Bunny Girl Evolution [A Monster Evolution LitRPG]

86 – Unique Constitution

As with before, the arrival of Freddy and Walter gathered a crowd. Those who hadn’t met Walter the first time were lining up to meet him now, and all of Freddy’s friends were gathering to talk to him. Freddy said something to the warg that Elise couldn’t make out over the din, then the two started wading through the crowd. The warg moved in almost a straight line toward the food, while Freddy seemed to be headed toward Elise. He never made eye contact with her, but every step seemed to take him just a bit closer.

After a minute or so, it became clear beyond a doubt. Elise was alone at the moment, in between groups, and there was no one behind her. She was actually somewhat glad about this though. She needed to talk to him anyway, so she might as well knock it out as soon as possible. Especially since she was fully aware that she was technically violating a lot of Ostra rules.

“Ah, Elise!” he said as he got closer. “I’m glad you were able to make it this time.”

His tone of voice made it seem like he hadn’t noticed her before. She had to refrain from rolling her eyes.

“Glad to be here,” she said. “Actually, I had something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh, yes, I believe I know what it is,” he said. “Why don’t we head to my office?”

“Sounds good to me.”

It took a full twenty minutes to get back out of the room, as they got stopped at every turn by people looking to talk to Freddy and introduce themselves to Elise. Elise felt that she didn’t like most of them. They had been ignoring her before, but now, suddenly she was a person of interest now that she was going somewhere with Freddy.

Once they had successfully shed the crowd, Freddy led her through a side door, then through a short hallway to a plain-looking door. His office was surprisingly ordinary. She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised, since Freddy’s whole schtick seemed to be presenting himself as ordinary, but she had expected at least something strange about it. Instead, she found herself in an office so plain that it was baffling.

There was a large desk, but it was old, and the edges were worn and chipped. The chair behind it was simple, and looked well-used, and whatever patterns had been sewn into the upholstery were almost completely faded. There was a low table and a few other chairs in front of it, but they too looked simple and worn, with no features of note.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he said with a smile, gesturing toward one of the chairs.

Elise thought for a moment, then switched to her human form and picked a chair on the left side. There was no particular reason for the change, but she expected some type of negotiation to happen, and she felt like being so small compared to him would make her more timid. That didn’t actually help much though. She had never been near Freddy while in her human form, but when she transformed, she realized that he was much taller than she initially realized, and she still felt quite small.

Her decision was already made though, so she tried not to let her surprise or intimidation show as he sat down across, his smile still as calm and cheerful as ever.

“So, I’m sure your wondering about your current status with Ostra, yes?” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

She wanted to elaborate on her confusion, but stopped herself, realizing that might be a bad idea. Admitting on her own that she thought she shouldn’t be allowed at the gathering seemed like a bad idea. Even if Freddy was allowing it, it might have been an implicit kind of thing, where as long as she didn’t bring it up, she could stay.

“I must say, it’s actually a fascinating topic,” he explained animatedly. “You never signed the normal contract, so you never joined the organization. However, do you remember how the contract you did sign was worded?”

“What do you mean?”

She remembered the contract well, but she wasn’t sure what part of it made it “fascinating.”

“Well, the deal you signed was that I would tell you confidential information about Ostra on the condition that you would either join, or submit to having your memories voluntarily altered afterward.”

“Yes,” agreed Elise, still confused.

“However, you did not submit to having your memories altered.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Technically, you did not,” he countered. “Your memories remain, and it was your own skill that blocked Jerry’s manipulation. By preventing the memory alternation, you specifically did not submit to having your memories altered.

“At the same time, the contract did not trigger as broken, meaning that what you did was unintentional. However, that’s where the fascinating part comes in. Because it was unintentional, the contract didn’t break, but because your memories were not altered, it was not fulfilled either. On top of that, the contract was not nullified either. I studied it for a full day after you departed trying to figure out what happened before I found it.

“While neither exit clauses were fulfilled, only one had a time associated with it. You did not have your memories wiped before departing, so that branch died, but there was no condition on when you had to join Ostra. This is why the breaching penalty was not triggered. At first, I wasn’t sure how to handle it. Since you hadn’t joined Ostra, and had expressed explicit desire not to join if you had to sign the confidentiality contract, you technically weren’t a part of Ostra, but I also never consider a door closed when the parting is amiable, so in my mind, you were still a ‘prospect.’

“There were only 2 ways for me to resolve the contract. One was for me to cut you off from Ostra, meaning that you would have breached the contract, and you would incur the penalty we agreed upon. The other was to have you join Ostra. I didn’t think the first was fair, since you clearly resisted subconsciously, and I didn’t want to force that penalty on you like that. At the same time, you were then far away. You weren’t out of reach, but we had already parted ways, and I thought it would be rude to barge back in and try to convince you to join Ostra under threat of contract breach penalty.

“Then, it came to me. Not only had we not specified a time limit for when you had to join Ostra, we also had not specified a method. Nowhere in the contract you signed did it say that you had to sign the usual confidentiality contract to fulfill your end. I don’t like leaving contracts hanging like that, so in order to close it out, I wondered what would happen if you joined without that confidentiality contract. I thought for a little while, and then I decided I would let you do just that. Not a second after I made that decision, the contract was fulfilled.

“Now, you might find that strange, since usually, contracts need both sides to consent to be fulfilled like that, but there are some quirks in the way Ostra is set up. While we do make new members sign that confidentiality contract to join, signing that contract isn’t what makes them a member of Ostra. Being a member of Ostra simply means being a non-humanoid, and helping other non-humanoids. You already fulfilled both those conditions, so as soon as I decided you didn’t need to sign the contract, you became a member of Ostra.

“I apologize for the long-winded response, but I hope you found it as interesting as I did. In all my years, I’ve never had something quite like that happen.”

Elise was silent for a few seconds when he finished speaking. It sounded like a lot of complex legal nonsense, but the enthusiasm and animation with which Freddy explained it made it seem like it might actually have been genuine. It was too good to be true, but at the same time, it aligned with some of her theories.

“So I am a member of Ostra?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“But I’m not bound by the contracts that the rest of the members are?”

“Also correct,” he said.

“Is that alright?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Elise hesitated for a moment.

“Aren’t you concerned that I’ll tell someone about Ostra?”

“Well, it’s certainly a risk, but after tomorrow, it will be a much smaller one. As you are aware, we will be more or less announcing our existence to the world, making anything you can say about us significantly less effective. Additionally, you don’t actually know anything too dangerous. While I did tell you about some of our… less than legal practices, I told you nothing specific. You have no actionable information, and what you do have is no better than the conspiracy theories that are sure to arise once our existence is made known.

“Finally, I don’t believe you mean us any harm. I understand your qualms with some of the things we do, but you made friends here. You don’t want to see them hunted down. You wouldn’t actively work against us in any way that would make us need to take extreme action. So, while I perhaps could have made you sign the usual contract, I felt that would only strain our relationship, and given your unique constitution, I thought that was a bad idea. You will eventually be able to disregard even my contracts in the future, so there is no point in creating any bad blood. Think of it as a gesture of good will for what will hopefully be a long and pleasant relationship.”

Elise felt a light chill run up her spine when he said “unique constitution”. She could only assume that he was referring to the {Rune of Fate}. She had suspected that he knew, since all the dwarves knew, and he had spoken to them. It was also possible Emilia knew and had told him, since she was spying on the dwarves through the drow Scouts. Perhaps he had known even before that. She didn’t know when he met the warg, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he had found out about her not long after.

At the same time though, because he called it a “unique constitution,” she presumed that he must have known more about it than she did. The new skill description said that the rune was “spawned by the user’s natural traits,” but the System had yet to answer her about what those might be, and she hadn’t had a dream visit from Titania in a while either, so she couldn’t ask. Now though…

“What do you mean, ‘unique constitution’?” she asked.

“Oh, were you unaware?” he responded, looking genuinely surprised.

“I am only vaguely aware,” she said.

“Ah, then just a moment.”

He snapped his fingers and their surroundings changed. Elise recognized it as the same domain skill he had used when resolving the dwarf and drow conflict, but it was slightly different. It was much smaller, with only two chairs and a small table between, and there was no food on the side this time. The walls were close enough that Elise felt a bit cramped, and being in a tight space with Freddy made her nervous.

“Just to make sure there’s no chance of being overheard,” he explained. “The gods don’t really like it when this information is shared around too much. It’s why they try so hard to masquerade and misdirect when it comes to information about it. You have the {Mark of Fate} skill, correct?”

“...I do,” said Elise.

“That skill name is actually false,” he explained. “And whatever description it has is most likely false as well. Or at the very least, it’s misleading. It’s not even a true skill, as far as I’m aware.

“Now, I am no expert on this, but I have lived quite a while, and I’ve met a few people with the same skill. That ‘skill’ is actually a rune.” Elise remained silent, hoping her guilt wasn’t obvious. “I know you spent time with the dwarves. Are you are of exactly what runes are and how they work?”

“The dwarves say that they’re the language of the gods.”

“Hmmm,” said Freddy. “Well, that’s one way to put it, since only the gods fully understand them, but the runes actually existed before the gods. They are naturally occurring structures that exist all throughout nature. Most of the time, they are inert, mixed, and distorted, and it takes a skilled runesmith to make them truly shine. Regardless, they are a natural occurrences, and so is yours. That rune you have was not gifted by any gods.”

Elise had already known that runes were naturally occurring, based on her lessons with Greta, but the fact that they were from before the gods was news to her. The dwarves always made it sound like the gods had created the runes and gifted them to the mortals, and she never really had any reason to doubt that story.

“I still don’t know what causes the rune to appear,” Freddy continued. “But it’s very rare, and as far as I could tell, there are no notable commonalities between the holders of the rune that I have known. You are very different from the most recent one, and he was very different from the one before him. The skill calls it the “Rune of Fate,” but I’m inclined to believe that’s a false name as well. While it’s true that the holders of the rune often go on to achieve great or terrible things, it’s also true that sometimes, they do nothing with it. The one before you simply lived out a humble life as a farmer, dying of old age without accomplishing anything of note. As far as I’m aware nothing he nor any of his descendants have done is worthy of such a grand word as ‘Fate’.”

Elise frowned. “So it has nothing to do with fate?”

“I don’t know,” said Freddy. “I don’t even know what ‘fate’ is. Perhaps it is related to ‘fate’ as defined by the gods, but they have not seen fit to bestow their definition on us, so we can only guess.

“Anyway, I believe we’ve gotten a bit sidetracked. You asked about your unique constitution. While your constitution generated the rune, that is only a side effect. The main effect is aether. Do you know what aether is?”

“I’ve heard of it,” said Elise evasively.

“That’s more than most,” he commented. “Aether is a mysterious type of energy. It goes by other names, such as divine power, life energy, mental power, and a few other rarer ones. Generally, any skill that does not use mana or your own body uses aether as its fuel. This includes most mental skills, most contract skills, any skill that provides stat bonuses, powerful healing spells, and most aspects of fey magic.

“Your unique constitution causes you to produce and possess more aether than usual. Much more. Enough that when I sensed you at the first meeting you attended, I believed you to be a Chair. I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when I saw that you were, in fact, a third tier rabbit fey.”

“I see,” said Elise. “So I have a lot more aether than most people?”

“So much more that it’s almost alarming,” he said, nodding. “Since your most recent evolution, you are on par with an 8th tier fey. Your skill levels are still too low to make full use of it, but it won’t be long before you become truly dangerous.”

Elise remained silent. Between her conversations with Hans and her sparring with Penelope, she had already gathered as much. She was able to break past Penelope’s skill that was supposed to provide full immunity to mental attacks, and even Hans, another fey with a knack for aether skills, and one much stronger than her, was no longer immune to her {Suggest} probes.

“I won’t lie and say that’s not part of the reason why I want to form a good relationship with you,” Freddy continued. “Even now, you’re highly capable, and an excellent ally, let alone what you’ll become in the future. However, I hope you don’t think that my motivations are purely utilitarian, or that I’m only helping you because of your aether capabilities. I think that your past actions have proven that you are a good person, and even if I wasn’t an Executive of Ostra, I’d want to be your friend.”

Elise didn’t fully believe him, and in the back of her mind, she suspected that she might only be saying those things to get on her good side, but it would be a lie to say it didn’t feel good to hear. She had to hold back a smile as she thought about how to respond. Most of what Freddy told her, she had already guessed, but it was good to have confirmation. The news that it hadn’t been a god or goddess who granted her the {Rune of Fate} was big, and she wasn’t sure how to deal with that yet, so she pushed those thoughts aside. Right now, it was more important that she figure out what to do next.

It seemed that Freddy had no intentions of making her sign anything to let her stay, so a lot of her worries were gone. She still had no clue what his overall goals were, or whether they were truly as altruistic as letting humans and monsters co-exist, but she was leaning toward giving him the benefit of the doubt. At the very least, the other Ostra members seemed to trust him, and they were mounting an assault on the continent’s greatest criminal organization. Even if she sometimes did things she disapproved of, they seemed to be an overall force for good. Besides, she wasn’t entirely sure if she would disapprove of their shadier activities as much anymore.

“Thank you for all that,” said Elise finally. “And for letting me join Ostra without that contract.”

“Of course!” he said with a wide smile. “Now that we have that all cleared up, I hope that you’ll be around more often. Your presence truly does brighten the room.”

“Th-thank you,” she stuttered.

“Actually, there was something I wanted to ask for your help with,” he said. “You’ve met Firona now, yes?”

“Well, not exactly, met, but I know who she is,” said Elise.

“Well, she is the strategist not only for the mission, but also for Ostra as a whole. She came up with a plan not long ago, and I thought you would be perfect for a role in that plan. I won’t overload you with the details right now, since you should be preparing for Operation Blood, but I think that you’ll find it interesting. When Operation Blood is over, I’ll explain further.”

“I’m not sure…” said Elise.

“You’re free to decline,” he said. “But I think you’ll want to accept this role. Enough on that though. I’ve kept you here long enough. We should be heading back. There’s a special guest arriving soon. I don’t want to miss her.”

“Alright,” said Elise, standing up.

The domain faded around them, leaving them back in the plain office. Freddy walked to the door and opened it, gesturing for Elise to exit first. After stepping out in the hall, Elise recalled the looks she had been getting while in her human form before, so she shifted back to rabbit form before she and Freddy made their way back to the ballroom.

When they returned, a crowd had gathered around the main entrance, and nearly everyone not in the crowd was also looking in that direction. With how many monsters there were between her and the center, she couldn’t see what was causing the commotion. She flew up a bit to try to see over them, but still couldn’t quite make out the source. All she knew was that they looked human.

She flew back down to join Freddy as he walked directly toward the center of the group. The other monsters parted to make way for him, ultimately revealing what appeared to be an ordinary human woman. She was beautiful, with pale skin, black hair, and blood-red eyes that reminded Elise of her own. She was wearing a simple black dress with a low neckline, and when she saw Freddy approaching, she gave him a broad smile, revealing a pair of long, thin fangs.

“Oh, there you are, Freddy,” she said.

“It’s great to finally have you here, Rayna,” he replied.