The following early morning.
Here is one of the town squares, commonly known as the cat gathering place.
“Nya (I’m hungry!)”
“Nya (Let’s play!)”
“Nya (I’m sleepy)”
There were three little kittens at the gathering place.
The adult stray cats were playing with them casually.
The kittens are cute. I want to adopt them.
“Nya (Even if you’re Nekomata-sama, you can’t kidnap kittens, can you?)”
“Nya (Huh? I have no intention of kidnapping them.)”
“Nya (Is that so?
Sometimes people kidnap kittens, and Nekomata-sama had the same expression on his face.)”
Is that what he looked like?
Not a human kidnapper, but a cat kidnapper?
There aren’t any pet shops in this town, or maybe even this world.
The only options for getting a cat would be to ask someone to give you one or catch a stray.
I want a cat as a pet, but I don’t have the right place to keep one.
Plus, since I’m a cat, I can understand what they say, making me hesitate.
Well, it’s okay to watch the stray cats.
After checking the kitten’s health and confirming no abnormalities, I headed to the store.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
In front of Clover’s general store.
Rion-kun and a soldier-like man are talking.
Upon closer look, Rion-kun has cuts all over his body.
The store’s door has been broken, and the inside is in complete disarray.
“So, the only thing stolen was the cash in the drawer?”
“That’s right. The safe was too heavy so they couldn’t carry it away.”
“I see. That’s all for now.
I’ll go back to the military police office to report this. If anything else happens, I’ll come back.”
Was that guy a military policeman?
Does that mean someone broke into the store?
“Master! I’m sorry, there were thieves in the store!”
[Don’t worry about it.]
“I did as Yotsuba nee-sama told me and quietly handed over the money, but those guys took advantage…”
It seems he was injured when they started causing trouble in the store.
I healed him with recovery magic.
It might be dangerous for little Rion-kun to mind the store by himself.
Should I hire someone? Someone strong…
After restoring the store with alchemy, I think of someone perfect for the job.
Oliver-kun. I’ll hire him since he was just hanging around in the forest.
After restocking the store, I returned to the forest immediately.