The next moment, both figures vanished at once. Meanwhile, Kijiro, who had been roaming the nearby dark alleys, discovered something very strange.
"Something's wrong. Very wrong, meow!"
Kijiro shook his head. A normal town might not have cats everywhere, but surely he should have found at least a single cat hair after searching for so long.
And perhaps he was imagining it, but Kijiro kept feeling that the humans were looking at him strangely. When they spotted him, they seemed as delighted as starving kittens finding a mouse.
Unfortunately, Kijiro was conducting a "secret investigation" and could hardly approach these strange humans casually, so he decisively fled each time before they could get close.
But precisely because of that, Kijiro never noticed how furious those people looked after he "escaped."
"Meow!?"
Just as Kijiro was wondering why he could not find any other cats in Water Gull City, he turned his head and came face-to-face with a black cat emerging from a mouse hole.
"Hey, finally found another cat, meow-"
Kijiro happily greeted Black Cat in cat language, but just as he was about to ask about Water Gull City, the panicking Black Cat clamped a paw over his mouth.
"Meow, my foot! Hide, quick!"
Black Cat was first startled by this ridiculously fat orange cat, then hurriedly looked around. After confirming that no humans were in sight, Black Cat tried to drag Kijiro into the mouse hole.
"Wait, meow! This hole's too small! I can't fit, meow!"
Kijiro tried squeezing into the mouse hole, but never mind his absurdly plump body-even his big, round head blocked the entrance completely. He could not get in at all.
"Idiot, idiot, idiot! How did you get so fat, meow!"
Black Cat instinctively glanced at Kijiro's fat belly, which nearly dragged along the