Chapter 191 - Responsibilities (2)

"Ben?" I muttered before remembering to run after the cat.

From the corner of my eye, I found the cat stepping into the room with the sign reading, 'Art Room'. This had to be no good. Everyone knew how the art room had the most fragile stuff like statues and paintings. This was no time to worry about the people watching. I had to make sure the kitten didn't cause any trouble.

"Here kitty kitty~" I tried to call her back to me.

I entered the room as the stunning artworks stared back at me. Paintings and statues moved like they were living entities of their own. It was the definition of animated artworks, pulsing full of life. It was such a magical experience as most of the decorations were motionless in the school and mansions. Maybe it was a matter of preference.

And the perfect illusion shattered as the cat scratched one of the canvases like one of its toys. My eyes widened as I became more desperate to catch the naughty kitten. I twisted my body inside the small space before the kitten ruined more artworks. But there was no way I could focus catching her while catching all the objects that were about to drop onto the ground with her every step.

"Come on!" I stomped my foot.

I managed to catch four objects with two of my hands as she jumped onto the shelves full of trinkets. I didn't know how she managed to sweep the whole shelf empty with her once majestic tail. It was like going through an obstacle course since I had to avoid all the objects I placed on the ground, not knowing its original place.

"Stop watching and help!" I turned to Ben who stood by the door.

I shoved some objects into his hands. I knew I could trust him to put them back to their rightful places. I could deal with Ben later, but the kitten had come out of the art room immediately. As Ben started to place the items back on the shelves and picking the artworks off the ground, I was finally able to focus on the kitten.

When things finally started to look better, the cat jumped off a tethering shelf full of moving clay works. This had to be unreal. I reached out my arm and muttered a space-time spell to freeze the shelf from falling down. This required a certain amount of concentration while I pushed back the shelf into a stable position.

I turned towards the kitten who licked her paws before my knees became weak and I collapsed onto the floor. How could she ruin all the paintings on the easels in such a short period of time? As seconds continued to pass, sculptures began toppling down without my interference and shelves collapsed like they were dominos. My ears were full of noises of more priceless artwork breaking while the only ones intact after the disastrous event was the ones in Ben's arms.

I smiled like a broken doll when the kitten walked into my lap after all that trouble. I opened the window and was about to place the cat outside when both Luke and Alex were about to walk past the art room. I wondered why I didn't close the door as I hoped they would just peacefully pass by.

But of course, they froze when they noticed the trashed art room. It was quite unfortunate that the window was right in the direction where the door opened. Ben was inside the inner part of the room where he couldn't be seen unless someone entered the room. Maybe it was better to close the door before they entered.

I didn't need more spectators. I tightly hugged the kitten this time to make sure she wouldn't be able to escape as I was about to close the door. Unfortunately, both Luke and Alex entered the room before I was able to close the door. I sighed as they took in the full damages of the room into their vision.

"What happened?" Luke pulled out the words after a moment of silence.

"It doesn't matter. We need to fix all these artworks before the original owners come back while someone needs to look after the kitten," I started to revert some of the artworks back to their former glory after passing the kitten to Ben.

When we heard footsteps of others heading in this direction, both Luke and Alex started to frantically recover the artworks with no other choice. With our efficient teamwork that blossomed out of desperation, we managed to recover most of the artworks within a few minutes.

Normally this would be impossible, but the three of us had more affluent mana than others. Our ears perked up as someone finally pressed the button to open the door. There was one canvas left with scratch marks on the paint. We needed one person to distract the person while the rest of us recovered it.

Alex was a goner since he was dripping full of sweat after using a large amount of mana. With our silent agreement, Alex was chosen as the person to confront whoever was coming in. When the door opened, the person walked a few steps back as if she was surprised by Alex's sudden appearance.

I pulled a thumbs up as a signal to Alex when both Luke and I finished fixing the last painting. My heart thumped full of adrenaline as we barely managed to recover the entire room in time. Alex stepped aside and apologized for blocking the way as few art club members began pouring into the room.

But when I looked at Ben's arms to take care of the kitten, the kitten was gone when she was there a second ago. "Where's the kitten Ben?" I whispered while getting the attention of Luke.