Chapter 450 - 1: Airplane Ears

Chapter 450: Chapter 1: Airplane Ears

In 1992, Hogwarts, located in the Scottish Highlands, was a school of magic. To the eye, it looked like an enormous castle.

In truth, it held far more secrets than most people could imagine. Even Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, its current headmaster, would not dare claim he understood the place completely.

As a school of magic, Hogwarts was naturally protected by enchantments befitting its identity. One of the most obvious prevented Muggles from properly observing it. To a Muggle, this place looked like nothing more than a ruin with a sign that read, "Dangerous Area. Keep Out."

There was another enchantment as well, one that probably mattered only to adult students and teachers: the spell that prevented Apparition and Disapparition. In other words, a form of teleportation magic could not be used here—at least not by humans.

"Meow!" Yimi, who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, twisted her neck from side to side and curiously surveyed this new world.

Her arrival point was not especially good this time either. She had appeared in an owlery on top of one of Hogwarts’s towers and immediately found herself staring into pair after pair of eyes.

These flying cats instantly awakened Yimi’s memories. Back in her old home, flying cats had often perched on the treetops outside. Sometimes she would run over and tussle with them, and sometimes Mama would even let her go out specifically to play-fight with the flying cats.

Yimi planted her hands on her hips, pursed her little mouth into three petals, and pointed at the one staring at her with the roundest eyes. "What are you looking at? Loser."

"Hoo—"

The flying cats seemed remarkably intelligent. The one Yimi pointed at immediately launched itself at her and angrily flapped its wings in her face.

"Meow!"

Yimi instantly turned back into a cat, leaped up, and pinned it beneath her just like she used to do with that flying cat back home.

She wondered how the flying cats back home were doing. There was also the neighbor’s big-tailed cat—the raccoon she used to beat up all the time. She missed them a little.

"Hoo-hoo—eee—" The other flying cats hooted and jeered, but that did nothing to make the fight any less one-sided.

After using this flying cat to reminisce about the past for a while, Yimi magnanimously let it go. Remaining in cat form, she walked elegantly down the tower while checking this world’s missions along the way.

She had failed to complete the mission in the previous world. Hopefully this world would not make things difficult for the kitty.

Main Quest: Compile a book of magic that earns recognition / Serve as the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor for more than one year (choose one)

Side Quest: Kill Voldemort (Reward: +1 gacha draw)

Side Quest: Collect the Deathly Hallows 0/3 (Reward: +1 gacha draw)

...

"Meow."

It was a little complicated. Just looking at the tasks made Yimi dizzy, and she had absolutely no idea what any of them were talking about.

It seemed to be class time right now. Because of that, Yimi climbed down from the tower and wandered through the castle for a long time without meeting anyone else. She could not help wondering whether this was a world that belonged to cats. Why did humans have to be the dominant species in every world?

And yet, along some corridors she could see portraits hanging on the walls. Not only that, but the people inside the paintings could actually move. When someone in one of the first paintings Yimi passed yawned, she was so startled that she jumped away, which made the person in the portrait burst out laughing.

Before Yimi could study the paintings carefully, she reached the end of a corridor and saw a gaunt, dull-gray cat staring at her with eyes like lightbulbs.

"Hello." Yimi lifted a paw in greeting.

The cat puffed up. Its already wide eyes somehow opened even wider, and then it fled with its tail between its legs as though it had seen some kind of monster.

"Meow." Yimi lowered her paw gloomily.

She had spent too long as a human and instinctively greeted it in human speech. Was there really any need to be that frightened? At least Yimi felt that back when she had been completely a cat, she definitely would not have been scared if she saw another cat that could speak like a human.

"A talking cat? Now that is interesting," someone in a portrait remarked.

The skinny cat clearly had not run away merely because Yimi frightened it. Yimi did not have to wait long before it returned with a strange old man whose appearance alone suggested a terrible temper.

He carefully sized Yimi up, then spoke in English, a language Yimi rarely heard. "Ha! A sneaking cat. Look at your pitifully ugly little face—you aren’t half as pleasant to look at as Mrs Norris. I suppose you don’t know that this cat is my spy, do you? Let me guess which student owns you—"

"Meow!" Now it was Yimi’s turn to widen her eyes as she stared directly at the cat hiding behind Filch.

This rotten thing! The kitty had politely greeted it, and it had actually gone to fetch a human to verbally attack her and call her ugly!

Yimi stood upright on her hind legs, maintaining the basic manners of a human being, pointed her right paw at Filch, and shot back, "Ugly freak."

The System had stopped teaching her vocabulary, so whenever Yimi actually needed to insult someone, she was starting to find herself short on words.

After she finished, she clearly saw Filch’s face twist hideously. He grabbed a broom and swung it at her. "I knew it! I knew it! Whose cheap prank is this? You’d better hope I don’t catch you, or I’ll hang you upside down from the ceiling!"

"Meow!" Yimi dodged his swing, kicked his leg out from under him with one hind paw, then angrily raised her front paws and smacked the bad cat called Mrs Norris three times in a single second using only play-fighting strength.

"Meow! Meow! Meow!" Mrs Norris staggered backward under the barrage before fleeing in panic.

Yimi had only just arrived in this world and still did not understand what was going on, so she did not stay to fight. She turned and fled under a stream of curses from Filch.

Yimi could understand cats adopting humans. What she could not understand was why, after adopting one, a cat would call its human over to verbally attack another cat like her.

Wearing a sulky expression on her feline face, Yimi ran through the corridors. Now that class had finally ended, she could at last see a few students, apparently only first-years around eleven years old.

They wore long wizard robes and all stared curiously at Yimi as she hurried past.

Their curiosity came from the unusual markings on her body. Hogwarts did allow pets, after all, though the school was not responsible if one wandered off.

One little girl... or rather, one big sister from Yimi’s perspective, boldly bent down and gave her a stroke as Yimi ran past. Yimi looked up at the girl and made a mental note of her. She would have to find this person later and ask for food.

"Stop running, you freak!" Filch’s voice came from behind her.

Not wanting the trouble and still having no idea what this man’s problem was, Yimi used the crowd of students to block his view, turned, and ran into a nearby room. Now that she had psychokinesis, she did not even need to jump; she could simply twist the doorknob open.

Yimi had never seen this style of decoration before, so she did not realize she had entered someone’s office.

On the desk, which was the main piece of furniture in the office, a tabby cat lay watching Yimi’s sudden entrance with a cool stare.

"Meow?" Yimi saw her too.

Filch’s voice sounded from outside the office. "You Weasley brat! I saw you pet that cat just now!"

The tabby turned her gaze toward the office door.

"Meow." Yimi kept staring at her.

This cat wanted to snitch too! That old human had said the cat was his spy! Yimi knew what a spy was!

Yimi jumped onto the desk.

She raised a paw and, using only play-fighting strength, smacked the tabby on the head as a warning.

Yimi clearly saw the tabby’s ears fold backward into airplane ears.