Matt shivered at the thought of having to deal with three cats. Tara was nice enough, with an aura of mature wisdom to her, but Lara was a nightmare, and if this Kara was even remotely like Lara, then it was gonna be a long day. Why is it never dogs man, he sighed internally.

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  Tara didn’t react to his thoughts, which made him wonder if she could also read his mind and didn’t care, or if it was only Lara. It wasn’t that his thoughts were malicious in any way, or that he was trying to annoy the cats on purpose. Tara probably thought the same if she could read his mind like her sister. There were thoughts that could easily elicit a reaction, but if it came at the cost of offending or angering the cat, then it probably wasn’t worth it.

  He raised his head, staring into the distance where Tara was looking. There looked to be nothing there but the calm night sky, however, Matt was slowly starting to learn not to overly trust his senses.

  With a thought, he closed his eyes, feeling the buildup of mana in his chest as [Sense Mana] activated, the familiar wave slowly scanning his surroundings.

  He saw the familiar figure of Tara next to him, followed by the sleeping Lara a couple of seconds later, but there seemed to be nothing else. Still, he kept the skill going, not only to look for the apparent third cat, but as a form of practice as well. It was rapidly draining his mana, especially at the full hundred foot limit, and it was taking his complete attention and focus just to keep up with all the information being relayed to him, but it was working.

  A few more seconds passed in utter stillness, even Tara choosing to watch in silence as to not break his concentration, until a change. Something, or someone, came in contact with the absolute edge of his scan, a full hundred feet up in the sky.

  Matt opened his eyes to see a smirking Tara next to him before shifting his gaze towards the open skies, and that’s when he finally saw it.

  A cat… walking on air… with a shoe in her mouth.

  The scene was so bizarre that it took Matt a few seconds to realize it wasn’t a shoe in her mouth. It was his shoe.

  The cat, Kara, who had sandy fur with darker streaks of grey across it, continued to walk on air, until she finally reached the ground right in front of Matt, where she dropped the footwear from her mouth, and proceeded to ask, “Hello Matthew. I believe this belongs to you?”

  Matt… was at a loss for words. He was stuck between confusion and wanting to hug the damn cat. He thought he would never see his shoe again, but somehow, Kara had managed to find it, which instantly put her at the top of his list as his favorite of the trio.

  Kara spoke again, breaking Matt out of his stupor. “Oh, excuse my rudeness. I haven’t introduced myself,” the cat apologized, misunderstanding his lack of words, for him waiting for an introduction.

  “My name is Kara,” she formally stated, standing tall with her head held high. “I’m the eldest of the three sister guardians of the temple of Bastet, and arbiter of the trials of Pharaoh. It’s nice to finally meet you,” Kara finished with an ever so slight bow.

  Matt coughed into his hand realizing Kara was waiting for his response. He collected himself before finally greeting her with a bright smile. “Hello Kara. I’m Matthew, but I prefer Matt. It’s very nice to meet you too, and yes, that shoe is mine, thank you very much for finding it.”

  Kara gave a warm, comforting smile of her own. “Of course. It did seem like an irreplaceable item with immense value, and would’ve been a shame to see it buried in the sand.”

  “Not really,” Matt corrected. “It’s a generic pair of shoes, but they are reeeeally comfortable, and nothing teaches you the value of comfort and good footwear like having to walk, and fight, on sand and stone for days on end. It’s torturous,” Matt responded thoughtlessly, as he went down to a knee and started putting it on, completing the pair once more.

  Silence fell for a few seconds as Matt noticed the two cats share a weird look, before Tara, for the second time that day, burst into laughter, this time rolling on the floor as she did. She was laughing so hard she wasn’t even breathing. Something that would’ve worried Matt if he wasn’t too busy being confused.

  Kara, on the other hand, looked absolutely horrified, as if she was on the verge of a panic attack. “I-I don’t understand… I searched for it specifically because I thought it was important to you,” she said in a weak voice filled with absolute incomprehension.

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  “Oh, it is,” Matt corrected the confused cat again. “It’s very important to have comfortable shoes. It’s just not irreplaceable. I would’ve probably had to go and look for a store that had a similar pair, then rummage through their storage for one my size, which they may or may not have. I’d rather just have these back. You saved me a lot of hassle, so thank you,” he thanked the cat while jumping back to his feet, savoring the feel of the fabric wrapping around his sore and tired foot that had been shoeless for longer than he would’ve liked.

  “You really can’t put a price on comfort,” he said with a bright smile to a Kara who still looked befuddled and on the verge of a mental breakdown.

  “I-Is this s-some sort of prank? Did L-Lara put you up to this?” Kara stuttered, seemingly misunderstanding something, before turning her head and yelling at a sleeping Lara. “Lara! You lazy cat! What did you do this time?”

  Lara, for her part, simply waved her off, not even bothering to open her eyes.

  Kara looked at a perplexed Matt, who was staring at her like she had lost it.

  “Y-You’re… welcome? I think?” she hesitantly answered, unsure of what was going on.

  “I… can’t… stop,” Tara wheezed between breaths as she continued to laugh, finding the entire exchange hysterical.

  “Tara! Pull yourself together. You are embarrassing us in front of our guest,” Kara scolded her laughing sister.

  “Best… day… of my life,” Tara wheezed in between gasped breaths, unable, or unwilling, to stop.

  “Why are you even laughing! We all thought the shoe was irreplaceable to him. He even prayed at its resting place!” Kara yelled in anger and frustration at her sister.

  “We did! We did!” Tara answered, still laughing, but with more control over herself as she dried her tears with her paw. “But the panic… and the horrified look on your face… and then his indifference to the shoe…” then she burst out into another fit of laughter.

  Matt was lost. He had no idea why Kara was panicking. It wasn’t like he didn’t appreciate her gift, he had made it perfectly clear that he did, yet her reaction was only getting worse and worse by the second, so to avoid any confusion, he asked her.

  “Why does its importance matter? I love these shoes, and I appreciate what you’ve done. Whether it’s irreplaceable or not doesn’t really matter to me, and it shouldn’t to you.” And he believed every single word he said. He was happy to be reunited with the precious comfort that was his shoe, and he was thankful to Kara for making it happen. Gratitude wasn’t warranted by the item’s monetary value, but its significance to a person.

  And yet, the cats didn’t seem to agree with his assessment.

  Tara looked at him for a long second, a deadpan stare on her face. Then she looked at her slack-jawed sister, who was staring at him like he was an idiot, and then she burst out into another fit of laughter. “Bastet have mercy… he actually doesn’t know. This keeps getting… better… and better!”

  Matt frowned at the cats’ reaction. If he had been confused before, now he was just annoyed. It was obvious that he was missing something, and apparently one was too busy laughing while the other was too busy panicking to clue him in, which just annoyed him even more.

  “And I thought Lara was the annoying one,” he mumbled, yet his words fell on deaf ears.

  He crossed his arms and looked at the cats, raising his voice to make sure they heard him. “Explain. Now!”

  Kara winced on hearing his words, knowing she was gonna have to be the one to explain things since Tara was… preoccupied. She slowly raised her gaze towards an impatient Matt before sighing. “You know how this is supposed to be the reward room?” she asked.

  “I do,” Matt answered.

  “Well, for trial takers with outstanding performances, the guardians are commanded to hand out a gift each. Something worthy of the trial taker, as a show of respect and recognition from Lady Bastet,” Kara’s voice went lower and lower until it could barely be heard as she said the last part, her gaze breaking away from his.

  Matt’s eyes widened in realization, “And since I said it was just a generic shoe, you now think that your gift is offensive and disrespectful,” he finally concluded.

  Kara meekly nodded.

  “Oh! Oh! That’s not even the best part!” Tara interrupted.

  “Please don’t,” Kara pleaded.

  “She was so arrogant about it! When she saw you desperately searching for it like it was a long-lost family heirloom, her exact words were, ‘Well, I know what I’m giving him. I hope you girls figure something out soon. We don’t wanna embarrass ourselves now, do we?’,” Tara recounted, barely stifling her laughter. “But… but, it was just a normal shoe!” she added unhelpfully, before exploding into laughter once more.

  Kara shrank, covering her face with her paws. “Just end it. Make it stop. I don’t wanna continue on with Tara holding this over my head.”

  Matt crouched in front of the overreacting cat, trying to alleviate her worries. “It wasn’t disrespectful in the slightest. I really appreciate it and couldn’t have asked for a better gift myself.”

  “That’s touching and all, but it’s not that simple,” Lara, who had slowly made her way towards them, finally decided to join in on the conversation. “She is a representation of Lady Bastet and Pharaoh Arjun. Their power and generosity are reflected through her and her choice of gift. Disrespecting you isn’t the issue, you are a nobody. She had disrespected both the Goddess and Pharaoh,” she, for once, helpfully added, although he could’ve done without the ‘nobody’ part.

  Matt racked his brain trying to find a way to sort the situation. He didn’t know Kara that well, but his first impression of her wasn’t bad. He did appreciate what she had tried to do, and it’s not like she was wrong, people don’t normally spend two hours searching for just a plain old shoe of no significance, so he could see where the misunderstanding had stemmed from. But if the issue was with pleasing a deity, then he was way out of his depth. Unless…

  Suddenly, his eyes lit up as an idea came to mind. One that might just work.