"Mroowww!"
"Please do not run in the hallway that was just mopped." The blue-haired maid offered a reminder.
For maximum agility, Yimi had shifted straight to kitten form. Her four paws skidded on the freshly cleaned floor before she scrambled into a panicked leap, clawed open the nearest door, and dove inside.
The man who'd been standing behind her scratching his cheek looked at Emilia, confused. "Did I just do something strange?"
Emilia couldn't give him an answer.
Face painted in a clown-like fashion, the true master of this estate—Margrave Roswaal L. Mathers—looked up at the clouds torn apart overhead. "What lovely weather we're having."
"Meow meow meow—"
"…"
Roswaal, one of the kingdom's few mages, Head Court Mage of the Royal Court. One day he'd suddenly begun supporting a half-elf whose defining trait drew nothing but scorn in the Royal Selection—and yet that half-elf turned out to actually be one of the candidates.
His estate certainly had the sprawling grandeur befitting a lord, but the staff was remarkably sparse. Besides himself and the Emilia he sponsored, there were only a pair of twin maids and one little-known librarian managing the Forbidden Library.
"Little-known" was apt, since the library itself had no fixed location within the estate. Any given door in the mansion might open into it. Finding it wasn't difficult per se—just open every door without closing them and you'd get there eventually.
Beatrice. A girl who appeared to be roughly twelve years old, with pale-blonde hair in vertical-roll twin tails, her pretty forehead boldly exposed. Butterfly patterns graced her blue eyes. She wore a red-accented ruffle dress with stockings in alternating pink and deep purple wrapping her slender legs.
She held her book expressionlessly, eyes sliding to the side as the small cat that had burst in mewed in alarm while knocking a row of neatly shelved books off the bookcase.
Then it dove under her skirt to hide, its round little body trembling.
"Prrrrr—" The distinctive bristle-purr of a thoroughly spooked cat.
Too terrifying. It was Diego again. Even in the Stand world, the old monster had shown up and still hadn't been fully dealt with.
The fake grandmother in the spirit world had said it was perfectly normal for different people to have similar voices. But the cat wasn't stupid just because she was young—how could so many people all sound exactly like Diego and she just happened to keep running into them?
Back in the Stand world, one of them had outright introduced himself as "I, DIO." And Tomohisa had known Diego too, even planting those anti-Diego plants as a precaution.
Knowing she couldn't kill him, Yimi wasn't going to waste her effort this time. In the Madoka world she'd encountered Diego as well, but he hadn't come for her then—all thanks to Tomohisa's plants. This world had no such plants, so Diego had come for her again.
Pressing against Beatrice's feet, Yimi's imagination spiraled: after completing two missions, the little cat came home, and her mama gently held her. Just as she was about to doze off on mama's book—homework—a cold laugh emerged from behind mama:
"I see—so this is your home? The winner is me, Diego! Say goodbye to your mother—Scary Monsters, WRYYYY!"
Shiver shiver shiver.
"Prrrrr—"
"What is this strange creature about? How did you even find this place? And—do you think Betty has too much free time? Did you come here specifically to make a mess and add to Betty's workload?" Beatrice nudged Yimi aside with her foot.
The fuzzy texture and fellow-cat appearance did remind her of her brother, though the size difference was substantial.
Beatrice replaced the books Yimi had knocked down.
"Mew?" Only then did Yimi look up and take stock of her surroundings. She scooted farther from the door in case Diego burst in and spotted her immediately.
"Don't stare at Betty like that. Barging in here uninvited—does even a wild animal crave knowledge?"
Knowledge?
Yimi surveyed the room again. Books everywhere. Back in school she'd had to lie flat on her books to study, but she'd never seen a place with this many books. There must be so much knowledge here.
Yimi shifted back to human form right in front of Beatrice—since this world had cat-people, transforming openly was fine.
Beatrice merely glanced at her, unbothered.
Yimi peeked at the door once more, then asked humbly: "Do you have, a book that teaches how to grow plants that can beat Diego?"
"That kind of nonsensical rambling that has absolutely nothing to do with anything sounds exactly like a child's babbling. I don't have picture books for you here—shoo, shoo." Beatrice waved her off in a shooing gesture.
Yimi pouted. "So useless."
"Why should Betty be criticized because of your nonsense?" Beatrice pulled out a hefty book and pretended she was going to bop Yimi on the head.
Yimi covered her head to dodge—and bumped right into the small table beside Beatrice's chair, knocking a book that Beatrice had been reading to the floor.
At that, Beatrice immediately dropped the book in her hand, snatched up the fallen one, and cradled it protectively, shooting a displeased look at this stumbling little menace.
"…"
Yimi was pushed out by the back of her head.
She rummaged through her Storage Space. Having deeply resented bell peppers in the Madoka world, she obviously hadn't picked anything from Tomohisa's garden. Any fruit she'd wanted she'd mostly eaten on the spot.
She couldn't just sit here and wait for doom. The cat could travel between worlds thanks to System, but Diego crossed worlds differently—always wearing a new face, but always relying on something. If she could just find that something, she could be rid of Diego for good, right?
Yimi pulled out her little dinosaur pajamas from Storage Space and wriggled into them, then crept forward, following the scent she'd picked up to Roswaal's room. She used the precision of a world gentler than Famine to carefully turn the doorknob and peek inside.
She saw Roswaal sitting there, holding a book very similar to the one Beatrice had been guarding, deep in thought.
"Before opening someone else's door, it's best to knock and say hello first, little miss."
He closed the book and smiled at Yimi in the doorway. The scent was different, and the tone was disgustingly affected, but that voice—no one but Diego could match it.
Though he showed no overt hostility, there was something deeply unsettling about him all the same.
"Mm."
Yimi shifted her feet, eyes drifting to the book at Roswaal's side. She could tell that book was clearly different from the others. Could that be Diego's tool for crossing between worlds?