Pov: Vik
I walked down the lacquered wooden corridor toward my private quarters, entirely unhurried.
Vik: 'System, you have the nervous temperament of an ungrounded lightning rod. It is merely a carved bone doll. Pushpa bats it under the wardrobe twice a day because she likes the clicking noise it makes when it strikes the baseboard.'
System: "Host, that cursed artifact houses the soul fragment of an ancient abyssal sovereign! Yet whenever your cat puts her mouth on it, my scanning array goes completely blind! Do you realize what that means?! I have no past data on her! I have no future trajectory calculations on her! Even when she leaves your side for five minutes, my memory banks record nothing but white static!"
Vik: 'That is called a corrupted hard drive, System. Or a broken sensor module. You already admitted you got severed from your main system space and lost your core functions. Stop blaming my cat for your own hardware failures.'
System: "It is not a hardware failure! Host, I can still track Noah's marrow density down to the decimal, and I can still read the ambient spiritual pressure of this world! Only Pushpa is a walking blind spot in causality! Outside of the moments where you are directly looking at her, she does not exist in any database, timeline, or fate register!"
Vik: 'Which proves my point. If you only register her when I am looking at her, then your scanner is obviously piggybacking off my optic nerves like a cheap parasite. Honestly, chatbot, first you misdiagnose Lin Chen as an unbeatable chosen one, then you let an immortal dragon conspiracy slip right past your nose, and now you're trying to convince me that a stray cat is an invisible void god just to cover up your lag.'
System: "Host, you are impossible to reason with!"
Vik: 'A scholar relies on physical evidence, mathematical leverage, and proper hygiene. Everything else is superstition.'
I pushed open the heavy wooden door to my bedchamber.
The room was cool and orderly, smelling faintly of dried pine ink and white sandalwood. Morning sunlight filtered through the bamboo lattice screens, throwing neat geometric shadows across the pristine reed tatami.
Right in the center of my sleeping mat sat Pushpa.
The infamous cursed bone doll lay beside her, its jaw slack and its hollow eye sockets staring blankly at the ceiling rafters, looking less like a terror of the Netherworld and more like a piece of chewed driftwood abandoned by a bored puppy. Pushpa was sitting neatly with her tail wrapped around her paws, diligently licking her left front leg with a small, rough pink tongue.
Vik: 'See? Right where I said she would be. Playing with her toy in my room.'
System: "...She wasn't here ten seconds ago! My spatial radar showed an empty room—Wait. No, my logs are now saying she was sitting here the entire time? Why are my internal timestamps rewriting themselves?!"
I ignored the frantic buzzing in my head and walked over to the mat, crouching down beside her.
I reached out, gently taking hold of Pushpa's front paw.
The soft black pads were coated in a fine, powdery grey dust, clinging to the tiny tufts of fur between her claws like ash from an old brick chimney.
"Look at this," I scolded softly, turning her paw over while Pushpa let out a tiny, questioning mrrp. "Where did you wander off to? Did you squeeze under the eastern veranda again, or were you digging around the ash pit behind Roman's stove?"
Pushpa blinked slowly, her golden-green slit pupils widening into two dark, innocent pools. She leaned forward and gave my thumb an affectionate, sandpaper lick, completely unrepentant.
This Anonymous Hall is too large, with rooms that can change their layout according to my will, and different halls. She must be moving from one room to another; I think I need to take her out on walkouts frequently, pets get irritated in same spaces.
"Don't try to charm your way out of it," I said firmly, standing up. "House rules are absolute. You sneak out without telling me, you get dirty, and you expect to cuddle on my clean blankets? Not a chance. I need to wash you to make sure you didn't catch any strange diseases or parasites from outside."
The moment the word wash left my lips, Pushpa's ears flattened against her skull.
She didn't need to understand human grammar to recognize the unmistakable tone of impending domestic doom. Her little black body tensed, her rear claws digging into the reed mat as she prepared to bolt under the wardrobe.
"Too slow," I murmured, my hand moving with calm, practiced precision.
Before she could spring away, my fingers closed gently around the loose scruff of her neck.
The moment she was lifted off the floor, all the fight went out of her. She hung completely limp from my hand like an offended black woolen sock, her four paws dangling in the air, her tail tucked tightly against her belly, glaring at me with pure, theatrical betrayal.
"Roman!" I called out toward the corridor, my voice carrying smoothly through the wooden rafters without rising above a conversational volume.
A moment later, heavy, steady footsteps echoed down the hallway. Roman appeared at the open door, a clean kitchen towel slung over his broad shoulder and a wooden ladle still tucked into his belt. Right behind him, Sherry peeked around his massive arm, wiping her flour-dusted hands on her apron with a bright, curious smile.
"Master?" Roman rumbled, looking at the limp black cat dangling from my grip. "Do you need something?"
"Fetch a tub of warm well water and the herbal mint soap," I instructed, giving Pushpa a light shake. "This little runaway went wandering outside without permission. If we don't scrub her clean right now, she'll track dirt into Lina's laboratory."
Roman nodded with solemn, deadpan gravity, treating the potential tick infestation with the same seriousness as a sect invasion. "Understood, Master. I will bring the basin."
Sherry giggled softly behind him, stepping closer to Roman's side. "I'll go warm up the thick cotton towels over the stove, Brother Roman. The morning breeze is still chilly, so she'll need to be dried right away."
Roman stiffened slightly as her shoulder brushed against his elbow, a faint flush creeping up the back of his thick neck, though he didn't step away. He simply gave a gruff nod and marched back down the hall with Sherry trailing happily at his heels.
I watched them go with a faint, approving smile. Even a block of northern iron would eventually warm up if kept close enough to the hearth.
Five minutes later, a wide cedarwood basin sat on the veranda floorboards, filled with steaming water infused with crushed mint leaves and cleansing medicinal herbs.
Splash.
The instant Pushpa's back paws touched the warm water, the docile sock transformed into a desperate, yowling shadow.
"REEEEE-OWWW!"
She twisted and scrabbled, her front claws hooking onto the rim of the cedar tub as she looked back at me with wide, tragic golden eyes, crying out as if she were being boiled alive in an alchemist's cauldron.
System: "Host... I am begging you, please be careful. My threat assessment gauge is spinning in circles. I don't know what will happen if she gets angry because there is literally no future data to read!"
Vik: 'What will happen is that my sleeves will get wet if she keeps splashing. Hold still, you dramatic creature.'
I kept one hand gently pressed against her chest—infused with a faint thread of soothing Prana so she wouldn't accidentally strain her joints—while my other hand scooped warm water over her back and lathered the herbal soap into her coat.
Within seconds, her round, regal silhouette completely vanished. With her fur plastered flat against her frame, she looked scrawny and ridiculous, half her usual size, shivering with pure indignation while thick white soap bubbles sat atop her head like a crooked crown.
"Look at the water," I pointed out, massaging the soap between her tiny toe pads until the grey dust rinsed away. "You were filthy. Who knows what kind of wild rats or poisonous insects you were chasing out there in the woods? A proper scholar's companion must maintain standards."
Pushpa let out a pathetic, squeaky "mew," her chin resting miserably on the edge of the basin as she accepted that resistance was futile.
I poured three scoops of clean warm water over her back to rinse the suds away, carefully shielding her ears with my thumb so water wouldn't get inside. Once the water ran clear, I lifted her out and immediately bundled her into the thick, heated towel Sherry had left on the stool.
I sat cross-legged on the dry mat, holding the warm fabric bundle in my lap and rubbing her fur dry.
Now that the water torture was over, Pushpa's grudge evaporated almost instantly. Nestled inside the warm cotton, pressed securely against my chest, a low, rhythmic rumble started up in her throat.
Purrrrrr.
She kneaded her newly washed paws against my scholar robes, her golden eyes half-closed in sleepy contentment as I dried the soft fur behind her ears.
Vik: 'There. All clean, parasite-free, and smelling of fresh mint. Not a single world destroyed, System. Don't you feel silly now?'
System: "...I don't know, Host. I genuinely don't know. My logs only show a wet cat in a towel. And somehow, that terrifies me more than anything else."
I chuckled softly, setting the damp towel aside and letting Pushpa curl up in the crook of my arm.
The morning was still young. Outside in the courtyard, the steady crack of Noah splitting iron-bark echoed through the clear air, and from the kitchen came the distant clatter of Roman's pots and Sherry's laughter.
I leaned back against the wooden pillar, resting a hand over Pushpa's warm, tiny back as she drifted off to sleep. Whatever the System wanted to hallucinate about scripts, replacements, or unknowable gods, one thing was completely certain: under this roof, everything was right where it belonged.