Kaito sat in his usual spot, the single windowsill in the whole house from where he could see the outside world as well as keep an eye on his surroundings.
Lucy's house was small and cozy, almost like a studio apartment.
The front door opposite to him opened into the single main room he was currently in, which served as both the living area as well as the dining room, though it wasn't really big. On his left was an open kitchen with a single counter along with a fridge and microwave.
Other than this, there was just a single other bedroom to his right along with an attached bathroom.
The boy cat yawned, still feeling sleepy.
Today was the second day since he had reincarnated as a cat, and if he wasn't wrong, he should be a few months old right now.
Outside, the city looked the same.
People walking.
Cars honking.
Kids yelling.
It was just another normal day in a broken world.
But inside the boy's head, everything was wrong.
He was a cat.
A living, breathing furball named Mochi—seriously, Mochi?
He had paws, a tail that twitched without his consent and his vision were almost too wide and distorted like a fish-eye's lens.
If all that wasn't enough, the boy's ears kept twitching every time the girl, his owner, moved.
And worst of all?
The screen floating in front of him still hadn't gone away.
[The Cult Cat-a-lyst System]
Species: Domestic Cat (Black Fur, Blue Eyes)
Faith Points: [80/1000]
Time Before The Apocalypse Starts: 28 Days, 23 Hours and 46 Minutes.
Divine Rank: F- (You're literally bottom-tier.)
Assigned Missions:
Start a cult.
Amass worship.
Prevent the destruction of Earth.
Warning: You lose Faith Points whenever you act as a "bad cat" to your owner.
***
Kaito twitched and without even realising it, his tail slammed against a wooden part, making him wince in pain.
The boy had seen a lot of strange things in life.
He once lived with a guy who believed pigeons were government drones.
But this?
This was next-level bullshit.
"No emotions," he muttered internally, trying to stay calm.
The boy had trained himself not to feel.
Not after years of being ignored.
Forgotten.
Tossed aside.
Even his own parents had vanished without saying goodbye. So many people had told him:
"You're not enough."
Eventually, the boy could not help but start believing it.
But this situation?
This ridiculous, surreal, divine system-from-hell situation…
It made something twitch in his chest.
Not hope.
Not yet.
Just confusion, and a little bit of rage.
"A cat? A prophet? A cult leader?! What in god's name happened to me after my head banged against the marble slab?" Kaito muttered, weird purring sounds coming out of his mouth.
The fact that he had died so miserably and hadn't even got the chance to prove himself to the people around him did not sit well with him.
But this was not the end he had in mind when he had realised he was dying.
Kaito turned his head slowly towards his owner, Lucy, the only person who could apparently help him now.
She was in the kitchen, wearing a flower-printed apron two sizes her size and trying to cook rice in a dented pot.
The little black cat or whatever he had become could not help but watch the girl with narrowed eyes.
She hummed softly, even though the rice was clearly burning.
He could not help but compare her to those rich little brats of the influential households.
It was the Year 3071, and Earth had already gone through a cataclysmic event a century back.
The boy cat narrowed his eyes, his tail flicked like a lazy clock as he stared outside through the glass window.
The world didn't look apocalyptic.
Not anymore.
But beneath the concrete roads and glass towers rebuilt over broken bones, Kaito remembered the stories of the past.
The Great Sundering, they called it.
Fancy name for a year of hell.
A hundred years ago, the world had cracked open.
Not metaphorically but literally.
It started with tremors—small, ignorable, something people joked about on livestreams.
Then, one day, each of the seven continents experienced simultaneous mega-quakes, ripping across the world's tectonic plates like scissors across a sheet.
Cities fell.
Oceans swallowed the lands.
Mountains collapsed and even the skyscrapers fell like spaghetti.
It was all a mess.
Some people claimed it was nature's revenge. Others believed it was divine punishment.
The truth? No one knew.
Technology back then was almost godlike—AI-powered cities, orbital defense satellites, nanobots that could heal injuries in seconds.
But all of it vanished along with the ninety percent of humanity in months.
And yet, people clawed their way back.
The survivors, what few there were, banded together like ants after the rain.
They didn't rebuild nations.
They built safe zones—the Seven Habitats.
Each habitat became a sovereign country of its own: one per continent.
The names changed over time, but their functions didn't.
Even now, in the Year 3071, only seven countries existed.
The rest of the world?
It could only be called a mix of wastelands, dead zones and places where the air burned.
And while most of the population lived in artificial dome cities powered by the newly developing tech, others adapted outside. Ferals. Nomads. Cultists. Exiles.
Kaito's nose twitched.
Lucy looked just like a rich heiress, the sheer fact that she hadn't gotten used to living like 'this' only further strengthened Kaito's belief.
After all, the girl's apartment was tiny, cluttered, and falling apart. But she moved like she had only just made peace with it.
'Exactly like me,' Kaito thought, he had been living a pretty well off life until one day his parents disappeared, 2 years before he died.
The boy blamed his grades for it, but even now, he wondered if there could be more to it.
And then, it happened.
The boy could no longer take the weirdness of whatever was happening and got slightly annoyed.
The pot began hissing, and Lucy didn't notice, too lost in her thoughts as the spoon on the counter was just about to fall.
As if on reflex, Kaito jumped from the window and his paw shot out towards the spoon.
Smack.
The spoon hit the tiles with a loud clang.
Lucy turned and stared at the only perpetrator who could have done it. "Mochi…No!!!"
Right on cue, another message popped up in front of the boy, surprising him more and more.
[-5 Faith Points.]
[Reason: Bad Cat Behavior, stop being a little menace, you bad pussy]
"…"
The boy's expression froze as his mouth opened slightly.
The boy was both confused and horified.
'WHAT?!' He screamed internally, flailing his tiny paws at the girl.
'I was HELPING you!
The spoon was gonna fall anyway!' Kaito screamed internally, feeling betrayed.
But the system didn't care.
His divine mission, his god-given apocalypse prevention duty…was tied to how well he behaved as a damn house cat.
The boy lay flat on the floor in defeat, his tail slowly dragging across the tiles like a dying worm.
Why can't I just give up already?
***