Chapter 55

Chapter 55

Once the news of the cat’s death spread through the manor, the atmosphere stayed heavy with gloom for a long while. The ladies-in-waiting fell silent, and the butler’s mustache drooped noticeably lower. I was in a fair bit of sorrow myself, so I kept quiet and went about my days in stillness.

Even so, I kept on with the work of sending souls to ascension. Come evening, I’d always head for the garden to look for the cat’s soul. But strangely, ever since that day it vanished right before my eyes, it hadn’t shown itself again.

‘Not coming out today either…’

I flopped down in front of the catnip and thought. Since this had never happened before, I couldn’t easily make sense of the situation.

“Unnie!”

Just then, Shion came pattering up to my side.

“What are you doing here?!”

The child plopped down onto the grass, then turned to look at me and asked.

“Me? Waiting for the cat.”

“The cat?!”

“Yeah. The cat. But it’s not showing up. Like it just poofed and disappeared all of a sudden.”

“It must have ascended.”

“Ascended? So it could’ve ascended without me knowing?”

Hearing that, I thought it might be possible. The idea crossed my mind that maybe it had already ascended, which was why it wasn’t appearing like this.

“But you’d need to fulfill all your lingering wishes in the land of the living for that to happen.”

I murmured softly, as if talking to myself.

“It doesn’t need to wait for its owner anymore, right? So it must’ve ascended!”

Then Shion abruptly raised her voice and shot back.

Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?

“Are you saying that cat’s soul met its owner or something? That’s why it ascended?”

“Yeah! You took that cat to its owner’s funeral, Unnie. Now it knows where its owner is, so it doesn’t have to wait anymore!”

Ah…

I understood what she meant, but that wasn’t what I was trying to say. I wasn’t looking for the one that died recently, but the soul that had been roaming Coverus Halden long before.

“Shion. I’m talking about the cat soul you brought here. The one that was always around.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Not the one we took to the funeral.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t even know that?”

Huh?

“That cat *is* that cat. They look the same, how can you not tell?”

Huh?

What on earth is she talking about.

Of course, the two cats did look alike. They had the same black fur and blue eyes, and even the scar on the top of the head was identical. But even so, it made no sense for them to be the same cat.

“Shion. Listen. The cat we took to the funeral died recently. So how could its soul have been here all along? That means they’re different cats, right.”

“No. No. That’s because I got lost back then and brought that cat here.”

The child pouted and put her hands on her hips. She was the one talking nonsense, yet she looked like *I* was the one being frustrating.

“Unnie. Listen. That day, I was like, ‘Am I there yet?’ and I got off. There was this big teahouse with a red sign. And a cat too! The cat said it was waiting for its owner, so I said I’d help and brought it along.”

“……What…… So what?”

“Then I came here. But back then, the cat hadn’t even been born yet.”

“……Uh…… Wait, I’m confused now? Are you saying you time-traveled?”

I pressed a hand to my forehead and held the other out to stop Shion, asking the question with a dubious look. A child’s fantasy-laced imagination was already too much for my grown-up mind to even follow.

“No. I can’t do that.”

“Then how?”

“Hmm…… I didn’t really know how to get there, so I just ended up lost somehow. It wasn’t so much time travel as I just—really, really randomly met the cat.”

“……Then, where were you trying to go back then?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

What was this nonsense now……

Let me piece it together. Shion had been trying to go somewhere she couldn’t even recall anymore. But since she didn’t know the way, she must’ve wandered into the future—or some point close to it—and in the process, she happened to pick up the cat’s soul. Then she drifted back to a past even before that cat was born and settled there. After that, time passed and brought us to now.

And apparently, the reason the cat’s soul was bound to the land of the living was because it had been waiting for its owner—and that wish was fulfilled now, so it ascended. The reason? Because I took the cat’s past self to its owner’s funeral.

Did that even make sense?

“Oh. I see! That’s amazing!”

But to Shion, I nodded as if I understood. Wasn’t it an adult’s job to protect a child’s imagination?

“Unnie…… You didn’t really hear that right, did you? You don’t believe me, do you?”

Shion shot me a suspicious look. I guess my tone had been too theatrical. I took a moment to compose myself, loaded my voice with conviction to fake sincerity, then opened my mouth again.

“Well, obviously not. How could I believe that?”

‘No. I believe you.’

Crap. What I’d meant to keep in my head and what I’d said out loud got swapped.

I quickly bit my lip and looked at Shion. But she was already staring up at me with a thoroughly sulky expression.

“……Uh…… Shion. That was a joke.”

“…….”

“I’m sorry.”

“…….”

The child’s eyes aimed at me were already glistening. Seeing her on the verge of tears, I felt a twinge of guilt. So maybe I needed to push a little harder—insist that it was just a joke and actively prove that I believed what she’d said.

“I believe you! Really! Because… uh… well, Shion. Now that I think about it, on the day the cat died, right at that moment, the cat’s soul that was here seemed to vanish along with it.”

I hurriedly fumbled through my mind, pulling up a memory.

“So, the past cat ascended, and that made the future cat disappear too, right?! What do you think? I totally get it now!”

Truth was, I didn’t really understand it. But once I said it out loud, it sounded like a decent enough hypothesis. The two cats dying and vanishing on the exact same day, at the exact same time—that had to be more than just a coincidence.

I kept pushing the thought further.

Wait. Shion said the soul she picked up was waiting for its owner on Neo Street, right? So was the owner always there, until something kept them from coming back? And the cat just died in that situation…

Soon, the image of that man from the street—the one who’d died and been buried not long ago—surfaced in my mind.

Come to think of it, he was always on Neo Street too… He didn’t look healthy. If he died somewhere else, wouldn’t he never make it back to Neo Street?

Huh? There’s actually more evidence backing up Shion’s imagination than I thought? Maybe it really is the same cat…

But even so, it was still strange. Shion was an incredibly strong ghost, but even she couldn’t travel between past and future—that just didn’t make sense. I’d never heard of such a thing happening.

“…”

A bit taken aback, I stared at the child in silence for a moment. Shion met my gaze with her golden eyes. In that unusually bright look, there seemed to be no deliberate lie.

“Shion, what are you?”

It wasn’t that I believed her fantasy story. But at the same time, dismissing it as utter nonsense left me unsettled.

“What do you mean?”

The child asked back, her eyes still glistening.

“I mean you. You said you don’t even remember your name, right? So, do you remember where you lived, how you lived—none of that?”

“Not really. And I don’t want to, either.”

“I see…”

Before, the child had said she was called Shion. And a name containing the word ‘Shion’ could only be used by the Imperial House. So I’d wondered if she might be an Imperial Princess. I’d put that thought aside, though, given her free-spirited attitude for a princess.

‘But if Shion really is an Imperial Princess…?’

Of course, being of Imperial blood didn’t come with the ability to leap through time. They were just ordinary humans, after all. Yet, a hypothesis of how it might be possible began forming in my mind.

In Luision, a somewhat unique founding myth was passed down—that the descendants of dragons carried on the Imperial House. And that bloodline continued to this day, with beings possessing dragon abilities occasionally born into the Imperial Family.

Believe it or not, but could that myth actually be possible? That Shion might be one of the imperial family born with the power of a dragon?

“Shion. Or—Lady Shion? You didn’t ever live in the Imperial Castle, did you…?”

I hedged my words with awkward courtesy, posing the question to the child carefully.

“Unnie, why are you suddenly using honorifics?! Are we… are we getting married or something?!”

Instead of answering my question, the child wailed in an aggrieved voice. Those golden eyes looked even more watery than before.

“Ah. No. No.”

“…….”

“And ‘getting married’ isn’t exactly the word to use here either…”

“…….”

“Anyway, no. Shion. You know how much I like you!”

“…….”

Shion pouted in silence, then edged closer to me. She pretended to lean against me. Knowing that if she actually tried, she’d just pass right through me, she seemed to settle for a compromise at a safe distance.

“I like you too, Unnie. So don’t tease me.”

“Ah. Got it. Sorry.”

Children always seemed to be unpredictable. Even after living with one for years, it never got easier. Anyway, I pretended to pat the child’s back with both arms and did my best to soothe her.

‘But how am I supposed to help her ascend? She barely remembers anything about her own life…’

The thought struck me suddenly. We had almost no information about this child, so getting her to ascend was bound to be no easy task.

‘Maybe… I should try going to the Imperial Castle? If I could confirm whether she’s really a princess, I might be able to find a direction from there.’

But the Imperial Castle wasn’t a place one could come and go so easily. Besides, I was just a daughter of an obscure Baronial House. No one in the Imperial House would invite someone like me.

‘Then what…?’

I stroked my chin, mulling it over for a moment. Then a sudden idea struck me.

‘That’s right. I can just go to the Crown Prince’s birthday banquet!’