"System tallying results… Holy Corpse collected: 10/10. Mission complete. Rewards are being distributed—Host, please claim them promptly."
Painful.
Can I go home now?
Whether by mercy or cruel joke, the System had not reclaimed the Holy Corpse Yimi had worked so hard to collect—but a complete Holy Corpse was never something so easily absorbed.
Much like Lucy Steel before her, the Holy Corpse was now attempting to possess her on its own terms, the dry, puppet-like hardened skin of something ancient trying to replace her fur, creeping in from every direction.
It wasn't the saint's actual wish. The Corpse simply treated everyone who tried to claim it the same way—with equal, impartial resistance.
But Yimi was no ordinary person like Lucy Steel, helpless to resist. Her divinity-infused spiritual force held it at bay, and for now, neither side could gain the upper hand.
"Hungry…" That was the worst of it.
Every second of resistance was burning through her body's energy at a staggering rate, leaving no room to think about anything else.
Whether or not it was connected to the "talent" the System had mentioned, the little cat quickly figured out the technique: like some toothless creature soaking its food in saliva before swallowing, she had to continuously infuse the Corpse with spiritual force tainted by her own divinity, assimilating it—dyeing it in her colors, the way she herself had once been dyed by it.
It was brutally difficult.
Compared to a Holy Corpse capable of shifting tectonic plates, Yimi's spiritual force was like a single drop of watercolor in a barrel large enough to hide a person—and her spiritual force wasn't limitless. Because of her Stand, eating could replenish her stamina. But also because of her Stand, the first symptom when any one reserve ran dry was always the same: gnawing, desperate hunger.
"Repeating: rewards distributed. Host, please claim them promptly."
With those words, two faintly glowing objects materialized in the air before Yimi, obligingly flashing their details.
[Novice Combat Suit (Fake)]: Shaped by the Host's anime affinity. Status: Unbound
The appearance: a white button-up shirt and pale yellow shorts—the visual equivalent of a starting-zone white-tier drop with a stat bonus under 5.
[Space Ring: 2m × 2m]: Common junk found on every corner, but just right for making up for the missing system storage.
A barely-decent silver ring with a somewhat large, faintly tacky blue sapphire set in its center.
"Notice: both material rewards require being worn to bind. Host, please equip them soon, or store them safely to avoid loss—"
"Hungry!"
The incessant chatter was grating on the nerves of the cat already struggling against Holy Corpse erosion. Following pure instinct, Yimi opened her little mouth and decisively sank her teeth into both floating items.
Chew. Swallow. The energy automatically routed to top off her spiritual reserves, blunting the Corpse's advance.
The System took two or three seconds to process, apparently recalibrating.
"Novice Combat Suit (Fake) has been barely fully bound. Its effects are now classified as part of the Host's innate power and no longer need to be worn. Please complete the 2D trivia quiz immediately to determine the enchantment."
"Portal energy detected at overflow. Consume 100% to transport now?"
The portal was reading at 185% overflow—85% of that had accumulated from mission-completion bonuses alone.
"Transport. I want to go home."
With that command, the portal's overflow energy plummeted. Then came the light-particle effect, like a Servant's final fade—the foreign species carrying the Holy Corpse took the priceless relic and vanished from this world.
...
When the world materialized again, it was unlike anything Yimi had ever seen.
Too open. Open to the point where there was no ground, no gravity. All around her stretched a black curtain, with only a handful of sun-lit planets scattered across it as distant ornaments.
The nearest of them was a world teeming with life—a boundless blue sphere.
Somehow she wasn't suffocating out here beyond the atmosphere. Without any concept of planets, Yimi couldn't make sense of her surroundings. Her heart held only two things: panic at the absence of familiar houses and fellow cats, and the constant, grinding pain of having to hold the Corpse at bay even in a new world.
But one thing she did understand: going too fast meant crashing into something, and that was going to hurt. Her animal instincts were also telling her, quite plainly, that at this speed, with the weightlessness she was already feeling —
Yimi was genuinely about to die.
"Main quest updated. Tap to view."
"Notice: You have one gacha pull available. Tap to use."
Yimi had no time for any of that. Because directly ahead of her, an obstacle had finally appeared—not a drifting asteroid, but a golden-haired girl floating at the edge of the atmosphere, curled as though asleep—or keeping Kars company up there—wearing an outfit that resembled a qipao but far more revealing.
"Mrow!"
Yimi's head collided with the girl's stomach. Perhaps because there was no gravity, and the girl wasn't especially heavy, and her abdomen was soft—the impact was enough to leave both parties dazed but not actually injured.
The golden-haired girl didn't even seem hurt. She simply stirred, lifting sleep-blurred eyelids to blink at whatever had just rammed into her.
The collision, mild as it was, set both of them moving. Instead of just grazing past the atmosphere, they were now both tumbling downward—splitting apart like a forked stream, veering off in two different directions—toward the Earth below.
"Congratulations, Host! Achievement unlocked: [At-Fault Driver]. Reward: Basic Traffic Rules Manual ×1."
Whatever it was, eat first, ask questions later.
Falling toward the Earth, Yimi clutched the thin little booklet in her front paws and bit into it. Knowledge about traffic lights filled her head automatically, though compared to the previous two items, this thing provided less energy than a fish any gold-toothed guy could reel in.
"Even a small piece of knowledge, once mastered, is a remarkable achievement. Today, Host is once again working up a studious sweat. Keep it up." The System faithfully played its learning-success jingle.
She punched through the atmosphere. The surface expanded below her. The clever little cat, wind and cloud rushing past, finally had a theory.
Is Yimi… in the sky?
If she made it back alive, she had to tell the grown-up cats that they all lived on a ball. She couldn't imagine how shocked they'd be.
If she made it back alive. At this rate, the Holy Corpse would turn her into a cat-corpse before she ever hit the ground.
As if annoyed by being ignored, the System cranked up the volume:
"Reminder to Host: using the gacha now carries a chance of obtaining a flight item. First pull has a 50% chance of yielding something relevant to the Host's current situation."
"Pull! Pull pull pull!"
"Initiating gacha—given the emergency, unnecessary animation has been skipped."
"Congratulations, Host—you've obtained: Spear of Longinus!"
[Spear of Longinus]: The holy lance of Saint Longinus, which once pierced the Son of God upon the cross. Sacred bloodstains mark its shaft. (Item description partially corrupted.)
[Attached message from the master of the Holy Corpse: Child… where on earth did you get this?]
A completely crimson spear materialized before the little cat. Yimi, whose four paws had found nothing to hold onto until now, instinctively grabbed it—and the Holy Corpse's assault was immediately, mercifully suppressed.