Moments of Comfort with Her

“That ‘meow’ means lunch, but ‘meow-wu’ is the one for breakfast, meow.”

She was trying her best to analyze my mistakes, but… without listening incredibly closely, who could possibly tell the difference between those two “meows”?

“Your Nako Tribe is truly something else… cough cough…”

Communicating normally with a language like this—you could probably use it as a secret code without any issues.

“The truly amazing one is Renee, meow! You can already speak a few sentences of our language in such a short time. Our tribal tongue is supposed to be very difficult to learn.”

Hearing her words, I leaned my head back and let out a long sigh. Even now, the “meow meow meows” echoing in my mind made me lament that studying the Nako language was truly enough to drive a person to their grave.

“What race is Renee, anyway? A Vampire… hmm, no fangs. A Dark Spirit? But Renee’s skin is too pale, and the ears don’t match, meow. Hey, hey, tell me what race you are, okay meow?”

“No comment.”

Even though she grabbed my sleeve and tugged on it, I remained tight-lipped.

“Meow… so stingy, meow.”

“Even if you look at me with those teary eyes, my answer is still no.”

“Meow-wu!”

Seriously, this girl has too much energy. Even if she isn’t exercising, that tiny bit of food shouldn’t be enough to sustain this kind of exertion. Or is it that the Nako Tribe simply has superior physical constitutions?

“But I’m really curious, meow… After all, it took Renee less than five days to completely master the Common Tongue, and now you speak it better than I do, meow…”

As she spoke, her expression showed a bit of frustration, but her eyes still sparkled as she clenched her hands and leaned in toward me.

It’s because the structural architecture of linguistics doesn’t vary that much. Besides, after learning from you, I don’t just organize the knowledge; I also try to apply it to the conversations of those Siren crew members—even if it took me two days to realize they were using the Sirens’ own specific language system.

“Is Renee perhaps… a ‘monster’!”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘genius.’ And for the record, I am not.”

“Ah, right… No, meow! See, you can still correct my mistakes so casually, meow!”

“Pfft… you really are something.”

Watching her exaggerated reactions, I accidentally let a laugh slip out.

“Wu-meow! Renee actually laughed, meow!”

Ah.

Noticing the upward curve of my lips, I felt a strange sense of surprise and hurriedly pulled back the smile.

“Renee, you’re always… so unwilling to laugh, meow.”

“…Yeah.”

Because it isn’t a time worth laughing. Although I thought that in my heart, and intended to respond with silence, a soft “yeah” still squeezed out of my mouth.

“Actually, sometimes I think…”

She trailed off halfway through her sentence.

“Think what?”

“Does Renee want to hear it, meow?”

“You’re the one who started teasing the topic.”

“Hahaha, true, meow… hehe.”

I wasn’t complimenting you… Looking at her giggling like an idiot beside me, I swallowed the words I was about to say.

“Sometimes I think… it would have been nice if Renee-chin and I had met and become friends on the outside, meow.”

“Would there be a difference?”

“Of course there would! If we met outside, I wouldn’t be a s*ave, and Renee-chin wouldn’t be in this state, right meow?”

She opened her arms as if trying to paint a picture of that scene, her eyes shimmering with longing.

“We could do so much more than we can here. Maybe Renee-chin would smile even more, hee-hee meow.”