TSROTRATBP Chapter 17

After parting from her, being carried along in Meimi's arms, I gazed out the window with gloomy eyes. In contrast to the storm clouds inside me, it was a bright, clear day, sun sitting high overhead.

Nice weather out there….

Haah. A wistful breath escaped me on its own. So it really had been too much to expect, delivering a complicated message while stuck as a rabbit. It was a day I especially resented these lump-shaped paws of mine.

Just before the guard along the territorial border was set to be reinforced, at the hour when the sunset had begun staining the sky red. A group of rabbit beastmen, their identities hidden behind black masks, crossed into the border of black panther territory.

Walking a path thick with underbrush, they exchanged glances in careful silence. Off the path, bones—a beastman's, by the look of them—lay strewn in the grass.

'This is…'

The squad leader guiding the rabbit beastmen at the front frowned. Not long ago—the investigators Raebien House sent out. Twice. Neither party came back either. It seemed they'd been hunted here by black panthers.

'Odd.'

The squad leader studied the bone fragments. His eyes clouded with doubt. Skill enough that a couple of black panthers shouldn't have taken them down. Not this easy. And more than that—checking whether some rabbit lived or died shouldn't be taking this long.

"Crossing the line whenever you feel like it, again."

At a voice that came suddenly from behind them, the rabbit beastmen whipped around. There stood Ahin and Iverin, along with several black panthers.

"Who's there!"

"That's what I'd like to know."

Facing Ahin's fresh, clear-featured appearance, the rabbit beastmen's eyes trembled faintly. Between the crimson eyes the two men shared and the black panthers surrounding them, there was no doubt they belonged to the black panther clan. And more—not a trace of him sensed, not until he spoke first. A serious fighter.

'No way.'

The squad leader swallowed hard, his eyes settling on the bone fragments. If those bones were the work of these very black panthers before them. A cold tension crept up his spine. His gaze then shifted, sweeping over the swords hanging at Ahin's and Iverin's waists as if measuring them.

"…That's none of your concern,"

"Looking for a rabbit?"

At Ahin cutting in with the question, the squad leader's shoulders flinched.

"That one? Picked her up."

Picked her up—like a stray. Despair flickered through the rabbit beastmen's eyes. The Raebien house had wanted the rabbit dead—and here it was, plainly still alive.

Perhaps sensing their appetite sharpened by the beastmen's twitching unease, the black panthers beside Ahin and Iverin bared their teeth.

"Going to take her back, are you?"

Calming the growling black panthers, Ahin gave a faint smile. The smile looked almost kind. Thinking, just maybe—one of the rabbit beastmen spoke up.

"If you happen to be protecting her, perhaps we could ask you to hand her over to us—"

"Look at the state of you—no different from a pack of night-thieves. We can't very well hand Miss Rabbit over to suspicious characters like you. Miss Rabbit has by now fully settled into her role as Lord Ahin's emergency rations, so you may as well give up."

Iverin's declaration burst out like a dam breaking, and a prickling, awkward silence dropped over them all. Bizarre as the words were, his face couldn't have been more dead serious.

'Miss Rabbit…?'

'Emergency rations?'

For the rabbit beastmen, these were titles they'd never once encountered in their lives. Emergency rations, no less. It took the squad leader a moment to process what he'd heard before he asked, bewildered.

"Emergency ra—no, wait, then whether the rabbit's alive or dead—"

"Do not speak so carelessly of death. Why, only this morning Miss Rabbit opened her lively day by kicking this Iverin with her hind leg."

Calls her emergency rations one breath, then won't let anyone even say the word 'death' the next—what kind of twisted thinking was that?

The rabbit beastmen's mouths fell open slightly in bewilderment. As the atmosphere grew steadily stranger, Ahin clicked his tongue and turned to Iverin.

"Iverin, what exactly are you trying to say here?"

He asked, on the rabbit beastmen's behalf, the very question they'd been desperate to voice themselves. Even so, Iverin, his expression still coldly composed, clasped his hands behind his back.

"I simply could not contain my outrage that these men would dare covet Lord Ahin's emergency rations, Miss Rabbit."

"There's a lot of unnecessary words mixed in there."

"Who's to say—perhaps these men mean to kidnap Miss Rabbit."

"That's exactly why they came here to kill her personally, though."

It was a conversation chilling enough that no one could have mistaken it for a joke. While Ahin and Iverin's exchange carried on, the rabbit beastmen, having confirmed the rabbit was alive, exchanged glances.

'…Squad leader, what do we do?'

'We fall back for now.'

'After coming all this way?'

'No presence off either of them. Dangerous. We run for our territory—be ready to scatter.'

'Right. That nonsense talk—bait. To make us careless.'

There was no reasonable way to seize the rabbit right now when they couldn't even see her, and it would be better to return to the Raebien house first and report this. Just as the rabbit beastmen, having scouted their escape route, turned to move, a strange pheromone drifted into their noses.

"Gkkh—!"

It felt like their entire bodies had turned to cotton soaked through with water. Sensing it was a predator's pheromone, they immediately tried to draw up their own—but it wasn't enough.

"Ngh,"

Every action was already beyond their control. One by one, their bodies collapsed to the ground as the ability took hold of them all at once.

"Hhh—aack."

Unable to withstand the powerful pheromone, one of the rabbit beastmen finally lost consciousness, eyes rolling back. Watching them crawl across the ground, Ahin gave a nod toward the black panthers.

"Finish them off."

The moment the order fell, the black panthers bared their sharp teeth and lunged.

"Aaaaugh!"

"Gkh!"

The scent of blood spread thick through the underbrush. Crossing through the merciless hunting scene, Ahin drew the sword from his waist. Then, stepping up before the squad leader who'd been giving the orders, he slowly leveled the blade at him.

"A few questions. Do you mean to take the rabbit back with you?"

"That…"

Facing the threatening blade, the squad leader's voice shook. He couldn't even move his own body—it felt like his head might go flying any second.

"Ah, well—she's already in my clutches either way, so it doesn't matter."

Turning to glance back toward the estate, Ahin curved his mouth into a slow smile. Recognizing it as the dark, private smile he occasionally wore, Iverin offered his advice.

"My lord, you're wearing the expression of a villain right now."

"Mouth."

"Yes."

Having silenced the mouth that never stopped its chattering, Ahin turned back to the squad leader, still slumped on the ground. Perhaps the pheromone had been applied too strongly—he looked on the verge of foaming at the mouth himself. When Ahin lowered the intensity of the pheromone, the squad leader, finally able to breathe, gasped for air.

"Hhh, huh,"

"I have a question about that rabbit."

"Wh-What…"

"Her identity, I mean. She's no ordinary rabbit, is she. Let's start with whether she's a beastman."

Slowly. The tip of the moving blade drew down and pulled off the mask hiding the squad leader's identity. Even as his face was exposed to the cold air, he kept working his mouth open and shut without a word. When the hesitation stretched on too long, Ahin let out a disappointed breath.

"If you'd rather not say, that's fine too."

In an instant, the sword drove straight through the squad leader's thigh. The pain hit him all at once, vicious—he thrashed, screaming like a beast.

"Aaaaugh!"

"More of you things'll probably keep crossing the line anyway—I'll just ask again then."

Shk—the blade slid free from his thigh and was raised high once more. The fresh blood trailing down it went pattering down onto the squad leader's bare face. His reason overtaken entirely by terror, he threw an arm up to block and shouted.

"I-I'll talk! I'll tell you everything, I will!"

The blade, already descending as if to split his head in two, stopped dead. Looking up in fear at the emotionless smile above him, the squad leader spoke quickly.

"Hh—Th-that rabbit—she's a beastman. That much is true, m'lord."

Though he'd more or less suspected as much, having it directly confirmed made the smile vanish from Ahin's eyes. As though pressing him on, the sword drew a line across the squad leader's throat.

"Ngh,"

"She hasn't turned human, though. Still a baby, is she?"

Even asking it himself, Ahin thought the question was rather ironic. Calling her a baby seemed off, considering she'd already picked up not just the continental language but every piece of knowledge a beastman needed to know.

And that wasn't all. Come to think of it, when meeting Valens, the way she gave her own version of a greeting using her paws was frankly baffling. Wearing a faint sneer once more, Ahin watched the squad leader continue.

"No—sh-she's eighteen already, m'lord."

"…Eighteen?"

"A freak who never went through humanization, even after her coming-of-age ceremony."

The squad leader, who'd insisted he'd only come to confirm whether the rabbit was alive or dead, didn't survive much longer after that.

Thock—the sword sliced through the air, and the last of the rabbit beastmen who'd managed to survive to the end had his head fall to the ground. Slowly licking the blood spattered across the back of his hand, Ahin made a small sound of regret.

"…I forgot to ask about Vivi's family."

Iverin, who'd been thoroughly absorbed in his own shock this whole time, wore an expression of belated realization.

"My apologies. I was rather astonished myself, and only just now thought of it."

Both men's stunned eyes settled on the squad leader. The corpse, no longer capable of answering anything, had already transformed into a meal for the gathered black panthers. Ahin watched the pack tear into it like starved animals, then waved a hand.

"Ash, that's enough. Go on."

Ash, the leader of the pack, gave a nod. After a short while, having finished their feast, the black panthers scattered off into the underbrush. Turning his gaze from their retreating forms, Iverin murmured.

"If she's eighteen, that puts her right around my lord's age, or mine."

Not just some ordinary rabbit, but an eighteen-year-old beastman. Turning the squad leader's confession over in his mind, doubt rose in his crimson eyes.

"It's nonsense. A beastman who never achieved humanization even after her coming-of-age ceremony?"

"And it makes sense, then, that a rabbit reads the continental language, or reads books?"

Smiling faintly, Ahin sheathed the bloodied sword at his waist. His manner was far too relaxed for someone who'd just heard such astonishing news. Iverin let out a hollow breath, looking at him.

"So my lord already believed, from the very start, that Miss Rabbit was a beastman."

"More or less."

"…Then why did you pretend not to know, when I was speculating she might be some other species entirely?"

"You looked funny, struggling over it."

What a vicious habit, Iverin murmured, his expression turning complicated. Even granting she was a baby rabbit, the fact that Ahin had shared a sleeping space with a beastman of his own age settled on him in an oddly ambiguous way.

"How on earth…"

While Iverin sank into his own private world, Ahin settled himself down on a nearby rock. For Iverin, who'd never yet properly encountered Vivi's pheromone, this reaction was only natural.

"Even so—a beastman incapable of humanization, of all things. If she truly can't become human, doesn't that mean she has to go on living as a sentient baby rabbit?"

"That's not so bad either."

Brushing the matter off vaguely, Ahin dangled his legs as if to needle him further.

"My lord, why?"

Iverin, his frustration reaching its peak, openly furrowed his brow. At that, Ahin, who'd been smiling to himself, took on an unusually serious expression as well.

"Iverin."

"Speak, my lord."

The atmosphere turned cold in an instant, as though the real matter were finally about to be said. Sensing it, Iverin waited tensely for what would come next.

"That rabbit…"

"Yes."

"When she falls asleep, I want to swallow her whole."