I Reincarnated As A Villainess, But Why Did I Become A Cat Butler Instead? - Chapter 325

Chapter 163.1

With Agwen’s help, I made it back to my room and collapsed onto the bed, hugging the blanket tightly.

“Will you be alright on your own, Madam?”

Agwen asked, her voice filled with worry.

I gave a weak nod.

“I’ll be okay. You should go get some rest as well, Agwen.”

To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what I was saying. The words just came out, as if I were on autopilot. Part of me wanted to be alone, and another part hated the idea of it.

The contradiction twisted inside me.

Agwen stayed with me for a while, then, thinking I had fallen asleep since I lay so still with my eyes closed, she quietly left the room.

As soon as she was gone, the tears I had been holding back started to fall again.

The nightmare of that awful day began replaying in my mind.

“Spot! Chubby! Where are you?”

“Toby? Honey? This is weird… Why are the kids so quiet today?”

At my grandmother’s house, the cats, who would normally come meowing loudly to the front door in the morning because they were hungry, were unusually quiet that day.

I grabbed a bowl and filled it with food before heading outside.

“Guys! Time to eat!”

Usually, as soon as they heard me step out, the cats would come dashing over from wherever they had been watching nearby. But there wasn’t a single one in sight.

“That’s odd.”

I tilted my head, and then made my way to the corner of the backyard where we kept the outdoor feeding station.

But the moment I turned the corner—

It was like stepping into a nightmare.

“Ah… Ah, what is this? Wh-what is this? No… no…!”

The bowl slipped from my hands, and the food spilled everywhere, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about that.

The cats were lying on the ground, blood dripping from their mouths.

“S-Spot! Spot!”

I rushed over to the cat lying near the feeding station.

As I reached out with shaking hands, its little body was already cold and stiff.

“No… Spot, what’s wrong? Spot, open your eyes! Please, Spot!”

I rushed to another cat lying a short distance away. The kitten, lifeless with its tongue sticking out, was stiff, eyes wide open, and its mouth completely stained with blood.

“Honey! No, w-what is this… Honey! Please… Please, ah, no…”

My limbs trembled so badly that I could barely keep my body upright as I rushed to check the food bowl. The kibble was strangely wet. It hadn’t rained last night, and even if it had, the roof over the feeder should have kept it dry.

I knew instantly that someone had laced the food with poison.

Worried that another cat who might have survived might come and eat it, I quickly cleared everything away and rushed out. I couldn’t even remember the details. My mind had gone blank.

I wasn’t thinking at all. I wandered the streets like a mad person, shouting the names of the other cats.

“Chubby! Toby! Please… Please…”

Please be alive.

Please come running toward me again, like you did just yesterday, looking clueless and full of life.

They used to follow me out the door, rubbing against my legs. But no matter how desperately I prayed, I found Chubby lying lifeless in the rice field not far from my house.

“Ah, aaah! Chubby! No, Chubby!”

As I rushed to Chubby and checked, I found his body was still soft—rigor mortis hadn’t set in yet.

That meant he had only just died.

“If only I’d come out sooner… If I had, I could’ve stopped it. I’m sorry, Chubby. I’m so sorry…”

I clutched his body, crying so hard I could barely breathe. As I sobbed, a neighborhood woman walked by and clicked her tongue.

“Tsk… Poor thing… Looks like a cat died.”

Right behind her came Mr. Kim, grumbling.

“Why all this fuss over a few strays dying? People like that are always seeing ghosts, bad luck follows them¹.”

At those words, my head snapped up.

“What did you just say?”

“There’s an old saying that if a cat shows up at a funeral, more deaths will follow. You’d have to be crazy to bring in a cursed creature like that, especially those black ones. Honestly, it’s a relief they’re gone!”

He was the type of person who always threw shoes at cats or hit them with an iron rod whenever he saw them. But that day, he seemed particularly in a good mood. I could clearly picture the smug grin he gave me, and it reminded me of Herman’s smile, the one he gave me while grinning up from beneath the window.

My vision blurred, and my heart thundered in my chest.

I was shaking so violently that my teeth were chattering.

I curled into a ball, clutching the blanket as tightly as I could. My cats had been taken from me in an instant, like a lightning strike from nowhere. I never even had the chance to protect them.

¹ [ The phrase “귀신 보는 놈들, 재수가 옴 붙는다” is a Korean idiom. It’s a superstitious insult, implying that people who fuss over dead strays or associate with ‘unnatural’ things (like cats, especially black ones in old beliefs) bring bad luck, like those cursed to see ghosts and spread misfortune. ] ↩