It’S A Cat, Adopted By A Wolf Family? [EN]: Chapter 96

“I can walk, so please put me down.”

I whispered to Ethan.

“No. It’ll be a hassle if you fall.”

But the prickly wolf, as expected, didn’t listen to me.

As he said, the floor of the cave was rough from the entrance, but I wasn’t clumsy enough to trip over a stone.

I tightened my grip on Ethan’s collar, my claws itching to come out.

“Hurry, teacher.”

“Your threats have increased, Kitty.”

“Thanks to your excellent teaching.”

The jokes ended there.

The deeper we went, the more ominous magic I could feel.

It was similar to the magic emanating from the white-furred rabbits that Jerian had.

‘To be precise, it’s the magic of the foxkin [a race of fox-like humanoids] that Jerian has captured and is using.’

Whether I perceived it correctly or not, Cleed’s face, who had been bickering with Ethan until a few minutes ago, became very dark.

He created a magical lantern that wouldn’t go out and handed it to Ethan, who was walking ahead.

Ethan also silently walked ahead instead of making unnecessary jokes or pranks.

The dark and damp cave was already unpleasant, and with the addition of the unsettling magic, it felt like all the hairs on my body were standing on end.

How long had we been walking?

“It seems we’ve come to the right place.”

Ethan, who was walking ahead, stopped. The cave was divided into three paths.

I wanted to suggest that we each take one and investigate, but it was too dangerous in the current situation.

‘Nero said he doesn’t know what Jerian has hidden here, so let’s be careful.’

It would take some time, but investigating them one by one in order seemed to be the best way.

“Ethan, where is the cat smell you mentioned earlier coming from?”

“The far left.”

“Then let’s investigate that side first.”

After finishing our conversation in very low voices, we moved while muffling our footsteps.

If there was a cat smell, there was a high probability that there was a cat at the end of this path.

‘Maybe it’s one of Jerian’s henchmen.’

The faces of the men who threw me down the wall and then pushed my pregnant mother after me on the day I was banished from the cat territory came to mind.

I had imagined the scene of reuniting with them dozens of times.

Most of the time, they would make excuses that they had no choice but to do it under Jerian’s orders, or they would yell at me for touching the leader’s food.

What they said wasn’t entirely wrong.

But I could never forgive them for causing the deaths of my mother and the little ones in her belly.

I gripped the bow even tighter. I might encounter Jerian. If that happened, I would hit that terrible face with this bow.

My heart pounded at the thought of facing my longtime enemy.

‘……Let’s just focus on the present.’

Before I knew it, I could feel something moving. Cleed flicked his fingertips slightly and sent a small orb of light forward.

“……!”

Then, several skinny cats were seen tied up, with cloths covering their eyes.

There were no separate restraints, but it seemed that if they strayed outside the magic circle on the floor, they would be attacked.

It was quite shocking just to see the cats terrified by the magic.

‘But I need to assess the situation before I decide whether to release them or not.’

I couldn’t tell what condition they were in because their eyes were covered, so I had to be even more careful. They might be brainwashed to attack anyone who approached them without warning, so I had to be cautious.

“Hey.”

……Of course, that was just my thought, and the impatient wolf made a threatening noise first.

The cats flinched at the wolf’s unique growling sound.

I flinched a little too, but Cleed wrapped his arm around my shoulder and whispered.

“It’s better to act like Ethan came alone.”

As Cleed said, it would be easier to make a diagnosis by seeing how the cats behaved when faced with a strong animal like a wolf.

If they had lost their reason due to magic, they would attack regardless of whether the opponent was a wolf or a bear.

‘Ethan figured it out in that short amount of time. He’s so smart.’

It didn’t seem like he made a noise just because he had a bad temper.

Krrr―

When Ethan threatened them, the cats raised their tails sharply. Seeing that all their damaged fur was standing on end, it was clear that they were frightened by the sudden threat.

“Cleed, look at that. The cats are scared.”

“……Your sticking-out tail looks just like theirs, missy.”

“Ah.”

I rubbed my tail and tucked it in, then carefully watched the cats’ reactions.

Ethan drew his two swords, ready to attack at any moment. The cats puffed up their bodies even more at the sound of the swords being drawn. It was an instinctive action to threaten the opponent by increasing their size. It hurt my heart to see that their fur was in bad condition and covered in dust.

“Wh-who……”

“Who do you think it is?”

When Ethan spoke in a heavy voice, the cats turned their heads towards the sound.

Some of them wrinkled their noses and murmured in surprise.

“It’s a wolf smell.”

“A wolf……?”

Their voices were filled with deep despair. If a cat was trapped in a place like this and discovered by a wolf, it was clear that the situation was not very hopeful.

The cats, who had puffed up their bodies, shrank back at the pressure Ethan was emitting.

“What were you doing here?”

“I don’t know. I was called to Jerian’s food storage and woke up here.”

The cats spoke as if they sincerely wanted to be believed. Ethan let out his unique sneer.

“What was Jerian trying to do to you?”

“That’s……”

“Fine, if you don’t want to answer.”

The two swords made a sharp sound as they cut through the air. It seemed that the wolf was going to pressure the cats as much as he could.

I didn’t think Ethan would really harm the cats, but if a high-ranking wolf threatened them like that, some of them might faint.

“If you have any last words, say them.”

A voice that sounded like a final warning fell.

The cats trembled.

But one of them raised its head towards Ethan and asked pitifully.

“Um, I have a question.”

“I wasn’t planning on accepting questions……”

“Is Soft Paw doing well?”

“!”

It felt like my heart was sinking.

Soft Paw, that was my nickname.

Just by looking at the parched voice, the messy fur, and the skinny body, I couldn’t tell who had asked the question.

It had been too long since I left the cat territory.

But unlike my unremembering head, my heart was pounding like crazy.

“Miss, wait a little longer.”

Cleed grabbed me, who was about to run out immediately. Ethan asked the cat with trembling eyes.

“Soft Paw?”

“Yes. I heard that she was living with wolves…… I was wondering if I could hear any news about her?”

“……”

“It’s my last request……”

The desperate voice trembled thinly as if it would break.

I couldn’t wait any longer and ran to her. Cleed quickly released the magic on the floor.

I held the skinny cat in my arms and asked.

“What’s your name, huh?”

Who are you who remembers me?

I hurriedly took off the blindfold that covered her small face. Then I could meet her clear greenish-yellow eyes.

Long ago, we sat on the wall together, matching the beat with our tails and singing……

“Camel?”

The cat in my arms opened her eyes wide when I called her name.

“Is it Camel?”

I called her name once more. I couldn’t continue speaking just with that.

Jerian must have advertised me as the daughter of a stray cat. But still, a friend who remembered me and asked about me at the last moment remained.

My eyes became hot and my vision blurred.

My tears fell and wet Camel’s face fur.

“Who……”

I pressed Camel’s hand firmly on my soft palm and sobbed.

“It’s me, Soft Paw…… Hicc, Soft Paw Kittia.”

“……!”

Some of the cats flinched when they heard my voice.

Ethan put away his swords and took off the blindfolds of the remaining cats one by one.

“Kittia?”

“Soft Paw?”

Some of them were faces I knew. I didn’t know how long they had been starving, but their bodies were very different from the images in my head.

How did they get caught here?

And why do they look like this?

It felt like the ground was collapsing under my feet.

“Is it really Soft Paw?”

Camel pressed my palm with her broken claws as if nothing else mattered. Some of the cats staggered and came to touch my hand.

Soft―

“It’s the softest!”

“It’s really Kittia!”

“Yeah, hic……”

I took out a few small buttons from my arms with my other hand. Camel and the other friends remembered the buttons from the dresses they had worn once.

I didn’t know that so many friends would remember me. Something hot kept rising from my chest, and the tip of my nose tingled.

Tears burst out before I could stop them, and my tightly closed lips trembled.

“Soft Paw is still a crybaby.”

“I’m not a crybaby……”

“Tsk, crybaby.”

“Heeing……”

The cat friends stretched out their bodies and licked my cheeks.

“Eat this for now. I’ll go get some food.”

Ethan knelt down and gently stroked my head, which was sobbing, then headed out of the cave.

The small pouch he handed me was full of some water and dried salmon.

‘Did Ethan go to the central training ground and start liking dried salmon?’

I felt a little doubtful and divided them equally one by one.

* * *

Cleed watched Kittia happily sharing food with her hometown friends with a pleased expression.

The amount was quite large when combined with the emergency food he brought and what Kittia brought.

Now that he had released the imprisonment magic, it seemed that there would be no problem in taking the cats back to the oak tree.

‘……Will the day ever come when I’m like that?’

He didn’t know if the foxes would miss Cleed Foxtain, but he wanted to hug them warmly.

He hoped he could tell them to go back now that the foxes had a safe haven.

‘To do that, I have to do my job.’

Cleed decided to put aside his 잡념 [japnyum – idle thoughts] for a while and began to investigate the inside of the cave.

The magic circles were densely packed like wallpaper, showing how much the foxkin had been exploited.

As he touched them one by one as if reading Braille, one of the magic circles that he hadn’t touched yet flickered.

At that moment, the pupils of the cats in Kittia’s arms contracted vertically.

“Ki, Kittia……”

“Huh?”

“Run away! Quickly!”

Kittia, who was staring at the magic circle flickering like a warning light, soon realized why her friends were shouting.

“……What. It’s Soft Paw?”

“……!”

The voice and glaring eyes that she had never forgotten even in her dreams.

Jerian was walking out of the magic circle.