I stared at them, waiting for the pune.

  Nothing came.

  “…What.”

  Catherine exhaled through her nose, rubbiemple befesturing toward Yuki. “Mashiro, the only reason we uand each other is because we all speak human nguage.” Her gaze flicked to the bound cat girl, who was still zily swayiail, entirely unbothered by the versation unfolding around her. “But her? Whatever she’s saying, it’s not in a nguage we uand.”

  Yuzu nodded furiously in agreement. “Yuzu hear words, but no make sense! Like… nyanya, meowmeow, purrpurr—”

  I deadpanned. “You’re just making oises.”

  “Exactly!” Yuzu huffed, her cheeks puffing up further as if I’d just proved her point. “That all Yuzu hear! She sound normal to Mashiro?”

  I hesitated, my ears flig as I turoward Yuki. She was watg the exge with quiet amusement, her golden eyes half-lidded in that ever-zy expression of hers. But she hadn’t seemed fused by what I’d said earlier. She had responded normally—like she uood me, and I, in turn, had uood her.

  “Well… yeah? She sounds pletely normal to me.”

  The words left my mouth before I fully registered their weight.

  Silence followed.

  Catherine and Yuzu exged gnces, something unspoken passiween them. Yuzu’s ears twitched, her tail giving a slow, uain flick, while Catherine’s expression darkened, her brows knitting together ihought. her of them spht away, but their reaade my own fur bristle with unease.

  Then, without a word, they both took a step back.

  My body tensed. “…Why are you stepping away?” My eyes narrowed, sing their faces for an expnation.

  Catherine’s lips pressed into a thin line, her red eyes flig over me like she was reassessing something fual. Slowly, she folded her arms across her chest, her voice low and measured. “Mashiro. That’s not normal.”

  “Very, very not normal,” Yuzu echoed, ears flig uneasily. Her grip on the small fox tightened, as if the creature could somehow protect her from whatever strange revetion she was having. “Mashiro… cat person now?”

  I frowned, pg a hand on my hip. “I’ve always been a cat person.”

  Yuzu gasped dramatically, tail fluffing up like a startled kitten. “Mashiro was catto all along?!”

  I resisted the overwhelming urge to groan. “That’s not what being a cat person means!”

  “Then what?” Catherine’s red eyes were sharp as she studied me, her posture still wary. “Because if you’re uanding her without even realizing it, that’s something we o figure out.”

  “Aaaa, is this really the time for you three to be arguing?”

  The girl on the floor let out a long, zy sigh, shifting slightly against the ropes that bound her. Her ears twitched, her tail flig idly behind her as if the euation was more of an inveniehan anything else.

  The moment her voice reached their ears, Catherine and Yuzu froze. Then, as if yanked by an invisible force, their heads soward her in perfeison.

  Their reas were instant.

  “You could speak human nguage this whole time?!” Catherine practically shouted, her usually posed demeanor crag.

  Yuzu’s jaw dropped, her dark eyes widening in pure betrayal. She pointed an acg fi Yuki, her ears fttening. “Catto girl very notto reveal at first! Bery untrustworth!”

  Yuki bli them, entirely unfazed by their e. She gave the ropes around her wrists a zy, half-hearted wiggle, as if only now remembering they were there. “Mmm… just didn’t feel like it.”

  Catherine groaned, dragging a hand down her face before ping the bridge of her nose. “Unbelievable.”

  Yuzu huffed loudly, puffing out her cheeks. “Bery, bery rude! Trick Mashiro! Trick Yuzu! Trick everyone!”

  I let out a sigh, rubbing my temple. “Yuzu, I don’t think she was trying to triyone…”

  Yuki tilted her head slightly, her golden eyes half-lidded with amusement. “I mean, kinda?”

  Yuki let out another slow, drawn-out yawn, her expression as zy as ever. But something was different. Her snowy white eyes, once dull with exhaustion, had begun to glow—a soft, eerie gold that pulsed faintly in the dim light. It wasn’t just a refle; it was as if something within her had awakened.

  “I feel too… zy to use it,” she mumbled, her voice thick with drowsiness. “Human nguage is hard.”

  Her golden eyes flickered upward, staring past us, past the shrine, into the sky itself. There was a strange sharpness in her gaze now, a fleeting moment of crity cutting through her usual haze.

  “But I felt like… if I didn’t, you three wouldn’t notice it.”

  Slowly, she raised a bound arm as best as she could, her fingers weakly pointing toward the sky. Instinctively, I followed her gaze. That’s when I saw it.

  Right above the shrihe air shimmered, twisting unnaturally as if the very fabric of reality was being unraveled. A swirling distortion crackled in the sky, like a rippling mirage—no, a portal. Its edges pulsed with a faint, sickly light, dist the space around it.

  And then, something emerged. With an unnatural, rapid fluttering, three creatures burst forth from the portal, their glossy bck bodies refleg the shrine’s flickering. Their bodies were too big, eae about the size of a baseball. Wings buzzed in an eerie, metallic hum as their long, spindly legs twitched in the air.

  Cockroaches.

  Massive, flying cockroaches.

  A shudder crawled down my spine as I instinctively activated my Identification skill, hoping to make sense of what I was seeing. A familiar s fshed before my eyes.

  << Gokibura (Lv. 3) >>Health Points: 264/264 [100%]Attack: 8Category: NONO

  Description: EW! Kill it! Kill it now! I hate cockroaches!

  Catherine’s ears twitched as she read the category name aloud. “NONO…?” Her voice was filled with suspi, but also a hint of disbelief.

  I, however, was still stu something else. "Wait. Did my Identification skill just yell at me?" I muttered, rereading the absurd description blinking in front of me.

  But there was no time to dwell on that. The three cockroaches—no, Gokibura—buzzed toward us, their iridest wings refleg the eerie glow of the shriheir legs twitched unnaturally, their antennae shifting as if sensing our presence.

  I shuddered. “Why are they so big?”

  Yuki, still tied up, sighed. “Mmm… that’s the real question, huh?” She yawned, unfazed by the approag creatures. “Giant roaches. Maybe divine punishment. Maybe bad luck.” Her glowing golden eyes flickered toward me. “Maybe… Mashiro curse?”

  I shot her a gre. “Why would it be my fault?!”

  Yuzu, meanwhile, was already pulling me behind her. Her tail fluffed up as she tightened her grip on the fox in her arms. “Mashiro stay back! Gokibura too disgusting! Yuzu hate!”

  Catherine gripped her staff, her expression grim. “Low level or not, anything that es out of a portal above a shrine is bad news.” She flicked once before she took a defeance. “Let’s squash them before they do something weird.”

  The roaches let out an eerie clig noise as they dove toward us.

  Yuki simply smiled, eyes gleaming gold.

  “Mmm. Good luck.”

  Catheried first, her instincts kig in as she pointed her staff at the desding cockroaches. With a sharp flick of her wrist, a glowing ember swirled at the tip, expanding into a bzing fireball. She u toward the closest cockroach, the spell s through the air like a et.

  But just as it s target—

  Fwoosh!

  The fireball flickered and vanished into nothingness, dissolving mid-air as if it had been swallowed by an unseen force.

  “What—?!” Catherine gasped, her tail bristling as she immediately shifted into a defeance. Her sharp red eyes darted around, sing for any anomalies. “It just… disappeared?!”

  Yuzu, sensing the shift in tension, didn’t hesitate. Without a word, she gently pced the small white fox into my arms, her expression unusually serious. A faint shimmer of light surrounded her as she reached into the air, gripping the familiar hilt of her katana as it materialized in her grasp. The moment her fingers curled around it, she moved.

  In an instant, Yuzu blurred forward, closing the distaween her and the cockroaches in a heartbeat. Her bde gleamed uhe shrine’s eerie glow, cutting through the air with an audible whoosh.

  One strike. Then another. And another.

  Her movements were swift, precise, effortless. In just seds, all three cockroaches had been struck, their bodies split apart in mid-air. Or so I thought.

  “Yuzu, watch out!” I yelled, clutg the fox tightly to my chest.

  Yuzu’s ears twitched at my warning. She attempted to leap back, but it was too te— The cockroaches didn’t fall.

  Instead, their bodies shimmered, the cuts she had inflicted vanishing in an instant. Like an illusion breaking apart and ref, the creatures twisted bato shape, pletely unharmed.

  Yuzu’s eyes widened in shock as she nded a few steps back. “Nnai?! No damage?!”

  Her grip on her katana tightened as she quickly reassessed the situation. The cockroaches, seemingly ued by her attacks, hovered ominously, their wings buzzing louder, as if mog us.