“Here’s the deal—big sis has tasty food back at the academy. You be a good girl and come back with me, and big sis will let you eat something yummy, okay?” Beltie said to the girl with a smile.
“Not okay!” Mir wasn’t buying it in the slightest.
“Why are you always trying to lure me into the academy? You’re not one of those child-snatchers bba warned me about, the ones who use yummy food to kidnap kids, are you?”
With that, Mir gave a shudder and hastily flung the candy she’d just scored to the ground.
Too scary.
That candy might be poisoned.
Beltie felt a headache coming on.
As the youngest of a whole litter of cats back home, she genuinely had no idea how to coax a child back home—but being taken for a kidnapper really did sting.
Beltie gave her fluffy ears a twitch.
“Have you ever seen a kidnapper as pretty as your big sis?”
“I’m prettier than you, and bba said the prettier a woman is, the less you can trust her.” The girl stamped her foot impatiently.
This pint-sized brat actually claimed she wasn’t as pretty as her?!
For the first time, Beltie began to really study the little girl she’d only just met.
A little thing whose teeth hadn’t even all come in, and she wanted to compete with—so cute!!!
Cat that she was, she actually set aside the pride of her race and admitted another creature was adorable.
“Yes—that look, right there! The look of someone eyeing prey! And you still say you’re not a kidnapper?!” Mir was already getting ready to leave; this dumb cat didn’t look like she could out-fight her anyway.
She crouched into a “get set” pose.
That goofy stance made it obvious at a glance she was about to bolt, and Beltie hurried to stop her:
“Wait! Whoever heard of a kidnapper kidnapping someone into a school? Big sis is just worried about your safety. You’re so cute, little one—if you got snatched, your mom would be heartbroken for sure. How about big sis goes with you to find your mom?”
The little thing had, by sheer fluke, just saved her; there was no way she could bring herself to abandon her—and it definitely wasn’t because the girl was so cute that Beltie couldn’t help wanting to scoop her up for a hug!
She’d completely forgotten the sorry state she’d been in moments ago, chased from the street to the academy gate by Mr.
Criminal.
“You’re so annoying, woman! You just got chased around like a mouse by Mr. Criminal—you’re that weak and you still want to come with me?”
The girl could easily have used her power to slip away from the cat-girl, but she didn’t.
Instead she “kindly” reminded the cat-girl of the sorry state she’d been in during the chase.
Beltie seemed to take the hit for about a second, but recovered quickly:
“So does big sis get to take you back to the academy for yummy food or nooot?”
She was trying to drag the whole question back to square one.
“Nope, nope.” She really didn’t think a cat—a species that spent its whole life being fed—could make anything worth eating.
Besides, how could there be such a clingy cat in the world?
It had to be a fake cat.
To keep this dumb cat from blocking her again, Mir promptly used her Psi-Spirit Energy.
[Time Master: Time Erasure]
The girl vanished from the cat-girl’s sight, and vanishing along with her was the candy she’d just tossed to the ground.
“Ah, she’s gone.” Beltie looked crestfallen; she hadn’t even gotten the girl’s name.
Beltie shivered and didn’t dare linger where she was, limping off toward the academy.
Free of the cat-girl’s interference, Mir felt a good deal more at peace and went skipping off toward Erin’s place.
The whole way she kept an eye on her surroundings, but Mr.
Criminal never showed, which left her thoroughly disappointed.
At last she arrived in front of a villa.
She vaulted over the wall into the yard with practiced ease.
The place was rigged with a defensive trap formation, but Erin had set Mir up with a pass, so none of it would trigger on her.
Tiptoeing up to the villa’s door—the ornately decorated wooden door, which plainly hadn’t come cheap—Mir instinctively wanted to give it a couple of good punches.
But she looked down at her clenched little fist and gave up the tempting idea.
She didn’t have the puppet’s freakish strength at the moment.
Extremely reluctantly, the girl dragged a little stool over from the yard, set it in front of the door, climbed onto it, and pressed the doorbell.
No response.
She pressed again.
Still no response?
Mash it!
Ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong…
“Coming, coming—who in the world has nothing better to do than mash somebody’s doorbell this late at night?” Erin already knew perfectly well who it was, but she grumbled all the same.
Clack!
Bang!
The opening door knocked the little stool over, and Mir, standing on top of it, went toppling backward along with it—luckily the quick-reacting Erin caught her.
This door actually opens outward!
Terrible design—one star for the architect!
What Mir didn’t know was that Erin had deliberately built it as a two-way door; she just always chose to swing it outward on purpose.
Bracing both hands under Mir’s arms, Erin lifted her inside, nudged the door shut with her foot, and carried her all the way to the living room, where she set her down on the sofa.
“So then—why aren’t you asleep, coming here to find me at this hour? Hungry again?” Erin sat down across from Mir, propping up her cheek in weary resignation.
“Mm, my tummy’s hungry.” The girl tipped up her little face and gazed at Erin pitifully.
“Didn’t I buy you a whole pile of snacks?”
“Ate them all.”
“There’s a bit of napa cabbage left at home.
I’ll stir-fry it for you.”
“No cabbage!” Mir loathed napa cabbage with a passion.
“Keep being a picky eater and I won’t cook for you at all from now on.” Erin stood, hand on her hip, regarding the girl expressionlessly.
“Ngh~ I’m never gonna grow up anyway, so I don’t need any pointless extra nutrition.” The girl clenched her fists and put up one last, feeble struggle in a weak little voice.
But the merciless Erin ignored the girl’s argument entirely:
“Doesn’t matter.
Cabbage is all that’s left in the house.
Otherwise you can go hungry.”
“Fiiine, Erin.” Mir puffed out her cheeks in a sulk.
“What did you just call me?” Erin narrowed her purple eyes.
Come to think of it, at first the brat had called her bba nonstop.
Back then Erin herself hadn’t even known what bba meant—until one day Erin learned from modern-world films and shows that bba meant “old hag,” and realized she’d been getting cursed at by Mir all that time.
After that, little Mir hadn’t been able to sit comfortably for a whole week.
“Mommy~” the girl cooed sweetly.
Erin nodded, satisfied, and patted the girl’s little head.
“Good girl~ Mommy will go make you dinner.”
A daughter really is easier on the eyes.
Just as mischievous, sure—but a cute little girl being mischievous is called being playful, whereas the puppet brat being mischievous is called courting death.
She picked up an apron, tied it on, and headed for the kitchen.
Come to think of it, at first she’d only kept the brat around as a ticking time bomb she couldn’t afford to jostle.
When exactly had she started truly raising her as a daughter?
Erin felt a touch wistful.
Thanks to this little thing, her cooking had improved quite a lot too.
She used to be able to produce nothing but culinary horrors—no matter how hard a certain woman had tried to fix that, she’d never managed it.
At the thought, Erin smiled tenderly.
Sometimes even the person you love can’t compete with the child you’re raising.