"Mrow—"
A sharp, threatening cat-cry.
It wasn't Yimi's.
After reaching town, the buildings seemed to muffle things — or maybe it was the sheer number of people — but either way, her ability to track the Holy Corpse by scent had turned frustratingly vague. She still hadn't found it.
Yimi's vantage point sat far lower than any human's. Her sense of direction relied almost entirely on smell to begin with.
If a person born in the 22nd century were dropped into 19th-century America, daily life would come with no shortage of inconveniences. But for a cat who'd never had much use for human culture in the first place, the difference was barely noticeable — except when it came to the buildings.
A town with no skyscrapers was practically paradise terrain for a cat. And not just for Yimi.
"Mrow!!"
A short-haired cat — either abandoned or born stray — swished its tail at Yimi and dropped into an attack stance. Hard to say whether Yimi's never-before-seen fur pattern had spooked it or if this was plain territorial instinct.
The simple meowing carried one meaning only: back off. On any other day, Yimi's temper would've had her swinging already. But not now. Ever since she'd been chased into this town, all sorts of random people had been trying to grab her — servants of wealthy young ladies, or the rich girls' simps, that sort of thing.
Yimi swished her own tail and answered with a low, threatening rumble, circling the slightly smaller stray. A full-blown war between house cat and alley cat was seconds away.
But the thing was, little Quanquan had grown into a civilized cat by now. And what was one key difference between civilized beings and wild beasts? Not everything had to be solved with violence.
With her newfound intelligence, Yimi recalled something Uncle Nuomi — the dog who used to play with her all the time — once said:
"Woof woof, woof woof woof woof, woof woof woof."
Yimi raised her little head slightly.
Uncle Nuomi made an excellent point.
So she would pass Uncle Nuomi's wisdom along to this shorthair. Help it understand that peace was precious.
Following proper human etiquette for speaking, Yimi stood upright on her hind legs and barked at the top of her lungs: "WOOF! WOOF WOOF WOOF!"
"MROW!"
The shorthair's eyes went wide as saucers. Every hair on its tail shot straight up. It scrambled over the wall like its paws had been greased, nearly snapping its own claws in the process.
「Congratulations, Host! Achievement unlocked: [Joy Emote (Uncanny Valley) Effect]. Reward: Portal Energy +5%」
「Congratulations, Host! Achievement unlocked: [Traitor to Catkind]. Reward: Portal Energy +5%」
「Notice: Current Portal Energy has reached 20%+. This can be used for a gacha draw to obtain items. Would you like to draw?」
No draw. Save it all for going home.
The little cat didn't know what "20%" meant. She only knew she was one step closer to getting back.
Building up energy wasn't hard.
"Meow-miao-miao-miao~!"
In high spirits, Yimi shook her little head and sprang onto the roof, chasing after the fleeing cat. The plan: follow it to wherever the local strays gathered.
"Mew?"
She'd barely cleared one roofline when she stopped dead. Her head swiveled toward a certain direction, and her tail began swaying on its own.
Yimi pressed her paw down on her tail to calm it.
She could smell it. Close. The scent of the Holy Corpse!
She pivoted and bolted across the rooftops toward the source — but then caught another strange scent from above.
In modern human society, the two most commonly domesticated animals were cats and dogs. Beyond those, the only creatures you'd typically see in a town were rats — universally despised — and in this era, carrier pigeons as well. All things Yimi had encountered in her 22nd-century cat-life.
But the thing perched on the chimney ledge? That was new.
Its whole body was maybe a bit bigger than Yimi's head. Without her whiskers, she couldn't gauge the exact size. All she could tell was that it had wings, a flat skull with no obvious feathers, and when it opened its mouth, a set of needle-sharp teeth that no bird had any business having.
Most importantly, it was hissing a threat directly at Yimi — showing zero intention of backing down from a predator well over twice its size.
Any other cat might have sensed the instinctive pressure more keenly than Yimi did — a primal dread dating back to the Jurassic, carried in ancient blood.
"Hssss—" It beat its leathery wings, opened its fang-lined jaws, and lunged straight for Yimi.
"Mrow!"
Yimi dodged sideways and clamped her jaws around most of its body in one bite.
Tough to chew. Like Uncle Nuomi's chew stick — more bone than meat, and crumbly at that.
Yimi swallowed it down.
"The Holy Corpse will mark clues leading to the next Part."
"The Parts are drawn to each other. Sooner or later, they will converge."
"The Corpse triggers miraculous phenomena, accompanied by 'trials.'"
"The Corpse merges with those who possess the 'aptitude,' awakening a superpower known as a 'Stand.'"
"A Holy Corpse Part already merged with someone can still be taken by anyone holding another Part."
"The Holy Corpse does not necessarily remain buried underground — it may also assimilate with living creatures, using them to move and relocate."
These were the known properties of the Holy Corpse.
On a balcony directly above a narrow alley, a middle-aged man in a magenta suit gazed down at its far end with cold indifference.
He wasn't exactly imposing in build. If anything, he'd spread sideways into a layer of ungainly fat that didn't pair well with his carefully groomed golden hair. His eyes pointed downward, but his chin hadn't dropped a single degree — arrogance carried through to the last detail. Because his station afforded him every right to that arrogance—
The greatest backer of the SBR race, and the most distinguished man in the nation: President Funny Valentine.
He hadn't bothered hiding the specifics of the Corpse from his subordinates. It wasn't a matter of trust — he simply had absolute confidence that he, chosen by the Corpse's most critical piece, the heart, would draw every remaining part to himself like a vortex.
The Corpse came with trials, and this race spanning the American continent was, at its core, nothing more than a scheme to exploit talented people from around the world. Let them endure the grueling trials. Let them gather all the Holy Corpse Parts for him. And then he'd take everything in one sweep.
"Perhaps only a Stand user will be able to find the cat you're looking for, Mr. President." Valentine's aide delivered the bad news.
"Compared to the race itself, the women spectating on-site care far more about this novelty cat. In less than half a day, the bounty on it has already hit $50,000."
"Worse, some of the eliminated jockeys have started getting crooked ideas — snatching up strays, slapping on cheap paint to fake panda markings, and trying to sell them to the dimmer young ladies..."
As he said this, the aide held up a cage containing one such cat: a stray someone had attempted to paint with panda-like patches. Clearly, whoever did it had never seen the real thing — they hadn't even gotten the placement of black and white right.
Valentine's expression didn't change. He offered a simple assessment: "Wretched paupers."
Extreme flexibility. Agile movement. Excellent reflexes. Erratic behavior. String all these well-known feline traits together and you got one creature that was remarkably hard to catch.
But no matter how agile a cat looked in human eyes, an ordinary cat could never outrun a horse at full gallop over a straight stretch of more than a mile.
As he'd just noted: "The Holy Corpse may also assimilate with living creatures, using them to move and relocate."
Without question, that peculiar-looking cat was carrying a Corpse Part inside it.
Valentine placed a hand over his heart.
"Drawn here, was it?"
The Corpse Parts attracted one another. Low-intelligence animals had no capacity for deliberate action beyond instinct, so it had come to him of its own accord. That was a good thing.