Ch. 247: The Witch's Blank Check

"Let's get one thing straight. What's your deal?" Mo Fei asked. "If you're a witch, why did you keep pretending to be an ordinary cat guarding that alley?"

The woman sat down beside the workbench. "I was cursed. Most of the time I can't turn back into a human, and I can't speak."

"But the one who blasted that huge rat-hound monster out of the alley last time was you, wasn't it? You could talk then, and you looked perfectly human."

"That night was a full moon. The curse lifts temporarily on full-moon nights. The herb you scattered this morning somehow loosened it, which is why I could change back tonight."

She glanced out the window. "Of course, part of it is also that the full moon is close."

A single handful of catnip can loosen a curse? Are you sure you're not just here to mooch a hit?

"And those little ones? What are they to you?"

"Their mother was my friend." She lowered her eyes. "At my lowest, I owed it to her that I was looked after. After she passed, I stayed to watch over her children."

Mo Fei opened his mouth, but no words came.

She lifted her head. "Do you have any more of that herb on you?"

"Nope." Mo Fei patted his empty pocket. "Want me to ask the Witch Coven for you? They gave me that herb as payment. Maybe they know how to break the curse."

"No need."

"Why not? Aren't you all witches...?"

"I came looking for you, not for them." She turned her face away.

Is there some kind of feud between them?

"Anyway," she turned back, "I need an alchemist to help me break it, or at least ease it a little. Once it's done, I can grant you one wish."

"A wish? Anything?"

"Within what I'm capable of." She propped her chin on her hand, and another wisp of black mist spread silently from her feet, creeping along the floor and up onto the toe of Mo Fei's shoe. "Of course, you're free to refuse."

The mist slid up his calf and, in no time, curled around his neck, tightening slightly.

"But a sweet guy like you, so gentle even with kittens, surely couldn't bring himself to refuse, could he, cutie?"

Mo Fei's throat bobbed. This is a threat, right? This has to be a threat! Is this woman just really into being blatant? ...Whatever. At least it's a blank check.

"Sure sure sure."

Only then did the mist release his neck.

"Very good. Then—"

Footsteps sounded from the stairwell.

Victor came up from the basement, saw the two of them, and stopped in his tracks.

"...Phoebe?"

"Victor? What are you doing here?"

"That's my line." Victor's gaze traveled between her and the mass of black mist. "What's with the state of you?"

"I-I have business with this alchemist." Phoebe scrambled to her feet, and the mist on her body shuddered, then wrapped itself into a tightly buttoned-up robe.

Victor looked at the two of them with a strange expression.

"Why are you coming out of this workshop? What do you have to do with this alchemist...?" Phoebe asked.

Victor: "He's my landlord."

Phoebe looked at the two of them with a strange expression.

"You two... know each other?" Mo Fei asked.

"We don't know each other," they said in unison.

Mo Fei looked at the two of them with a strange expression.

The air fell into a deathly silence.

In the end, Victor was the first to break it. "You two carry on. I have things to do."
He tossed out that line and walked off into the night.

Phoebe stared blankly after him, and it was a while before she came back to herself.

"Where were we... right." She turned back. "I need you to make me a curse-breaking potion."

Following the recipe Phoebe recited, Mo Fei rummaged through every herb jar in the workshop. He managed to gather most of it, and for the few missing ingredients he had to pick substitutes with similar properties.

The herbs went into the pot, and Phoebe kept calling out changes to the order or the amounts.

The contents slowly melted into a dark green lump, and after only a few stirs, the color began to turn black.

That color doesn't look right...

Boom!

A puff of black smoke burst out of the vessel, rattling the bottles and jars on the table. When it cleared, only a puddle of charred residue remained.

Mo Fei coughed several times, choked by the smoke.

Phoebe waved the smoke from in front of her face. "Again."

She changed a few parts of the recipe, and Mo Fei reworked it. The result was another string of explosions, and the charred residue piled up beside the workbench in a heap.

"Oh my, oh my. We're missing a few ingredients. Substitutes just won't cut it." Phoebe finally waved a hand.

"I did my best..."

"I'll go find the missing herbs and we'll try again tomorrow."

With that, Phoebe turned into a black cat and left.

Mo Fei let out a long breath. "That royal pain finally left."

He dumped all the charred residue into the feed slot.

[Host-crafted product detected. Initiating conversion.]

When the feeding was done, Mo Fei watched the system report that his EP had reached 106.06.

"Finally over a hundred! To mark this memorable occasion, let's buy something from the System Shop!"

He rubbed his hands together and opened the System Shop.

Storage Space, I've waited so long for you! System, use up all my shop coupons and buy the Entry-Level Storage Space.

[Used 15 EP Shop Coupon x 1 and 5 EP Shop Coupon x 2. Paid 25 EP. Purchased "Entry-Level Storage Space".]

Mo Fei couldn't wait to stash the fourth-tier core and the Artificial Ether Seed inside and take them out again, and he went back and forth many times before he finally stopped.

---

The next morning, the Aqua Fortis in the drip bowl had long since finished dripping, and the brass on the Adamantine block had dissolved away completely.

Mo Fei laid the Adamantine and the Softgold on the workbench. He was just about to take the core out of his Storage Space when the front door was suddenly kicked open.

Barney stood in the doorway. A black shadow darted in past his feet, a black cat with a bundle of herbs in its mouth.

"The cats are gone," he said.

Mo Fei froze, and the herbs fell from the black cat's mouth and scattered across the floor.

"W-what? When did this happen?!"

"The guys went by on patrol this morning, and they were already gone," Barney said. "I've already sent the underlings to ask the nearby stalls and the gatekeepers."

Phoebe had already bolted back to the door, and glanced back at him with a low meow.

"Come on, let's check the alley first." Mo Fei snatched the Adamantine and Softgold off the table, shoved them into his pocket, and ran out.

When Mo Fei and Barney reached the alley, the chipped saucer lay overturned at the base of the wall, dried-fish crumbs scattered everywhere, and the wooden crate beside it had been knocked askew.

As soon as the black cat entered the alley, she sniffed along the wall and stopped before the pile of crates at the very back, then meowed at the bottom of the stack.

In a gap beneath the crates, a small body was huddled, the ribbon around its neck caked with dust. It was the timidest one.

Mo Fei dropped down and scooped it out. It trembled nonstop in his palm.

The black cat didn't stop. She kept sniffing all the way to the street, circled twice at the curb, and then went no farther.

"Why did you stop? Did the scent run out?"

The black cat nodded.

"Damn it... Why did this happen... Damn it!"

He hurried to bring the lone remaining kitten back to the workshop.

After that, he and Barney led the Brotherhood's people through every street nearby, but they still found nothing.

---

In the afternoon, an underling came running up.

"Boss, someone saw a batch of cats and dogs herded onto a caged wagon before dawn, and sent out of the city."

Mo Fei's heart skipped. Cats and dogs, a caged wagon, outside the city... Is it Chimimi?!

He called out to Barney. "Let's go, to Chimimi's shelter!"