The Doctor of Monster Town - Chapter 5

It began when I noticed that the number of potions didn’t quite match the accounts.

But I wasn’t a professional bookkeeper. It was only natural for me to make mistakes, so I thought nothing of it and corrected the figures in the ledger.

Then, one night, Miss Bran’s scream woke me.

As I went downstairs with a kitchen knife, countless horrible possibilities flashed through my mind, from a cockroach infestation to a home invasion.

But Miss Bran was the only person downstairs.

She pointed shakily at the unused storeroom on the first floor, so terrified she had nearly melted into a puddle.

“Doctor! Th-th-there’s a ghost! I saw a shadow float inside!”

Clutching the knife, I held my breath and pushed open the half-closed door—

But there was still nothing inside.

Miss Bran stared blankly into the empty storeroom. “I really did see it… I don’t think I could have been mistaken.”

I cautiously entered, switched on the light, and looked around.

We had never put this room to use. In the more than two months since the clinic reopened, almost no one had entered it.

There was nothing much inside except a battered wooden table buried under dust. But on closer inspection, something truly was wrong.

I crouched and swiped a fingertip across one spot on the floor.

“You weren’t mistaken.” I frowned at my clean fingertip. “But I’m afraid it wasn’t a ghost.”

Ghosts didn’t clean.

So had a thief broken in, or…

Remembering the occasional discrepancies in my potion inventory, a theory suddenly occurred to me.

“A stray cat may have come through the window. It’s nothing. Don’t be afraid.”

I carried Miss Bran out of the storeroom. Before closing the door, I casually added,

“I don’t think I counted today’s batch of potions, but it’s too late now… Never mind. I’ll do it tomorrow morning.”

The wooden door swung shut before us.

Miss Bran looked up at me. Once she saw my expression, she understood and asked no questions.

She even loudly called, “Good night, Doctor!” to help sell the act.

One hour later.

I kicked open the storeroom door. Light flooded the room, startling a certain “little thief” with a potion clamped between its teeth.

The black cat, nearly a meter long, was about to dart into the entrance of a secret passage when quick-eyed Miss Bran transformed into a sturdy chain of water and bound it fast.

“Thief! You still think you can run?” Bran-the-Chain accused furiously.

The black cat opened its mouth. The bottle rolled across the floor and came to a stop beside my foot.

Ignoring the furious Miss Bran, it fixed moss-green eyes directly on me.

“I’m not a thief.”

“I’m a ghost cat, and this is my home.” The black cat spoke in a youthful voice, its forced composure plain to hear. “You’re living in my house. What’s wrong with me collecting a little rent?”

The ghost cat was named Tuyu.

According to him, the building belonged to him. He had hidden in the basement all this time only to avoid a conflict with us.

Afraid we wouldn’t believe him, he led us to the secret room where he lived.

For all the time I’d lived in this building, I had never known there was such a large room underground.