The new member, Shoubu, had said she wanted cosmetics.

Apparently the other girls had been interested too and had only been too considerate of me to say so, so we had taken this chance to search for materials.

We had already gathered the basics over the course of our life here, so all that remained was to look for materials that could be used to produce color.

That pigment search had been going smoothly.

But then, while exploring, we had somehow found—

A cat.

Roa, dressed in her maid outfit, was holding the adorable cat in her arms.

“Where could this little one have come from?”

Maybe we should have been wary, but it was so cute that I couldn’t exactly tell her to throw it away.

“Cute! Wait, why is it here?”

Shoubu’s reaction was straightforward.

“...It wasn’t placed here as something we could get ‘meat’ from, right?”

Yumekai said it with a complicated look on her face.

Still, maybe she liked cats too, because she seemed faintly restless.

“It has beautiful fur, so there’s a possibility Shouko secretly had it follow us as something ‘fluffy’...”

“Doesn’t that sound not very Shouko?”

“I think so too.”

It would explain why this white cat was here, but it was also true that it did not feel like something Shouko would do.

Since not only I but Shoubu, who was close to her, said so, we could probably reject the Shouko’s-ability theory.

“Could it be a creature unrelated to the choices in the white space?”

“The possibility isn’t zero, but we haven’t seen a single creature like that until today. Rare creatures that barely ever appear are a standard ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) game element, though...”

Even as we talked like that, the cat showed no sign of attacking us.

The cat slipped out of Roa’s arms and jumped toward me.

I caught it on reflex, and it pressed its cheek against me.

It was fluffy.

“...Let’s keep it.”

“No, Kuno. You folded way too fast.”

“Ah. S-sorry. The cat’s magic got me.”

Whether it understood what we were saying or not, the cat tilted its head with a “Meow...?” and I took heavy damage all over again.

“Can’t we take it back with us?”

Shoubu slowly approached the cat too, her hands flexing eagerly.

The cat became openly indifferent toward her, but it did not resist when Shoubu petted it.

“...Somehow, isn’t it kind of cold to me?”

“Master is adored by Mashiro and Micron as well, so perhaps he possesses a quality that makes living creatures attached to him.”

Roa said it proudly.

“Ah... There are people like that, yeah. The type children and animals somehow listen to honestly.”

Yumekai sounded convinced.

“Kuno, isn’t that unfair? Not only beautiful girls, even animals like you.”

“What am I supposed to do when you call it unfair...?”

I smiled wryly, but it was about time to decide what we would do with this cat.

“How about this for now? We have it get inside something temporarily, then we head back to just outside the barrier. Once everyone else returns, we bring it inside the barrier. Even if this cat is something inconvenient for the transfer participants, we’ll be able to deal with it if the whole party is together.”

“I’m in!”

“I believe your refusal to forget either caution or mercy is a wonderful stance.”

“...Well, even if we let it go here, it might just follow us on its own. Kuno’s idea might be best.”

If this were a monster that attacked humans, then no matter how adorable it looked, I could harden my heart and defeat it.

But as things stood, this cat had done nothing.

I could not possibly attack it from our side.

That said, we could not simply leave it alone either, so we decided to put it in a small cage and take it back.

I pictured a pet carrier and reproduced it in wood.

“Here. Could you go inside this for a little while?”

As if it understood my words, the cat obediently went in.

“What a good, obedient kitty. ...But this cat somehow doesn’t feel like someone I’m meeting for the first time.”

“...It annoys me to agree with you, but same.”

“Oh, did our hearts just connect, Serina?”

“Annoying.”

“Lots of girls are cold to me, huh. Kuno, be nice to me.”

Shoubu clung to the arm opposite the one holding the pet carrier.

In that moment, the fragrance of her, fresh from the bath earlier, drifted up, and I felt her generous softness pressing around my arm.

“...Maybe Yumekai speaks so bluntly because she’s opened up to you that much.”

Still unused to contact with girls and feeling my heart race, I said that.

“You think? Maybe?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then, Serina, do you hate me?”

Shoubu looked at Yumekai with moist eyes.

“............I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Ahaha, that’s affection.”

“Annoying.”

“And we’re back where we started!”

Shoubu laughed brightly.

In her own way, she also seemed to be enjoying the distance between herself and Yumekai.

“For now, let’s head to the base.”

If this was not a creature placed by the mystery blackboard, then it had to be someone’s ability.

Maybe someone was using a summoning ability like Shouko’s for scouting.

Or else...

Either way, once the whole party was gathered, we should be able to handle it.

Even if the base’s location was exposed, only permitted people could enter the barrier.

We returned to the grassland and waited a while for the other team.

“Huh? Heeey, we’re baaack!”

Shouko’s voice echoed across the grassland.

“Oh, they’re back.”

While we had been waiting, I had generated cosmetic prototypes with my “Crafting Ability” and let the cat out to play with it, so I had not been bored.

On Mashiro’s back were Shouko, Minori, and Shion.

On Micron’s back were Chiyu and Ms. Luminous.

They looked puzzled to see us outside the barrier, but they approached anyway.

“Everyone, what are you doing there? Wait—cat!?”

“...So-kun. I see a kitty. Is this a hallucination?”

“I-I don’t think it is a hallucination, Chiyu.”

“It’s a cat... a really cute one, but...”

“Excuse me. Is this deserted island inhabited by cats, and I simply did not know?”

Once our companions had climbed down from the phantasmal beasts, I explained what had happened.

“No, no, of course I didn’t summon it.”

Shouko shook her head.

“I know. Which means it’s either some kind of hidden character, or if not that—someone’s ability.”

Tension ran through the members of the other team.

“Is that okay?”

Shouko looked anxious.

“It doesn’t seem hostile, and now that we’re all together, we can handle whatever happens. So, how did things go on your end?”

“A-about that. We have a report as well.”

“What happened?”

“We only found two female students. Suou welcomed the two of them gladly, but...”

As expected of Suou.

But there were three girls whose affiliation had been unknown.

In other words, one girl’s whereabouts remained unknown.

“Couldn’t Mashiro find her with his nose?”

“Yeah. He says there are no more human girl scents. Isn’t that weird?”

“D-don’t tell me she was killed by a monster...!”

Ms. Luminous was trembling.

At the time of yesterday’s vote, twenty-one votes had made up the majority, so there had been no deaths as of this morning.

But the possibility that someone had died today was not zero.

“Or maybe this kitty is the last one.”

Like a great detective pointing out the culprit, Chiyu jabbed a finger at the cat.

The cat jumped with a start, then climbed up my body.

I lifted it and held it in my arms.

The cat let out a weak, pleading cry, as if trying to be sweet.

“...Wait. Sousuke, that kitty is lying.”

“Shion—don’t tell me.”

Shion’s ability was Lie-Detection Ability.

Even if it was a cat’s cry, if there was a lie in it, she could tell.

“Yes. There’s no doubt.”

“Huh? Huh? What does that mean?”

Shoubu’s eyes darted in confusion.

“...Ms. Luminous, there probably have been no deaths. The reason Mashiro’s nose couldn’t pick up a ‘human girl scent’ is probably because she had transformed into a nonhuman creature.”

“Wh-what does that mean— Ah. Don’t tell me it is ‘transformation ability’!?”

Exactly.

Before her transfer, Ms. Luminous had seen examples of abilities shown by the mystery blackboard.

Things like “charisma” and “transformation ability.”

“...Hey. Who was the one you couldn’t find?”

Yumekai asked, looking at Shouko.

“Huh? Myao, but...”

The person Shouko and Shoubu called Myao should have been a tall girl in the volleyball club.

“...I see. Now I understand why she got attached to Kuno.”

At Yumekai’s words, the cat shook its body in a panic.

“Don’t tell me... that cat is Myao?”

Shouko looked completely unable to believe it.

Of course she would. Anyone would have trouble believing it if they were told the cat in front of them was their friend.

I gently set the cat down on the ground and said, “If that’s true, turn back to your original form.”

Then the cat drooped its head as if giving up.

And then—

It flashed for an instant.

When the light cleared, standing there was a red-haired girl from the volleyball club, her face bright red as she looked down at the ground.