The Dragon Kingdom of Lugunica. A prosperous nation blessed by the Divine Dragon, shielded from war, plague, and famine under its protection.
None of that had anything to do with Yimi. A really big fish was tempting for a cat, sure, but because she didn't want the pain, she'd just used a Doom-shroom to take care of the thing instead.
Since she'd released it in the sky, the only destruction was to the cloud layer above, plus roughly three chi (~3 ft) of topsoil peeled off the ground below. That area would probably stay clear-skied for a good while going forward.
And this time it really was nighttime—she wasn't bitten awake, and nobody shoved cat grass at her to forcibly clear the cooldown. The Doom-shroom's blast actually hadn't been as powerful as those previous two times, yet it was still more than enough to reduce the fifty-meter White Whale to ashes.
That said, the greedy little glutton had still used Love Train to protect a chunk of meat big enough for a few meals, planning to find a chance to see how it tasted.
"A few meals" here was based on an average adult's portions—anything bigger would start taking up too much space.
"Why'd you, run?"
At the moment, Yimi was sitting in the carriage of the merchant she'd caught up to.
"Of course I ran! Anyone would be terrified seeing a blood-soaked little girl smiling and flicking blood at them in the middle of the night! It's not even an age thing—a kid doing it actually makes it even scarier." Otto hunched his shoulders, as if afraid the little girl behind him might suddenly stab him, then whisper in his ear, "Actually, I'm a Witch Cultist," or something like that.
Yimi sort of understood, and sort of didn't. She pouted unhappily. "Santa Claus wears clothes, covered in blood too, and sneaks into, your house at night when you're not paying attention, and then stuffs presents into your stockings."
Too bad Yimi's socks were tiny. If she wanted a bigger toy, Santa might not give her one.
"The kind of presents a person that suspicious gives out can only be someone else's severed hands and feet! Drenched in blood plus gifts stuffed in stockings—doesn't that sound exactly like 'I might as well chop off your foot with the sock still on and give it to you as a present while you sleep'?! That's a horror story!"
Hearing Otto's loud retort, Yimi raised her gohei and bonked him on the head. "Don't say, bad things about Marisa!"
Marisa was going to be Santa Claus! Marisa would never chop off a kitten's foot!
"I'm sorry!"
Otto Suwen—that was this guy's name.
Call it lucky or unlucky, he was the merchant Yimi had chased down. A gray-haired young man with such a timid disposition and such delicate features he almost leaned feminine.
Yimi's stubby legs obviously couldn't outrun a Ground Dragon. Although her P.E. teacher had fought tooth and nail to protect her from the other teachers during that half-month or so of school, the speed gap between human form and non-human form had always been her weakness—she still couldn't fly, for instance.
The little girl wasn't fast, but the little girl was lucky. The Otto she'd been chasing had crashed straight into a tree knocked over by the Doom-shroom's aftershock.
"The city's just up ahead, but..." Otto looked back and found that Yimi had vanished from the carriage at some point.
This made his expression freeze. He didn't quite dare turn his head forward again, terrified that the next time he looked, the blood-drenched little girl would suddenly appear right in front of him, fixing him with a cold stare unbefitting her age, slitting his throat, and murmuring, "You're useless now."
But Yimi had simply spotted houses where humans lived, shifted back into a little cat, and run off on her own toward the settlement. She had no particular destination in mind—heading toward people was never wrong.
"Can this achievement, be actively completed?" Yimi glanced at the quest on the System panel.
Since achievements were the kind of thing you only found out about after completing them, there was no way to tell whether the quest was easy or hard.
"Responding to Host: you may invest accumulated energy into the gacha. There is a chance of drawing an achievement hint. Additionally, completing an achievement may also reward a hint for another achievement."
"Since Host can currently generate energy independently, it is recommended to use the former method while reserving 100% energy as backup."
Yimi didn't listen.
She hadn't grasped how this world's quest differed from previous ones. Despite all the worlds she'd been through, the biggest shift in her understanding had only been Ran Yakumo's lesson about the difference between cats and people. So Yimi figured that any cat who could turn into a human must have a System just like her.
In that case, how to reliably complete System achievements—she should go ask other cats who could turn human. If she'd known this world would assign a quest like this, maybe in the last world she could've...
Even if she'd known, she still wouldn't have asked that rotten Chen!
Looking more closely at this world's architecture, there were no skyscrapers or anything of the sort—at least none that Yimi could see. Mostly brick and stone structures, unlike Gensokyo with its abundance of wood-frame buildings.
Beyond that, Yimi couldn't really describe it. She hadn't actually gone inside anywhere, and it was still nighttime.
"Nighttime" here really just meant shortly after dinner. Merchants without urgent business on the road wouldn't risk traveling too deep into the night.
Drip—
Unfortunately, a raindrop landed right on Yimi's nose.
No—unfortunate wasn't the right word. Rain was perfectly natural. The Doom-shroom's properties left a hole at the blast site that couldn't close for some time. Back in the One Piece world, it had even left an unfillable gap above the open sea. The same applied to cloud layers.
Unable to drift through that area, the clouds could only compress together in the short term, producing exactly this kind of downpour.
The misfortune of getting rained on could be redirected, but Yimi still didn't like being in a spot directly under the rain. She looked around for somewhere to take cover.
"Sis, look—there's a really ugly cat over there."
"Meow?"
A child's voice suddenly came from above. Yimi looked around in confusion, wondering which cat was so ugly.
"It's true! Its markings are so weird. Mimi's never seen such an ugly cat."
Yimi looked up. On the building beside her, two identical tiny cat-eared children—a girl and a boy—were leaning over a windowsill, pointing at her in shock.
"Meow!"
Yimi suddenly realized—the "really ugly cat" they were talking about was her! They were all cat-people, and these two were even worse than Chen!
Forgetting all about sheltering from the rain, the little cat immediately stood on her hind legs to fire back: "Small fry! Dumbass!"
"It talked."
"Not only did it talk, it cursed at us!"
"Grab it, Tivey!"
"On it, Sis."
A third identical boy poked his head out, stacking on top of the other two.
Yimi paused, staring at her cat paws in conflicted thought.
She already had "small fry" and "dumbass"—so what was the third one?
Shaking her head to dismiss the weird tangent, Yimi shifted back to human form, balled up her little fists, and charged straight at the three cats.