Chapter 22 (1/2)

Dealing with the stallkeeper was easier than I thought. The mental aspect of it, not the physical method.

I expected hesitation, even for me. They weren't NPCs in a game, they were real living people. In the end, I didn't really feel anything.

Had the past month twist me so much? Or had I fully adopt the mindset of a monster? At any rate, all life, to me, was separated into three neat boxes: allies, enemies, and the uninvolved. I could not see the world in any other way.

Well, it's too late for contemplation now. I'd already killed bandits and merchants, after all.

[Shedy] [Race: Mistral] [Lesser Demon (Low-Rank)] ・The demon of bewitching mist that dances upon the northern seas. A canny spiritual lifeform. [Magic Points: 752/755] 5↑ [Total Combat Power: 830/830] 5↑ [Unique Skill: <reroll> <cyber-manipulation> ] [Racial Skill: Fear] [Simple Identification] [Humanoid Form (Adept)] [Expert Packer]

I had Blobsy dispose of the corpse before people could discover him and raise a fuss. I exited the thicket and went back to the road, looking as innocent as an angel.

If I took him to be the standard for non-combatant citizens, I was quite sure I could ma.s.sacre a hundred of them without any problems. But there was no guarantee all humans were similarly terrible. And I didn't even have the spare time to be going around killing anyway.

Twenty-six days of borrowed time left.

I needed to find the two other magic stones and reach the World Tree by then.

So anyway, I didn't expect my ears to be exposed so easily.

It's true that I still hadn't gotten used to having a human body yet, but was I really that eye-catching? Back on Earth, I used to get curious looks all the time for being albinic. However, people in this world had more than just black, blond, or brown hair – there were silver, deep-blue, scarlet, and many other colors too. I didn't think I would stand out here.

The form I was currently taking was the image of myself that I had. Except I didn't look emaciated and full of bruises. I was looking completely healthy for my age, so there's even less of a reason for people to take notice.

I wondered why I was different from my memory of how I used to look like. Perhaps I had subconsciously 'optimized' myself?

And the results of the optimization included rabbit ears…? And I didn't just have the ears. I only realized when changing in the second-hand clothing store that I also had a rabbit's tail, around the size of a human fist, above my b.u.t.t.

Why. Why were the ears and tail necessary???

Well, what's done is done. I'd just have to hide the ears with my coat's hood.

I still had around 10 silvers and a few small silvers taken from the bandits. I'd really prefer to have some more funds, though… that shopkeeper woman and the guards really put a dent to my wallet.

They'll get what's coming to them sooner or later.

It was getting late, but I had no intention to rent a room in a village that treated every outsiders as bags of coins. Even if the innkeeper looked like a nice person, if they saw my rabbit ears, they might still decide to barge into my room at midnight with a stick.

So I hid myself in one of the thickets dotting the village. Once night came, I stealthily moved towards the fields.

Here, unlike Earth's polluted night sky, the stars alone were plenty bright enough to light my way. Well, it wasn't like I actually needed the light to be able to see.

I transformed into a quasi-misty human shape to not leave behind any footsteps, and floated towards a small shack adjacent to the fields. There were around 10 people inside, judging from the magical signals.

The shack – it was closer to a storage room, really – wasn't locked. The door looked like it would break from a single swing of a handaxe anyway. I peeked through the gap and saw only men. Demihumans, from early teens all the way until around fifty-years old.

There was no floor, only hardened dirt. I saw what looked like straw-beds in the back. Everyone looked hygienic enough, but they were only wearing some shabby work clothes. They were sitting around a small fire set in the center of the storage room, tiredly waiting for the pot of vegetables to finish cooking.

Besides the walls and roofs, this was no different from camping in the wilds.

Six canine beastmen, three felines, one elf. All of them were below 100 in power, though that still probably made them stronger than the human villagers.

I opened the door and stepped inside. Around half of them instantly noticed. They looked up.

”…who are you? What does a kid like you want with us?” A beastman sitting by the fireside asked, looking tired but cautious. He looked closer to a wolf than a dog. ”We may be slaves, but we're not toys for you kids to play with even into the night…”

”That's not why I'm here.”

I took off my hood. The group of beastman gasped as they saw my drooping ears.

”You're a canine-type… no. A rabbit? I've never heard of that beastman race before.”

The wolf beastman looked over to the elven man, who frowned and shook his head.

”Neither have I. Although… I had heard that during my grandfather's time, there lived more than just the current canine and feline beastman races. However, these other races had all been hunted down to be pets for the humans. They were supposed to have already gone extinct a few hundred years ago.”

”There were survivors…?”

They looked at me with skeptical eyes. I shook my head.

”I don't know what I am. All I knew was that all my fellows had died. I'd been hiding myself on my journey until now.”

”I see… You must've had a rough time too, girl.”

”Don't mind me. I just have a few things I wanted to ask.”

I told them the humans stole something from me, and that I was on a journey to get it back. Then I asked them about the barrier around this village and about the bigger cities.

”I think the barrier came from the magitool to repel monsters that was in the mayor's house… As for the cities, you better not go, young lady. With looks like that, plus how rare your race is, you're going to get enslaved right off the bat. Those d.a.m.n b.a.s.t.a.r.ds think that anything not human were their livestock.”

”Why didn't you run?”

A feline beastman, who've been quietly listening until now, scowled in self-derision. He spat out words like they were poison.