Bunny Girl Evolution [A Monster Evolution LitRPG]

91 – Fated Conflict

She had no idea why he had this class, or why he had felt the need to take it, but it was quite unfortunate for her. Perhaps if she had more direct control skills, she could have done something about it, but both {Charm} and {Suggest} were subtle by nature, and even by brute force empowering them with {Rune of Fate}, she could not fully change their nature.

While this revelation worried her, it was not so much she thought she was in serious danger yet. While his skills were powerful, the fact remained that aether was a limited resource. He could not resist forever, and he certainly couldn’t make his subordinates resist forever. She quickly reapplied {Charm} before speaking again.

“I truly don’t want to hurt you,” she said. “Just lay down your weapons, and we can all talk this out.”

A few actually started moving to set down their weapons, but they immediately froze when their leader shouted again.

“Stop!” he said, and Elise felt {Charm} fail on every single one of the guards.

At this point, Jag had finished his job, and was stalking toward her, clearly preparing to fight.

“I’m fine, Jag”, she sent him with {Whisper}. “I’ll handle this. Go help the others.”

She turned her attention back to the guards, using {Charm} on them for the third time as Jag hesitated, then turned to head down the tunnel. She somewhat doubted her own words as she spoke them, but she had no intention of taking them back. This part was her job. Her sole responsibility in this mission. While Jag had no particular role, and was meant to act as support for whoever needed him– a “Jag of all trades,” in his own words– she didn’t want to rely on him so early. If he got involved, the guards would die, and if she could prevent that, she would.

“Stop that monster!” shouted the guard leader.

“No!” said Elise, trying to make herself sound as commanding as she could.

The guards froze, confused. The leader made a frustrated noise before drawing a crossbow and firing at Elise. She barely had time to react, using {Dart} to move out of the way as a mana-loaded bolt ripped through the air where she had just been. This was immediately followed by more bolts, as the guard was using a repeating crossbow, but he ran out of ammunition before Elise ran out of charges on {Dart}, giving her a moment’s reprieve, which she used as best she could.

“Why are you attacking me?” she asked, trying her best to appear genuinely confused. “I did not come here to fight.”

This time, she didn’t bother targeting the captain. Whatever resistance skill he had was too strong, and without any direct control skills, Elise wouldn’t be able to actually do much to him. Instead, she focused on his subordinates. They were well and truly baffled by now, their minds a battleground where Elise’s and their captain’s aether fought. It was a battle that Elise knew she would eventually win, and the captain seemed to realize that too, based on the slight desperation on his face.

The guards had stopped moving in confusion at Elise’s words, but another command from the guard captain broke them from their stupor.

“Attack her!”

Most of the guards were too disoriented to react properly, but two of them managed to draw crossbows of their own and fire at her, and at the same time, the guard had managed to reload his own, forcing Elise to use {Dart} and {Leap} to fly upwards and away from the charged crossbolts. She mentally cursed as she exited the range of {Charm}, and the rest of the guards were able to draw their own weapons and start firing. She had to go nearly to the same elevation as the top of the arena before she was able to calmly dodge.

The captain was smart though. Seeing that she had gotten out of range, he started barking orders to his men. Four of them immediately stopped firing, slinging their crossbows back on their hips and drawing their spears as they charged forward, straight toward the tunnel that Jag had just entered.

Elise panicked for a moment. She had promised Jag that she would handle it, and she was about to fail. She didn’t doubt that he could handle the guards if they attacked him, but he wasn’t expecting them. What if they were trying to escort the prisoners out, and were taken by surprise? That would be entirely on her, and she couldn’t have that. She had said she would take care of it, and she would.

After another final moment of hesitation, she dove downward toward the guards as their empowered crossbolts rose up to meet her.

Her descent was slower than she would have liked. Each crossbolt was loaded with enough mana to tear right through Elise. Perhaps if it only hit a limb, she could regenerate it with the divine {Fairy Dust}, but that wasn’t a risk she wanted to take. She had to take care to dodge each one. While it wasn’t impossible, every second she wasn’t close enough to the ground was a second that the guards were getting closer to the tunnel.

Of course, she could have avoided all this if she had just used {Suggest} to make them all miss, but she was caught off guard by the guard captain being able to resist her. Her plan had been to use {Rune of Fate} to make the guards peacefully comply, then put them to sleep, and when that plan failed, she wasn’t mentally prepared to act appropriately. She cursed her own incompetence as she finally got back within range and sent a {Suggest} toward the guards who were heading toward the tunnel.

If she had tried this before her experimentation on the monkeys, she would probably have tried using abject fear to freeze them in their tracks, and possibly make them run away. Fortunately, she knew better now. She had no idea if they would have a heart attack and die like the monkeys, but she didn’t want to risk it. Instead, she used a more subtle sense of danger. The feeling she had experienced when she was trying to leave the wyrm tunnels, only to find the warg waiting for her aboveground. A fear that didn’t put her in fight or flight, but rather one that made her stop, knowing that her next move could cause her death.

It worked perfectly, all of them stopping in their tracks as if they had turned to stone. Next she did the same to the rest, stopping their constant barrage of crossbolts, and used the reprieve to fly over all their heads and sprinkle {Fairy Dust}. One by one, they all succumbed, falling into a deep sleep. All but one, at least.

The Indomitable Guard Captain lived up to his name, though he didn’t make it out unscathed. He was wobbling, his eyelids drooping dangerously, but then he slapped himself in the face, bringing him back to alertness. He opened his mouth to say something, but never got the chance. Elise did another fly-by, using {Charm} first to make him more susceptible, and this time, he finally fell.

Elise landed in the middle of the group of sleeping guards, admiring her handiwork. It didn’t go exactly as planned, but it had all worked out in the end. She still had a bit more work to do before she could follow the others though. The four guards who had gone toward the tunnel were all asleep right outside, in the path of their escape. She couldn’t risk them being trampled, or worse, being jostled and waking up, so she set to moving them out of the way.

Unfortunately, {Telekinesis} was designed for objects, not creatures, and all living creatures had some natural resistance to mana, so even with the skill boosted slightly by {Rune of Fate}, she still couldn’t lift them out of the way, forcing her to do it the hard way. Her Strength was high enough that this wasn’t really an issue in her human form, but it wasn’t clean, and two of them stirred as she dragged them out of the way. Once the path to the exit was cleared, she did one more round of {Fairy Dust} on all the guards to make sure they wouldn’t wake up.

As she flew, she checked the System notifications that had come when she put the guards to sleep.

[ You have defeated Elite Syndicate Guard, lvl 15 ]

[ You have defeated Elite Syndicate Guard, lvl 11 ]

…

[ You have defeated Indomitable Syndicate Guard Captain, lvl 4 ]

[ You have leveled up! 12 -> 14 ]

[ Strength +8, Agility +8, Dexterity +8, Fortitude +8, Charisma +70, Intelligence +28, Willpower +40, Mana +30, Mana Control +30 ]

The experience seemed a bit off. On one hand, she had just taken out a dozen opponents that were at least a full tier or two above her, and she felt that was probably worth more experience. On the other, she was heavily reliant on the {Rune of Fate} to do so, to the point where it probably wouldn’t have been possible without it, so she arguably shouldn’t have gotten anything. It was better than nothing though, so she just shrugged and turned to check her status window.

[ Name: Elise Burrow ]

[ Age: 0 (20) ]

[ Race: Human ]

[ Tier: IV ]

[ Level: 14 ]

[ Stats ]

[ Strength: 181 (+10) ]

[ Agility: 348 (+0) ]

[ Dexterity: 386 (+50) ]

[ Fortitude: 179 (+10) ]

[ Charisma: 1420 (+0) ]

[ Intelligence: 506 (+0) ]

[ Willpower: 854 (+0) ]

[ Mana: 678 (+0) ]

[ Mana Control: 708 (+0) ]

It seemed that {Lesser Transformation} was indeed affected by {Rune of Fate}, though not to the same degree that her more active skills were. Normally, her transformation would have incurred penalties in all her mental stats, but now they were unaffected, and she only got the increased physical stats that came with being a human. She had already planned on staying in her human form for the duration of the mission, and this now made that decision even easier.

She did one final visual sweep to make sure that the guards were all taken care of and that no more were approaching, then made for the stairs leading down into the tunnel. However, when she was only halfway down, she felt {Rune of Fate} faltering, and a second later, the divine aether vanished.

What?!

It hadn’t even been close to ten minutes. It had barely been three.

Titania, what’s going on? She thought angrily, before realizing she probably shouldn’t have been talking like that to a goddess. I mean, could you please tell me what happened?

She didn’t really expect a response, since she hadn’t gotten any before, so she was surprised when she felt a sudden splitting headache accompanied by a familiar voice.

“You used it all, silly.”

As soon as the voice stopped speaking, the headache vanished, leaving Elise to contemplate the words, and it didn’t take long for her to understand what they meant. Activating {Rune of Fate} didn’t give her a direct connection to the goddess that she could tap into for limitless aether. It granted her a one-time, finite influx, and she had used everything. She did use a lot of {Fairy Dust} to subdue the guards. Perhaps the second round of it was unnecessary, as that had probably drained a lot of what she had left.

Thinking back to the other times she had used it, she didn’t use nearly as much as she had used just now. The most she had used at once otherwise was when saving Naomi and Hallbjorn and stopping the dwarven guards from killing the drow Scouts, and as she thought about it more, she didn’t think she got the full ten minutes then either.

That aside, the fact that Titania had gone out of her way to respond just then, but hadn’t responded to any of her questions in the previous few weeks raised even more questions. Questions that Elise unfortunately didn’t have time to ponder. She had already wasted too much time. Losing the divine aether sucked, but she still had another charge, and on the bright side, it looked like the things she had done with it didn’t disappear with the rune deactivated. Her transformation was still buffed, and the guards were still fast asleep all around her.

“Everything’s good up here,” she sent to Hans using {Whisper}. “I’m headed your way.”

“Good work,” he responded promptly. “Just go straight ahead. We’re having a bit of trouble, but nothing dire. See you in a bit.”

“Roger.”

Elise flew down the tunnel, her wings holding her a couple inches off the ground. There were a dozen doors and side tunnels to her sides, some of which even had people down them who flinched when she flew by, but she ignored them all, heading straight forward. The people all looked like servants, rather than guards, and if the others had seen fit to leave them alone, she didn’t see reason to bother them. Especially not when she didn’t have an easy way to do it without {Rune of Fate}.

After a few hundred feet, her tunnel finally opened up into a larger room, and she stopped right in the doorway. Hans, Jag, Maia, and Penelope were right there with their backs to her, and on the opposite side, there were another dozen guards. Behind the guards, there was a woman in a red dress with brown hair and blue eyes, and a serious expression.

The walls were lined with cells containing all kinds of prisoners, from humanoids to monsters, both sapient and not. All were wearing collars, and all were huddled in the corners of their cells, trying to get as far away from the intruders as possible.

“-no one has to get hurt,” said Hans.

“I can’t let you take them,” said the brown-haired woman.

Elise identified her.

[ Vampire - Sage of Water, lvl ??? ]

“Then we have no choice,” said Hans.

“We don’t,” agreed the other woman.

As she spoke, Elise noticed that while she appeared serious and confident, her eyes carried a deep sadness, especially as she prepared herself to fight.

“Wait!” said Elise, making everyone turn to her. “You can’t let us take them, or you won’t.”

“Can’t,” said the woman very deliberately.

“It’s no use, Elise,” said Hans. “We don’t have time to hear her reasons.”

“Hold on,” said Elise. “I have an idea.”

She hadn’t wanted to use her final charge of {Rune of Fate} so soon, but as she thought back to the tales she had heard on Earth about vampires, she thought she had a pretty good idea of what was going on. She also realized that it likely had something to do with the encounter Hans had with Maia’s lost sister. If she was right, and her idea worked, it could be a way to solve many of their problems.

Titania, I know I might sound greedy, but can you please send as much as you can? I’m gonna need it.

As she felt the familiar warmth flow through her, the vampire’s eyes widened in shock, and for a moment, Elise thought she saw a flicker of hope within. Bolstered by the vampire’s reaction, she activated {Fey Bargaining} as she moved to the next phase of her impromptu plan.

“I’d like to propose a deal.”