Interesting.
A cat's intelligence is roughly equivalent to that of a two- or three-year-old human toddler. Even especially smart breeds top out at about four years old at best.
But the cat in front of her now.
It could actually understand academic reports.
Understand them.
Was it pretending to understand, or did it really grasp them? How much could it understand, and to what depth? Dr. Mobius felt her curiosity spike sharply.
She began sorting through the experimental reports created since the founding of Fire Moth, arranging them from simple to complex, using them to probe this cat with mysterious powers that could read research papers.
Physics and quantum mechanics, Dr. MEI's specialties. The cat completely checked out.
It instantly understood the easy material. The moment things required even a little real thinking, the cat immediately gave up. It was obvious that hardcore science held very little appeal for it.
Vill-V's invention blueprints. When it got to those, the cat's expression kept flipping back and forth between "What is this?" and "Whoa, cool!"
Very obvious.
The cat showed extraordinary interest in Honkai-energy-powered weapons and explosives. The wider the area of effect, the more excited its microexpressions became.
Tch.
Mobius's interest in this cat had already surpassed her enthusiasm for those forbidden projects that fused humans with Honkai.
She kind of wanted to dissect it and take a look inside, but a cat that could read academic papers was one of a kind. Mobius found herself reluctant.
What if she used this cat's DNA to clone a few identical ones, then observed whether the clones would also develop high intelligence as they grew?
She actually started considering it.
Cloning. Artificial cultivation.
She sketched out experimental plans centered on the cat in her mind, while her hands continued flipping through files on the computer at a steady pace.
That was when Mobius noticed the cat suddenly make a "What is this?" face.
?
Vill-V's blueprints were already finished. Why would the cat still react like that. Wait.
Mobius snapped back to attention.
The report had flipped to a section she had just reorganized. An experiment titled "Partial Organ Tissue of the Third Herrscher's Companion Honkai Beast, Shesha, Combined with Human Host Cells."
This was an experiment she had just conducted.
Progress was at around fifty percent. At best, it could only be called a half-finished report.
To be honest, there had been five or six branching options during the experiment. She chose the one with the highest likelihood, though even she felt it might not succeed.
Could it be that this cat had spotted a problem?
Mobius's pupils shook violently.
Click click click, tap tap…
Amid the rhythmic sound of rapid typing, four and a half half-finished proposals appeared on the screen.
Four and a half, because one of the plans could theoretically lead to two different outcomes. Which one would occur could only be determined through experimentation. Mobius's lab funding could not support that level of trial and error.
Kiyono Inori: (⊙▽⊙)
When the cat reached Proposal Four, it showed an unmistakable "Whoa, cool!" expression.
Mobius suddenly felt unreal.
How should she put this? This was absurd. No matter how learned a cat might be, could it really understand more than her? Was that even possible?
She pressed her fingers against her temples, massaging them.
She was already suspecting that she had fainted. After all, she had skipped both breakfast and lunch. Going twenty-four hours without food made fainting fairly likely. Maybe when she opened her eyes again, she would see Elysia's oversized coin-shaped face looming over her.
But still…
Mobius had heard her fair share of myths.
For example:
Ancient heroes receiving divine revelations in their dreams, then embarking on wars to save their homelands. Ancient sages meeting God in dreams, becoming prophets who spread divine will and eventually built vast empires.
In the past, Mobius had scoffed at such stories, thinking that Fire Moth's upper leadership must be missing a few screws to believe in that nonsense.
Yet now, she hesitated.
The plan that made the cat show that "Whoa, cool!" expression, when reanalyzed, did seem feasible. Its success rate appeared slightly higher than the version she had chosen.
If that was the case!
Dr. Mobius's face twisted into a manic grin.
Because of limited funding, many of her projects were stuck at the theoretical stage. If this cat could really eliminate flawed options…
Then the problem of insufficient funding would no longer be a problem.
"By my hand, ascend to godhood." Mobius thought of the goal she had always pursued. Perhaps it would arrive far sooner than she had imagined.
…
Restless with anxiety!
Just thinking about how Kiyono Inori had turned into a cat, and she, the closest person to her, had not even gotten to give her a proper cuddle yet before she ran off to that awful Dr. Mobius's lab.
The pink piggy-cat felt like ants were crawling all over her body.
Bad morals, fickle and shameless. The label of "bad woman" was repeatedly slapped onto Kiyono Inori's head by the piggy-cat.
How could you bully someone like this!
When she turned into a cat, she would nuzzle your leg with her fluffy little head, make heart shapes with her tail, and even crawl into your bed while you slept, waiting for you to wake up.
Such a thoughtful, well-behaved kitty.
So why is it that when you turn into a cat yourself!
You sneak off while I'm asleep to fool around with Mobius, meow! Is D-rank pre-mounted armor really that attractive to you, you bad kitty?
Cheating. This is cheating, right?
"Elysia, have you cuddled with Inori-cat yet?"
"Not yet, right? Inori-cat's first cuddle partner isn't you, Elysia. It's me, Mobius!"
The image had already formed in Elysia's mind!
Her fists clenched, meow!
The pink piggy-cat dashed to Mobius's lab at the fastest speed she had ever achieved in her life.
"Huh… why does it feel like a lot of the lab's alarm systems are broken? Is there a power outage?"
Elysia looked up.
The security systems meant to block intruders were almost all shut down or disabled.
Could it be… that the cuddling snake and cat knew she had woken up and was coming, so they deliberately left her a way in, just so she could eavesdrop at the door?
The pink piggy-cat snuck into the lab, then a few seconds later, snuck back out again.
What is going on, meow!
This subtle, awkward feeling!
She liked Inori-cat a lot, and she did not dislike Mobius either. But imagining Mobius holding Inori-cat made Elysia's emotions turn complicated.
I was here first!
I was first on both sides! I met Mobius first, and I was the first to be with Inori-chan as a cat! Both sides, I was first! So why did it turn out like this, meow!
The pink piggy-cat: (〒_〒)
Just a look. I'll just take a look.
With mixed feelings, Elysia quietly crept back to the door of Mobius's lab.
She pressed herself against the door.
Carefully listening to the sounds inside, though what she heard was completely different from what she had imagined.
"Using beta gene fragments from the Judgment-class companion beast Shesha to replace a small portion of the Omega gene fragments in compatible subjects requires keeping the Honkai energy concentration between A and B. But this step needs special attention, otherwise the success rate drops by thirty-one percent. That's what you mean, right?"
"Meow meow."
"Wow! As expected of Mobius, that's amazing, meow! I have no idea what you're saying, but it totally feels like that's right, meow!"
"I see. That matches my thinking. Then if we replace the star-triangle element here with the inverted-square-diamond element, would the success rate go up or down?"
"Meow."
"I don't know, meow, but my Pioneer of the Stars thinks the earlier plan has fewer flaws."
Elysia: (O_o)
Elysia: What on earth are you babbling about! You kidnapped my Inori-cat just to stuff her head with meaningless knowledge? You nasty snake!
That's enough already!
That feeling where knowledge goes in one ear and out the other! The feeling where no matter how hard you try, you still cannot learn it! That powerless feeling where you struggle for ages and then accidentally fall asleep!
The pink piggy-cat knew that despair all too well.
This is torture! One hundred percent snake torture! Inori-chan is just an underage kitty, what are you trying to do to her?
This is too cruel. You start off by explaining stuff this complicated to a cat. If you insist on teaching, at least start from third-grade elementary school material! You're awful, snake, doing something this excessive to my Inori-cat!
"Inori-chan, I'm here to save you!"
Bang!
The clear-eyed pink piggy-cat pushed the door open. The moment she stepped inside, she saw Inori-cat and Mobius staring at each other.
Inori-cat was sitting on a small stool. Mobius was holding a ruler, pointing at an utterly incomprehensible document on the screen. The two of them were actually standing pretty far apart.
But Elysia felt it.
An atmosphere.
The pink piggy-cat: (⊙_⊙)
The pink piggy-cat: What's with this feeling where I'm the only one being excluded? Does this place really not need a cute, lively Pink Fairy Miss to brighten things up?
…
1 chapter per day. For more chapters/fics, goto ErbiumTL on Patreon.
Let me know if I got a name wrong. I know basically nothing about MyGO.