Chapter 214
The First Seed [Part 4]
Fukushima's POV
"I shall give you my promise."
The samurai escorts behind me also nodded their heads.
"It's an absolute secret, got that?" Following his parents' example, George-kun threatened us with a fierce look.
"A samurai will never go back on his own words."
Upon hearing that, Lady Emma smiled like a flower and shouted at the carriage the family rode in.
"Koumei-san, Ryuu-chan, Kan-chan, Chou-chan~ You can come out noww~"
"Meow~"
"Meow!"
"Meow!"
"Meow?"
A cat's cry sounded from the carriage as if to reply to Lady Emma.
"A cat?"
"Huh? A cat?"
"It's a cat, huh?"
The samurai escorts behind me reacted to the meows.
Cats were considered auspicious animals in Imperial Japan. Like in the Kingdom, it was a rare and valuable animal, but it was popular with the commoners because many cat ornaments or cat print kimonos were used as lucky charms.
"I see. Cats are valuable. Of course, they would fret when bringing it abroad."
If you didn't want to incur the wrath of the Kingdom for nothing, you shouldn't have bothered bringing your cat here in the first place.
But cats are cute.
I understood that they didn't want to part with their pet.
It seems like we are getting better and better at responding to whatever their family pulls off. Just right when the samurai escorts and I felt relieved...
We all froze when we saw the forefeet sticking out from the carriage.
Those paws were as big as a person's head.
"!"
"?!"
"?!!!"
Those forefeet came out of the carriage with cat-like nimble and graceful movements.
"?!!!!!"
"?!!!!!"
"?!!!!!"
"Meow~"
A cat with a black, white, and brown fur color, or what was called a calico cat, approached Lady Emma silently and put its forehead on her shoulder.
"Erk!"
"Meow?"
Another calico cat got off the carriage as if responding to that samurai's scream.
"?!!!!!"
"?!!!!!"
"T-Two?!!!!"
The second calico cat drew closer to William-kun.
It was... much bigger than William-kun.
"Meow♪"
"Meoww♪"
After the calico cats appeared, a black cat and a white cat snuggled up to George-kun, the Count, and Countess Stuart each.
"Fukushima-sama, these are our pet cats. They are Koumei-san and Ryuu-chan, the calico cats, Kan-chan, the black cat, and Chou-chan, the white cat♪"
Lady Emma smiled cheerily.
"...Cats?"
"Yes, cats."
They certainly meowed earlier...
That spoiled behavior, that calico pattern, and those paws were also those of a cat. But...
"...Aren't they a bit too huge?"
Despite being like this, I had the pride of experiencing samurai training. I had trained my mind and body to not be perturbed by anything. Even so, I still couldn't readily accept that these animals that appeared before me were cats. But on the contrary, I also couldn't deny the possibility of such cats existing either.
Surely, the form was that of a cat.
But that size was not the size of the cats that I knew of.
The cats that I knew were of a size that let them snug perfectly on a person's lap.
Were there even cats that were bigger than a tiger like this?
No matter how much I tried to understate their size, they were still bigger than the tiger Katou had once defeated and showed to me to brag.
"Are cats in Imperial Japan smaller?"
Melsa-dono looked at me, still with that menacing aura.
This size was normal... for cats in the Kingdom...?
No way, that's impossi... Huh? Wait...
Could it be that the cats in the world gigantified while Imperial Japan was still in national isolation?
Did such a thing... happen?
When I glanced at the samurai escorts behind me, I saw that I wasn't the only one who was shocked. Now I could say for sure that it wasn't us, but this family that was abnormal.
Just what exactly were cats, again...?
"I-I at the very least have never seen such big cats...!"
*boing*
*rumble rumble*
*BOOM*
At that time, the first seed of Over, which no one ever hoped for, was shot, and it flew and landed. The landing point was probably a few kilometers away, but the ground shook from the impact of the fall.
"Wahh!"
"The ground!"
"Meo-meow?"
"Such a terrible earthquake—!"
Everyone lost their balance and fell to the ground.
The samurais turned pale at the thought of the earthquake shocks being able to make Over shoot out the second and third seed.
That hell had started once again.