Unlike before, this new world didn't sync her mana over into something else.
"System, refill energy."
"Host energy has been drawn to refill the portal."
Under the little cat's confused gaze, portal energy ticked up by just 5%—and then a 48:00:00 cooldown timer popped up underneath.
"Mew?"
Compared to the early days, when a tiny percentage refill would leave her feeling drained, the Yimi who'd been stuffed full of Third Magic now had effectively limitless mana. There was no way it should be capping out at a measly 5%.
"In response to host's confusion: this System is a Travel System. 'Travel' means stopping to enjoy the scenery along the way. The System's autonomous portal refill rate has been throttled accordingly."
"Old Wu!" Then at least restock the quests I should've gotten out of the last world!
Yimi pawed unhappily at the System's intangible panel. Not only had the last world had no main quest—she'd dropped 100 energy to leave it, and racked up barely any achievements either.
If this world has no quests, this kitty is gonna chew you out!
She flicked through the quest log.
Main quest: Become the Hakurei Shrine Maiden.
Side quests: —
A peculiar one. This time, it wasn't asking her to beat anyone up.
Gensokyo—a place established in 1885 under the leadership of the youkai sages and others, carved out as a refuge for legendary creatures (legendary by modern human reckoning, anyway) in a world increasingly committed to science.
The whole region was sealed off by two layers of barrier. The outer was the Boundary of Fantasy and Reality; the inner, the Great Hakurei Barrier.
In principle, that was. Occasionally outsiders—people or objects—still slipped in. Which was why, in a place like the old-fashioned Human Village, you could sometimes spot something distinctly modern, like a manga.
The home of the generations of Hakurei shrine maidens who guarded Gensokyo was, naturally, Hakurei Shrine. The shrine itself sat right on the boundary line at the edge of the barrier—which was where Yimi had landed.
An odd building. And made of wood, at that. Not at all similar, really, and yet Yimi couldn't help thinking of the little wooden cabin Rayleigh had built on Amazon Lily.
The strangest thing of all, though, was the big box sitting in front of the door.
Yimi padded over and peered down at it. Several wooden slats had been set across the top. Beyond that, it was completely empty—she couldn't even tell what it was for.
A box.
"Mew~ (＾-＾)"
For the first time in ages, Yimi shifted back to full cat form and hopped up onto it. She measured the gap between the wooden slats with her whiskers. Way too narrow—no chance of squeezing through.
But it had been so long since she'd seen a proper box, and she was going in regardless!
Clack—
"Congratulations, host, for achieving [Forced Entry, Overlord-Style]. Reward: portal energy +5%."
Maybe the shrine couldn't bear to replace such an old fixture, or maybe troublemakers had once jammed odd things in there—either way, the kitten didn't have to push hard at all before the wooden slats broke clean.
She tucked her limbs in. Boxed up in the security only a cat can know, and having been up early before the dimension jump, Yimi quickly felt drowsiness creep in.
"..."
The shrine doors slid open. A young woman in a sleeveless red-and-white miko outfit, a big bow on her head, stepped out and looked, expressionless, at the two broken slats by the donation box.
She walked over, peered down—and saw a lump of suspiciously dyed fur curled up inside, its body rising and falling as it breathed.
Reimu pulled out her gohei and gave the thing a gentle poke.
"Mew."
A paw emerged from the ball of fur, batted the gohei gently aside, and tucked itself back in to keep sleeping.
Oh. A cat.
The girl reached straight in, grabbed the cat by the scruff, and hoisted her out.
It didn't quite look the part, but the panda-like markings made it hard not to assume the thing was a youkai. Not that this was the important point.
Reimu looked down at her long-neglected donation box. She'd just recently dragooned (read: shaken down) a male half-youkai—one of Black-and-White's friends—into repairing it. And he'd dared use materials this shoddy to fob her off!
She weighed the seemingly innocent ball of fur in her hand. "You—where did you hide the five million in offerings from inside my box? Hand it over, now."
"Mew?"
"You don't have it? Then you're tonight's extra dish!"
"Mew!" Yimi raised a paw.
This kitty's no pushover either!
"Reimu—dodge!"
The shout from overhead snapped her out of it. There was only one person who'd come barreling all the way out here this early in the morning and be this noisy.
Marisa. The annoying one who was always dropping by. The very same Marisa who'd recommended that half-youkai to her—so by some loose arithmetic, this meant Marisa had been the one to repair her donation box with junk wood.
Who knew what had gotten into Marisa today—as a human she somehow couldn't even fly, hurtling toward them in a wobbling arc.
Reimu set the cat down, then squared up against the incoming Marisa with the gohei held in both hands. Standard baseball-bat grip.
Marisa: ?
In a panic, she yanked her broom's nose up and just barely managed to brake midair, stopping a bare 5cm from Reimu's face. Her tipped-up rear came so close that the safety shorts almost mashed against Reimu's nose.
"That was close, daze—you weren't actually about to swing at me, were you?"
"You're the one who came flying at me." Reimu poked her in the rear with the gohei.
Marisa hopped off the broom, red-faced, and tossed it aside. "Not my fault! This morning I found out Kourin swapped my broom on me. Didn't realize the handling was off until I was already airborne!"
Reimu had zero interest in the story. She looked down to find the kitten she'd dropped a moment ago.
A faint surprise. A skittish little thing like that—you'd think she'd have bolted after all that commotion. Definitely a youkai, then?
But Marisa was determined to finish her story. "Sure, that broom was originally swiped from him in the first place—but when I took it over and asked him to fix it, he handed me a broom for cleaning toilets to fob me off. Outrageous!"
"You got a cat, Reimu?"
Reimu picked Yimi up. "She's a cat I've raised for ten years."
"Liar. I've never seen her before." Marisa wasn't buying it.
"Mew." Yimi nudged Reimu's hand with her front paw.
Auntie, you've got the wrong cat.
"And today, you broke her." Reimu tried to force two tears out on cue. Failed.
"I didn't even crash into her!"
"Her legs are broken." Reimu held Yimi up by the scruff in one hand and prodded her hind legs with the other. "Joints all bent the wrong way after the impact—they only bend backward now..."
"Cats are literally like that?? No matter how mournfully you spin it, I do not have money to pay you!"
"Tsk."
Reimu clicked her tongue and swung the little cat lightly back and forth, watching her two dangling hind legs swing left and right.
Just an ordinary cat? With markings this bizarre, and willing to let anyone pick her up?
Reimu tossed Yimi off to the side. Set her loose.
"What are you looking at me like that for? I don't make a habit of eating cats."