“But Kei, we definitely didn’t see anything like that drop back when Glas killed his first skeleton.”

  “Oh yeah. He was so busy acting smug about it, he almost got assaulted by a zombie.” I let out a tiny chuckle as I recalled the incident.

  Glas, who had been lounging on the couch the entire time, cracked one eye slightly open to express his displeasure—but closed it again in a rare display of tolerance. Huh. I guess even he likes to let sleeping dogs lie every once in a while.

  Miyoshi was right. If a D-Card had dropped during that little display, we definitely would’ve noticed.

  “Maybe D-Cards won’t drop if a monster kills another monster, then? It would kind of bug me if the rules were inconsistent like that. Though I guess it’s always possible they had already defeated other monsters before they were summoned too...”

  It wouldn’t be out of the question to think that if a creature had been summoned from some other location, it might have gone through the monster-slaying experience already.

  If that were the case, that would refute the hypothesis that summoned monsters were created out of nowhere by using the relevant summoning skill—which would also mean that if they died, they were gone for good. There was no way we were going to test that idea, though.

  “Even when summoned creatures defeat monsters, it’s treated as if the summoner made the kill, isn’t it? Any dropped items always appear in the vicinity of the summoner, anyway,” Miyoshi pointed out.

  “Oh yeah!”

  It was a proven fact that Miyoshi gained experience every time the Arthurs killed something. It would’ve made sense for it to work like a party that was set to funnel all experience points to the leader, but the Arthurs seemed to get stronger when they killed monsters too. Not to mention...

  “Didn’t we ask Cavall about this once, and he said that they might actually get stronger through battle?”

  If that was true, then there was no way the owner was getting a full hundred percent share of the experience points.

  “He did say ‘might,’ Kei. It’s also possible that their increased performance is more of an indirect reflection of my increased MP, maybe.”

  In other words, Miyoshi could’ve still been getting the full share of experience points, and as her MP increased, the Arthurs’ strength increased along with it.

  “Something tells me they wouldn’t have powered up so fast if that were the case.”

  “Again, these are all ‘mights’ and ‘maybes,’ Kei.”

  Thanks to Miyoshi’s Appraisal skill, we already knew beyond a doubt that monsters had stats. Maybe if Appraisal could be leveled up, it might show stats for summoned creatures as well. We would have to save any final conclusions until then.

  “So, circling back a bit, what was the whole ‘talking-to’ thing all about, anyway?”

  “When I asked Cavall about it earlier, the gist seemed to be that Ai was angry at him and calling him useless.”

  “Useless? For what?”

  “Who knows?”

  I guess it’ll be a while yet before pets and humans can actually understand each other...

  ***

  I swear, that foolish dog has nothing going for it besides its size, meow.

  At least I managed to get him to promise to help me out from the shadows. Considering the direness of the situation, I have no choice but to take the lead in protecting this house.

  Now it’s time for my daily patrol. The fence surrounding this house has a rounded top and is a bit narrow, which would no doubt cause problems for amateur fence-walkers, but to me it’s a walk in the park.

  As I trot across the top of the fence, I get the strong, eerie sense that I’m being watched.

  ***

  “The target is passing Point A,” said Beets. He was monitoring the target from his position next to Denver, who was taking careful aim with his tranquilizer gun.

  “It’s headed into the shadows of the trees. Passing it to you, Echo. Over.”

  “This is Echo. Taking over monitoring from Bravo.”

  The moment Eckley acknowledged the transmission and took over on the ground, the cat stopped in its tracks and glanced up in Beets’s direction. For a brief moment, he felt as though its eyes met his, and a sudden pang of nervousness shot through him. Once he saw it start moving again like nothing had happened, though, he sighed and shook his head in disbelief, figuring it was just his imagination.

  “The target is passing Point B— Wha?”

  “Echo? Something wrong down there, Echo?”

  As Beets quietly requested a response, another sound started to overlap with his voice. At first it sounded like a distant, sobbing child, but it soon escalated into a noise that was absolutely inhuman: a long, high-pitched screech, as if something were scraping continuously against glass.

  “What the...?”

  The noise gradually increased in volume, as though its source was getting closer. Denver shot a puzzled glance around the area, tranquilizer gun firmly in his grip. When his eyes found Beets, he saw the man frozen in place, hand against his headset, his face as pale as a sheet. His comrade’s gaze was fixed on a single point in space, unmoving.

  Carter, noticing that something was off with the balcony team, called out to them from across the room.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Denver was the one to respond, sounding rather perplexed as he peered outside in an effort to pin down exactly what Beets was staring at. “Uh, we heard some kind of noise...”

  “Noise?” Carter raised an eyebrow.

  Just then, a response finally came in from Eckley downstairs.

  “Echo to base. As soon as the target crossed Point B...it disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “It might’ve jumped down on the other side of the fence...but I can’t confirm. If it’s still walking, it should be showing up at the next location soon. From there I should be able to confirm whether—”

  “Yeek!”

  Carter, who had been listening to the voices on comms, turned to the balcony where Beets’s frightened yelp had come from. There, both Denver and Beets were completely frozen, staring at something Carter couldn’t make out from his vantage point.

  With two of his men bizarrely transfixed, Carter snatched his gun out of his desk drawer and cautiously made his way toward the window.

  He had only taken a few steps before he started hearing the noise. It sounded like the souls of the damned crying out in agony plus the sardonic laughter of the demons welcoming them to hell, both rolled into one combined howl.

  With each plodding step he took closer to the window, Carter’s legs felt heavier. By the time he was almost there, the voice had transformed into a horrific wailing sound—a half-terrified, half-triumphant shriek.

  “Wh-What the hell?!”

  The part of the window that was hidden behind the frame finally came into the bewildered man’s field of view, revealing what was on top of the balcony’s handrail.

  “Oh Lord, protect me from the fangs of the devil and save my soul!” Beets suddenly blurted out, then dropped to the balcony floor, pressed his head against it, and clasped his hands together in fervent prayer.

  Having previously witnessed Adams’s disappearance, Beets already had a strong belief that there was a mysterious force at work around that house. However, he also knew that nobody would take him seriously if he brought it up. In fact, the worst-case scenario was that people would think he had a mental illness, and he’d be taken off the team entirely. In the end, he had put on a tough front, but his bluff had been shattered in an instant.

  Out of absolutely nowhere, a pair of glowing golden eyes had appeared, attached to what might well have been the personification of darkness itself.

  “Shit!”

  It’s the twenty-first century, dammit! Who the hell believes in God or the devil anymore?! Carter thought to himself as he raised his silencer-equipped Luger, pointed it at the balcony handrail, and pulled the trigger twice, not even thinking about the sound of the gunshots.

  He saw the bullets sink into the black mass that had suddenly shown up—but the golden eyes merely continued staring at him from the darkness, not affected in the slightest.

  “I-Impossible!”

  It might have only been a .22 caliber weapon with a silencer, but from this distance, he should’ve seen at least something happen. If the bullets had bounced off, they’d be on the ground somewhere nearby, and if they had hit their mark, they would’ve left tiny holes.

  In reality, though, neither of those things had happened. The bullets had simply vanished the moment they reached the thing, as if the rules from some other realm had taken over.

  The devil doesn’t exist, and if there’s a hell, we’re already living in it. There are no other realms out there, and I’m firmly grounded right here in reality—

  As he vehemently tried to convince himself of that fact, the world around Carter began to sway, and he was assaulted by the sense that even the very floor he stood on was melting away.

  Denver, his eyes wide open, knelt on the balcony floor, humming a well-known Bible verse to himself as he pointed his weapon at the darkness and squeezed the trigger over and over again, having apparently forgotten it was just a tranquilizer gun.

  In an effort to stave off the impending panic and force himself to calm down, Carter fired off all of his remaining bullets. When they were spent, he saw the monster reveal a set of white fangs, which almost seemed to grin as they opened to reveal a massive red maw. It might as well have been the gate to hell itself.

  He shuddered, all but convinced that something absolutely horrible was about to happen to him. And just as that fear seemed about to become a reality...

  “Ai! Suppertime!”

  “Meow!”

  A cheery voice called out from the house below, and the tension in the air instantly evaporated like a distant dream.

  The mysterious black entity had transformed into a perfectly normal black cat, which immediately turned around and hopped off the balcony.

  “Whaaa?!”

  This is the fourth floor. There’s no way it could just jump down without hurting itself—

  Having come to his senses, Carter rushed over to the balcony and peered over the edge, but saw nothing at all.

  “Did I just dream that...?”

  With his world, which had been coming apart at the seams, finally back in order, and his feet once again firmly on the ground, Carter suddenly realized he was drenched in a disgusting layer of sweat. It felt like he had just bolted out of bed after a terrible nightmare.

  “Only if we all had the exact same dream.”

  When Carter turned to see who had responded, he spotted Allen standing there like some kind of stone-faced doll, drained of all emotion.

  “That was a warning.”

  “A warning?”

  “It’s because we came up with that stupid plan...”

  “Allen, get a hold of yourself.”

  “How the hell else are we supposed to explain what just happened?! You saw that thing! The devil can show up anywhere he wants, and do whatever he pleases!”

  “Cut the crazy talk! The devil doesn’t—”

  —exist.

  Putting the rhetorical sense aside, there couldn’t be a real devil out there. Yet when Carter tried to say that out loud, the words got caught in his throat, and he fell silent.

  Suddenly, the door opened with a loud bang.

  Carter pointed his gun toward the door out of reflex, having already forgotten that he had used up all his bullets.

  “Whoa, hey! Hold on a sec, it’s just me!”

  Eckley, the sole member of the ground team, stood there in the doorway, holding his hands up in a don’t shoot gesture. He had apparently come running back to the room in a panic after the others had stopped answering comms and he had started hearing gunshots.

  “Oh, it’s just you, Eckley.”

  “Just me? Don’t give me that! What the hell happened up here?”

  “What happened...?”

  Carter thought for a moment about the events that had just taken place. Considering it felt like his entire team had just stepped over into the Twilight Zone in broad daylight, though, he couldn’t come up with any legitimate explanation.

  “You know... That’s a good question. What did happen?”

  “Huh?”

  Dumbfounded, Eckley took a quick look around the room. Beets was huddled on the balcony floor, quivering in fear, and Denver was sprawled out next to him, a dazed expression on his face. Allen was slumped back at his monitoring station, headset around his neck, face toward the ceiling, eyes closed. Even Carter seemed out of it, his Luger dangling loosely from his hand.

  Something had obviously happened—but Eckley had no idea what it possibly could’ve been.

  Still, there was one thing he knew they absolutely needed to do.

  “Someone might end up reporting those gunshots from earlier. We need to get rid of anything suspicious while we still can.”

  “O-Oh, yeah. True enough.”

  Eckley took all their guns and other illegal items, put them into an emergency bag, then stuffed the bag into the car they had borrowed from the embassy.

  Even after he had finished taking care of everything, the others were still lost in their own little worlds.

  ***

  When the human with the higher-pitched voice calls me, a dish full of dry food will soon follow, along with a side of canned meat or fish. It tends to be rather tasty.

  I absolutely loathe having my meals made out to be charity, but today I did them the favor of defending the peace around their home. I will consider this meal a fine reward for services rendered.

  The foolish humans probably have no idea that I play the role of defending the peace for them every single day—but I trust they will continue to serve me moving forward. Meow and forever!

  “Hm, what’s that? You like your food? Do you want that kind from now on, then?”

  “Meow!”

  “Do cats even notice a difference between different kinds of cat food? She just eats it right up every time, as far as I can tell.”

  “You’d be surprised! Ai is actually a bit of a gourmand.”

  When Miyoshi would give her boiled chicken tenderloin, apparently she would always avoid the Brazilian chicken and go straight for the Awaodori. Nero and Noir always ate every last bit of the leftovers though. Unlike Ai, her two daughters were just regular cats, after all.

  “Okay, I guess they do smell a little different... Man, she’s awfully picky for a stray cat.”

  The human with the lower-pitched voice can be somewhat rude at times. Perhaps next time the small human named Megumi visits, I’ll chase after that tantalizing stick she likes to wave around and end up “accidentally” scratching him.

  Still, if being called by a name allows me to enjoy pleasures such as this, I suppose being given a name isn’t quite as awful as I expected.

  Pleased, Ai squinted her eyes.

  ***

  The building, which combined elements of present and past architecture and looked almost like some kind of military facility, stood at the foot of an old bridge where a statue, dubbed one of the “Strange Watchers of the Thames” by Penny Illustrated Paper, held a miniature version of St. Paul’s Cathedral in its hand.

  A man stood next to a window in that building, staring down at the Thames as he eyed the paper in his hand.

  Back when the dungeons had first appeared, they had been considered a domestic matter. To address the issue, a dungeon division had been created under the DIS (aka MI5)—but after Otherworldly Language Comprehension was discovered, information from overseas became essential, and the ball was passed off to the SIS (aka MI6) instead.

  That being said, the DIS had been the ones managing the dispatch of personnel to Japan, so the team was composed entirely of their members rather than any SIS personnel. Even so, the man couldn’t help but go over what was written on the paper they had submitted one more time.

  A Black Devil has taken up residence inside the Witch’s abode.

  “What sort of code is this supposed to be?”

  This is London. Specters and spirits may haunt our buildings and cause commotion on a nightly basis, and we may have gotten a dungeon next to the London Eye two years before the actual dungeons started appearing across the world—but that’s still no excuse to submit a report like this.

  The report made it seem almost as if the DIS team was trying to play some kind of prank, or perhaps even trying to get back at the SIS for butting in on their territory—but surely there was no way they would do something so childish.

  Maybe the rumors are true... Maybe all of the personnel sent over to Japan have actually gone mad, and they’re on their way home.

  The man considered that possibility for a while, but eventually just shook his head and tossed the report into the shredder.

  Annotations

  I am a cat: I heard somewhere that the actual cat that inspired Soseki’s I Am a Cat just so happened to be a black cat.

  Understanding what the humans were saying: Who knows, it might already be possible to communicate telepathically with pets!

  Nyanzapithecus: A genus of extinct primate that lived in Kenya over thirteen million years ago. Its remains were first discovered in the Nyanza province on the far west edge of Kenya, after which it was named. A shame it wasn’t actually called “Nyan-the-pithecus.”

  Slightly eccentric Japanese expert: In other words, he’s a bit of an otaku. Lily, of course, refers to a white cat who appears in Kiki’s Delivery Service. She’s the girlfriend of Jiji, a black cat and constant companion to the titular character Kiki.

  Rumors about Ruskin’s lovers: Complete fiction. There is no such rumor. Some believed that he burned the paintings because they ruined his immaculate image of Turner.

  Another country: He means the United States. According to documents declassified by the CIA in 2019 (which also happens to be the year this story takes place), it was revealed that there had been spy projects involving dolphins, crows, cats, and more during the latter half of the 1970s. However, that info wasn’t made public until early autumn, which might be slightly after the timeline for this story. Let’s just ignore that potential slipup!