For now, I have two ideas in mind to escape this living hell. The first idea is to just wait until morning on the third floor. When I went there a few moments ago, it was the house owner’s bedroom.

The devilish cats won’t be able to reach there as long as I lock all the doors, probably.

As for the second idea, I’ll use my Shapeshift spell to mimic their appearance and leave the house without them noticing.

Although the first one is the safest, I want to go with the second idea.

No. Actually, I don't mind staying at this house for the entire night. If only there was food here…

But there was none.

My stomach is already grumbling for not being able to eat for like eight hours straight. But thanks to water, I can still endure it.

I wandered around the first floor, thinking. There was this little fear that’s preventing me from doing the second idea.

What if the cats find out that I only shapeshifted?

I don’t want to experience that again — the pain when my neck was bitten. It was already too painful despite there being only one cat, and now there are hundreds of them…

Nope.

Exhaling, I looked through a nearby window.

“For now, let me try this.”

I aimed my right hand towards one of the devilish cats and,

Mimic!

In an instant, a strange sensation surged throughout my whole body. It was cold and sobering as if I was poured with cold water. Then, my eyes glowed in ash gray — the color of the cat that I had targeted my spell with — as shown from my reflection on the window.

Notice: You have mimicked the following spells:

1. Telepathy (Lachgatar) - A passive spell. You can communicate through telepathy with creatures of the same kind nearby.

2. Nocturnal - A passive spell. Makes you active in the night, but sleepy in the morning.

3. Hunger - An active spell. Boosts your body for a single minute at the cost of increased hunger.

Manacost: None

Cooldown: 3 minutes

“......So it was a body function,” I muttered under my breath.

I was half-expecting that the ‘long tongue’ was a spell, but of course it won’t be. Even if it was, it would look disturbing coming from a human.

As a few seconds trickled by, I began hearing high-pitched voices in my head.

“Entrance, nothing.”

“A person inside.”

“Not opened door.”

“We go forest. More food.”

“No. Still early. Human tasty.”

Obviously, the voices weren’t coming from The System but from the cats outside; The Telepathy ability had already started its effects. It even gave me a sense of their distance, which is why the voices had varied loudness. And with the help of Telepathy, only the distance mattered.

The obstacles that could block voices, like walls, are ignored with this type of communication.

...

Now that I think about it, wouldn’t copying one’s appearance and skills makes me technically the same as them? Currently, I have the cat’s spells. So if I Shapeshift to its form…

“Heh heh…” A faint chuckle escaped from my mouth. “Formless indeed.”

Although I had decided at the spur of the moment, choosing Iridescent was the right choice. With this, a great number of possibilities are at my disposal. If I mess up at my first attempt, I can always try a different approach.

“Hmm, in any case…”

I stared at the same devilish cat that I had cast my spell upon earlier.

Shapeshift!

In a blur, everything around me became huge. But that was only from my perspective. Since I shapeshifted into a cat’s physical form, it’s only natural for me to shrink in size.

It was a bit creepy to see everything turn huge though. It reminded me of how I can see giants or enlarged things when I have a fever. Not only that, I felt a little dizzy this time, which never happened at my first try in using Shapeshift.

Let’s just hope I’ll eventually get used to this.

Proceeding to my plan, I went to a corner of a wall and dug out the dirt from the ground.

In the original state of this house, it was obvious that the floor was wholly made of cement. But because of its age and no one was maintaining it, there was a cracked area on the floor. I destroyed that area with a hammer and found out that the cement wasn’t that deep, which had led me to the formation of this plan:

Trick the devils.

After I made a tunnel that leads me out of the house, I used the Telepathy spell and followed their speech style.

“A hole. Found one.”

In unison, all of the devilish cats shifted their gazes at me. Although it frightened me, I made sure to not show it on my face (if these creatures even had facial expressions).

One of the cats approached me and looked back and forth between me and the tunnel.

“Good job,” it turned around and faced the other cats. “Everyone, here!”

That said, a horde of devilish cats charged towards this direction.

I quickly scampered away from the stampede.

Scary…

A shiver ran down throughout my small, cat-like body.

Because I still had the devilish cat’s abilities, I decided to distance myself as far as I could from the house. It was risky to talk because of the Telepathy spell. My safety will only be assured if I’m already out of the spell’s distance limit.

While I was busy running away from the house, I realized that I entered the woods so I quickly headed to the dirt path. I believed that the path would lead me to a town or a village.

Probably because of this cat’s body, I could see clearly in the dark as if I had a night vision. However, everything was black and white. It’s uncomfortable, but I have to endure it somehow.

After roughly five minutes of running non-stop, I couldn’t hear anything from the Telepathy ability anymore. I figured that it was already safe so I reverted into my original appearance.

And I was right. The night vision was from the cat’s body.

Everything around me had turned dark. But it wasn’t that bad because of the moon.

I turned my head upwards so that I could take a good look at the full moon. But what I had seen surprised me instead.

“What…” I muttered under my breath in awe.

There were two moons. The first one was, of course, a full moon; while the other one was crescent. They looked good, but strange at the same time — probably because I’m accustomed to seeing only one in the sky.

Well, I could say it was a perfect reminder that I’m in a different world.

To my horror, a voice suddenly popped up in my head — one coming from the Telepathy spell.

“‘What’?”

Oh, dammit.

There was still one devilish cat in the woods, probably lost. Having the Telepathy spell made it more creepy because I could hear its thoughts with a high-pitched voice.

“Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human! Human!”

The devilish cat scurried towards me.

Not that it had come to this…

Entering in a defensive stance, I took out the knife in my waist and held it tightly with my shaking right hand.

I thought the cat would leap at me, but I was greatly mistaken. My left hand was instead entangled with its long tongue.

“Tasty, tasty, tasty skin!”

With a click of my tongue, I pulled my left hand and cut the cat’s rope-like tongue using my knife. Leaving a viscous saliva on my wrist, the grip of the other half of the cat’s tongue lost its strength as it eventually fell on the ground.

Right away, the cat screeched, retracting its bleeding tongue.

“Hurts! Hurts! Hurts! It hurts!” it exclaimed while writhing on the ground. “Kill you! Kill you! Kill you! Kill you! Kill you!”

“Damn noisy.” My face slightly contorted as I touched my head. I never thought that a shout through the Telepathy spell could be this deafening.

Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I quickly lunge at the writhing cat with my knife pointed towards it.

Then, unexpectedly, the cat leapt at me.

I startled in surprise as I reflexively hit the cat with my knife. But because I was frightened, I only managed to use the back of the knife.

Damn this scaredy nature of mine!

A bit disappointed in myself, I stabbed the cat on the ground in rage.

“Skreeeeeeee!” the cat shrilled.

Because the cat was still stuck in my knife, I vigorously swinged my right hand to get rid of it. And so, the cat was thrown towards the woods as its small body eventually met a tree trunk about 10 meters away with a loud thud.

Slowly, it fell on the ground.

“......It’s dead, right...?” I slowly walked towards the tree.

But then, a four-legged silhouette approached the cat and shoved its head towards it. Shortly after, the sound of flesh being teared and bones being crushed had reached my ears.

I was tremendously shaken to the fact that I have yet another wild beast to take care of.