Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 65: The Rabbits Like You

“So what you mean is, these rabbits are keeping the earlier survivors alive?” Tass pressed his head against the gold badge, making a loud clicking sound with his tongue.

“That’s what Salaar and Myss just told us.” Beverly’s voice was unusually excited. “Only Roman is missing. But that’s Roman! If all of his companions are alive, then he has to be fine too.”

“That unlucky bastard probably went off exploring alone and got trapped in some burrow. When we find him, I’m absolutely going to laugh in his face.”

“Roman’s survival skills rank first in the world. Just by condensing drinking water with magic and protecting his internal organs, he could survive for about a year…” Asp sounded much brighter than before.

Professor Gentry didn’t comment directly. He only listened in silence.

Tass scratched his head vigorously. He could roughly guess how the people on the other end would take it. The lost Hope underground city just so happened to have two talking alchemical rabbits. Three hundred years later, they had bred an entire underground rabbit kingdom.

These alchemical lifeforms seemed to have run straight out of a fairy tale—whimsical and innocent. In name, they imprisoned the humans who wandered in by mistake; in reality, they were protecting them from danger.

If one insisted, that possibility wasn’t absolutely zero.

As long as their loved ones were still alive, humans were willing to believe even the most absurd possibility. Tass pressed his lips together, choosing not to burst the bubble of joy the two young people were sharing.

Actually, they all knew this place was a genuine Divine Realm. There was no way things were that simple. He had no idea whether Salaar had told Professor Gentry that part.

Indeed, it was a piece of intelligence of critical importance. But as a professional, Tass had no intention of taking matters into his own hands—he wasn’t the leader. If Salaar and Myss thought it necessary, they would say so themselves.

“We haven’t gained much on our side,” Tass said cautiously. “Jinx, the rabbit Myss caught earlier, is currently in our hands. According to it, the rabbits are all busy preparing for a banquet right now.”

“Before the banquet is over, they won’t harm the prisoners.”

“A banquet?”

“Yes, a banquet.” Tass glanced at the white rabbit lying belly-up, limbs in the air.

Father Kalen had used every trick he had and had even gotten his finger bitten open by Jinx. Fortunately, the result was decent. The rabbit had finally melted beneath his petting, become dazed, and surrendered its paws.

Tass had applied a bit of gentle coaxing, and the rabbit’s three-part mouth had failed to keep many secrets.

According to it, the rabbits had been born remembering a single mission. They were to prepare a grand banquet. They existed for that purpose alone.

The humans who had come running into the ruins were annoying, but they were merely insignificant little problems. The rabbits would lock them up first, and everything else could wait until after the banquet.

But as for the concept of a “Divine Realm,” why they were holding a banquet, or when it was supposed to happen, Jinx knew absolutely nothing.

“How about you go ask a mushroom why it grew out of the ground?” Basking in the caresses with a dizzy, dazed air—as if it was drunk—the rabbit retorted, “That kind of thing is called instinct, idiot.”

The rabbits’ behavior could hardly be called intelligent. Father Kalen and Tass hadn’t expected to get much information out of it, so they weren’t terribly disappointed.

“…Looks like Myss and Salaar’s exploration went more smoothly. In a moment, I’ll pass this on to Salaar.”

Tass said into the gold badge communicator, “You guys keep pushing forward. We left an emerald marker in the central sector of the ruins.”

With that he unceremoniously cut the connection on the communication device.

“We need to contact Salaar’s side again,” Tass muttered. “If I’m not mistaken, they may have found some useful informa— Father?!”

Father Kalen was gently stroking the rabbit in his arms. The rabbit was melting under his hand. No, it was literally melting.

That white mass dissolved like cream, soft fur slipping through the priest’s fingers as it gradually fused with his skin. Kalen seemed completely unaware of it. He continued soothing the thing stroke after stroke, murmuring a prayer from the Order of Shadows.

“May His Veil shroud you, unseen and unharmed.”

Like a father cradling a newborn infant, Kalen’s voice was gentler than ever. “May His Veil shroud you, unseen and unharmed…”

“You’re a good human…”

Jinx’s head had already begun to deform; it slurred its words incoherently. “The rabbits like you… The rabbits need you…”

“Hey, you idiot priest!” The scales on Tass’s wings flared out.

Countless emerald spikes formed around him, yet he didn’t know where to aim. The rabbit had already become a soft foreign mass spread across Kalen’s arm and chest. A reckless attack would only injure the priest.

Kalen lifted his eyes.

Those blue eyes overflowed with tenderness and blankness. They clearly reflected Tass’s figure, yet the pupils had no focus at all.

How was this possible?

Tass yanked at his hair in frustration. By all rights, Dragon Faes were the more magic-sensitive species. If there were anything wrong with this Divine Realm, he should have been the first one affected. And yet the one in trouble was Kalen.

Grinding his teeth, he moved at the fastest speed of his life. He ripped the gold badge off Kalen by force and connected it.

“Myss, Salaar—something’s wrong with Kalen! That rabbit melted all over him, and it’s seeping into his body!”

Sshhhk—

At that exact moment, the most advanced communication artifact malfunctioned.

Damn it, who exactly thought this place was lucky? Forget it!

Tass’s gaze sharpened as he slammed into the arm holding the rabbit. But the thing clung tightly to Kalen’s arm and chest, remaining utterly immovable.

Father Kalen ignored the attack from the Dragon Fae. He rose to his feet and walked toward the tightly shut cell door.

Then he wrapped both hands around iron bars as thick as wrists and pulled them apart.

Screeech!

With a metallic wail that made teeth ache, the iron bars bent aside like soft wire, leaving a huge gap.

“What are you trying to do?” Tass shouted.

“The rabbits need me.” Kalen said it like he was sleep-talking. “The banquet needs me.”

“The rabbits need him.” The white thing in Kalen’s arms spoke at the same time. “The banquet needs him.”

The two voices overlapped in the wide prison chamber.

The rabbit in Kalen’s arms had only a vague outline of a head left. Its eyes were half-closed, and it looked more relieved than it ever had before.

……

After the lop-eared rabbit left, Myss and Salaar immediately dropped to the ground.

“Here should be the center of the castle. Go on, try out your new ability,” Salaar said quietly.

“I don’t need you to tell me that.”

With no outsiders around, Myss let his pupils dilate, brimming with confidence as he tried to sense the surroundings and find the “terminal point” of the Divine Realm.

A few seconds later, all he sensed more clearly were the survivors. Beyond that, nothing.

Myss frowned and wove several layers of black gauze out of thin air, draping them over his own head.

…Nothing.

Frustrated, he wove several more layers, practically wrapping himself into a cocoon. At that level of sensitivity, he could even feel the faint ripple caused by Salaar’s heartbeat.

…Still nothing.

This Divine Realm was strange to an absurd degree.

Whether it was the Fallen Child or the Perfected Creation, both of them had been very clearly drawing power from humans, then using themselves as the core to construct their Divine Realm.

Magic power ought to have flowed and gathered during that process. Myss should have been able to use that to see through the “end point” of the realm. The principle was simple it was almost trivial.

But the magic distribution here was so uniform it made his scalp crawl. Its circulation had no pattern at all. There was no unified current to follow.

His new skill had proven useless. Myss’s mouth gradually sank from an upward curve into a droop, and his whole body softened with dejection. He huddled inside the layers of black gauze, unwilling to face whatever expression Salaar might be wearing.

It was too humiliating! “Dreams come true” my ass. Nothing was going smoothly in this accursed place.

“Don’t forget, our opponent this time is stronger than the Perfected Creation.”

Salaar bent down and calmly lifted aside Myss’s black veil.

Myss flicked a glance at him from the corner of his eye, and the knot in his chest loosened a little. Salaar’s expression wasn’t too mocking. He could tolerate that.

“Roman must be the one behind this,” Myss muttered sullenly as he dissolved the black gauze. “The prized student of an Archmage really should be stronger than some orphan and some taxidermist.”

“You suspect the master of this Divine Realm is Roman? Why, because he looks like a rabbit?” Salaar raised a brow.

Myss shot him a look as if asking whether he was stupid. “Of course not! Because those rabbits said this group of humans were the ‘first batch of humans.’ They never came into contact with the earlier missing expedition teams.”

“And V.O.R likes writing to so-called ‘geniuses.’ There’s only one genius missing here. Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not bad reasoning,” Salaar said seriously. “Looks like in the future I’ll need to guard not only against your magic, but your schemes too.”

Sure enough, even Salaar acknowledged that he was a genius.

“You should have been worried from the start.” Myss was finally appeased. He shoved Salaar toward the survivors’ door.

A genius like him could easily guess what would happen next. Salaar would appeal to their emotions, reason with them, the survivors would let down their guard, and then tell them everything about Roman… Human socializing was always this dull.

In other words, next came another round of boring human conversation.

And yet…

After a round of knocking, the door opened, and the gaunt young man from before stuck his head out again.

The instant he saw the two of them, his expression changed. Before Salaar could even open his mouth, a steel cable shot from the young man’s sleeve and tied Salaar up tight.

Salaar actually didn’t resist?!

Myss, standing behind him and ready to enjoy the show, got tied up along with him. The two of them were bound into a bundle on the spot.

Myss: “?”

The gaunt young man hauled both of them inside in one motion and nervously shut the door.

Once he made sure there were no bouncing rabbits in sight, he lowered his head with a grave expression and stared at Myss. “I didn’t expect those rabbits to be able to turn into humans too…”

Myss: “???”

Salaar failed to hold it in and burst out laughing. “You’ve misunderstood. We really are human, genuine through and through.”

The room was brightly lit, so the two of them took the chance to quickly scan the interior.

Myss’s senses hadn’t been wrong. There were indeed five people in the room.

The gaunt young man was in the best condition among them. A short man sat cross-legged on the bed, coughing from time to time. Beside him stood a burly man whose left knee had been severed, the wound neatly bandaged, with a faint smell of blood coming from it.

The two women were there as well. One had lost her entire right foot, with her ankle wrapped in a round bundle of bandages. The other had her neck covered in layers of bandages, her face deathly pale.

All five pairs of eyes were fixed on the two of them, carrying a startling calmness… and hostility.

Even after Salaar identified himself as “human,” they didn’t waver in the slightest.

Salaar drew a deep breath. “We really are human, and we’re Professor Gentry’s assistants. Professor Gentry, Beveryly, and Asp are all here. They came to rescue you.”

His tone was exceptionally sincere, as though they truly were innocent, pitiful assistants.

“Look, we all have communication badges on our collars. You can talk to him yourselves.”

The men and women exchanged glances. For a moment, Myss couldn’t read the emotions in their eyes. The only thing he could be sure of was that there was nothing in them called “joy.”

…How strange. This should have been earth-shattering good news.

Why did none of these survivors look happy at all?

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