Bunny Girl Evolution [A Monster Evolution LitRPG]

85 – Ostra Again

Meant to include this in chapter 83. Below is Elise's current stat sheet. You may notice that the format is different from before, and that it is no longer a table. This is because I needed to convert it to plain text for the audiobook, so I have decided to just continue using this plain text version, as I believe some readers also use TTS to listen to chapters.

Spoiler

[ Name: Elise Burrow ]

[ Age: 0 (20) ]
[ Race: Lesser Rabbit Changeling ]
[ Tier: IV ]
[ Level: 12 ]
[ Stats ]
[ Strength: 163 (+0) ]
[ Agility: 340 (+0) ]
[ Dexterity: 328 (+0) ]
[ Fortitude: 161 (+0) ]
[ Charisma: 1350 (+0) ]
[ Intelligence: 478 (+0) ]
[ Willpower: 814 (+0) ]
[ Mana: 648 (+0) ]
[ Mana Control: 678 (+0) ]
[ Skills ]
[ Inspect, lvl 67: Identify the species and level of another creature ]
[ Nature Magic Affinity, lvl N/A: As a creature of the forest, you feel a strong connection to nature and natural mana ]
[ Leap, lvl 34: Jump with additional force. Can be used again in midair. Cooldown on second jump: 5 seconds ]
[ Rune of Fate, lvl N/A: A rune spawned by the user’s natural traits that indicates their latent ability to channel and control aether. Allows the user to channel divinely-given aether. Current charges: 2/3. Cooldown: 16 days. Grants the following Skill Quests: {Aether Sense}, {Aether Manipulation}, {Aether Absorption}. !@#$%^&* ]
[ Dart, lvl 49: Dash quickly in any horizontal direction. Charges: 8. Cooldown: 7 seconds ]
[ Sudden Growth, lvl 16: Cause all nearby plants to grow at many times their normal rate for 3 seconds ]
[ Mana Sense, lvl 63: Sense nearby mana ]
[ Magic Missile, lvl 59: Create missiles of mana that attack your target. Current missiles: 8 ]
[ Suggest, lvl 65: Plant a subtle thought or desire in the target's mind ]
[ Prehensile Vines, lvl 32: Vines grow out of the ground in front of you. You can control them as you would your own limbs. ]
[ Charm, lvl 21: Increase a target's attraction to you ]
[ Ensnaring Roots, lvl 25: Summon sturdy roots from the ground that wrap around the target ]
[ Fey Wings, lvl N/A: Fold or unfold your wings ]
[ Fairy Dust, lvl 31: Release dust from your wing that either blesses or curses (user's choice) any living creature it comes into contact with ]
[ Fey Bargaining, lvl 16: Form a contract with another creature. If either side breaks the contract, they will be cursed ]
[ Telekinesis, lvl 28: Use mana to move an object without touching it ]
[ Mimic, lvl N/A: Copy the voice of another creature ]
[ Lesser Transformation, lvl N/A: Transform into another species that your have interacted with ]
[ Tongues, lvl N/A: Speak and understand any language ]
[ Vicious Bloom, lvl 24: Create a magical seed. If planted, it will bloom violently when a creature steps within 1 foot of it. If thrown, it will bloom violently on contact ]

[ Whisper, lvl N/A: Speak privately to a target within range with whom you have established a connection ]

[ Mana Circulation, lvl 26: Circulate mana through your cores, purifying it ]

[collapse]

Elise recognized the style of the room they appeared in as the same as the one she had stayed in with Emilia before. It was a small, single room, rather than a suite, but the furniture and decorations were identical. She had been a bit nervous that something would go wrong, or that maybe they had gotten a faulty teleportation scroll, but evidently, Ostra sourced theirs properly.

How do they set the location though? she wondered as they exited the room and made their way to the main hall.

When she entered the main room, she half-expected to be detained immediately. After all, she was there without having signed the secrecy contract. However, nothing happened. The only reactions her arrival received were a few curious glances. It was as she expected: Freddy and Jerry hadn’t told anyone that she wasn’t supposed to be a member. She had no idea why that was, but it made her stressed. She suspected that Freddy was trying to earn some goodwill from her, but she didn’t like the mystery hanging over her head, so she planned to ask him as soon as she could. Unfortunately, he was not there.

It was much earlier in the morning than the last time she had attended a meeting. So early, in fact, that the ballroom was almost empty. There were only two dozen or so other monsters around, and only a few of them were talking, the rest enjoying their breakfast in quiet. When they reached the breakfast buffet, Elise turned into her human form and loaded up a plate with bacon, sausage, eggs, and some fruit, then joined Hans and Jag at an unoccupied table.

The three also ate in relative silence, occasionally glancing at the others. Elise casually identified a few of them, confirming that all present were well above her in level, which tracked with what she had been told before arriving. There would be a strategy meeting after breakfast to prepare for the mission, and most of the monsters present were on other squads working on the same mission. There was a palpable tension in the air that only grew as more arrived.

Elise finished her meal in human form, and would have liked to stay in that form, but she didn’t like the stares she was getting. The other changelings were all in their base forms, and though no one said anything, she could feel them looking down on her for being in her human form. She was able to ignore them while she ate, because it was worth it to be able to eat the meat, but a few minutes later, she got too uncomfortable, and switched back to her changeling form.

While she waited for the meeting to start, Elise found herself once again wondering what happened to all the food she ate when she was in different forms. Her hunger level seemed to remain consistent across all forms, and eating in human form sated her in rabbit form, but she had no idea where all the food went. She was fairly certain she had just eaten enough to burst her little rabbit stomach, but she still only felt pleasantly full.

There were about 80 monsters present, and Elise, Jag, and Hans had been done eating for nearly half an hour before something finally happened. The main doors opened for the first time, revealing a tall demon woman that Elise hadn’t seen before. Every head turned as she cleared her throat and brushed her long black hair to the side, shifting nervously on her feet.

“The strategy-” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat again. “The strategy meeting will begin in ten minutes. P-please make your way to the conference room when you finish eating.”

It was impossible to tell if she was blushing, since her skin was already red, but from the way she immediately turned and walked robotically back out of the room made it fairly obvious how she was feeling. A few of the monsters chuckled at the display, then started getting up. Elise, Jag and Hans stood up as well and joined the small crowd heading toward the main entrance.

Rather than a relatively small room with a circular table and perhaps a magical presenter screen like Elise had been expecting, the conference room felt more like a lecture hall. There was something like a screen near the front, but it was nothing like the System windows or any other electronic-looking screen Elise had seen. It was a blank white slab of stone, with a series of bins below, each containing a different color sand. Elise could sense mana connecting the slab and the buckets, and she could only assume that the sand would be used to form whatever images needed to be shown.

The seats looked comfortable, like nice movie theater seats, but they were all mismatched, and in many places, entirely missing. It made sense though, since they had people like Jerry the elephant who would need a place to sit, and he didn’t really fit in a chair. Elise, Hans, and Jag found a spot about halfway back, and in the middle section. Elise and Hans each claimed a chair, while Jag lay down in an empty space right next to them.

As the rest of the room filled up, Elise watched the demon woman, who was sitting on a spinning stool behind a podium in the front, and fidgeting with something in her hands. She was just barely outside of range of Elise’s {Inspect}, so Elise could only make guesses as to what her species was. She was clearly some kind of demon, based on her skin and horns, but beyond that, it was a mystery.

She was fully humanoid, like the succubi and incubi, but she had thus far displayed an utter lack of their social skills. She was tall, and seemed well-built like all demons, but she didn’t strike Elise as a fighter either. Elise couldn’t sense her mana, so she could only assume the woman was a magic-focused race of some kind, but beyond that, she had no idea.

“Who is she?” she whispered to Jag.

“Oh, that’s Firona,” said Jag. “She’s lovely. A bit shy, but very smart. She’s the chief strategist for this mission.”

“Ohhh,” said Elise. “Do you know what her race is?”

“Some kind of demon?” he said with an odd shrug. “I’m not sure. She hasn’t shared that with me, and I haven’t asked.”

Elise nodded, and then turned her attention back to the demoness, who was now looking at her. Firona looked away when she noticed Elise paying attention, but whenever she thought she could get away with it, she looked back. It got to the point that Elise was starting to get a bit concerned.

“Does she work closely with Freddy?” she asked Jag.

“Freddy? Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.”

“Well, as far as I’m aware, all the Chairs work closely with Freddy. I don’t know if she’s any different though.”

“I see.”

Elise had been a bit concerned that perhaps Firona knew something about her situation, and though Jag’s words didn’t fully alleviate her concerns, they did help a bit, and that combined with Firona’s demeanor made Elise think it was probably something more innocent. Her Charisma was over 1300 at that point. It could simply have been that she found Elise cute. Then again, she was a strategist, so it would be strange if her thoughts were that simple.

By the end of the allotted ten minutes, nearly everyone from the main hall had moved into the conference room, and the noise level was beginning to rise as they muttered to each other. Elise knew maybe ten of the people there by name, recognized about half, and the rest were completely foreign to her. Either that, or they were in different forms than the ones she had met them in at the first meeting.

“Um,” said Firona, too quietly for most to hear. “It’s time for the strategy meeting to begin. Could you all please quiet down?”

The noise level dropped noticeably, but many of the people in the back didn’t seem to notice her words.

“Oi, shut up!” shouted a giant insect from the front row.

A few people chuckled, then the entire room went silent.

“Thank you,” said Firona with a nervous smile. “So, um, this is the final strategy meeting for Operation Blood. It will begin tomorrow, so we’ll just be going over some last-minute changes, then doing a detailed overview of the whole plan. This might be a bit long, so I’m sorry in advance, but this operation is incredibly, incredibly important to the future of Ostra, so we have to make sure everything is in order.

“So, to start, I guess you all heard about the changes we made over the past week, right?” A few of the people in the audience started muttering, and Firona looked around nervously. “Um, please raise a limb if you didn’t hear about the changes.”

About a dozen raised hands, claws, paws, and wings, and Firona’s eyes widened.

“Oh no!” she said. “I’m so sorry about that! So, um, well…”

Firona launched into a halting explanation of the changes to the plan that Hans had already explained the other day. Elise half-tuned it out as she started fidgeting with a small pebble using {Telekinesis}. Apparently Hans noticed her doing this, and nudged her when that part was over and Firona started on the actual briefing.

“So, Operation Blood is basically Ostra’s single most important operation to date,” said Firona. “I’m sure you already know this, but since Ostra was founded, this is the first time we’ll be acting publicly and revealing ourselves. We’ve been building up our network for a while, and when we found out about the Blood Syndicate, we realized it was a good opportunity. Not only can we save people, but, um, we can also reveal ourselves to not be evil.

“That’s why it’s really, really important that we do this right. We need to succeed, and we need to do it with minimal casualties all around. If we kill too many people, the other nations might try to call us bloodthirsty or out of control. Our goal is to only kill our targets, and get out. D-do you all understand?”

After some nods and sounds of affirmation, Firona began to explain the plan in detail. Elise paid close attention in the beginning, but soon grew bored, and started thinking more than she listened. It was all important, sure, but with the way it was organized, most of it didn’t actually concern her. The plan was more or less to create chaos throughout the encampment, kill some of the leaders of the Blood Syndicate, and use that as a distraction for Hans’ group and a couple others to sneak in the back and free the prisoners.

It was still informative and useful though. It at least answered some of the questions Elise had had about the operation. For example, it explained why Ostra, who had previously been so anal about secrecy, decided it was alright for Jag and Hans to reveal themselves to Penelope and Maia. If Ostra was planning on finally making their existence known to the world, it made sense that they would be fine with that, and perhaps they had even encouraged that. If a Jelorian knight vouched for them, that would give them a lot of credibility.

Apparently, there were a fair amount of other humanoids working on the mission too. There were at least two Ostra members per squad, with some being made up entirely of them, but there were also about fifty non-Ostra people on squads, and even more working the back end.

“Hans’ squad will be in charge of the extraction of high-value prisoners,” said Firona at one point. “You’ll enter after the frontal attack squads begin their mission. The prisoners should be relatively unguarded by then, and your goal will be to get in and out without being seen, and without killing anyone, if possible. We- We’ve confirmed support from Lappin trading, and they should be positioning themselves around the Jungle now. You’ll meet them when you return, and after you’ve extracted the targets, Lappin will ensure that they are taken to safety.”

“Now, Kent’s squad will be…”

Elise had nearly forgotten about Lappin trading in her time training and leveling up, so she was pleasantly surprised to hear that they would be involved. She had been nervous about escorting prisoners out through the monster-infested Jungle, and wondered why that part of the plan hadn’t been brought up until then, but that explained it.

The rest of the meeting went by without incident, but it took nearly four hours, and by the time they left, Elise’s legs were stiff, and she was starting to get hungry again.

“Don’t forget we have another final brief after dinner!” called Firona as they left.

Elise was certain that at least half of them didn’t hear her, but she figured that it would be announced again later if needed, so it wouldn’t be a problem.

Back in the ballroom, there were many more Ostra members already waiting and socializing. They paused what they were doing briefly when the huge group entered, but they soon went back to their conversations. Elise hung back at first, but after a few minutes, decided to do some socializing herself. Before, she didn’t want to get too close to anyone in Ostra, but she had been reconsidering.

Ostra certainly did some morally questionable things, but Freddy had been open with her about them, and after her experience with the Boss and Yuri, she wasn’t sure she disagreed with the methods as strongly anymore. On top of that, if she would truly be allowed to stay without the secrecy contract, there was no point in ignoring a perfectly good information and support network. If she found out they were doing something she truly couldn’t abide, she could always just leave.

So, she went around the room, talking to a few of the people she had met the first time, and making a few new friends. She found Mindy with a group of other changelings, and had a nice, long conversation with them. Apparently, up in the far north of the continent, there was a nation called Corunia that was ruled by changelings. Of course, most of the world didn’t know this, but the royalty for the previous 300 years had actually been one changeling constantly taking new identities, and over time, they had steered the nation’s policies to be favorable toward non-humanoids. They hadn’t gotten quite as far as Ostra wanted yet, but it was slowly and gradually reaching the point of full acceptance. They hoped that Operation Blood would be enough to tip the scales in their favor and get complete non-humanoid and humanoid coexistence there.

They invited Elise to visit sometime, and Elise didn’t decline. It did sound interesting, and if she visited before her next evolution, she would probably be able to get some deeper insights about her options. That group of changelings was able to help her a little bit, but none of them were particularly knowledgeable in changeling variants outside of what they considered standard, and just being a “Lesser Rabbit Changeling” already made Elise non-standard.

After talking to them, she skirted around Jerry, who had taken over a large section in the middle of the floor with a crowd of laughing monsters as he ran what seemed almost like a comedy special. She saw a few other people she recognized, and was debating on which to approach when she heard the front door open and felt a chill down her spine. She turned and felt a strong sense of deja vu as it opened, revealing Freddy, and behind him, the warg.