It was deep into the night.
Today's jewel wasn't the one he was after either. Time to head back.
Using a hang glider in the middle of a city was something only an idiot or a criminal would do. In a sense, Kuroba Kaito was both.
The magician-thief in a white suit, top hat, and monocle straightened his clothes, unfolded his hang glider, and leapt from high above.
That's right. Despite being a thief, he refused to wear black even when operating at night. This time he could at least blame it on the late hour and empty streets, but before this the wanted man had even dared to appear in front of crowds of thousands.
Come to think of it, the day was almost over, wasn't it?
During morning class, one rather mystical girl in Kaito's class had told him that he might encounter misfortune today and should watch out for traffic when crossing the road.
What a joke. Now she was even telling fortunes.
"Bgh!"
The heavy blow to his stomach nearly made him vomit up dinner. He spun through the air and crashed onto a lower rooftop, landing sprawled out with his arms twisted behind him.
She had hit someone with her head!
Yimi raised a hand to cover her little mouth. This was the ladylike way Asuna had taught her to express surprise.
"Did you die?" She hurriedly landed and patted Kaito.
Kaito twitched twice, then supplied his own sound effect with his mouth. "Boom!"
A spray of fake flowers burst from his sleeve and appeared in front of Yimi.
"Meow?"
What kind of weird verbal tic was "meow"? She wasn't even at the age where kids deliberately used strange verbal tics to act cute and show off yet, was she?
Although he found it odd, Kaito still maintained his manners. "I never expected to find a lost little Princess at this height. Did you slip and fall from somewhere?"
"Do you have... storage space too?" Yimi took the flowers from his hand, put them into her storage space, then took them back out.
"...How did you do that?" Kaito murmured involuntarily.
The most important part of magic was visual deception, with ninety percent of a trick coming down to sleight of hand. But this little girl had performed it while both hands were fully exposed in front of him, and her sleeves weren't the sort a competent magician would use either.
Kaito slapped a hand over his forehead.
Thinking about it carefully, he'd been hit in the stomach, so how could she possibly have fallen by accident? From that distance and angle, the only way she could have hit him was if the little brat had climbed into a cannon and fired herself at him. And afterward, she had still landed steadily beside him?
Most importantly, when he looked down right now, the little girl facing him still had both feet hovering off the ground!
Modified shoes? No. There was absolutely no airflow under her feet. Anti-gravity, maybe? How could science-fiction equipment like that exist in reality? A ghost?
It had to be Akako. With the day nearly over, she must have deliberately sent a little accomplice to make her ridiculous fortune-telling come true before midnight!
No, no, no. Who would make a child this young do something like that?
Kaito slapped his face hard.
He snapped his fingers. "There's only one truth. I've been hypnotized!"
"How can you fly?" Yimi asked in confusion.
The System had said this world was extremely ordinary, and Aunt Fubuki had said ordinary people couldn't fly. So why had the first person she met here been someone who could?
"That's what I should be asking you! Did you just fly over here?" Kaito pointed at her and shot the question back.
No, wait. Why was he responding to something he had seen while hypnotized?
Kaito rubbed his chin and thought aloud again. "Damn it. When did I get hypnotized? Poison gas?"
Yimi patted his hat. "Do you know... what Beishen means?"
Kaito still ignored her. "It could also be some kind of suggestive pattern or language, but that shouldn't be capable of causing an effect this strong... Right, my stomach! I almost threw up just now. That's the body's rejection response. Someone poisoned my dinner?"
Under Yimi's horrified gaze, Kaito hesitated for a moment, then stuck a finger down his throat without any concern for appearances and vomited.
This person had gone crazy!
Could it be because of her psychokinesis?
Yimi lowered her head and looked at her two little paws, remembering Aunt Fubuki telling her not to use her strength to bully ordinary people. She had only bumped into this person once.
So the consequences could actually be this terrifying. He had just asked "why can you fly?" A single collision while flying had somehow reduced a person to this state. But hadn't he been flying himself just now?
Unable to make sense of it, Yimi still knew that this person had become like this because of her. She carefully sidestepped Kaito's vomit, then used Love Train to pat him once.
After that, she hurriedly jumped off the edge of the building before Kaito could see.
"Hey!"
Kaito reacted instantly and ran over, but because his hang glider had been damaged, all he could do was lie at the edge and look down.
Watching the little girl fly away, he was left utterly dumbfounded on the rooftop.
What a potent poison!
...
For Yimi, the most annoying situation was exactly this: she had left the previous world in the morning, only to arrive in this world at night. Before this, she'd always been lucky enough to meet someone willing to let her stay for one night. Today she hadn't met a single kind person and had even scared one man out of his mind.
Looking around, the kitty's luck came through again: she found a place where she could spend the night.
"Ghost Building?"
Reading the neon sign, Yimi flew straight through the opening beneath it where the windows had not yet been installed. What she saw inside was a vast empty space. As far as she knew, places like this were uninhabited.
From now on, this place would be the kitty's territory in this world.
Yimi took out her Game Console and prepared to make do here for one night, only to step on something hard in the darkness.
She picked it up and saw a coin.
Looking up, she found several large bags hanging overhead.
"Congratulations, Host, on unlocking the achievement [Lucky Cat], reward: 5% portal energy."
It was this world's currency. How lucky!
She gathered everything into her storage space, took out the bedding Marisa had prepared for her, spread it on the floor, burrowed under the covers, and turned on her game.
No! People could still be out on the streets at night. The kitty couldn't use nighttime as an excuse to play games and waste time!
Reluctantly putting away the Game Console, Yimi ran to the window.
Remembering the man in white she had scared out of his mind, Yimi pulled back the foot she had already put outside, obediently found the stairs, and walked down.
Most people still wandering the streets at this hour were office workers who had just finished work drinking sessions. Many smelled of cigarette smoke from socializing, and quite a few were drunk enough that Yimi instinctively didn't want to approach them.
Every now and then, she passed one or two people who didn't look quite as drunk and could still smell blood on them. It reminded Yimi of home and made her wonder whether she really had returned after all.
She couldn't find anyone she could ask for help, so maybe she should just go back and play games.
"Are you lost, little girl?"
Yimi's EX-ranked luck activated again, refusing to give the kitty an excuse to lose herself in games.
A sharp-looking professional woman in glasses and a formal suit walked over to Yimi.