Fire Man Bell

Entering the house, Bell's gaze quickly swept across the first floor. Although the scorching flames and distorted air made everything inside blurry and indistinct, Bell's enhanced eyesight still allowed him to barely make out the objects in the room.

After one glance, Bell felt an intense pain bloom in his heart. Clutching his chest with his left hand, he staggered back two steps before barely managing to steady himself.

His gifts—the precious gifts Shanna had given him when she was little—had all been burned away by this fire!

The paintings hanging on the walls, the clay sculptures displayed on the cabinets, the garlands hanging from the Magic Screen, and so on... all of them were gone—!

Orz

But this was not the time to grieve. Bell forcibly suppressed the sorrow in his heart, took a deep breath, and looked toward the center of the room.

There, where the sofa should have been, the sofa had long since turned to ash in the blazing flames. In its place was a large cat about one meter long.

"Roarrr—!"

The large cat let out a pained cry and struggled continuously on the floor. Visible to the naked eye, its body was growing, as though someone had pressed fast-forward.

"Fina?"

Bell called out tentatively.

As expected, this large cat should have been Fina. But her current form was far too different from Fina's usual appearance, and Bell did not quite dare to recognize her at first.

Fina could not respond to Bell's call. Enduring the pain wracking her body, she turned her head toward Bell and looked pitifully at her owner.

She did not know what was happening to her either. She had been happily playing games when a burning sensation suddenly emerged from inside her body—or more precisely, from her bones.

Before she