After eating all the food from that crowd of identical women, she had enough power to transform again.
But "transform" didn't mean summoning her Astral Dress. Yimi didn't want to trigger another Spacequake—and she also didn't want to draw out that scary small-fry Shiori.
Recalling the "big idiot" who could fly freely and weave through an entire AST encirclement without effort, the little cat decided it was better to wait until the Holy Corpse had fully merged before making a deal with a demon to drop her right onto the First Spirit's face. And if that big idiot turned out not to be the First Spirit, the real one probably wouldn't be much weaker either.
"Reminder to Host: you currently hold 85.7% portal energy. If Host finds the current main quest too difficult, you may save energy and transfer directly to the next world. It is better to preserve oneself than to exhaust all options here."
Yimi didn't catch the hint layered in the System's words. As long as she completed six tasks she could go home—why waste energy like that?
She found a hidden alley and slipped inside, channeling the power of her beginner combat uniform.
White arcs outlined her silhouette. In an instant a short-haired little girl materialized in the alleyway—with no Astral Dress this time. In its place: a plain white button-up shirt, pale yellow shorts, and bare feet.
This was what the base form of her beginner combat uniform actually looked like. Although the combat uniform and her Reiryoku had merged into one, since both had been directly absorbed by Yimi, she could use them independently—like controlling a single finger of one hand.
Yimi glanced at the tail behind her, then tried to tuck it into her shorts and wrap it around her waist.
Somewhat uncomfortable, but tolerable. The tail deserved it for always interrupting her sleep.
She patted her own head.
The ears...
"Reminder to Host: 'Reiryoku' is a remarkable power capable of reshaping the appearance of one's clothing."
"Mew?"
Why didn't you say so earlier?
Yimi peeked out from the alley. Near a sandpit in the distance, several kids roughly her own size were crouching around something.
She experimented with the tiny trickle of Reiryoku she had recovered—mimicking the clothing she saw on passersby—and managed to materialize a baseball cap that pressed down over her ears, plus a pair of blue children's canvas shoes.
"I'm Yimi. Hello." She tested the words on the empty air.
With two ears muffled under the cap, her own voice sounded strange.
Yimi jogged over to two of the kids and leaned in to see what they were doing.
Weird plastic square cards, with creatures on them that looked a bit like what Diego made.
She pointed at one printed with a pterosaur. "That one's not good to eat. Hard to bite."
A boy with hair about as long as hers looked up at her, irritated. "Like you've tried. He's almost out of cards—are you playing or not?"
Children this age weren't very wary of unfamiliar kids their own age.
"How do you play?" Yimi's curiosity was properly hooked. She crouched down and reached for his cards.
The boy smacked her hand away. "These are mine. Don't you have your own?"
The cat rubbed the hand that hadn't actually hurt, narrowing her eyes in mild annoyance.
A second boy with a buzzcut took pity and held out his own last two cards to explain: "You lay your card on the ground, then play rock-paper-scissors to decide who slams first. If you flip the other person's card over, you win—and you get to keep whichever card you flipped."
"I have a pack I haven't opened yet. If you want to play, I can give you two—but only the ones I don't want to give away..."
Clearly the buzzcut boy's remaining two cards were far cooler than the rest. The ones he didn't want to give away were being saved for last.
"Mew?" Yimi held a card up and pointed at the ATK field. "What's this?"
"Attack points, obviously." The first boy bluffed with total confidence. "Basically, higher numbers hit harder when you slam—and higher DEF means they're harder to flip."
"What do the skills do?" Yimi pointed at the lines of small text.
"Uh..."
The boy faltered. Since they had always treated these as pure slam-cards, no one had ever paid much attention to the text. But he pressed on:
"It's what you can use, right—like, this one says I can attack twice, which means I get to slam twice... Hey, are you a boy? How have you never played slam cards before?"
Yimi pointed at herself, puzzled. "I'm a girl."
"Oh? A girl?" The boy studied her face carefully, his voice dropping several notches. "Then why the baseball cap and no skirt... do you want me to lend you two cards?"
"Congratulations, Host, for unlocking the achievement [Tomboy]. Bonus portal energy: 5%."
"I don't need them. Let's play." Yimi picked two cards from the buzzcut boy's pile of ones he didn't want to give away.
The cat could actually read most of the text on them.
"Then I'll let you go first." The long-haired boy found a flat spot and rubbed it repeatedly to clear the dust.
Yimi looked down at her card's effect: You may bypass all front-row monsters and attack the opponent directly.
"..."
Yimi raised one small, pale fist.
...
...
Three days now, and the captain still hadn't issued a reinstatement. Maybe she had been shelved entirely. Times like this were usually spent in the AST training room; the sudden gap of free time left a strange hollowness.
Some child was crying nearby. Loud.
Passing this stretch of road after school, Origami glanced over. A few young boys were in the middle of a scuffle.
"Congratulations, Host, for unlocking the achievement [You Don't Need to Attack the Taunting Minion First]. Bonus portal energy: 5%."
Another 10% had come in. She had barely done anything since arriving in this world, and she was only 5% away from being able to transfer to the next one on her own.
The boy who had been beaten to tears was issuing threats between sobs. "You just—hic—you just wait—hic—I'm telling my mom!"
The buzzcut boy tried to intervene: "Zhenjun, don't tell the adults—getting beaten by a girl is embarrassing..."
Zhenjun cried harder.
Yimi looked down at her hands, then recalled the achievement she had earned back in Diego's world. The System had said that not finishing off an enemy invited future trouble.
A small fist clenched.
"She's coming back—run!"
"Hey—what are you doing!" Shiori, who had apparently been watching from nearby, caught Yimi under the arms, hoisting her off the ground and leaving her small legs kicking uselessly in the air.
"Mew?" Seeing it was Shiori, Yimi's neck instinctively retracted.
The sealing monster was still haunting her!
"Shiori." Origami, who had simply been watching the scene unfold, walked over and offered a greeting.
"Origami? Why are you here... oh right, you live around here." Shiori gently set Yimi down so her feet could touch the ground.
Compared to Spirits like Tohka, this child had surprisingly little physical strength even without being sealed—you had to wonder where everything she ate was going.
"Is that her son, Shiori?" Origami leaned forward and tapped Yimi on the forehead.
Remembering what Origami had asked about in private, Shiori felt a flicker of unease. "Don't joke like that—she's... uh, she's a relative's child. Her surname is Takamiya, her name is Yimi, and she's a girl!"
Shiori clapped a hand over Yimi's mouth before she could say anything.
"Takamiya..." Origami nodded. She dimly recalled that Shiori had some younger sister with that family name, apparently from somewhere.
Shiori exhaled quietly.
It seemed she hadn't grown suspicious. Lucky she had grabbed a surname she barely even knew herself, just to make the lie more convincing.
"Ow—let go!" And then Shiori got bitten for covering the cat's mouth. In the gap that created, Yimi—terrified of being sealed—turned and bolted.
There was a row of tooth marks on the web of her thumb, but the skin wasn't broken. She could only hope covering the cat's mouth just now hadn't cost too many affection points—or given Origami any reason to be suspicious.
The girl gave her friend an awkward smile. "She really is a handful. Sorry you had to see that."
Origami watched Yimi's retreating figure. "Something's odd."
"Is it?" Shiori quickly stepped into her line of sight. "Ah... maybe Origami has seen her at my place before? Never mind that—do you have time today, Origami? I think my bra might be getting too small."
"I have time."
Tap tap tap tap—
Yimi, who had run halfway down the block, turned around and trotted back. Keeping to the farthest possible path from Shiori, she made her cautious way back to the sandpit, sorted her cards, and tucked them into her pocket.
These were the spoils of the cat's victory.