Bunny Girl Evolution [A Monster Evolution LitRPG]

82 – Rose Red

“Please let me go,” said the woman in red.

“No,” said Hans. “You’re not Maia. Are you Kaia?”

“Please let me go.”

“Not until you answer some questions.”

“What questions do you need me to answer?”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Rose.”

“Why do you look like Maia?”

“I don’t know.”

Hans narrowed his eyes suspiciously. She didn’t look like she was lying, but she didn’t look like she was telling the truth either. Her face looked exactly like Maia’s, and he knew Maia was on the mission to find her missing twin. However, there was something off about this “Rose” person. She didn’t seem quite human.

“What are you?”

“Please let me go.”

“I’m going to take you back with me,” replied Hans.

“If you do, I will die.”

“What?”

“If I don’t return soon, I will die. Please let me go.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You’re a fey, yes? Make a deal with me.”

Hans just stared at her. He wasn’t sure what to do. The only people who would be this deep in the Jungle would be Blood Syndicate members or powerful adventurers, and she seemed much more like the former than the latter. On one hand, if she went back, she would report his presence and the operation would be compromised. On the other hand, he was almost completely certain she was Maia’s lost sister, so he couldn’t risk her death.

“Fine,” he said. “You will tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or you will die.”

“I cannot agree to that,” said Rose. “If I say the whole truth, I will die. I can only agree to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.”

“Then you will tell the truth and nothing but the truth for the duration of this interaction as defined by me.”

“I agree.”

Before the icy feeling had gone away, Hans was already speaking again.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Rose.”

“I did not ask for your name. I asked who you are.”

“I am Rose. I cannot say anything more without suffering severe consequences.”

“Are you with the Blood Syndicate?”

“That depends on how you define ‘with.’”

“Do you work for them?”

“I do not.”

“Do they work for you?”

“No.”

“Do they work for whoever you serve?”

“Sometimes.”

“Are you going to report my presence here when you return?”

“I am not.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“If you make me explain the full reason, it will no longer be possible for me not to report your presence.”

Hans sighed. “I see. So to confirm, you don’t work for the Blood Syndicate, and they don’t work for you, but they sometimes work for the one you serve?”

“Yes.”

“And you won’t tell the one you serve that you met me?”

“I don’t plan on it, but I need you to fulfill one condition for me first.”

“You said you wouldn’t do it,” said Hans. “How did you lie?”

“I didn’t lie,” replied Rose. “I don’t plan on it because I plan on convincing you to fulfill my condition so that I don’t have to.”

“And what would that condition be?”

“I was sent here to investigate something. If you can help me find out what it was, I will have no reason to disclose your presence here.”

“What are you investigating?”

“We sensed a large amount of divine power here not long ago. It’s gone now, but it was enough that my master was intrigued.”

“Divine power?” asked Hans.

His first thought was that he had no idea what she was talking about. His second thought was Elise. Perhaps the divine power was the reason that her Charisma was so strange. And perhaps that was why she had asked to hunt on her own. It would make sense. But could he tell Rose about that?

“Yes. If I return without answers, I will be questioned further and possibly forced to talk about you. If I return with a satisfactory answer, that will be the end of it.”

Her face remained blank, but Hans heard her silent words. She didn’t say she needed “the truth.” She said she needed a “satisfactory answer.” That suited him well enough as he didn’t know the truth.

“One of my party members is a powerful priest,” he said. “I didn’t know he was powerful enough to draw your master’s attention, but I will talk to him to make sure he doesn’t bother you further.”

“May I see him? From afar? I have no desire to harm him, but if I can see him, I’ll be able to give a better report. Just a physical description for scouting purposes.”

“No,” said Hans immediately. “Even if you’re not lying, I can’t trust you with that. I will tell you what he looks like though. He is a fit middle-aged man with graying hair. He's dressed in white robes, and he wields a staff. He mostly uses healing skills, but he also provides some supporting buffs in combat."

He couldn't read Rose's face, but he was fairly certain she knew that he was blatantly lying. However, she didn't challenge his words.

“That is enough,” said Rose, nodding. “Is there anything else you want to know?”

“Will you really die if I take you back with me?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm…”

Hans considered for a few seconds. If she wasn’t Maia’s sister he would take her back anyway. He might have even just killed her on the spot when she refused to answer his questions. He also had to be careful about what kind of questions he asked. He realized that he might have already made a mistake when he mentioned the Blood Syndicate, as no one was supposed to know they were hidden within the Jungle. Then again, he could probably get away with it, since they already knew that he knew. He still couldn’t fish for too much information that would help with the mission. Anything they needed, they already had from their contact within the organization.

“I only have one final question then,” said Hans. “I know a girl named Maia. You look exactly like her. She has a long lost twin sister named Kaia. Are you Kaia?”

“...I am Rose.”

“Are you also Kaia?”

“Kaia is dead. You should tell the girl you know to stop looking for her.”

“Kaia, what happened to you?”

“I am Rose. I will not answer any more questions about this.”

“Kaia!”

The young woman just continued to stare at him, her face still completely devoid of emotion. Hans tried a few more ways to make her talk, but, as she promised, she didn’t respond to any of them.

“Are you done?” she asked during a moment of silence after his latest silence.

“If Kaia is dead, then it doesn’t matter if I just kill you then, does it?”

“My master will not be happy.”

“That’s too bad.”

“You will regret making my master unhappy.”

Hans never actually planned on hurting her in the first place, but if he had, that sentence still would have made him pause. She was still under the binds of their deal. She couldn’t lie, and she probably had a decent idea of how strong he was, and she was still absolutely confident that he would regret angering her master.

“Fine,” he said. “After you sign another contract saying you won't inform your master of me, you can go. But don’t get in the way of my hunting anymore.”

“Thank you,” she said bowing.

After agreeing to a contract of secrecy, Rose turned to leave. She turned to leave, but hesitated, and for the first time, her face showed a hint of emotion. He wasn’t sure what emotion it was though because it was gone almost instantly, and a moment later she was dashing away between the trees.

Elise hovered in the air above yet another smattering of monkey corpses as she tallied up the results of her experiments. The divine aether was indeed a massive boon. She realized that her method wasn’t entirely scientific, since she was working on a weaker species than she had with the divine power, but the results were still quite conclusive.

An ordinary stat debuff curse only did 60% for 30 seconds, even on the weaker species. A longer term debuff was 10% for a week. Growing fur was noticeable, but not really all that effective, and shortening it didn’t get anywhere close to even buzz cut length. Trying to lengthen and shorten the tail was barely noticeable, and trying to grant permanent stat boosts didn’t do anything at all.

Titania, can you please explain the stat buff thing later?

There was no response again, but Elise hoped that Titania was at least listening. She knew it was maybe presumptuous of her to assume that a goddess would take the time to personally visit and explain something like that to her, but she clearly had some kind of interest in Elise, so it might work.

She took one last look at the carnage around her and decided she was done hunting for the day. It was mostly not because of her own moral qualms. That might have been a subconscious part of it, but it was also that she had already left the higher-level zones, it was already mid-afternoon, and she felt like if she used the rest of the day on mana circulation, she might be able to unlock the skill in the morning.

It took her a bit to find exactly where their camp was, since she had gone a little out of the way, but fortunately, the hunter’s path went more or less straight into the Jungle, so she could just fly toward it until she hit it and figure out the way from there. When she returned, Penelope was already back, though the rest were nowhere in sight. She was doing mana circulation, but she opened her eyes when she heard Elise touch down.

“You’re back early,” she said.

“So are you,” replied Elise.

“I’m getting close to my class evolution,” she said. “It’s more important for me to level up my other skills than it is for me to continue hunting right now.”

“I see,” said Elise.

Penelope stared for a few seconds longer until Elise realized she was waiting for an explanation in return.

“Oh,” she said. “I was doing some hunting alone, but I wanted to come back because I think I might be able to unlock {Mana Circulation} tonight or tomorrow.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Elise replied.

Elise hopped to her usual spot between two branches and closed her eyes and began meditating. She started by practicing with her lower core as she had done before, making sure she didn’t get out of practice while working on her upper core. Once she was warmed up, she added her upper core to the mix.

Her upper core was more elastic than her lower core had been, but it still felt clunky. She could get it to pulse a little bit, but never in-sync with the other two. The center would pulse, then the lower, and then a few seconds later, the upper core would finally respond. She had previously tried pulsing it at the same time as her lower core, thinking that it would be simpler to work with two than one, but that actually made it more difficult. Having the influx of purer mana from the central core made working the upper core much easier, so she returned to her first method.

Over the past two days since starting this, she had seen steady progress. The delay between the lower core and upper core was only two seconds when she started, and reduced nearly to one second as she practiced on. When she practiced again later that night, or in the morning, it would start longer again, but she was certain that as soon as she got it below a certain threshold, she would be granted the skill. What that threshold was, she had no idea, but she knew she was getting close.

An hour after starting, she learned that the threshold was much closer than she had previously thought. She got the delay to around a second, hit a wall where she couldn’t improve for about fifteen minutes, and the second she finally overcame it, the whole process suddenly became easy. The pulsing became smoother, the upper and lower cores pumped in sync, the time between pulses decreased, and she had to concentrate significantly less to make them happen. When she opened her eyes, there was a System message waiting for her.

[ {Mana Circulation} (Skill Quest): Perform basic circulation through all mana cores. ]

[ Progress: 3/3 ]

[ Reward: {Mana Circulation} skill ]

[ You have completed the Skill Quest {Mana Circulation}! You have unlocked the skill {Mana Circulation}! ]

She immediately closed her eyes and jumped back in with gusto. She heard the familiar ding of level-ups as she managed to get the skill to level 6 before the body aches reached the point that she was forced to stop. Aside from the aches though, she felt great. Her mana was purer than ever, and she could feel it coursing through her body like adrenaline.

When she opened her eyes, Penelope was done with her own meditation, and was now slowly moving through stances with her sword. Her mana control was very good, so it was difficult for Elise to fully sense the mana flowing within her body, but from the little bits that leaked out, and the dense concentration at the sword, she could tell that whatever Penelope was doing was more than simple form practice.

She watched in fascination for a few minutes before being filled with a sudden urge to take on her human form and mimic her. She resisted for another minute while she thought through it.

There was really no point in the mimicry, since she didn’t have whatever skill Penelope was using, but at the same time, it could still be useful in other ways. Penelope said she was nearing her class evolution. Elise wasn’t yet near her next evolution, but Penelope’s words made her think back to her conversation with Mindy. She had no idea what she wanted to do later on, but if she didn’t figure it out by the time she evolved, her options might be limited. She didn’t want to reach the next threshold and only have manipulator and hunter changeling options available. Maybe if she mimicked Penelope enough, or even learned from her, she would get a {Rabbit Changeling Knight} option or something like that.

Penelope looked like she was deep in concentration, so Elise moved about with utmost care so as not to disturb her and started looking for a suitable stick. Penelope had an extra sword, but she didn’t want to touch that without permission, and there were plenty of sticks around. Or so she thought.

Most of the sticks she found were either too thick or too wet and flexible to be useful. It took her much longer than she thought it would to find a good one, and by the time she returned, Penelope had already finished, and was wiping sweat from her face with a spare towel. When she saw Elise returning with her stick, she cocked her head slightly in confusion. Elise paused, looked down at the stick, then back at Penelope.

“I was hoping,” she started slowly. “That maybe you’d be willing to teach me how to use a sword?”

Penelope didn’t respond so Elise continued.

“Since I’m a Lesser Changeling, I sort of have to pick a profession for my next evolution, and I thought that it might be nice to be a Changeling Knight?”

Penelope stared for a moment longer, then shrugged. “Sure. But you can set that down. We’ll use real swords.”

Elise dropped the stick in her hand as Penelope bent down to grab her spare sword from her bag. A few seconds later, Elise was holding the spare sword and facing down a tree just outside the camp.

“You’ve never used a sword, right?” asked Penelope.

“No,” said Elise. “I mean yes. I’ve never used a sword before.”

“The most important thing for a beginner to learn about the sword is the grip. How you swing is much less important than how you hold it at this stage. If you don’t properly learn right now, you’ll be disadvantaged going forward.

“So, I want you to hold the sword out in front of you, angled up.” Elise raised the sword. “Good. Now, lower the tip slightly. Not that far. Good. This is a fairly standard angle. Now look at your hand. Your knuckles are turning white. Loosen your grip. Not that loose. That’s too tight again.

“The strength of your grip is important. Hold the sword too tight and you’ll be rigid, and it will cut into your maneuverability. Your hand will also get hurt if you try to block a powerful blow. If it’s too loose though, you run the risk of dropping your sword, or worse, hitting yourself with your own sword when you clash with a stronger opponent.”

It took them a full fifteen minutes before Penelope was satisfied with Elise’s grip, and after that, they moved on to two-handed grip. Another ten minutes were spent on that, Elise was finally able to start swinging. In one particular way. Repeatedly.

She needed it though. She had been decently athletic on Earth, but since coming to the new world, she hadn’t trained her body much. Her Strength was absolutely atrocious, and given that the trees in the Jungle seemed to be magically sturdy, her strikes barely left marks. The only silver lining was that her Dexterity was high enough that she was able to be reasonably consistent in the placement of her strikes.

The first strike was a diagonal whose path went from high and right to low and left. When Penelope was satisfied that Elise had a reasonable mastery of that one, she wanted Elise to move on to a horizontal left-to-right slash, but Elise’s low Fortitude was making itself known, and her shoulder felt like it was about to fall off. Upon hearing this, Penelope had her learn the grip and form for the same swing, but mirrored using her left hand, and Elise practiced that until that shoulder also felt dead.

Around this time, Jag and Maia returned, and a few minutes later, so did Hans. Elise was glad for the interruption, and went to rest in the clearing, using her {Fairy Dust} to help alleviate her soreness.

Maia and Penelope started cooking a couple parrots for their dinner while Jag chattered happily, but Elise noticed that Hans looked troubled. He didn’t say a word, but he spent the entire meal frowning, and when everyone finished and started to split up to work on their more static skills, he cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention to him.

“Maia,” he said.

“What is it?” she asked.

“...I believe I just met your sister.”