Holding down the channel-change button on the remote, the cat-eared girl stared at the images flickering across the screen. After playing for a few minutes, she let out a long, bored yawn.
This was so boring. Even changing channels had become boring.
Roll lowered her head and licked her tail, casually tossing the remote aside before starting to scamper and rummage all over the living room.
The house was quiet everywhere. Only the sound of splashing water occasionally came from the room next door. Nearly everyone, including Big Cat, had gone away again, and the only ones left to look after the house this time were a cat and a fish.
"So bored..." After scampering around another round, Roll returned to the sofa. She tried her best to curl herself into a little ball while lazily swishing her tail back and forth. "Big Cat went out again, and Big Cat didn't take me to play..."
Little Merman was still splashing around vigorously in the next room. Roll really couldn't understand how that little fish had such abundant energy, or how merely playing in the water could make him so happy. Thinking of this, she couldn't help feeling a little envious of Doudou, and she also began to miss her own past.
Although her memories from when she was very young were somewhat hazy, Roll still remembered that when she had been a cat, she hadn't always felt bored like this.
Back then, there always seemed to be lots of fun things waiting for her. Although she couldn't think of much, she could easily gain a great deal of happiness from the few things she could think of—a ball of yarn could keep her happily entertained all day; she could scratch Big Cat's door and then be chased all over the place by him; she could bat around the little rubber ball Big Cat had bought for her all afternoon without getting bored. But why couldn't she do that anymore?
Roll lowered her head and looked at her hands. Human hands were complicated and could do so many things. Human brains were complicated too, and could think about so many things. But perhaps it was precisely because there were too many things she could do and think about that she felt bored.
Roll jumped off the sofa and ran to her toy box. She rummaged around and found the little rubber ball she had once loved playing with, then bounced it twice.
Then she let out a dejected meow.
What if... I tried playing with it differently?
Roll stared closely at her hands. After thinking it over, she decided to show a little creativity.
Human hands could grab things and throw them.
She picked up the rubber ball, squeezed it, then took aim at the nearby wall and hurled it with all her might.
With a bang, it left a black mark on the wall, and the rubber ball bounced back.
This was much more fun!
Roll felt as if she had discovered a new continent. She happily picked up the ball and ran all over the living room, throwing it at every place that caught her interest.
The ceiling, the walls, the kitchen door—the rubber ball left marks of varying depth everywhere before bouncing all over the living room.
Until, with a bang, the ball became embedded in the middle of the television screen on top of the TV cabinet.
The image on the screen shook violently several times, then turned black with a wisp of smoke. The television itself rocked back and forth before finally toppling headfirst off the cabinet.
Roll stared blankly at the television, then suddenly jumped up. "Meow!!!!"
What should I do? Will Big Cat eat me?
No, no. I heard kittens are really expensive. He wouldn't have the heart to do that...
But I was picked up! I wasn't expensive at all, okay?!
Roll's ears and tail stood straight up, and her fur slowly puffed out. At the same time, she heard the splashing in the next room stop at some point.
Little Merman in the room seemed to have heard the commotion too.
Roll felt her brain suddenly become much sharper. Countless possible consequences and solutions flashed through her mind. In this situation, gluing the television screen back together with saliva probably wouldn't work—she didn't have that much saliva, and Little Merman would soon discover what had happened in the living room anyway. So, the current situation was...
At that moment, Roll suddenly remembered a plan she had failed to carry out a long time ago.
Using both hands and feet, she charged toward the stairs and ran up to the second floor. In the storage room, she found the treasure she had hidden away: a tiny bundle. Then she hurried back to the living room, stuffing her tail into her clothes as she ran, and finally rushed toward the front door.
Just as she was about to dash out of the house, she suddenly remembered something. She ran to the coat rack, found a large hat, and put it on properly to cover her ears.
After doing all that, Cat Girl rushed out of the house and fled.
I'm coming, outside world! The first step in the cat people's conquest of Earth starts here!
Half an hour later, Roll stopped at a street corner, opened her little bundle, and stared blankly at what was inside.
Oh no... There was such a huge flaw in my original plan.
There were too many toys in the bag and no food.
Why didn't I put food in it back then?
Oh, right. The plan was to catch mice after leaving home, so I wouldn't need to bring food...
But I don't want to eat mice anymore.
Roll rubbed her belly. She wasn't hungry yet, but she should be hungry in a few hours.
Going home was definitely not an option. That fish must have already discovered that she had broken the television, and Doudou was supposed to watch cartoons that afternoon. Without a television, that fish would be terrifying.
If she went back, the fish would definitely beat her up.
Within her limited little mind, Roll selectively forgot that every room in the house had a television.
She had to get some food.
Roll searched all over herself and finally found several crumpled bills in one of her pockets.
She vaguely remembered that this was the pocket money Big Cat had given her after she had finally been allowed to go out by herself.
But buying things was such a hassle. It was better to save time by climbing a few more trees, so she had hardly spent any of it and had saved it all.
Roll looked at the bills in her hand and fell into thought.
Then she did her best to recall the process Big Cat had taught her for buying things. Clutching her saved pocket money, she headed toward the nearest store.
"Boss! I want dried fish! Cookies! Dried tofu!" Roll sprawled across the counter and stared straight at the shopkeeper. "Where are they?"
The shopkeeper was looking down while doing his calculations. He raised a hand and pointed toward the shelves. "Snacks are on the second shelf in the back. Help yourself."
Roll said "Oh" and was about to walk away when the shopkeeper suddenly looked up.
"Huh? Aren't you the little girl staying at Hao Ren's place?"
At the mention of Big Cat's name, Roll nearly leaped into the air. She thought the man had seen through her plan and was about to capture her and send her back to be beaten. But then the shopkeeper continued, "I haven't seen Hao Ren around for quite a few days. Did he go on another business trip?"
"B... Big Brother went on a business trip." Roll nearly bit her tongue, but fortunately remembered what she had practiced countless times before.
"Oh. Tell him when he gets back that the cat food he ordered from me last time has arrived."
Roll had been about to hurry off to get something from the shelves, but she stopped dead when she heard that.
Her eyes lit up. She slapped both hands on the counter and sprawled across it. "Cat food! Boss! Give me the cat food!"
The shopkeeper was startled by the cat girl and leaned backward. "Oh, right... You can buy it too. How much do you want?"
Roll slapped all the change in her hand onto the counter. "How much can I buy?"
A few minutes later, Roll left the store, completely satisfied, hugging two huge bags.
Bags this large would have been impossible for her to carry before. But after becoming human, not only had she grown bigger, her strength had also increased tremendously. Holding all this stuff barely felt like anything. It seemed that being human wasn't so bad after all.
Now that she had food, what was the next step in conquering the world?
Roll wandered along the street, thinking about her plan to conquer the world.
Then I'll recruit a bunch of minions.
There seemed to be lots of stray cats around here...
If I bribe them with a bag of cat food, it should be easy to win them over, right?
What comes after getting minions?
Roll understood quite well that cats alone would have a hard time ruling the world, now that she had gained such a high intelligence.
She still had to rely on humans, because humans made many things convenient.
Then I'll have my minions act cute for humans and turn the humans into tools for ruling the world!
Next, I'll use the humans to establish a puppet government... I'll start by managing this street.
As Roll walked and planned, a beautiful future floated through her mind—a future in which she had successfully conquered the world and established a cat-people empire.
In that case, I'll hand the cat-people empire over to Big Cat to manage. Then...
Big Cat probably won't pursue the matter of me breaking the television, right?
The sun gradually sank toward the west. A cat-eared girl carrying lofty ambitions and two large bags of cat food walked proudly along the streets of the South Suburbs.
Find where the stray cats gathered.
Distribute the cat food.
Assign the missions.
Although those stray cats, which looked rather stupid, didn't seem to understand her very well, they certainly looked happy while eating.
Crouching beside a trash can in the corner of an alley, Roll handed out cat food and watched as the little calico in front of her carefully licked the crumbs clean.
In a daze, she seemed to see herself from back then. Only, back then, she had been standing where the little calico was, while Big Cat had been the one holding a handful of cat food.
So this is what it feels like to feed a cat?
It doesn't seem like much... Why did Big Cat feed me back then?
Did he have a lot of food? Or had he also wanted to conquer the world back then?
Many messy thoughts passed through Roll's head, but at some point, the little calico in front of her had already run away.
She hadn't even assigned it a mission yet.
She clapped her hands and stood up somewhat dejectedly. Then she licked the bit of residue stuck to her hand, grabbed some cat food from the bag she was carrying, and wandered aimlessly along while tossing it into her mouth.
The sky had already grown dark. At this hour, Big Cat would usually be calling her to eat.
Winter had ended, but the early spring night was still very cold.
The streetlights gradually came on one by one, and the ground lights beneath the ornamental trees on both sides of the road lit up as well. Although it was a run-down district, it was still an urban area. Back when it was near the city boundary, some things had been planned and built here. These ground lights and a nearby shopping mall were both products of that ambitious era.
A cold wind blew over, and Roll shivered instinctively. Then she belatedly realized—she no longer had warm, thick fur covering her body.
She should have worn more clothes when she left.
She had spent all her pocket money on expensive, high-grade cat food, so she seemed to have no money left to buy clothes either.
Roll looked at the street as its lights came on and scratched her chin, trying to remember why she had run away.
It seemed I had only been throwing the ball. It wasn't a big deal. Why did I run away?
Roll hunched her neck against the increasingly cold night wind. She saw the ground lights shining nearby, and some distant memories and instincts surfaced. She slowly walked over, then crouched on one of the ground lights.
When winter had been cold in the past, ground lights had been excellent places to keep warm.
The little ground lights were just the right size for a stray cat to crouch on. The heat they gave off wasn't very strong, but it was enough to shield a cat from the cold wind.
Several extremely faint rustling sounds came from nearby. A few stray cats emerged from the bushes and padded lightly toward the nearby ground lights.
They looked somewhat surprised at the human crouching beside them, apparently unable to understand why a human would crouch there too.
Roll looked down at her feet somewhat dejectedly.
It isn't warm at all.
Is it because I'm wearing shoes? Or because I'm too big?
In any case, the memories and instincts from her childhood had been completely useless. It wasn't warm at all.
A filthy stray cat approached warily. The scent coming from Roll kept the stray cats from scattering in fear as they would before an unfamiliar human, but her human appearance still made them extremely wary.
"Is this your place?"
Roll lowered her head and asked the stray cat curiously.
The stray cat flicked its tail and gave a meow in reply.
Roll thought for a moment, then suddenly laughed. She stood up and walked aside. "Then you can crouch here~~"
"Meow?"
"I have somewhere warm to go." Roll hugged a large bag of cat food, her mood extremely cheerful. "I'm going home!"
Leaving the bewildered stray cat behind, she merrily headed in the direction of home.
Although she couldn't remember why she had run away from home, I'm so cute. There's no way Big Cat could bear to hit me, Cat Girl happily thought.
(Reposting this chapter. This time, I should be able to post chapter comments.)
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