翁公和媛媛在厨房里猛烈进出

Did it do something?

It had never asked me to be petted before, had it?

Why now?

"well...it can\'t hurt to watch for now."

Leaning against the kitchen counter, I intently watched as the cat jumped onto the bed before making its way to Zach\'s head.

Standing right beside Zach\'s hand, the cat threw its paw at his head as if petting him.

Nudging my shoulder from the right, Alya questioned.

"Is this part of the plan?"

Keeping my gaze on the black cat, I replied.

"Who knows at this point?"

Shaking her head, Alya curtly replied.

"I know you said that doing anything is worth a shot earlier... but I think I\'m starting to disagree."

Watching as the cat continued throwing its paw around, hitting all the space around Zach\'s head, I answered.

"You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don\'t take!"

"...looks like your cat is taking the shots, not you, though."

While the cat circled Zach\'s head, throwing its paw in various directions and locations, Zach simply closed his eyes.

I couldn\'t even blame him.

This was probably the most unserious situation I had ever seen.

We had gone from trying to cure Zach\'s serious issue with his soul to just watching a black cat walk around on a bed like it was some sort of special museum exhibit.

Well... that was how it looked in their eyes, at least.

Through my eyes, which were far superior due to my Dragon\'s Eye, I could see a cat with the power to travel back in time with me walking around Zach\'s head while throwing its paw around!

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity due to the awkward silence, the cat stopped right in front of Zach\'s head.

Letting out a soft meow, the cat threw its paw forward.

However, this time, the paw actually hit Zach\'s face.

As the cat\'s paw landed on the dead center of Zach\'s face, his eyes suddenly flickered open in confusion and pain.

Paying no attention to Zach, the cat simply repeated this motion once more in front of the shell-shocked Zach.

From my side, Alya also seemed befuddled as she replied awestruckly.

"Is he... getting ordered around by a cat?"

"It\'s not \'a\' cat. It\'s MY cat!"

"...and what is the difference?"

Smiling and bringing my hands together in preparation for applause, I replied.

"You\'ll see!"

Either my cat was really obsessed with Zach\'s head and face... or the black cat was actually doing something.

As if confirming my suspicions, all the lights in the dorm room turned off, plunging our surroundings into darkness.

Paying no mind to the sudden descent of darkness, I peered through with my eyes, seeing the cat, now standing right over Zach\'s head.

A second later, a bright light suddenly emerged from my right side as Alya used a simple and basic fire spell, also known as a torch.

However, the torch only illuminated the area around us, not managing to fight its way through the darkness of the room.

Even the windows, that had previously displayed the bright rays of the sun, were covered by the darkness.

Thus, the entire room was left in the darkness, besides the small area around Alya and I.

Extending her hand and holding her torch out further into the dorm room, Alya asked.

"Can you see anything?"

Watching as the cat slowly shifted its gaze away from Zach and upward at the roof, I replied.

"I can see everything."

As Alya made her way through the pure-dark dorm room with her torch lighting up her way as she walked forward, I remained still.

"...should I tell her that she\'s walking towards the kitchen and not the bed?"

Looking away from Alya and the cat, I specially examined Zach, looking for any facial expression changes.

Yet... there was nothing.

It was as if he were frozen in time.

His eyelids, mouth, and the rest of his body did not budge a single bit.

Normally, Zach would have been terrified or curious from seeing the lights suddenly turn off, yet here, he remained still, like a stone statue.

Slowly looking upward from Zach, I met eyes with the black cat, our blood-red eyes looking right at each other despite the darkness of the room.

"...is it waiting for my confirmation?"

Nodding my head, the cat broke away from our eye contact, staring at the ceiling above us.

The next moment, the entire room, previously shrouded in an impenetrable darkness, seemed to light up.

Hanging from the roof of my dorm room, a familiar symbol lay, hovering right above the position of Zach\'s face and the cat.

"That cat... really is something else, isn\'t it?"

The symbol lying on the roof was familiar to me... because I had just spent the last twenty minutes trying to recall its illustration from the book.

On the roof above Zach\'s face lay a gigantic circle, and in that circle was a human sitting in a chair with her elbow resting on his knee.

With his hand pressed up against his face, the figure inside the circle seemed to be pondering something.

The Thinker... or the main symbol of the purification symbol.

Did it read my memories...?

Alya, now able to see the bed in the distance due to the glowing red symbol on the roof, dropped her torch on the ground in shock.

"w-what is that!?"

Recalling my short-lived minutes as a sculpture in the loop when I had recreated myself using corruption, I smiled and replied.

"A sculpture."

Too shocked to be confused at my words, Alya simply watched as the symbol slowly descended from the roof, getting closer to Zach\'s face with nearing second.

Finally, as the symbol met Zach\'s face, a bright light appeared, blinding everyone in the room.