Chapter 10. A sleepless night, words spoken in vain out of pity...

Lynette was woken up by the cold.

Although her brother had covered most of the blankets on her and was trying his best to hold her, Lynette still woke up from the cold.

There was no way around it; compared to her brother Linni, she was more sensitive to the cold.

Is it because of my ears and tail? Is it because of my ancestral bloodline? After all, cats are afraid of the cold.

Ugh, this is atavism. It's made me different from my brother.

Little Linni reached out with a pitiful expression, wanting to cover her ears, which were feeling cold from the autumn wind.

At that very moment, a huge, fluffy cat shadow flashed past the alleyway entrance, captured by Lynette's keen eyesight.

"Brother, look!"

She tried to shake her brother awake, but found that Linni was already awake with her eyes open.

"Aren't you asleep? It's already past midnight."

"Ah... um, I'm having a bit of insomnia, hehe."

Linnie's eyes darted around, he stammered a few words, and suddenly pointed at Maine, who had turned to observe them, and loudly questioned:

“Linette! Are you really sure this is a cat? It’s so big! It has pointed hairs on its ears and a short tail. Oh dear, silly sister, you must have mistaken it for a cat.”

"Brother, don't change the subject."

The little girl wasn't swayed by his provocation; she touched the boy's face worriedly... but he remained cold.

"Brother, are you too cold to sleep? Let me cover you with more blankets." She shifted the weight of the blankets from herself to him.

"I'm not afraid of the cold at all, I'll be fine."

Lin Ni knew perfectly well whether his younger sister was cold or not. He quickly pressed the blanket down:

"Don't move, Lynette! If you move, all the heat will escape, and then none of us will be able to sleep!"

"No, neither of us could sleep anyway."

Lynette's stubbornness can be terrifying when it strikes.

"Even if you give me all the blankets, I still won't have enough and I won't be able to sleep... It's better to give them all to you so that your brother can get a comfortable night's sleep."

How could a brother watch his sister suffer from the cold?

Little Linni refused to comply to the death.

Outside the alley, Mainkuen stared blankly at the two little ones huddled together in a tattered blanket, deferring to each other, his little brain seemingly frozen in shock.

I remember... this is the Land of Justice, isn't it?

I'm not quite sure what justice is... but is it justice to have underage children wandering the streets?

No, this is even worse than that crazy dad who threw his own child into the sea.

Over there, the two siblings couldn't argue with each other and kept chattering until Linni suddenly had an idea and looked at the big cat standing there dumbfounded with her purple eyes.

"Speaking of which, this guy is very clean, he doesn't look like a homeless person."

Maine: ?

"Although it looks big, it's not strong. It's thin and long, so it doesn't seem very powerful. It doesn't even have a tail."

Maine: ? ?

"The fur is so fluffy and soft, okay! I've decided!"

Little Linni jumped up, rubbed his hands together, and grinned at Maine:

"Sweet kitty, don't scratch me~"

Maine: ? ? ?

Linni bent down and tentatively extended his small hand from a low position to the cat's nose—he knew that to a strange cat, touching its head directly from a high position was an outright provocation; letting the other cat smell its scent was the first step in starting a friendship.

...This child is so polite.

Mainkuen glanced at the child in surprise, then politely lowered his head to sniff him. After all, cats usually followed human etiquette, and this was the first time the opposite had happened.

Ah, it smells so rustic.

Maine sneezed.

"Wow! It didn't run away, didn't meow, and didn't bite. What a good cat!"

"What is my brother going to do?" Lynette wasn't nervous at all about her brother's contact with the big cat. After all, her ancestral bloodline allowed her to see that Maine had no hostility towards them.

"You don't understand."

Once Linni determined that the cat wasn't aggressive, she quietly reached out and grabbed one of the half-demon's front paws, pulling it directly into the alley!

"The big cat says it wants to sleep with us!"

"???"

I never said that!

Mainkuhn didn't come to his senses until a tattered blanket was placed over him and two little children huddled around him.

"It's great that cats have a higher body temperature than humans."

Little Linni was incredibly bold, shrinking her cold body into the cat's arms.

"Warm and fluffy..."

"Hmm, and it's big and warm, it must be a very expensive cat."

Little Lynette buried her cold little hands in the cat's thick fur. "Brother, let's go ask around tomorrow if anyone has lost their pet."

"...z".

No one answered; her brother was already fast asleep.

"...Even in this state, you still dare to say you have insomnia...z."

......

!?

I take back what I said about your politeness.

Even breathing sounds came from in front and behind him. Mainkun stood stiffly, claws outstretched, not daring to move an inch.

Who would try to shove someone into bed the moment they meet? That's too presumptuous.

But no matter how intense the emotions, they couldn't be seen on the cat's expressionless face; it could only barely express something through its violently contracting pupils.

Are you leaving? Human offspring have nothing to do with cats, and besides, I have things to do...

A cold wind blew, and the two children shivered, instinctively huddling together with Maine.

“.

...Looking for someone at night is bad for your eyes.

Let's leave it at that for now.

Maine remained still.

*

"......"

After a while, the cat quietly turned between the two children, facing the sleeping little Lynette.

He first used his fleshy pads to press the little girl's fuzzy ears on the top of her head.

It's soft, and it's real.

"......"

This is not a good thing.

Maine used her furry paws to pry open the little girl's chin so that she would show her upper and lower rows of teeth.

Flat, human teeth.

There are no barbs on the tongue.

My fingernails are normal.

Although it has animal ears similar to mine, it is clearly human.

"......"

That's fine too.

The half-demon lay on his side between heaven and earth and the child, gazing at Lynette's small sleeping face, feeling both fortunate and lonely.

*

Good morning, big kitty!

It's not good.

Maine yawned repeatedly, and the soft breathing of the child beside him made it difficult for him to fall asleep.

When was the last time I slept with someone else...?

Linni pulled out a piece of black bread, broke off half for her sister, thought for a moment, and then broke off a little more for the half-demon craning his neck next to her.

"Thank you for keeping us warm yesterday. Would you like some breakfast, Mr. Big Cat?"

"Brother is stupid."

Little Lynette used her front teeth to grind the bread bit by bit, then swallowed it with cold water: "Cats are carnivores, they won't eat hard bread."

"Ah, that's true."

Sure enough, the cat lowered its head to sniff the bread cube in Linni's hand, then turned its head away uninterestedly.

"What should we do?"

Linni was worried:

"We ourselves haven't eaten meat in a long time, so where are we going to get meat to repay it for keeping it warm?"

“...Catch some mice?” Lynette suggested.

"That's one way! It's so docile, it definitely won't catch any mice."

“.

Mainkuhn paid no heed to the ramblings of an ignorant child.

"Speaking of which, can we eat rats?"

After a moment of silence, Xiao Linni suddenly licked her lips and swallowed.

"Rats are meat too, right? If they're roasted, they should be edible, right?"

"?" His vertical eyes widened slightly.

"It should work..." Little Lynette thought to herself, pinching the bread.

"The rat is about the same size as a sparrow. It should smell delicious after being roasted."

Gurgle.

Lynette also started swallowing hard.

"If these were rats from a nobleman's house, they'd be so fat and oily when roasted..."

"!?!" Maine could no longer contain himself.

He stretched out his large paw and lightly tapped Little Linni's head.

"Huh? Huh? Why did you suddenly hit me?"

The cat didn't answer the children's questions; it simply leaped onto the roof and disappeared from their sight in a few bounds.

“Is he angry? It doesn’t seem like it,” Lynette tried to analyze.

"Is it because you hate bread? I'm sorry, big cat, we don't have any other food to offer you."

Not wanting to waste it, Little Linni dejectedly stuffed the crumbs of bread that the cat didn't want into her mouth and chewed them.

"Don't be sad, brother."

Actually, it was just a thought; the brother and sister didn't really intend to catch mice.

"When we see it again, we'll definitely earn enough money to buy it meat."

"Then let's work together... Wait, Lynette, what's that sound?"

"Flap, flap!"

The loud flapping of wings grew closer. The two siblings looked up and saw a large, silver-striped cat standing majestically on the roof, looking down at them, with... the neck of a snow-winged goose in its mouth?

Huh?

These large waterfowl, which always swim in the lake, are often praised by the poets of Fontaine as a symbol of nobility. However, for Mainkuhn, they are nothing more than a meal that is too big and dry to eat.

But its advantage is that it's large enough to feed two children.

Seeing the little brother and sister look up, the big cat released its grip, and the plump snow-winged goose landed with a thud in front of them, covering the hard bread in front of them.

Eat something good.

Forget about catching mice.

That stuff is dirty and disgusting; I wouldn't eat it.

The cat nodded to them from the rooftop, then turned and walked away gracefully.

"......"

"Linette! Linette!"

Little Linni hugged his sister tightly, staring incredulously at the goose before him and exclaiming:

"We were fed by the cats!"

Yes, brother.

Little Lynette touched the bird's feathers, and was so bewildered that her tail stood on end:

"We really met a kind person and a cat."

*

Navelette once again saw the report about the "beast" in Sedna's hands.

"They still haven't caught them?" The Water Dragon King was truly shocked.

"Yes, even though the guards have taken action, the number of purple-gold gulls on the Cares line is decreasing day by day."

At this point, Sedna stomped her feet in anger: "Not only that, even the 'lowest judge' was captured and eaten!"

What? The situation has actually deteriorated to the point of cannibalism in the Mo Mang Palace?

Upon hearing this, Navelette felt deeply remorseful.

"This is truly my responsibility. I underestimated the strength of this beast, thus issuing the wrong orders, which led to unnecessary sacrifices."

He immediately reflected on his actions and made amends; he was truly a responsible person. Villette picked up her cane, her face serious.

"Official duties must be put aside for now; I must do it myself—"

etc.

Navelette, being meticulous, noticed a blind spot.

The beast was estimated to be less than a meter long, so it was highly illogical that the lowest-ranking judge could be captured and eaten by it.

"......"

There is only one possibility.

"Was the victim physically frail and had some underlying health conditions before his death?"

He lowered his eyes in sorrow, increasingly blaming himself.

"You can allocate a larger amount of compensation, and apply for it in my name."

No, no!

Seeing that a bloodbath was about to occur, Sedna waved her hands repeatedly to explain:

"It's not a person! It's a beautiful snowwinged goose from Carles Wharf! Because it has the same blue and white coloring as you, and it swims with particular elegance and nobility, many people call it 'the lowest judge'!"

? ? ?

"...Oh, I see. I misunderstood. I'm very sorry."

If the victim was just a bird, the murderer would not deserve to die.

Having frankly admitted his mistakes and rationally assessed his crimes, the Supreme Judge sat back in his chair, still harboring doubts.

Why would you name a bird that?

"First of all, this may not be out of malice, because I remember the snowwing goose as a symbol of purity and loyalty."

Navelette frowned and tried to analyze again:

"But at the very least, it means that the ideal state has not been achieved."

Is it because they want me to be more pure and loyal? I'm so confused.

"Perhaps it's just for fun? After all, I've heard some scholars call the sea otter Navelai otter."

"......?"

Does the sea otter hold any symbolic meaning in human culture?

Yes, humans and the water goddess Funina are indeed the two most difficult creatures to understand in the world.

Navelette sighed and gave up thinking, writing down her judgment on the beast.

"Send more manpower to capture them as soon as possible and release them back into the wild."

*

I'm finding it increasingly harder and harder to understand this city.

Mainkuhn leaped across the rooftops, his beautiful fur shimmering in the sunlight.

With each house he crossed, his claws treading on the roof tiles, and his keen ears would gather countless pieces of information.

Despite being called the Land of Justice, the darkness hidden within is no less than that of the House of Hearths.

For example, the butler in one household is plotting to seize his master's property; in another, the father is pressuring his widowed adopted daughter to marry; and in yet another household, the man who calls himself the Phantom Thief Weasel is hiding her stolen goods...

Should we try to stop it?

No way!

Is anyone there?

The cat stopped, found a sunny corner, and lazily lay down.

"Help!"

I'm just a cat now, so the lives and deaths of humans are none of my business.

"Help! My child has fallen into the water!" A distant cry for help drifted on the sea breeze.

"Fimini—!"

"......"

Whoosh!!

A note from the author:

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