Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 828 - 21. In the Hillevig Mountain Range, no one can kill cats

Chapter 828: 21. In the Hillevig Mountain Range, no one can kill cats

In the third year of the arrival of the Weird Times, the first ship to reach Storm Corner in the Barren Lands, the Snow Moon, caused a great stir.

Each continent thought itself the only survivor, except for the shattered Lennon Islands.

The passengers aboard the Snow Moon cruise ship were a mixed bunch: penniless youths, desperate merchants, adventure-seeking explorers, nobles betting their last chips, and doctrine-spreading believers. Clearly, they all shared one common trait: the spirit of a gambler.

The timid and the cowardly wouldn’t dare to cross continents during the Weird Times.

Once it was confirmed that the ship had set sail from the Vena Ice-Free Port and was carrying only humans, the passengers were given a warm welcome. The poor youths became honored guests of the nobles, merchants opened new trade routes, adventurers received generous spiritual rewards, nobles joined new circles, and believers established new churches.

All the passengers were richly rewarded for being the first to try new ventures. It was also during this time that the rumor spread: "In the Hillevig Mountain Range, no one can kill a cat."

The origin of the rumor is unreliable; it may have emerged from a banquet or perhaps from drunken words at a tavern.

The Hillevig Mountain Range is located near the western and southern coasts of the Main Affinity Continent, or one could say it’s at the southwestern tip of the continent. The stretching mountains provided a shield from monsoons and humidity for the local residents, but as the Weird Times loomed, the Hillevig Mountain Range became the obstacle of hope, like the Rox City Wall (Note 1).

The only easy route to the opposite coast of the mountains was in Niss Town. A gap in the mountains a few miles outside the town meant people didn’t have to spend half a day traversing the range.

Therefore, the indigenous people living around the mountains spontaneously migrated to Niss Town or left the mountains altogether to avoid the situation where hunting became difficult due to the decreasing number of animals in the forest.

Niss Town, once silent, became bustling, and the dirt road stretching over a dozen miles to the coastline was even paved with stones.

An ancient proverb passed down in the Hillevig Mountain Range: "Sunlight cannot pierce the deep forest."

It means that even though people live next to resource-rich mountains, hunters still go hungry.

Niss Town was no exception. Every day caravans and mountain residents on foot came to the town, and the increasing number of arrivals caused more people to go hungry.

Their presence turned the once peaceful Niss Town into chaos, with theft and robbery becoming rampant, and even deaths occurring. Even when the Town Mayor organized a group of strong hunters to maintain order, it did little to alleviate the situation.

However, the new residents who moved in understood that chaos would only worsen the town, so people tacitly reached some balance: simply put, any harm to others was absolutely prohibited.

Theft, robbery, and plunder were tolerated for the struggling poor, but if anyone was harmed, they would face execution by hanging.

This was the only effort the town could make facing a population several times larger than before.

Despite this leniency making any legal scholar frown, it effectively eased the chaos in Niss Town—at least for humans.

Many animals inhabited Niss Town.

Squirrels, wild dogs, cats, flocks of birds.

Because the road to the Fertile Coastline was not difficult to traverse, residents of Niss Town were not like those in other villages in the Hillevig Mountain Range, who "caught and ate whatever they could."

Though a significant reason for this was that the town residents were fundamental believers of the Natural Church.

However, the newcomers changed this peaceful coexistence. The first to suffer were the wild dogs, but these affectionate animals soon realized the newcomers were different from the past. Some hid in the homes of residents willing to take them in, while others fled into the Withered Jungle, never to return.

Squirrels were not easy to catch, as setting traps required long waiting, and apart from a few unlucky, unsuspecting squirrels caught or killed with arrows, most remained safe.

Thus, the unluckiest were the cats inhabiting the town. Unlike dogs, they were not "clever" or social creatures, spending most of their time alone or in small groups lounging on warm, dry rocks, not even lifting their heads when someone walked by, like adorable, lazy little spirits.

So they faced catastrophe. Dirty hands caught them easily, twisting their heads or slitting their bellies as cats, thinking it was a caress, leaned in for a rub.

Among them were both house cats and wild cats. After all, we all know that cats aren’t creatures who stay put at home.

Local residents hated and feared the newcomers who made the cats emit such miserable cries, and every day the town’s houses echoed with the sad cries of children who lost their companions.

All they could do was keep their windows and doors tightly shut—even during the day—preventing their home’s mousers from running outside, reassuring themselves that at least it was only cats that were killed and not them.

When change occurred is not reliably known, but local residents believe it was an incident a month after the new residents arrived.

That afternoon, many townsfolk heard the screech of a cat. In later accounts, some claimed they saw a limping pure black cat escape the town after the scream.

Those who witnessed this scene hated the newcomers but were glad the cat managed to escape—at least it had slipped free from the hunters’ clutches and would never come near this dangerous town again.

But the next day, people saw the black cat, its hind leg bandaged, sitting in the town center. Sometimes it would follow certain people for a while before returning quickly.

Some tried to catch it, but the black cat deftly evaded capture. Oddly, it would follow its pursuer away, only to come back soon enough.

However, people soon discovered the terrifying truth: all those followed by the cat met ghastly deaths—some had their heads twisted off, some were disemboweled, some were skinned, and some had all their limbs broken—

Residents grew alarmed, but then they noticed the black cat only killed those who had harmed cats. However they had harmed the cats, retribution came upon them in the same manner.

People unanimously believed that those who killed the cats had angered some Divinity or other entity. Occasionally, someone would claim to see the shadow of a young girl holding the black cat at dusk.

The black cat left the town after three days, never to be seen again.

But the original inhabitants of the Hillevig Mountain Range reached a consensus, unanimously deciding on a decree to protect them, others, and the cats.

And that is:

In the Hillevig Mountain Range, no one can kill a cat.

Note 1: In 445, the Trelent Kingdom launched an attack on the capital of the Rox Kingdom. King Henry XVI ordered the city gates sealed, making the ten-meter-high city walls an obstacle to block the enemy army. However, Trelent used fire attacks, causing the Rox City, mostly wooden houses, to go up in flames, becoming a living Purgatory where hundreds of thousands of citizens were burned alive.

Note 2: If you want to sell Strange Currency, sell it to me!