The White Cat That Swore Vengeance Was Just Lazing on the Dragon King’s Lap - Volume 1 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Power of the Spirits

Ruri’s new life in the forest started with the sunrise. She rushed out of the house bright and early, taking in a deep breath of the forest’s clean early morning air.

“Aah, how refreshing!”

“Refreshing!”

“’Freshing!”

The spirits around Ruri stretched in a similar fashion, mimicking her movements. It had been a few days since she’d started living at Chelsie’s house. Although she was still sad about there being no way back to her world, she was fully enjoying her new lease on life devoid of Asahi’s annoyances.

She was staying in one of the many rooms in this huge house, which seemed too big for just one person to live in. Her days were now full of surprises. At first, Ruri was ready and raring to learn magic for both her everyday life and for her revenge, but the process that Chelsie taught her was so severely underwhelming that it left her dumbstruck and asking, “That’s it?”

She taught her that the most common method for enlisting a spirit’s powers was to basically think of what you want to do in your head and wish for the spirit to carry it out. It was anticlimactically simple, but just having the right wavelength or amount of mana didn’t necessarily mean that whatever popped into your head would manifest into magic.

For example, if you wanted to create water for laundry, unless you were compatible with a water spirit, the water spirit wouldn’t lend you their power. Alternatively, if you had a small reserve of mana, then the amount of water you’d produce would be small as well. Even if your mana reserves were somewhat limited, the spirit could compensate for that if your wavelength was compatible, so it was no exaggeration to say that a lot rode on how much the spirits favored your wavelength.

Ruri possessed a wavelength spirits loved, as verified by Chelsie, and if she asked the spirits to do something they would all scramble to provide their services. Chelsie reprimanded Ruri for the strength of her power and instructed her to limit the amount of mana she emitted in the future. Chelsie also told her that she would just have to get used to this, and she spent her days manifesting harmless magic. She mainly used it on the one thing indispensable in everyday life and bound to cause minimal harm even if she were to botch it—water. Ever since the time she tried to light the oven and let loose a giant stream of fire that almost burned the house down, Chelsie had given her strict orders not to use fire magic until her control was much better.

At first, Ruri continued to use her magic without an understanding of mana, but slowly she began to feel the sensation of something exiting her body each time. It was noticeable enough to help Ruri learn how mana functioned, and knowing what it was meant that she could work on keeping it in check. So in spite of the occasional failure here and there, she eventually learned how to control it. Once she did, her everyday life dramatically changed.

In this world—not just within the confines of the forest—facilities like electricity, sewage and gas didn’t exist the way they did in Ruri’s world. All laundry was washed by hand, food was cooked on hearth-like stoves, and lighting was provided by lanterns—these standards of living resembled Europe centuries ago. Accustomed to the conveniences of her world, it would be totally understandable if Ruri found life without them painful—but she didn’t, for one big reason: magic.

Ruri had offered to do the cleaning, the laundry, and the cooking in exchange for lodging at Chelsie’s house. For cleaning, she would use wind to gather dust and debris into a small pile and dispose of it with fire, magic she was free to use now that her studies had progressed. For laundry, there was a spell known as “Purification,” which was a handy piece of magic that allowed water to wash away stains without getting the clothes wet, forgoing any post-wash drying like you would have with any normal method of cleaning. This magic could be used on both clothes and bodies. So once Ruri learned it she immediately wished she’d had it during her time in the woods, when she was positively filthy from sweat and grime every waking moment.

As such, Ruri was extremely grateful for the existence of magic and started to believe it was even more handy than anything that existed in her own world. Humans were the race with the least amount of mana, it wasn’t at all uncommon for a human not to have any. Given that, relying on magic in everyday life wasn’t possible for everyone, and many people’s cleaning and laundry had to be done by hand.

But for Ruri, even without her active, conscious magic, the spirits would bring loads of berries and fruits that grew in the forest to please her, so stocking up on food was a breeze. This behavior on the part of the spirits was baffling to Chelsie.

That brings us to the present with Ruri, who was up bright and early to do one thing—take a bath! Regardless of being told that Purification magic rendered bathing unnecessary, the Japanese side of her wanted to soak in a bathtub and relax.

Purification was a relatively simple form of magic, which mostly anyone could use as long as they had at least a little mana or some aptitude for water, so it was apparently not customary in the Dragon King’s Nation to soak in bathtubs. (Those who couldn’t use Purification would use their tubs to wipe or wash off, but never soak.) However, after singing the praises of bathing to Chelsie non-stop for days, she was allowed to build a bathhouse in the backyard—she either convinced Chelsie with her passion or the woman was trying to get her to shut up.

“Alrighty, time to get building!”

“Build what?”

“A bathhouse, she said.”

“What’s a bathhouse?”

“Beats me.”

She envisioned a small log house with a bathtub in as much detail as she could muster. As soon as she had, several twigs split through the soil and sprung forth. The twigs proceeded to grow as if they had a mind of their own, gradually taking form until they produced the log house that Ruri had imagined.

Seeing the house exactly as she had envisioned it, she pumped her fist in victory. “Hooray! There’s nothing magic can’t do! All of you are really amazing!”

“Yay, I got complimented!”

“Yeah, hear that? I’m amazing!”

The spirits zipped around in the air, elated from all the praise, the sight of which was both cute and comforting. But Ruri wasted no time opening the wooden door and entering the bathhouse. There was a dressing room in the foyer and a door in the back leading to a classy and spacious bathing area. It was reminiscent of a personal open-air bath you might see in a high-class Japanese inn.

All she needed to do now was fill it with hot water and it would be perfect—she could use it any time she wanted. Containing her excitement at this point was simply impossible.

“Mm~! First bath in ages, here I come!” Ruri said, quickly using magic to fill the bath with hot water, then undressing in the changing room and hopping in. She proceeded to melt in pleasure as she reunited with the familiar warmth of the bathwater. Perhaps attracted by seeing Ruri’s elation, the spirits joined her in the piping hot water.

“This is absolute heaven...”

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

As Ruri was enjoying her early morning bath, Chelsie was inside the house, reading the letter she’d received from her grandson, Joshua, who served as an intelligence operative in the Nation of the Dragon King. Only a few days had passed since discussing the Nadasha situation, but he’d already sent back a report. He was quite a capable grandson indeed. The report detailed Nadasha’s current state vis-a-vis the Priestess Princess and the prophecy. As Ruri had explained, the handful of people close to Asahi showed an abnormal amount of attachment and adoration, but there were no real issues present by Joshua’s account.

Apparently, there were some signs that she had been using Bewitch magic. It wasn’t clear if it was on purpose or not, but the mana that this “Asahi” herself possessed wasn’t enough to be perceived as a threat. She did seem to have a lot of mana for a human, but in order to keep someone bewitched, they had to stay near Asahi for a long time, otherwise it wouldn’t work. Even if it did, the bewitchment would disappear if the victim spent much time away from her.

However, according to Ruri’s account, if you associated with Asahi at all, you practically became her slave. Chelsie thought that this difference in accounts came from the different worlds’ tolerances toward magic—in this world, you were introduced to magic from the moment you were born; whereas, in the other world, magic as she knew it didn’t even exist. In Ruri’s world, there was no immunity toward magic, so the effects probably worked far too well. Regardless of where they were being bewitched, it appeared that the prophecy correlated to the people of Nadasha essentially worshiping Asahi. A passage from the prophecy stated, “The Priestess Princess who descends from another world shall bring great prosperity to the land, but should one do something not to the Priestess Princess’ liking, it shall lead the land to decay.” That was probably why everyone—not just the bewitched Prince—took such drastic measures against Ruri when they had suspicions of her inflicting harm upon Asahi. It had spelled misfortune for Ruri, but delight for Chelsie.

Nadasha was a nation that had always been cruel and compassionless toward demi-humans. They were envious of them for having a territory that spanned far wider than their own human territory and had waged war on them countless times. Many demi-humans were born with varied incredible skills and abilities. Given a choice between a nation that allowed individuals with those abilities to flourish and a nation that prohibited those abilities and proclaimed humans superior, it was obvious which of these would prosper. Nadasha was a nation living in willful ignorance for the sake of hate. The thought of what would happen if they did recruit Ruri sent shivers down Chelsie’s spine.

In the Nation of the Dragon King, the strongest dragonkin—known to be the strongest race in this world—was crowned king. Then there was Ruri. She was human, the race with the least amount of mana among many, but her mana rivaled that of the Dragon King himself and she was adored by a host of spirits. While those favored by spirits appeared from time to time, a spirit acting on their own to help someone—such as aiding someone stranded in the woods or bringing them food—was exceedingly rare. Spirits governed everything, and although they appeared adorable, they could easily lay waste to a country if provoked.

In addition, Chelsie sensed that those spirits had a deep affection for Ruri, almost as a mother would for her children. If something were to happen to Ruri, those spirits would no doubt come seeking retribution. If Ruri had been incorporated into that other nation, whose agenda included the elimination of demi-humans, and implanted with their anti-demi-human ideas... it could have meant full-blown human on demi-human genocide. And the most terrifying thing of all—Ruri herself was oblivious to this possibility.

The next sentence she read affirmed her fears.

“Yeah, letting this matter sit won’t do,” Chelsie said, standing up and heading toward Ruri.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

“Haaah, yup, Japanese people need their baths. Oh, Chelsie-san. Care for a dip, Chelsie-san? I promise you it feels great.”

As Ruri was coming out of her long-awaited bath, Chelsie came up to her, looking oddly serious. “Ruri, can you spare a minute?”

“Huh? Yes, what is it?” Ruri asked, slightly on guard, worried she’d done something to upset her.

“Ruri, I know you have some history with Nadasha, but do you resent them?”

“Of course I do! Revenge is my number one goal!” Ruri replied promptly, emphatically, and without hesitation. Not only did they accuse her of a crime she didn’t commit, they dumped her in a forest crawling with dangerous wild animals. Fortunately, she made it out in one piece thanks to the help of the spirits, but one wrong step and she could have ended up dead meat. Ruri didn’t know the meaning of the phrase “taking things lying down.” She was going to have her revenge, no matter what.

That was when Chelsie’s voice started to sound a little strained. “By ‘revenge,’ what do you mean? What do you intend to do?”

“Why, I’ll make them cry! I’ll make them grovel! Asahi, the main thorn in my side this whole time; the King and the Priest who abducted me; the Prince and those classmates who pinned a fake crime on me; the soldiers who kicked me? I’m going to line them all up and punch the daylights out of them!”

“And that’s it?”

“I guess that’s taking it too easy, isn’t it? Good point. I was fighting for my life, after all. I should probably throw in a few roundhouse and axe kicks while I’m at it, shouldn’t I? Then, I’ll give them the bald samurai cut, shaving everything off the top, and make them parade around town, too.”

The elderly King and Head Priest could handle that, but it would probably inflict some major mental damage on the much younger Prince and the soldiers. No, actually, those elderly men being forced to part with the few remaining hairs they still had on their heads might hurt a lot.

“Aah... I see...” Chelsie said, giving Ruri a curious look but appearing somewhat relieved. Why she looked relieved, however, was a mystery. “Now I know that you’re harmless.”

“Harmless? Even though I’m planning all these nasty things?”

“You could make them suffer with torture, destroy the nation, make an example of the monarchy—there are so many ways you could enact revenge, but those weren’t even on your list, were they?”

“Huh...? I wouldn’t go that far...” Ruri said, her face tensing up upon hearing these revenge methods beyond the scope of her own imagination.

It was indeed safe to say that, compared to Chelsie’s forms of revenge, Ruri’s revenge was relatively harmless.

“In that case, I have a request for you.”

“What would that be?”

“Thing is, magic has suddenly stopped working in Nadasha. Any call for a spirit goes completely unanswered.”

“Why is that?”

The answer to Ruri’s question came from the very spirits floating around her. “Those guys picked on you, Ruri.”

“This is what they deserve!”

“You said you wanted revenge, so this is what they get, Ruri.”

“We hate anyone who’s mean to you, Ruri!”

The spirits fired off one reason after another, their tone light but their words filled with anger.

“Magic stopped working there on the day you were dumped in the forest, so I didn’t want to immediately assume, but it seems I was right. You are the reason, Ruri.”

“But they made Ruri mad!”

“She said she wanted to take revenge!”

“Because I said that?”

“Uh-huh.”

The spirits all happily nodded their heads as if wanting praise for their actions, but a cold sweat running down Ruri’s brow was all they received instead.

“In other words, it’s my fault the spirits are boycotting...”

“Not being able to use magic in this world is a life-and-death situation. The power of spirits is necessary for cooking, hygiene—all facets of daily life, really. Granted, humans hold the least amount of mana. Only a handful of people, such as the priests, can use legitimate magic, but now that the spirits have stopped helping them Nadasha has apparently fallen into great turmoil. If your revenge doesn’t entail laying waste to Nadasha as a whole, then could you put a stop to this?”

Ruri did want revenge, but throwing the nation into turmoil or laying waste to it wasn’t part of her plan. She wanted revenge on the King, Priests, and soldiers, not the people who lived there. And even if that wasn’t the case, Ruri could never find it in herself to carry out an outrageous agenda like destroying a whole country anyway. Although a place going into turmoil just because they couldn’t use magic was hard for Ruri to imagine, considering she was raised in a world without magic to begin with, Chelsie’s tone was serious, and Ruri spoke to the spirits to convince them to stop.

She was met, however, with a chorus of complaints.

“Aww, but how come? How come?”

“Don’t you want to get your revenge?”

“Well, yes, I do, but... that’s an issue I have to tackle, I want to sock it to them myself. Please, guys, just let me handle this.”

“So are we... getting in the way...?”

“Urk...” Ruri winced, faced with a group of adorable spirits on the verge of tears. “Not at all! I am so grateful to have you all around.”

“Really?”

“Yup, for sure. I’ll have you guys help once the time is right. But for now, don’t do anything without my say-so. Okay?”

“Okay, got it!”

Despite Chelsie throwing a rather pained look her way, with the frowns of the spirits turned upside down, Ruri felt a sense of relief. Chelsie simply heaved an unenthusiastic sigh and said, “Ruri, I will give you one piece of advice. As you’ve learned from this incident, if anything happens to you, the spirits will take swift action. There might be those who wish to use that power in the future. I’ll provide you with all the knowledge that I have. So you just make sure you can differentiate between right and wrong, so that no one ends up manipulating you.”

“...Are you sure you should be telling me that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you were the one to take me in when I was wandering the forest and had nowhere to go. I feel like I can never repay your kindness. I’m pretty much like a baby who doesn’t have a clue on how this world works, so you could implant any kind of thoughts or concepts of good or evil that suit you right now. And since you’re the person who saved my life, I would be inclined to believe anything you said.”

Ruri was implicitly asking why Chelsie wasn’t taking her chance to manipulate her, to which Chelsie smiled wryly in reply. “Yes, that probably would be quite a simple task, but it would be extremely dangerous. You are smart enough to realize there’s the threat of someone brainwashing you. I’m also sure that now that you know of the danger of ordering the spirits to act, you’ll make sure that they don’t go out of control. But there are some fools who would know of these dangers and think only of how they could profit from them. That’s why you must never be swayed by the unsubstantiated opinions of another. That is the one thing you must always remember, if nothing else.”

“I will keep that in mind, but if the spirits are that powerful, then if I were to take over the world using the spirits, not someone else—what would you do?”

“I will pray that never comes to pass. But you seem to be timid at heart, so you probably wouldn’t carry out such a heinous act. A few acts of mischief, on the other hand, are no problem.”

“Okay, I won’t deny that I am a little timid, but are these spirits really as dangerous as you make them out to be?” asked Ruri. It was hard to believe that such cute beings could be that deadly. Their appearance and speech were so childlike they didn’t seem dangerous to her at all. Plus, she understood that magic was very convenient, but she also thought that people should be able to go about their lives even if they fell out of favor with the spirits and couldn’t use magic.

“Alright, alright. I’ll explain everything to you. ...But, first, it’s pretty noisy out here, don’t you think?” Chelsie said, suddenly looking in the opposite direction and furrowing her brow.

Ruri looked too, perplexed. “But no one is making any noise?” Ruri replied. None of the spirits around her made a peep.

“Not in here. I meant outside the barrier.”

“Barrier?”

“This house is surrounded by a magical barrier that makes it invisible and keeps others from coming in. You didn’t feel it when you came in here?”

Her incredulity made Ruri recall the feeling of her body passing through a layer of film of some kind, right before she saw the house. “Now that you mention it, I do remember having the sense that my body was passing through something when I came here...”

“Yes, normally you would have been rejected by the barrier and unable to enter. This kind of magic doesn’t work on people with magic stronger than the user’s own. So I was very surprised to see you! Plus, on top of you looking filthy, you passed out as soon as you saw me.”

“...Right, sorry for all the trouble.”

Ruri followed Chelsie as she went to check on the barrier. She hadn’t noticed it when she first came here, but now that she understood magic, Ruri was also able to understand that there was an invisible barrier from sensing the magic in the air. Ruri looked through the it with great interest until she eventually found the source of the ruckus.

“...Ah! It’s that wild beast! And it’s... wearing my wig.”

The same gigantic beast with the physique of a bear, face of a boar, and tail of a scorpion, which had chased Ruri to Chelsie’s house, was repeatedly charging into the barrier. And atop its head sat the brown wig that Ruri had lost as she made her getaway. It seemed it had gone out of its way to pick it up...

“No way, that thing wanted to eat me... Chelsie-san, we have to run!” She started tugging on Chelsie’s clothes to run away, but Chelsie didn’t budge.

“Hold it. No one can pass through the barrier unless their mana is stronger than mine. That magic beast won’t be able to, so calm down.”

“Magic beast?”

“It’s what we call animals who have mana, unlike regular animals. ...Still, it’s odd. I’ve never seen one behave like this before,” Chelsie commented, perplexed.

The spirits then answered, one after another.

“It just picked up Ruri’s hair.”

“It’s not here to attack me?”

“No, no. It said you dropped it, so it picked it up to return to you.”

“It wouldn’t attack you anyway. It’s been protecting you in the forest this whole time.”

According to the spirits’ explanation, the reason why Ruri had been able to survive for days in this forest teeming with animals and magic beasts was because this particular magic beast had been secretly following her and protecting her from other threats the entire time.

It remained hidden as to not frighten Ruri, but in the end it was unable to contain itself and showed up in front of Ruri anyway. Just as it thought, its presence frightened her into running away, causing the beast to instinctively start chasing her as a result. The reason it seemed so frenzied wasn’t because it had found prey but because it was so happy that it had emotionally overloaded.

When it came back to its senses after losing sight of Ruri, it picked up the wig she dropped and waited for her to come out so it could apologize, but since waiting clearly wasn’t doing the trick, it had to resort to stronger measures.

This creature was as stalwart as the most loyal of dogs.

“Since it has mana, it was attracted to Ruri’s wavelength just like the spirits, eh?”

“Hey, can you guys speak with that magic beast?” Ruri asked to confirm, seeing that the spirits seemed to understand what the beast was saying despite it only speaking in incoherent bmoos.

“Yup, sure can.”

“If it can understand the spirits and vice versa, then you all should have filled it in...” said Chelsie. It would have saved the beast days of waiting had they just done that.

The spirits quickly and nonchalantly replied, “Oops, we forgot!”

The magic beast seemed to slump its shoulders in response. Once Ruri exited the barrier and approached it with caution, it slowly presented its wig-capped head to her, so Ruri ever so carefully took the wig back.

“T-Thank you...” Ruri said, and the beast loudly bmooo’ed back at her, causing her to jolt in surprise.

“It says it wants you to pet it, Ruri.”

“Wha?! Really?”

Approaching the unknown beast that towered over her was scary enough and she would have refused if she could, but as soon as it kneeled its massive body and looked at Ruri with round eyes full of happy anticipation, she found herself hard pressed to say no. She reached for the magic beast’s head on her tiptoes and softly petted its boar-like hair.

It seemed to be letting out purrs of pleasure, but with the pitch of its grunts being so low it was kind of scary... no, it was downright terrifying. However, in spite of its hair appearing coarse and bristly, it was actually softer than she expected.

“Oh. I wasn’t expecting the texture to be this nice,” she said, as the spirits came over, curious to check it out for themselves.

And so, from that day on, Ruri found herself with a new pet—a big new pet.