy and humid. The stench of sewage floated and hit his nose. The sound of dripping water echoed as much as Ray's footsteps chasing after it, but he couldn't hear the black cat's footsteps at all.
Ray thought it must have used its Light Step skill to escape. He had always thought cats were flexible creatures that could flow anywhere like liquid, but apparently not… they were cunning.
He was in complete darkness. The city's drainage system was huge—how would he ever find it? Ray continued walking in the dark path. After walking and feeling along the walls for a while, his eyes began to adjust until he could see in the dark.
He searched for a long time but still saw no trace of that annoying cat.
"Geez, if we had trained Geed for tracking instead of combat, we could have chased that ghost cat by now! Argh! I don't even have magic lanterns or anything. Everything's in that bag. How am I supposed to find that cat now!?"
The young man with drooping rabbit ears held his temples in stress, slowly crouching down to hug his knees in the middle of the drainage pipe. Geed unfused and stood on his shoulder, patting him comfortingly with her paw. Ray looked at her.
After a moment, the half-rabbit, half-squirrel felt guilty. She lowered her head and clasped her hands to her chest, breathing in and out.
"No! It's not your fault, Geed! I chose to train you for combat myself. Geed's not at fault, not at fault," he petted her head to comfort the little one back. After a while, she stopped being sad.
"Sigh, if I had my bag I could probably do something," he sighed. Geed sighed too.
"Huh!? That's right! The bag! Geed, I figured it out! We don't need to go chasing that crazy cat. We can just lure it out to us!" Finishing his words, Ray pulled out his own wallet as he thought.
The plan he had just devised went smoothly. Ray slowly scattered silver and gold coins throughout the drainage pipe tunnel that gurgled with flowing water. He did this quickly, making all the paths Ray took converge at a junction where Ray secretly waited in ambush for that arrogant cat.
He sat waiting in the darkness for one hour. Finally, he saw a golden tail moving back and forth in the darkness.
Its glowing tail slowly walked closer and closer.
Closer and closer.
And closer.
And—
"Hyah!" Ray pounced with his Kick skill to tackle the cat, then rolled and tumbled twice before stopping himself.
"Got you!" He lifted the black cat up with both arms above his head and declared victory.
But little did he know, it hissed threateningly, using a skill to change its black tail into sharp blade-like shadow swords, and used them to slash and stab at Ray's head with swift speed.
The young man dodged the slashing tail, the stabbing blades as fast as lightning, as if they could multiply. He avoided every blade with Geed's Danger Sense skill. He dodged all the lightning-fast attacks easily. When the ghost cat saw that its tail blades were useless, it decided to bite Ray's hand to make it useless.
"Hah! No use!"
He sensed the danger from its killing intent quickly. Before the other side could think again, he used both arms to grab it and slam it down on the ground to daze it, preventing it from struggling and clawing or biting his fingers.
"Will you surrender? I don't want to hurt you."
"Mrow, mrrow!" The black cat struggled and nodded.
"Okay, promise you won't run away or bite."
"Meow, meow mrrow." The black cat changed its fierce expression to sweet, innocent eyes that could melt hearts, even licking Ray's finger sweetly. It had surrendered. It wouldn't harm Ray anymore. Just look at those eyes.
Softening, he released it to the ground. It shook its fur back into place, licked the parts Ray had touched as if wiping away something dirty, then made happy sounds in its throat before sticking out its tongue playfully and turning to run away swiftly.
"You little—!" Ray got angry and grabbed a gold coin from the ground, throwing it hard through the air. In slow motion, it spun and flew straight into the middle of the cat's head with a smack.
*Whack!*
"Mrrowwwww!"
The running Shadowprowler crashed down hard, tumbling down to lie rolling and holding its swollen, throbbing head, spinning around on the ground crying and whimpering.
"Hah! Serves you right! Evil thief!" Ray looked down disdainfully.
He tossed the gold coin in his hand and walked over, slowly crouching down to talk to the cat.
"Alright, tell me nicely where my bag is. Otherwise you'll definitely get hit again," he made the scariest face he could manage.
The cat hung its head dejectedly, sitting properly in true surrender this time. It secretly glanced up at Ray a little, then slowly extended one of its paws.
Ray looked at its front leg alternately with the gold coin he was tossing in his hand, then at its mischievous face that was telling him to pay first.
"You little…"
As soon as Ray placed money in its paw, its black tail glowed with beautiful bright golden light amid the pitch darkness of the drainage pipe.
Once it got the money, it looked up and stuck out its tongue slyly at him. Ray squinted and smiled sweetly because he knew its game, so he poured money from his wallet over its head until it was buried and submerged in piles of silver and gold. It cried out in delight.
After a while, it poked its cat head up from the pile of coins, shaking its sparkling eyes with great joy at the money covering it.
It jumped and danced, its golden tail swaying gracefully as it slowly absorbed the money into its tail.
It walked over to nuzzle Ray's feet adorably.
**Shadowprowler sees that you are rich. It wants to be a rich person's cat, so it wants to follow you.**
**Please name….**
"Rogue."
**Congratulations! You have received a new beast!**
**Geed leveled up to 6!**
**Ray leveled up to 7!**
"Alright, Rogue. Now you can tell me where my bag is."
The black cat nodded glumly and walked ahead, using the bright light from its tail to lead the way. Ray followed.
The deeper into the drainage pipe, the worse the sewage smell became.
But suddenly that smell disappeared, as if some magic had dispelled it, along with what Ray saw in one section of the tunnel.
There was a small bright light standing out clearly. He quickly stepped forward to run, but Rogue hugged his leg and tried to drag him back.
"Meow, meow."
"What… telling me to be quiet?"
It nodded. Ray sighed. "Fine." He unfused to let Geed stay on his shoulder and performed Spirit Fusion with Rogue. His hair changed to jet black and grew slightly fluffier, cat ears sprouted on his head, and a sword-like tail like Rogue's grew from behind.
Ray in cat form looked at his sharp claws and smiled, feeling the power that had changed within him.
Ray slowly used the Light Step skill, muffling his footsteps as he approached that yellow light, discovering it was a bandit hideout camp. There were probably dozens more people sleeping inside the magic bags scattered on the ground, while two others sitting drinking coffee and guarding the loot were likely sentries.
Ray secretly listened to them talking.
"That Shadowprowler really did good work. Look at this—such a new model bag. Even though we can't open it because it has good security, it should sell for a lot of money."
One bandit sitting on the table showed off Ray's fancy bag to his friend sitting nearby, who was playing checkers with him.
"Hahaha! How could it not be good? Think about it—we managed to trick and use a magical creature that had never served anyone before, like a Shadowprowler. The best thieves use other thieves better than them, man. We're absolutely godlike."
"Yeah, who would have thought using magical creatures would be this easy? If it wasn't because our boss kidnapped the little baby Prowlers to demand ransom…"
That was all Ray needed to hear as he crouched secretly listening in the corner to understand everything. He whispered to Rogue with his changed voice: "I understand now, Rogue. I'm sorry for calling you an evil thief earlier. Actually, you're a good thief."
"Meow! Meow!" It seemed to say, "Yes, yes!"
"I'll take care of these guys myself. Don't worry, meow!"
Ray slowly got up from hiding, then walked slowly to appear directly in front of the two bandits playing checkers.
They slowly turned to look at him.
"Hey! Who are you!?" They drew swords from their sheaths simultaneously.
"You heard what we said just now, didn't you? Die, kid! Your own bad luck for finding our den!"
Finishing their words, they rushed forward to slash Ray, hoping to kill the young man. The black cat boy just stood still and used his own long tail that transformed into a shadow sword to easily parry that attack, striking until the sword broke in two pieces. The other party's jaw dropped, while the person behind got kicked in the head by Geed until he fainted.
The man holding the broken sword looked at his friend slowly falling down in fear. By the time he realized it, Ray had struck his neck until he blacked out and fell down too.
"Which one is the bag holding your little siblings, Rogue?" Ray looked down at the many three-dimensional bags those people had collected. The cat ears twitched, pointing at one bag.
But before Ray could pick it up, suddenly bright light flashed from every bag.
Over fifty bandits appeared, surrounding Ray from all directions. Everyone held weapons—swords, axes, and knives. Ray smiled dryly, slightly startled. Geed jumped to perch on his shoulder.
Even though it looked hopeless to fight, he knew it was almost morning now. He knew how to handle this situation.
"You're awake, aren't you? Come out, Nixie!"
*Whoooooooooooooooooosh*
Massive flames burst out from his sparkling bag. A bird-shaped fire flew flashing up into the air, clearly visible to the pipe ceiling, before flying to stop above Ray's head. Many bandits stepped back several paces when the phoenix spread its wings and appeared, orange flame sparks scattering and breaking out. The temperature became so hot it nearly burned skin.
Ray simply waved his hand once and used the gentlest skill:
"Wind Dance"
*Whoosh!*
*Whoooooooooooooosh*
A tornado of strong wind lifted their bodies off the ground. They spun until dizzy, crashing into each other, while the storm also pulled up foul water making the bandits choke.
Only their big muscular boss managed to react in time, calling out his beast to catch him as he was about to crash to the ground.
"Come out, Gyrat!"
He opened his own bag. Ray called out "Copycat, Wind Dance." He used Wind Dance at half power, overlapping it again by himself without waiting for Nixie's cooldown to finish. He blew the bandit boss until his head crashed into the ground and he fainted.
But before he could finish, a giant rat three meters tall jumped out of the bag. Its shadow covered Ray's group frightfully. They prepared to fight. The giant rat saw its master defeated and quickly jumped toward Ray's group at high speed, almost too fast to handle!
It smiled widely and lifted Ray up, jumping and dancing with joy while its boss lay with a cracked head over there. Now it could finally escape.
"Yessss sir, that's enoughhhh! I know you're happyyyy!" Ray in cat form beamed in midair before returning to human form as usual. Rogue's little siblings came out of the bag, running over to play with their big brother with longing. Rogue was also happy to have saved his siblings, his tail glowing with light.
Then all the bags there began flashing.
All the beasts that had been forced to work by the bandits appeared simultaneously. The pipe tunnel became packed full of magical creatures, crowded and stretching long into the middle of the tunnel.
They all cried out happily, looking at the phoenix, looking at Ray. Then every one of them bowed to Ray, along with a message that appeared:
**Congratulations! All 247 magical beasts want you to take them in and raise them.**
"Huh? Wha!?"