--- Mia ---

The stars were different now.

They had started changing a few weeks ago, and Mia and her friends still didn't know why.

This evening, she was going to use what little free time she had as a slave to try to learn more about what was going on.

It clearly had to do with the humans, those strange newcomers to the galactic scene. But was it just an illusion, as her Malumian masters claimed, or was this actually real?

Humans. Heh. The name was so funny in her language, like someone was making a pun. Humans were very similar to her own species, the Purrians. They had cute round ears instead of feline ears and they had a really attractive build. She would like to meet one of them in person one day, although she didn't know if she could resist the urge to hug them if she did. They just looked so cute!

Honestly, the humans felt like they were taken right out of a steamy romance novel. Their men were shorter and had narrower shoulders than Purrian men, and their women had smaller breasts and looked older and more mature than Purrian women like herself. All of those were attractive traits!

If she read about humanity in a book she would assume it was some kind of absurd wish-fulfillment fiction. A species like that couldn't arise naturally. They must have been artificially created, or pulled from the ether of collective Purrian desire or something weird like that. If she was reading a novel with a species like this, she would roll her eyes and tell the author to get her mind out of the gutter. She would be tempted to spray her with a water bottle and tell her to stop being horny.

But no, the humans really existed! And it looked like they were really powerful, too! Maybe. Hopefully.

When the humans had first contacted the Galactic Council a few months ago, she had heard the strangest and most contradictory rumors about them:

Most claimed that they were naive, that they fell for obvious deceptions. Many people were taking advantage of them. But when she asked a traveling Turtolian about it, a species renowned for their wisdom, he laughed and called those people fools. The humans were like trickster spirits, he said. Cunning and dangerous, but for some reason unable or unwilling to attack except in self-defense. The humans weren't being fooled at all. They were establishing Casus Belli, and it would be wise not to give them an excuse.

Other rumors said that the humans used primitive technology and that it was a wonder that it even worked at all. But a fellow Purrian slave had told her that she had talked to a Hephaeston engineer, who was scared of the humans. The man had claimed that the humans' technology didn't just look primitive, but actually literally shouldn't work. The fact that it worked anyway was terrifying to him. He said that their technology was just as strange and illogical as the Malumians' natural psionic and magical powers.

There were always rumors like these when a new species was discovered of course, so she hadn't paid much mind to it. At least not until the humans suddenly declared war on the Thrin Empire, along with more than half the species on the Galactic Council. They even declared war on the Malumians, her owners!

It was pure madness!

The Malumians had sent their fleet, to destroy the humans and to take them as slaves and as fuel for their ritual sacrifices.

She had been saddened by the news. The humans would all die. So many lives would be needlessly cut short.

But then no news of their conquest had come.

Instead, the Malumians had suddenly put the entire Facinus Sector under an information quarantine.

Mia was a nurse, not a scholar or a soldier, but it seemed to her that an information quarantine was not the sort of thing you did when you were winning.

A few days after that, the stars in the sky had started changing.

The Malumians claimed it was trickery, that the humans created illusions through psionic powers. It sounded plausible to her. The Malumians themselves were known throughout the galaxy for their psionic abilities that defied rational explanation and could not be reproduced with technology. Creating illusions was something they could do, and apparently the humans were similar to them. The speed of light also suggested that an illusion was more likely than a real change, because the change in the stars wouldn't have reached them yet if it was real.

But still. An illusion on such a scale? To change the apparent positions of the stars for everyone in the entire sector? And why would they want to create such an illusion in the first place? It didn't add up.

To find the truth, she was going to go get drunk this evening until everything made sense again.

More specifically, she was going to drink socially at a bar that was quite popular with tourists. She had heard through the grapevine that a Purrian tourist had been making waves today, and he was planning to visit this bar in the evening. Most Purrians were slaves like herself, but this one was apparently very rich. She understood enough about politics to know that an information quarantine did not apply to people who were very rich, just like most other laws did not apply to them, either.

She arrived at the bar before the tourist did. She hoped that her friends had been correct and the tourist really would show up here. She really wanted to learn what was going on.

"This one is on the house, Mia." Groxanne the bartender told her, as she handed her a drink with one of her many arms.

"Thank you, nyaa!" She responded gratefully.

"It is no issue, Mia. I know that you don't earn enough money to afford our drinks. You can stay and I will give you some of the cheaper drinks, until the place gets crowded enough that I need more space for paying customers."

That was so nice of her!

Purrians were very well-liked by most species due to their friendly demeanor, and Mia herself had helped quite a few of the locals in her work as a nurse. She wouldn't be able to afford to buy many drinks in this bar, with the pittance that her masters gave her to feed herself, so it was a relief to see that she wasn't expected to.

"They will get what's coming for them! These arrogant upstarts need to be destroyed!" She overheard someone shouting from the other side of the bar.

Oh no. It was a Malumian. The psychic overlords of the Facinus Sector were dangerous to be around. Like most Purrians, Mia did not like to think badly of people. The Malumians probably considered each other quite nice and pleasant to be around. But that didn't change the fact that they were keeping her and her friends as slaves, or that they frequently conducted blood sacrifices to perform dark magic rituals. It was better to stay out of their way.

This particular Malumian looked slightly demonic. He had horns growing out of his head, and his skin was like volcanic ash. None of that was natural: It indicated that he had either personally sacrificed others in a ritual for personal power, or that his ancestors did.

He kept talking as Mia tried to make herself small and unnoticed.

"They have no respect for tradition! The humans have barely been here for a few months, and already they are fighting the Thrin, our oldest and greatest allies. The Thrins’ performance in this war has been very disappointing. As mighty as they are, they lack our own psionic powers. Only we can fight the humans effectively. In a way, maybe we ought to thank them. By wiping out the humans we will prove our superiority to the Thrin. The Thrin might be our allies, but they are arrogant and really need to be knocked down a peg."

The humans were winning against the Thrin? Amazing!

Not only did they look super cute, but they might also be powerful and were willing to stand up for themselves and others.

Purrians were physically strong and quite capable compared to most other species, but they were considered pushovers despite their physical strength.

Purrian philosophy held that all life was sacred and worth living, and that it was important to make the most out of every day and enjoy life to the fullest. That philosophy made them popular, but also easy to oppress. After all, if you saw beauty in all things, then you didn't feel much need to fight back against oppression, because you were happy enough as it was.

Some of the more dominant among the Purrians sometimes pushed for making things better, but by and large they had too much empathy and cared too much about each other to risk it all just for a chance at a slightly better life. As a result, Purrians lived as slaves in most parts of the galaxy, because everyone knew that they were very easy to keep docile and almost never rebelled.

And here were the humans, a species that picked a fight with the most evil and powerful species of all, not even to protect themselves but simply because the Thrin were evil and they disagreed with that on principle. So dreamy!

The Malumian continued his rant against the humans: "But as much as I enjoy that the humans are teaching the Thrin a lesson in humility, some of what they are doing is simply inexcusable. Warfare and the occasional genocide are normal, but the humans are young and have no culture to speak of, while the Thrin are ancient and everyone knows of their great works of art, like their Poems of Slaughter, and the Weeping Chains. Every Thrin planet the humans take means the loss of millennia old cultures and ancient cities."

Even after growing up as a slave of the Malumians all her life, she still found their way of thinking strange. Culture and tradition mattered more to them than individual lives did. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad, if their culture wasn't also terrible and fueled by oppression. Many of their magic rituals did not work properly without sacrificing life for it, and their culture had developed around this fact.

"I don't know, Scelus. They must be pretty powerful to do some of the things they are doing. That means they must be older than they appear, and therefore they must also have a richer culture." One of the other bar patrons reasoned.

"Be careful what you say. Those are illusions. The High Hierophant has decreed it so, and to claim otherwise is treason." The Malumian responded in an aggressive tone.

The other bar patron quickly became apologetic after that and tried to calm down the Malumian. Mia had well-honed instincts derived from horrible practical experience, so she realized that Scelus was probably just toying with the other man and was not really planning to have him executed for treason. He just enjoyed making him squirm. Probably. She looked to Groxanne for help, but the woman quietly shook her head. She would not get involved here. Even if the Malumian was actively threatening to get people killed, he was of a high caste and could not just be kicked out of the bar.

Mia suddenly heard laughter coming from outside, and shortly afterwards a group of half a dozen people entered the bar. They were aliens of all kinds, and in the center of them all was the Purrian she had been waiting for.

"You are a madman, Tom. That was the craziest stunt I have ever seen. How did you know that the giant Lapradon would let you surf on it instead of trying to eat you?" Someone asked the Purrian, who was apparently called Tom. It was a common name for their species.

"I didn't! I just had a hunch, so I took the opportunity." Tom replied with a huge grin.

"Are you serious? That's insane!" The other man said as he clapped Tom on the shoulder, then laughed even harder.

That was certainly foolhardy, but then some people just valued fun more highly than safety. But what struck Mia as stranger than that was Tom's unusual manner of speech. It had none of the cultural richness she would expect of a fellow Purrian.

"To be fair, Lapradon sounds like a Pokemon, so I figured there was a good chance it would be surfable. Nominative Determinism seems to be a thing around here." Tom added, in a quieter voice, but well within Mia's range of hearing. Purrian ears were really great for socializing. And for spying and stalking, too. But Mia preferred to think of this as very proactive socializing instead.

"What was that you just said?" The other man asked Tom. Most species had much worse senses than Purrians did.

"Nevermind. It was an inside joke."

The other man looked confused, but then shrugged and went ahead to the bartender to beat the rush and order drinks.

How curious. Tom still kept to his strange speech pattern. What kind of Purrian talked like that? Was he maybe an orphan, raised by a different species with different cultural norms?

"Drinks are on me!" Tom suddenly shouted before the other man could order. "Hey bartender, a round of whatever the local specialty is, for everyone, please!"

That made several of the other bar patrons look up.

"That would be an aurumaximum cocktail, sir. It's five thousand credits per glass, sir."

Five thousand credits! That was enough to feed Mia's family for half a year! And that was for just one glass!

Tom just shrugged. "Sure! A round for everyone!"

A loud cheer went through the bar.

Then he whispered again, so almost nobody could hear: "I still have no idea how much a local credit is worth, and at this point I’m too afraid to ask."

What? How could someone be this dumb?

"Hey Mia, would you like me to give you a cheaper cocktail instead and split the difference with you?" The bartender whispered to her.

She could barely contain her shock. Had she seriously just been offered enough money for several months worth of food, just like that?

Well, sometimes one just needed to be in the right place at the right time, and it looked like today she was in luck. Mia was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Yes, please! Nyaa!" She said happily.

Groxanne handed her a cocktail that looked identical to everyone else's, along with a small credit chit. Mia immediately grabbed the credit chit tightly and put it away. She looked around, and was relieved to see that it looked like nobody saw that.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

This evening was going great! She just earned more money by accident than she had ever held in her hands before.

This also bode well for her original reason for coming here: Getting information from Tom the tourist. After all, if he had this much money to throw around then the information quarantine definitely didn't concern him.

"How did you know how to surf that Lapradon anyway, Tom? Did you grow up on a Death World or something?" Another one of the hangers-on asked him as they all took their seats. They were on the opposite side of the bar from Mia, so she would need to think of an excuse to join them later once she

"I didn't grow up on one, but I'm pretty good at competitive Death World survival runs." Tom responded.

"What?" The others said as one, echoing Mia's internal reaction.

"What in the world is a Death World survival run? And how can there be competitions for it?" One of them asked.

"It's when somebody builds an artificial world full of horrible death traps and nasty wildlife, and then other people compete to see who can stay alive the longest." Tom responded.

"Stay alive the longest? As in, you die in the end? Oh. You are talking about virtual reality simulations, aren't you?"

"Huh? Oh, sure. Of course. It's just a very, very realistic game. Did you think I was talking about real life?" Tom asked. Somehow, Mia thought that did not sound very convincing.

"Well, yes? I mean, Death World is a pretty well-known term. It's an official scientific classification for planets that technically support life, but are very difficult to live on. On the other hand, I have never heard of virtual reality simulations like the ones you described before. You must be from really far away that you have never heard of Death Worlds before, but people play weird games like that."

Far away sounded good to Mia. If Tom was from far away he would be more likely to know things about the humans, whose homeworld was almost exactly on the other side of the galaxy.

As fascinating as the topic of Death World simulations was, this really wasn't what she was here for and it was only a matter of time until the bar filled up and she was kicked out for being unable to pay for a drink.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She decided to approach Tom directly. She just had to make it clear that she was here for his stories, and not to try to seduce him. She didn't want to come across as one of those women who hit on every man they could find. The Purrian gender ratio being as lopsided as it was, men got hit on a lot. While it was normal for women to make the first move, it was rude to just blatantly hit on men without getting to know them first.

It also didn't help that all the really dominant male Purrians tended to bond exclusively to the most interesting woman they could find and stick with her forever. It was an annoying artifact of evolution that made dating even harder. A man as rich and adventurous as this one almost certainly already had a wife and would only be annoyed by another woman's advances.

She approached Tom and introduced herself: "Excuse me, nyaa? Hi, I'm Mia. I apologize for inserting myself like this, but I heard that you are from outside the sector. Is that true, nyaa?"

The man looked at her and smiled "It is! I am from pretty far away. Unfortunately I can't divulge where I'm from exactly. It's a state secret, you see." He joked and winked at her.

"A state secret? Don't be ridiculous." Scelus suddenly interrupted them. She hadn't even realized he was nearby! He must have used his psychic powers to listen in on them without her noticing anything.

"You should know your place and not make up ridiculous lies like that, Purrian. I do hope for your sake that you weren't planning to talk about anything you saw or heard outside the Facinus Sector." He continued.

This was bad! Having the attention of one of the masters was never a good thing!

But Tom just gave a wide grin and responded: "As a matter of fact, I was planning to talk about this at length."

"I will have you killed if you do." The Malumian said in a voice as cold as ice.

"I doubt that. I have purchased a license for Unlimited Freedom of Speech, you see." Tom said as he held out a small data chip.

Scelus's eyes shot up in shock, and he appeared more cautious as he used his own wristband to scan the proffered chip and verify its legitimacy.

"It checks out." Scelus said, now much more cautious than before.

Mia caught herself openly staring at Tom in shock, along with many of the other bar patrons.

He had already shown that he was rich, but this was on another level. Only the most powerful of Malumian nobles usually carried a license for Unlimited Freedom of Speech. She was expecting someone as rich as him to carry a lesser license for free speech, but not an unlimited one.

In many other societies, it was just a pithy saying that laws did not apply to the rich. Not so in the Facinus Sector. The Malumians were hyper-capitalistic and it was possible to literally buy exemptions to many laws. Unlimited Freedom of Speech allowed you to say anything you wanted, without getting in trouble for it! She had never met a person who was allowed to do that before.

The custom to sell exemptions for the law was an important part of Malumian culture. It was derived from a type of magic called "legitimancy" that basically allowed you to do the same thing with the natural laws instead of the laws made by people. Legitimancy was the ability to convince the universe to look away while you were breaking the laws of physics.

Purrians were not capable of magic so she had no first-hand knowledge, but from what she had overheard, legitimancy was an important part of many spells. It was necessary as a safeguard to ensure that the universe did not take offense and kill you in retaliation after you were done casting a spell. Without sufficiently powerful legitimancy, summoned creatures would often turn on their summoner, for example.

It was part of the reason why the most powerful Malumian mages often started their careers as lawyers. The other reason for that was that law practice and ritualistic magic fueled by the ruthless sacrifice of living people both tended to attract people with the same mindset and outlook on the world.

Tom gave Scelus an uppity look, then mused loudly: "This is going to be fun. So let's see. What's the most secret, most offensive thing that you definitely don't want me to talk about?"

The Malumian tried to give him a blank look in return, but one of his eyebrows twitched involuntarily.

"It's probably the stars, isn't it? You are all dying to know what's up with the stars, right?" He asked everyone in attendance.

Mia wanted to nod in agreement, but she was afraid to. Not with Scelus watching. Some of the others were less scared though, and loudly agreed.

Tom leaned back in his chair while giving Scelus a shit-eating grin: "So here is what's going on: The humans are able to teleport star systems around."

"Bullshit." The Malumian immediately interrupted him. "Do you have any idea how much energy that would take?"

"Well, yes. It would be quite expensive if they used energy to do that. But aren't you Malumians the guys who keep bragging about how your abilities break physics and don't care about the conservation laws? It's the same thing here. The humans use technology that works like your psionics."

"I don't know, that does sound hard to believe. The speed of light is too slow. We wouldn't actually be able to see the stars in their new positions, yet." Another bar patron asked skeptically.

"That's true, but it turns out that when you use psionics to trick the universe, the universe sometimes gets confused and doesn't know where to draw the line when it propagates the changes. Moving the stars also retroactively changes the way the light spread from them."

"It 'retroactively' changes the way the light spreads? That's ridiculous. You are talking about time travel! That violates causality!"

Tom just shrugged. "Oh yeah, this is definitely twisting time and messing with causality. But so what? Time is pretty resilient and doesn't break easily unless you try really hard, and the causal ripples are perfectly straightforward if you understand anthropics. Unfortunately I have to admit that I can't prove any of this. You will have to take my word for it because I can't divulge who my sources are. Oh, and Scelus? You can't force me to reveal it either. I bought a platinum grade privacy license, so I don't have to explain shit." He said as he waved another chip in Scelus' direction.

"Impossible. How rich are you?" The Malumian asked nervously.

"Man, I don't even know. I don't really get how your banking system works. I have people for that."

Ok, he had to be joking, right? Nobody could be this ignorant of their own wealth. Mia was pretty sure he was just messing with Scelus on purpose now. She was torn between staying to watch a Malumian be humiliated, and getting as far away as possible before he decided to work his anger out on somebody poorer, like herself.

"Anyway, moving star systems around isn't actually as difficult as it sounds if you use psionics for it. The universe allocates more computational resources to things that affect sapient entities directly. Stars may be large and have a lot of energy, but they only affect us very indirectly, so they are actually pretty easy to move around because the universe doesn't complain much about that. At least that's what I heard from some of the humans I talked to."

"The universe doesn't complain much?" Scelus responded in outrage. "Impossible! The human social order is perverse and unnatural. It must take an absurd amount of legitimancy for them to avoid backlash from the universe! Their rites lack all devotion! Instead of beseeching the universe for aid and praying to higher powers, they give instructions and even orders to the universe!"

"Oh? And how do you know all that? And how come you are allowed to talk about it? Do you have a Free Speech license as well?" Tom asked.

Scelus suddenly looked shocked and nervous, but he quickly reverted to outrage: "You can not tell me what to do, Purrian!"

"Looks like I hit a nerve there. Well, as fun as it would be to pry further, let's focus on something else: You say that the humans must need very strong legitimancy to make up for all their rudeness towards the universe or whatever you want to call it, then doesn't that make their feats even more impressive?"

Scelus didn't know how to respond to that and stayed silent.

Wow, he was really getting verbally destroyed here. This was fun to watch, but it would be so much more fun to watch from farther away. A flustered Malumian was a dangerous Malumian.

The other bar patrons were also hanging on Tom's every word by now. All other conversations in the bar had come to a stop and everyone was trying to get close enough to listen. Word had already gotten around that Tom had a license for Unlimited Freedom of Speech, and they would probably never get another chance to hear an uncensored account of what was going on outside the Facinus Sector.

"I do not care about your wordplay, Purrian! The humans are soulless monsters and they will get what is coming to them. Your heretical talk changes nothing!"

"Soulless? That's the farthest from the truth. They can measure souls, you know? Their Faith Engines have souls. Actually, they pretty much are made of souls, and almost nothing else. That's why they work so efficiently. They are the minimum necessary to make the universe pay attention, without any overhead for unnecessary conscious experience, emotions, or goals."

That sounded really important to Mia, but she had no idea what any of it meant. She resolved to memorize it all, and spread the knowledge around in secret later.

"The humans are weak!" Scelus shouted. Mia was pretty sure that at this point he had basically run out of things to say and was just repeating government propaganda.

"Humans are shapeshifters, so you can hardly call them weak." Tom replied calmly.

"So are the Metamorphians, and they are weak. They have a hundred different forms, and all of them are weak compared to a Thrin."

"No, I meant something different. Humans don't shapeshift like that. They just have the ability to makes bodies for themselves whenever they want to. They can just make a body that is literally defined as 'like that guy over there, but twenty percent better at everything'. If you find an even stronger species, they can just copy it and use that as a baseline to improve further. That's kind of hard to beat."

"If they are that powerful then how come they haven't conquered the galaxy already?" Scelus challenged.

Mia had to admit, he did have a point there. If the humans were as ridiculous as all that, then surely they would not be having this conversation.

"They are in fact conquering everything. It's just that from what I've heard, the Facinus Sector is harder for them to work in than other parts of the galaxy because all of the millennia of psionics and shitty magical rituals by your species have kind of polluted the universal substrate. The whole Facinus Sector is basically the magical equivalent of a swamp. Faith Engines work less efficiently in it, so it's way down in their list of priorities to conquer the place. That's why I decided to go here for tourism."

Scelus looked like he was about to blow a gasket, but before he could open his mouth, Tom continued. "By the way, I did purchase the Extra Heretical Statements upgrade for my Unlimited Free Speech as well, so don't even try."

The Malumian's eye twitched. Then he took a deep breath and announced "I do not need to stay here and listen to this".

Then he stood up and made to leave the bar.

"Ah, I'm sorry to see you go. I had so much fun talking to you. I would like to thank you for being such an asshole. You are really living up to all the stereotypes of your species. It's giving me the genuine tourist experience I was expecting, and I thank you for that, from the bottom of my heart."

"...you are welcome?" Scelus replied in disbelief, before he slunk out of the bar in defeat.

All was silent for several seconds.

Then someone started clapping. Others joined in. Soon Mia found herself clapping along.

Almost everybody hated the Malumians, and this was a rare moment of triumph over one of them. Mia felt a little bit bad about this. It was rude to be happy about somebody else's misery. But then again, if anyone deserved it, it was a Malumian noble.

Mia had been suspicious of Tom ever since he started talking, for his odd manner of speech. She had pretty good instincts for this sort of thing. Over the course of this whole conversation, her suspicion had only grown.

Well, she would never find out the truth just by nodding along with the others. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

"Excuse me, Tom? I'm Mia. Could you join me for a quick Vanexcus outside, nyaa?" She asked him.

A Vanexcus was a minor but important cultural norm among Purrians. Just a perfect excuse to get him alone to ask some questions.

"Uh, sure. Lead the way." Tom replied with some hesitation.

He looked a little nervous and confused. And he expected her to 'lead the way'? What a strange reaction. Did he not know what a Vanexcus was?

Well, that just raised the chances that she was correct with her suspicion.

Soon after, the two of them were alone outside, and he was looking at her a little nervously.

"You mentioned that humans can shapeshift. You wouldn't happen to secretly be a human in disguise, would you, nyaa?" She asked.

Tom blinked at her, then started laughing.

"Yes, I am." He said.

Huh, well that was easy. Also, so awesome! She was talking to a human! In person!

"I wasn't being particularly subtle, but you still figured it out much faster than I expected." Tom the human said. "To be honest, I'm glad you figured it out. I was wondering what in the world a Vanexcus was and what I should say to get out of this without blowing my cover. I am surprised, though. I thought my disguise as a Purrian was quite good. What gave it away?"

"You didn't say 'nyaa' or any similar phatic expression even once, nyaa."

"...are you kidding? I thought that was a racist stereotype, that's why I didn't do it."

Mia tilted her head in confusion. "No, why would you think that? It's a cultural thing, nyaa. Every life is worth living, and all experiences should be treasured. It's one of the great truths of life. Phrases like 'nyaa' are traditionally used as part of our speech to show appreciation for life and the universe, nyaa. It is very important to say them often enough and at the right moment, to show the universe and the people around you how much you love life."

Tom started giggling.

How rude!

"Stop laughing! It's an important cultural norm with a rich and complex history, nyaa. Why are you making fun of it? And how can you be able to shapeshift and turn into a Purrian, and not know such a basic thing?"

"I'm sorry. Seriously, if it's that important, then I'm sorry for laughing about it. I just didn't expect it, that's all. I didn't inform myself about a lot of things before I came here. It's much more exciting to find out in person."

"Seriously? You deliberately kept yourself ignorant, nyaa? Is that why you didn't know how much your money is worth, too? How can you not know basics like that?"

"What counts as basic knowledge to you?" Tom interrupted her. Without waiting for an answer, he continued: "I could ask a Faith Engine to download a complete understanding of all local cultural norms and political facts directly into my head. We have people who do that, but they tend to get bored with it pretty quickly. Real life gets boring when you can have all the knowledge and skill you want handed to you on a silver platter.

"People who do that usually start ignoring real life and live in simulations and game worlds instead, which are designed to stay maximally interesting. But I prefer the real world, and I think that not knowing something can lead to exciting situations. For example, you wouldn't have talked to me if I had been better at faking a Purrian style of speech. Then I wouldn't have gotten an opportunity to see that look of triumph on your face along with that cute smile of yours when you figured out my identity."

That sounded amazing, and hard to believe. They could just download knowledge into their heads? With no need to study anything?

Also, wait, did he just hit on her? She must be imagining things. A man making the first move? That sort of thing only happened in steamy romance novels!

Mia blushed a little. But before she could respond, the man continued without missing a beat, as if this was normal: "I didn't actually learn a lot about the Purrians before I turned into one. I prefer to be surprised. But the things I did read sounded really cool. You are one of the nicest species in the galaxy, and you all look really cute!"

Wait, they all looked really cute? Not her specifically? Ah, it would have been too good to be true.

"Cat people are really in fashion right now, you know?" He continued obliviously.

"In fashion? What do you mean by that, nyaa?" She asked.

"Well, we can create physical bodies at will, so choosing to be a Purrian is basically no different to me than choosing to wear a particular color of shirt. Having feline ears is a fashion statement. And right now, you are very much in fashion. You wouldn't see me dead having a lizard tail, you know? Those are so last season."

Mia's head was reeling. This evening had been just one major revelation after the other, and her ability to just go with the flow was reaching its limits.

"You just transform yourself into other species as a fashion statement? You humans are the most alien aliens I have ever heard of, nyaa."

The human who looked like a Purrian smiled: "Well, you Purrians are the most cliché aliens I have ever heard of. But in a good way! I'm loving this."

Before Mia could respond to that, their discussion was suddenly interrupted by a voice she had hoped never to hear again:

"There you are!" Scelus shouted, and locked eyes with Mia. "You are coming with me. I have just bought your slave contract. I'm running out of sacrifices, and you will do nicely."

Mia felt her heart stop in her chest. Was this it? Would she die today, over such a silly thing? Just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

"Or do you have any objections?" He challenged Tom, the secret human.

"As a matter of fact, I do." He responded, with all traces of humor gone from his voice.