Chapter 2
That day I painfully realized that Turkish Angora cats aren’t especially good jumpers.
The reason was simple.
I banged into a wall trying to clear it and blacked out.
“Meow….” (Ugh, my head….)
I gingerly touched the lump bulging on my forehead with a paw like a cotton swat.
My first fainting and it had to be this pathetic.
My human—no, cat—pride was wounded beyond words.
In the end I lost all freedom and was stuffed into a narrow cage by the men who’d captured me.
I rubbed my still-aching head and the bridge of my nose gently with my soft jelly pads and sighed.
“Myaong.” (Sigh, what a miserable state I’m in.)
After the pain eased, I curled my front paws under and assumed the classic “bread loaf” pose, scanning my surroundings sharply.
‘There are a lot of cats in the same boat as me.’
In the dim, warehouse-like room were several cages holding cats who’d been captured like me.
The people who’d brought us were sitting around a table, chatting away.
“Ugh, today was exceptionally tiring. How long do we have to keep doing this? The whole province is up in arms because of the cats.”
“They say they’ll be sent to the newly appointed governor, so everyone’s desperate to find them. Cats mean something special to the higher-ups.”
“Hmm, ‘something special,’ huh.”
At that unexpected information, I pricked my pink ears.
‘So they don’t plan to hurt me.’
At least it didn’t seem like they’d dragged us here to kill or eat us.
Just that fact made me feel a bit relieved.
“You can just pick the good-blood ones and raise them. Why catch stray cats too? The ones from the street are quick.”
“Right. Especially that white cat we caught last — what a headache it caused… this one here.”
One of them stood up and gave the cage I was in a light kick.
“Grrr…” (loosely: why are you poking someone who’s staying still?)
I was furious. I unfolded from my loaf pose and bristled my tail straight up.
I rounded my body as much as I could and bared my teeth like a wildcat.
Take this — the baby cat’s deadly snarl!
“Haaak!”
I tried to look as threatening as possible.
But sadly, the pathetic snarl of a baby kitten only looked cute.
They snickered and openly mocked me; my pride flared from tail-tip to root.
‘What, these guys?’
They treat me like a mere cat?! Even in this shabby state, I was still a person—with feelings—and I couldn’t stand being dismissed like that.
“Kyaaak, Hahk!!” (I’m big and strong!!)
I summoned every ounce of strength I had and puffed up my fur to enormous size.
I stretched my front paws out to look taller, but all I got was cold laughter.
Anger shook my tail so badly it trembled.
Losing my temper completely, I slammed my head against the cage bars and protested loudly.
“Nyah! Nyahong! Miaong!” (You’re all dead. Open this door right now! I’ll show you how scary I am!)
…So I babbled on to myself, but there was no person—no one—interested in listening to my earnest feline declarations.
“Hah, that little one has quite the nasty temper.”
“Tell me about it. We were ordered to capture odd-eyed cats no matter what. This one gave us the most trouble of any we’ve caught.”
Ha, “this one,” huh.
Now I’m being treated like an object?
“Nyaong…” (Damn it…)
Feeling rapidly gloomy, I drooped my ears and sat back down on the cold cage floor.
“There isn’t much time before the governor’s inauguration. Iblan will come by to look at these. Tomorrow will be hectic, so let’s get going.”
“Sigh… I hope the cat that person wants is among these.”
They grumbled and all filed out.
The warehouse echoed with dozens of cats’ plaintive cries, like an echoing chorus.
What on earth were they saying?
Even though I’d ended up in the same cat’s fate, unfortunately I couldn’t understand their speech at all.
‘If only I could talk to them, I might feel better…’
But for now, the cats’ mewling was just annoying noise to me.
“Nyaoong…” (So lonely…)
On the verge of tears, I quickly wiped my eyes with a front paw and tried to be brave.
‘Think positively. This might be safer than living outside.’
Suddenly reduced to a street cat, I spent days being chased by people by day and fearsome alley cat thugs by night.
‘If being locked up like this feels safe, that says it all.’
A small kitten like me couldn’t survive long on the streets alone.
To get real food I had to rummage daily through trash bins, and clean water only came when it rained.
A baby cat with no one to care for it was almost sure to starve or fall ill.
And I hadn’t eaten anything all day.
“Kiiing…” (Thirsty…)
Hunger I could bear, but the thirst was unbearable.
‘If you caught me, the least you could do is give me something.’
I wasn’t asking for human rights—just basic cat rights, you jerks!
Grouchy, I thumped the ground with my cotton-puff front paw.
‘What big sin did I commit in my past life to deserve this?’
“Miyawng.” (Sigh.)
Ears drooped, I looked up at the window with a depressed face.
Through a bleak, prison-like window I could see the peaceful night sky.
Sparkling starlight and a bright beam of moonlight slanted through the window and illuminated my cage.
“Nyaong.” (So pretty.)
I tentatively reached a paw toward the radiant light, as if I could touch it.
When a cloud covered it and the light vanished, I got a little melancholy and tucked my face between my chubby paws.
‘How on earth did things end up like this…?’
My name is Jin Sehee, an ordinary college student from South Korea.
Aside from being an orphan raised in a childcare facility, there was nothing especially unusual about me.
I studied hard and got into a decent university, and my outgoing, agreeable personality earned me many friends.
Because money was always tight, I worked part-time, but life was fine enough — I’d even adopted a stray cat and cared for it.
With so little free time, my sole hobbies were reading web novels and watching videos in spare moments.
Because of that, I knew all the clichés about reincarnation tropes, but the world I’d been possessed into wasn’t a web novel or a game.
Not only had I fallen into this strange world, I’d turned into a cat — a really absurd circumstance.
In my previous life I was slogging through school and part-time work.
After midterms, one day I clicked a thumbnail for what looked like a period drama on Netflix to relax, and dozed off.
That night, suddenly, an acute heart attack struck.
In the tiny semi-basement studio I’d been barely keeping with government support and my part-time earnings (50/500, utilities extra), there were just me and my cat, Maru.
To die alone at twenty — what a thing.
‘I haven’t even had a hot romance… I can’t die like this!’
As that thought crossed my mind and my breath failed, Maru licked my cheek and meowed in my ear.
Then I died.
My memories of my previous life end right there.
When the darkness turned to light again, I was horrified.
I’d been pulled into the historical fantasy world I’d been watching before I died.
And of all things, I’d become a cat!
“Meow…” (Of all things…)
If only I’d been pulled into a story where everything was normal and predictable; that would have been sweet.
I clicked the video because the romantic subtitle — “The great king who loved only one woman all his life” — had attracted me, and now look at the disaster it caused.
Thinking about how it happened only made me gloomier, and I slapped my cheek with a paw.
‘Get a grip. Is now the time to be leisurely?’
Feeling sentimental wouldn’t fill my stomach. Survival comes first.
I could be sad later after I find a way to become human again. It’s ridiculous but this was my reality.
‘Think positively. Being captured might be an opportunity.’
It had already been two weeks since I fell into a world full of people and architecture that looked like somewhere between the West and the Arab world.
Rummaging through trash to stay alive was getting close to the limit.
‘Iblan the governor, huh. I hope they don’t want living sacrifices or something.’
I still didn’t know what “special” meaning the people had hinted at earlier.
This place was completely different from the modern world I’d lived in.
But it seemed better than starving miserably on the streets.
I decided to make an active survival plan and returned to my loaf pose to think hard.
A grand governor’s inauguration, officials, and the cats.
And me trapped here.
How could I turn this situation to my advantage?
‘Since they captured so many cats, there must be a specific one they want.’
And this guy named Iblan would come and choose a suitable one from among the noisy cats and me, right?
‘If it’s going to the person with the grand title of governor…’
If I were selected, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about food or shelter for a while.
‘Okay, I’m decided!’
I would do whatever it took to charm that Iblan fellow.
That was my first goal.
Having sorted my thoughts, I brightened and solemnly began the next task.
Chup chup chup. Sssk. Chup chup.
Instinctively, I started to groom my paw pads and top of my paws, spitting and cleaning.
I intended to use all my past butler-cat experience to make sure I captured Iblan’s heart.
“Kiiing…” (Ugh.)
I threw my hind leg up as high as I could and licked my fluffy, soft pink belly.
I felt a little ashamed, but in this situation, what did human dignity matter?
Civility could wait until I had something to eat later.
‘Find someone to serve me! Then I’ll turn my life around this time.’
With hundreds of sachets of churu in mind from my past life, all that remained was finding a devoted owner to take me in and restore my fortune.
I grinned slyly, and after diligently grooming until the dawn star rose, I fell soundly asleep.
