"Flattened grass?"
"Yeah. They say the ground along that regular route sank by a fair bit. That night a caravan saw the culprit too—apparently a blood-drenched little demi-human girl with a terrifying face. She smiled and zeroed in on the caravan as her next target. Some unlucky merchant kid got caught and eaten on the spot."
"You can still see a hole in the sky if you go look now. The sudden downpour was probably because the clouds couldn't pass through and piled up."
"How horrible. I hope she disappears soon..."
This world had stuff like that going on?
Yimi flicked her perked ears and stopped listening.
A pinch of cumin, a splash of cooking wine. Apart from the souvenirs she was saving for Mama, a pot and utensils were essential travel gear. Fire courtesy of the Mini-Hakkero Marisa had given her, then a lid on top to stew.
After The World's processing, the big fish's meat didn't disappoint. The uniquely tender mouthfeel of fish—born to be stewed into soup. But the fishiness was actually far milder than ordinary fish, which was a point against it. Then again, remembering the hardships of developing Kyubey meat cuisine, Yimi was still willing to give the big fish a solid eight out of ten.
She'd been in this world for three days now—or was it four? With no one looking after her, she'd been eating and sleeping in the wild, eating when she was hungry and sleeping when she was tired. When she didn't feel like eating or sleeping, she ran off to play. When she got tired of playing, she'd shift back to cat form and flop down wherever for a nap.
Absolutely zero leads on the main quest. At this point she didn't even know where she'd wandered off to. Not like this world had a home for her anyway.
"Little girl. Hey, little girl."
"Mm?" Yimi turned around to face the man gently tapping her shoulder.
The man folded his arms and frowned at her. "Do you have a business permit?"
"Business permit?" Yimi was confused.
"You need a business permit to sell stuff on the street. Otherwise everyone would just set up shop wherever they pleased and it'd be chaos." He crouched down and poked her forehead with his index finger.
Yimi shook her head. "I'm not selling. Eating it, myself."
"I see..."
"Are you, an enforcer?" Yimi vaguely recalled that Reimu also checked Mystia's business license. Everyone called Reimu an enforcer.
"Not exactly, but..." The man straightened up and pointed at his own fruit stall. "Cooking right in front of my stall is a bit much, don't you think?!"
"Mm?" Yimi didn't see the problem and ladled out a bowl, holding it high up to him. "Do you, want some too?"
"This isn't about wanting some or not—you're driving away my customers!" The man took the fish soup, tried a sip, and savored it carefully.
"Not bad, actually. You're a bit light on the salt, though that might just be my aging taste buds. This kind of meat I've never tasted before—it'd probably be good even without seasoning. Could be a signature dish at a fancy restaurant... wait, that's not the point!"
"Smells amazing. So this is what another world's local cuisine tastes like?"
While the man was losing his mind, a boy in a strange outfit with a sharp, fierce gaze had wandered over. He stared at Yimi's pot for a good long while.
"Same kind of pot as back home... Is it popular to cook on the street here?"
"Sorry about that, kid—I don't know where you're from, but it's definitely not popular to cook on the street around here."
The man selected several large, reddish appas and placed them in Yimi's hands. "I don't know whose kid you are, but if you have a home to go back to, you should head there soon. Seeing you pull things out of thin air, you're probably not hard up for anything. Best not to worry your family."
The fierce-eyed boy watched all of this blankly, then lowered his gaze to Yimi's ears.
Cat ears. He'd only ever seen them in anime before. The size and proportions were perfect—full marks. But did cat-girls actually have four ears? Still, better than having bare cheeks with nothing there. The tail was fluffy too.
So this was another world.
"Hey kid, staring at a child that long—what exactly are you after?" The fruit stall owner's expression turned hostile now that he'd noticed the boy again.
"..."
The strange boy was chased off as a suspicious person.
Yimi was also kicked out, hugging a big bag of appas.
She'd shared the soup with him and everything, and he still wouldn't let her cook in front of his stall. The kitten must never grow up to be such a petty adult.
Yimi grabbed an appa and bit into it. Pretty sweet.
「A Kun So Big One Pot Can't Stew It」—that was the third achievement Yimi had completed in this world, earned three days ago when she'd tried to shove all her meat into the pot at once and failed. But it had been three whole days since that one.
Yimi was a hardworking cat, but that required having a direction to work toward. Right now she had no idea where to even start. The only option was the equally random gacha—and come to think of it, she'd never actually spent energy on a draw before.
Thanks to the 5% she earned every other day, even after the hundred she'd wasted in the last world, Yimi had stockpiled close to three hundred energy.
"System, gacha."
"Auto-skipping gacha animation—Congratulations, Host! You have drawn: Puella Magi Madoka Magica TV Anime DVD."
Description: Insert into a disc player to watch the Puella Magi Madoka Magica TV anime.
Yimi didn't understand, but it seemed useless. She'd give it to Madoka when she got back.
Stung by the first draw, she didn't dare try again for a while. She found an unoccupied spot, shifted to cat form, jumped to a rooftop no one would bother her on, and dozed off.
"—"
She didn't know how long she'd slept when a prickling malice stung Yimi's nose. Impossible to describe what it smelled like—maybe "fragrant" was the word, yet it was harder to stomach than any stench. It was exactly like the smell of that thing called a cigarette on the blonde woman who used to come visit Mama.
It wasn't directed at Yimi. But she'd caught a whiff of it all the same.
In her drowsy half-sleep, Yimi tried to grab an invisible arm drifting through the void. It seemed to pause for the briefest instant—and then, without any transition at all, she snapped wide awake.
The words she'd heard once already during the day echoed in her ears: "I don't know whose kid you are, but if you have a home to go back to, you should head there soon. Seeing you pull things out of thin air, you're probably not hard up for anything. Best not to worry your family."
"Meow?"
Yimi came to her senses and looked down. Below her sat a pot of bubbling fish soup, atop the Mini-Hakkero Marisa had given her.
"Meow meow?"
Yimi opened her storage space. The Mini-Hakkero she'd packed away after being chased off by the fruit stall owner was sitting neatly inside.
"Meow meow meow?"
The little cat looked at the fish soup in storage. Looked at the fish soup in front of her.
Her mind felt like it had just cracked wide open into a whole other dimension.
"Congratulations, Host! Achievement unlocked: 「Strange Knowledge Has Increased」 Reward: Portal Energy 5%"
No—the little cat didn't know a single thing. She couldn't comprehend what had just happened at all.