Chapter 28
I had landed in the village square.
It was a village of quaint little houses in a dark underground space, illuminated by magical lights.
“Is that really Head Mod?”
“My goodness, he can really be touched!”
The villagers had all sorts of appearances.
Some had human features with only long rabbit ears added.
Some had strange appearances that seemed to combine the best traits of rabbits and humans in equal parts.
They slowly approached me and poked me with the tips of their index fingers.
Once they realized I could definitely be touched, they became a little bolder and touched my cheeks and hair.
“Oh my, he doesn't have long ears.”
“But Head Mod said he was a beautiful half-elf girl.”
“I guess not, I guess not! He's human.”
The rabbit beastfolk—or rabbitfolk, for short—who had surrounded me and watched me as if examining me soon began to smile.
“Would you like to come to my house for some carrots?”
“Would you like to touch my ears...?”
Some grew flustered with their snow-white skin flushed, while others started flirting.
Some tickled my face with their long ears, while others spread their palms and pressed them against me.
They were all astonishingly pretty and attractive, which was nice, except some of them were men.
“No! I don't like it! Stop!”
“I don't like it!”
“Aww! That's not fair.”
“I love you, Head Mod!”
We couldn't communicate.
Just as I wondered whether this was how it would end with the distance slowly closing, a thought flashed through my mind.
“Myoran! Where's Myoran! Help!! Help!!!”
I had once helped Myoran when Myoran was in danger.
When I shouted the name desperately, someone began hopping toward me from far away.
No, was it really someone?
“Head Mod! Is that you, Head Mod, myo?”
A cute rabbit with long ears and a long, flowing beard.
A rabbit came running. A real rabbit.
“Myoran?”
“Yes, I am Myoran. I am the village chief of this rabbitfolk village, myo.”
Amazingly, that rabbit was Myoran, the gallery user I knew.
*
“I never expected to meet you like this. I really didn't think you'd use the ticket, myo.”
Polite speech, with a strange sound effect at the end of every sentence.
Most importantly, the shotgun I had given Myoran was in their possession, confirming that this really was Myoran.
But how did they carry something that big around?
“I almost died, you know.”
“You made the right choice. There is nowhere safer than the Rabbit Hole, myo.”
“Yeah.”
I looked around for a moment.
Then I looked down at Myoran again and asked,
“But why this place of all places?”
“Of course. Is there anywhere safer for you to stay in our Rabbit Hole, Head Mod, myo?”
“I guess it does look that way.”
I looked to the side.
There was an iron cage there.
Those iron bars that looked like they belonged in a prison.
I was locked up in the Rabbit Hole prison.
“Why here of all places?”
“Because the rabbits are targeting you from all sides... I am deeply sorry, myo.”
Myoran was right.
“Hweee.”
“J-just a little longer...”
“Please, Head Mod, just let me touch you once. Just once.”
The rabbitfolk, hearts in their eyes, clung to the bars or reached their hands through them to touch me.
The rabbits were targeting me from all sides.
Myoran saw the scene and tried to press a cute forepaw to their forehead.
“I apologize. It just so happens that the rabbitfolk trait is falling head over heels for their benefactor...”
According to Myoran, when rabbit beastfolk liked someone, their goodwill and affection were absolute.
If someone gave a starving rabbitfolk a carrot out of pure kindness, they would fall in love almost instantly.
“Even so, do you really have to lock me up like this, as if you're isolating me?”
I asked with a complicated expression.
Of course, I had no intention of going outside anyway.
Still, I felt locking me in a cage was going too far.
But instead of answering, Myoran told me about something that had happened long ago.
“...There was once an incident where starving rabbitfolk received kindness from a human, myo.”
“And then?”
“The rabbitfolk fell in love right away.”
“Did they repay the favor?”
“They killed the human, myo.”
“What? Why?”
Rabbitfolk were naturally beautiful.
The rabbitfolk were full of the kinds of beautiful men and women humans would worship as paragons of beauty.
“That human also fell in love with the rabbitfolk, and the two soon became lovers, myo.”
“But you said they killed him?”
“They both killed, and were killed.”
“Wh-what?”
The more I listened, the more I felt like I was falling into a maze.
As I dodged the rabbitfolk's hands reaching toward me this way and that and looked at Myoran, Myoran raised their head with a grave expression.
“They fell so deeply in love that they made love until the very moment they died, myo...!”
“...”
Rabbitfolk who received a favor fell in love.
The problem was that they didn't merely fall in love; they were consumed by it.
So they frantically lusted after one another until they went all the way without even realizing they were dying.
“What, just because I gave them some food?”
“That is correct, myo...”
After hearing that story, I turned my head back toward the outside of the cage.
I had given them food.
And I had even given them weapons to defend themselves.
Finally, I had gotten them to participate steadily in the gallery and given them something fun to do to relieve their boredom, hadn't I?
“I love youI love youI love youI love you.”
“I want to put you in my pocket and carry you around for the rest of my lifeI want to put you in my pocket and make you look only at me for the rest of your life”
Some of the rabbitfolk were already out of their minds.
Myoran, sitting cutely on the floor, flapped their ears and said,
“Still, it will be all right once the season passes.”
“When will the season pass?”
“I don't know.”
If you don't know, who does?
Just as I was about to get seriously worried, Myoran suddenly pulled something out of their clothes.
“Still, don't worry! I've prepared a Rabbit Hole escape ticket.”
“Oh!”
“No!”
“Bad animal, Chief! Harmful animal!”
“Here, please use it at your leisure.”
If there was a Rabbit Hole ticket, naturally there was also one for escaping.
I was grateful to Myoran for handing over the ticket much more readily than expected.
“But you're fine.”
“Shouldn't there be at least one normal rabbit among a group of rabbits driven mad by instinct? Myo.”
Myoran stood on two legs, brought their forepaws together, and politely bowed their head, folding down their ears to me.
“Well then, I hope to see you again if the opportunity arises.”
“Yeah, thanks. I won't forget this.”
Shraaak!
After giving Myoran one last look, I boldly tore the Rabbit Hole escape ticket.
Woong.
At the same time, blue light wrapped around me!
“What the hell?”
Nothing happened.
Still trapped in the Rabbit Hole prison, I looked at Myoran, and Myoran scratched their ear before answering.
“It seems its expiration date has finally arrived, myo.”
*
The rabbitfolk had not interacted with the outside world for a long time.
So after entering the Rabbit Hole for the last time, the ticket had expired because there had been no occasion to leave.
“Please don't worry. We can make another one, myo.”
The solution was simple.
Wait for another one to be made.
In the meantime, Myoran put something unfamiliar around my neck.
“...A choker?”
“It's a magical tool with a target-protection function, myo.”
No matter how I looked at it, it resembled a cat collar, but Myoran said it was a magical tool that would protect me.
Apparently, if someone touched me with impure intentions, electricity would immediately flow through it and electrocute them.
“But why does it look like this?”
“Because it was originally made for that sort of play, myo.”
Clank.
Myoran opened the cage door.
Myoran stayed by my side and volunteered as a sort of bodyguard until the ticket was made.
I tapped the choker—or rather, magical tool—around my neck with my fingers.
Even so, this was a little insulting.
‘Should I tell Myoran I don't need it?’
The gazes staring at me only grew hotter for no reason.
Just as I was wondering whether this worry was a little excessive, something shot out from behind a two-story house in the village like a flash.
“I'm sorry, Head Mod, haaah, I can't hold back anymore!”
“Gasp.”
A furry—a rabbit beastfolk with the sort of suspicious appearance someone out there was sure to love—tried to pounce on me.
But it was at the very moment their hand landed on my cheek with a soft poof.
Bzzzt!
“Kyaaaah!”
Electricity immediately coursed through them, subduing the rabbit beastfolk.
“Haaah.”
The expression of the rabbit beastfolk twitching on the floor where they had collapsed suggested a strange, feverish emotion.
“Fuck.”
A curse reflexively escaped me for the first time in a while.
This place is hell.
*
- One hour until the Adrian IP ban lmao
- Head Mod, are you really okay right now?
- Don't die, the gallery's screwed if you die
- Full-Blood Elf★) Head Mod, are you okay? At least tell us that much
- Fuck, no, don't harass Head Mod
A few hours after it was revealed that Head Mod had been kidnapped, the gallery was in total chaos.
There were gallery users furious about the IP ban that would be imposed on all of Adrian in a few hours, gallery users standing by and watching,
gallery users worried Head Mod might die, and gallery users showing signs of seriously trying to start a revolution, among many others.
- Adrian imperial family, you fuckers, at least announce some kind of position
- A revolution has already broken out in our village.jpg
- A few idiots = harm to everyone in Adrian
- I'm leaving the Empire.jpg
Even the blue mods couldn't bring this level of chaos under control.
Just when the gallery was boiling so fiercely it seemed ready to burst, a post suddenly went up.
Featured Post) Ta-da.jpg
(A two-shot taken with Head Mod)
(A picture of Head Mod huddled in a corner inside a cage)
(A picture with hearts mosaicked over his face)
Head Mod is mine lol
- Fuck, what is this
- Hwat
- Wait, is that really Head Mod?
- Why do you have him all to yourself?
- I'm seriously jealous
ㄴ For real; the gallery user is gorgeous
ㄴ I'm jealous of the gallery user, not Head Mod.
ㄴ Yeah, I want Head Mod too.
ㄴ What?
- Author) Hehe, how do you like it?
ㄴ What do you mean, how do I like it? Let Head Mod out!
ㄴ Nice picture.
ㄴ Can't you lend me Head Mod too?
ㄴ Filthy kidnapper! Give us our Head Mod!
- Sob, brother!!!
ㄴ To think he was kidnapped by an ugly beastfolk...
ㄴ Sob, curse our uselessness!
ㄴ I still have no idea what dwarves consider beautiful...
ㄴ How could anyone look at that and call it ugly?
It was a post about Head Mod being imprisoned.
There were plenty of posts like this, too.
The composition was kind of suggestive, too.
The way they stared intently up at him from below, the way he was locked in a cage, and that strangely shrinking posture.
- Hmm, that's a little much.
- So Head Mod has fallen...
- Has he been defiled...
Title: Fuck, No
Author: Head Mod☆
(A thumbs-up picture taken in a field of rabbitfolk)
I'm touring the Rabbit Hole in a wholesome manner.
I'm fine both mentally and physically, so stop with the weird speculation!
- What, wasn't he kidnapped?
ㄴ Head Mod☆) ㄴ
ㄴ Don't the rabbit beastfolk do anything weird?
ㄴ For real, there's no way they'd just leave him alone.
- It's all thanks to the village chiefㅠㅠㅠ
ㄴ The village chief's keeping him all to himself... That's mean...
ㄴ If it weren't for the village chief, we could totally—!
ㄴ Head Mod☆) Yeah; I'm surviving thanks to Myoran.
ㄴ So he isn't touring them, he's being toured.
ㄴ You have to make it out alive, Head Mod.
While the gallery was making a racket over the Head Mod speculation, a mysterious post arrived for Head Mod.
Title: Head Mod, I'm That Knight from Last Time
Author: Lloyd
(A picture of a crowd gathered with torches in the middle of the night)
(A picture of the capital's crown prince statue being torn down)
A revolution broke out in Adrian after all ㄷㄷ;
A revolution had finally broken out in Adrian.