Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of good deeds. I fed a group of starved children and adults some luxurious food for the past few days! And because of that, the law enforcers are here to commend my good deeds. Where is here? The school, of course. The staff was kind enough to give me a burrow in the tree trunk to stay because they knew I didn’t have enough money to rent a whole tree. I think the burrow I’m in used to be a closet. Well, it still is a closet. There were some random things here, but I just stored them into an interspacial ring to make space for my stuff.

“Immortal Fluffytail, we know you’re in there. Please, come out peacefully.”

Ah? I’ve always been peaceful with these law enforcers, so why’d they have to specify such an odd demand? Mm, whatever. I’ll poke my head out of the burrow. “Hey, it’s the three of you again! Is your chief still sick?” Right, after he ate my food and got himself poisoned, I never saw him again. I’m sure he’s recovering at home; after all, one of his subordinates was a part-time doctor. “Mm, forget about him. Are you guys here to award me for being an upstanding citizen?”

The three squirrels exchanged glances with one another. They were standing on the ground below. The burrow I’m in happens to be the one closest to the ground. One of the squirrels, the part-time doctor, took the lead. “No, we’re here to request for you to return to the station with us. It’s about … meat.”

“Ah? What about meat?”

“You were accused of … smuggling it,” the squirrel said in a small voice as if he were afraid I’d go on a rampage. “I’m certain it’s all a big misunderstanding, but it’d be nice if you’d come to the station with us to get it all cleared up.”

Hmm. Here I was thinking I wouldn’t be punished for doing a good deed, but I forgot about one little thing! Squirrels are extremely jealous creatures if Mrs. Feathers is to be believed, and Mrs. Feathers does have a good track record of being honest. Ah, I wonder how she’s doing. Did she finish digesting that bird core yet? What if she ascended and is in the immortal realm looking for me at this very moment?

“Immortal Fluffytail?”

Ah! I got distracted. Right. Squirrels are extremely jealous creatures. One of the teachers must’ve saw how well I was getting along with the students, and since he or she was a bad teacher that all the students hated, jealousy sprouted in the teacher’s heart! He must’ve framed me. “I’m being framed. One of the teachers…, hmm, actually, maybe more than one? Some teachers in the school are jealous of how well the children get along with me, so they made up baseless accusations to reclaim their place in their students’ hearts.”

The squirrel in the back took out a notebook and scribbled some words down. “Is that your official stance?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“You swear to the heavens that you’re not a meat smuggler?”

“I never swear anything to the heavens because I’m afraid I’ll forget and accidentally break my vow, so no, I don’t swear to the heavens that I’m not a meat smuggler.” That’s right. Oaths to the heavens are very scary things. They zap you when you break them, and I know better than to make a vow that I’ll probably forget about in an hour! “But I’m definitely a law-abiding squirrel! I’m not stupid enough to break a law that’ll get me executed.”

The squirrel scribbled more things into his notebook. “Alright,” he said and looked at his friends. “We don’t need to take her to the station anymore, right? We got her statements.”

The other two squirrels exchanged glances with one another. “I guess so,” he said. “Should we try anyway? We’re already here. If we bring her back to the station, someone else will have to deal with Noble Heart’s nonsense.”

“Noble Heart called another situation in? What is it this time?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to deal with it.”

The three squirrels stared at each other in silence. Then, they glanced up at me. “We’re going to, uh, observe you for a bit longer,” the squirrel with the notebook said. “You don’t have to worry about us. Pretend like we aren’t even here.”

Are these guys trying to skip out on their duties of enforcing the law? Well, that’s not my problem! “Do whatever you want.” I have more important things than monitoring some law enforcement subordinates. I’m going to make a dish more delicious than any other I’ve ever cooked before, and I’m going to give it to the teacher in exchange for letting me Soul Scour him! Durandal thinks there’s no way it’s going to work, but he’s underestimating my cooking ability. I’ll take out the materials I need to prep, and…. “I told you guys to do whatever you want, but can you not be so close?” Those three law enforcement squirrels are poking their heads into my burrow!

“Is that meat?” one of the squirrels asked. “Didn’t you say you weren’t a meat smuggler?”

“It is meat, and I’m not a smuggler.” The way these squirrels act around meat, it’s like I’m walking around in the Immortal Continent with a super-rare treasure or something. “Meat isn’t all that hard to get, you know? Think about it. Even you and I are made of meat!”

“You’re cooking squirrel meat?” one of the law enforcement squirrels asked, his eyes widening to the size of saucers.

“That’s not what I said!” My goodness, Ilya was right; communicating with squirrels is awfully tough. “This is….” Actually, I’m not sure what kind of meat I’m cooking. It belonged to an animal with seven legs and two heads. I’m not even sure where I got it from, but Ilya sorted it into my meat ring, so it’s edible. “This is meat I got from the place I came from.”

“So, you brought meat into the seven mountain ranges,” the squirrel with the notebook said. I thought he put away his notebook. When did he take it out again? “You weren’t intending on selling it, right?”

“Of course not! That’d make me a smuggler. This is all for personal consumption. Mm, I guess I let my friends eat it too.”

“We’re friends, right?” one of the officers asked and sat down beside me. “How about you give us some of that meat, and we’ll clear up this whole smuggling misunderstanding for you?”

Mm? I can do that? “Sure!” Hmm. What’s that squirrel writing in his notebook now?