The Rabbit-Eared Lady Who Calls Me "Boy"

Kobayashi Kento is the beloved son of Kobayashi Isshinsai, the third-generation master of Kobayashi Ittō-ryū.

The two of them had crossed over to Sado Island as members of the reclamation team, and were now in a truly hopeless predicament.

Kobayashi Ittō-ryū is one of the most refined swordsmanship schools to emerge during the dawn of the Gremlin disaster. It possesses many secret techniques passed down to only one heir, but has spread throughout the Kanto region, particularly around Shizuoka, home of its main dojo.

Its founder, Kobayashi Kanta, was a swordsman of the Hokushin Ittō-ryū tradition and was related by marriage to the Magic Sword Mage.

The Magic Sword Mage was also known as the "Wizard of Arakawa."

He was caught up in the Gremlin disaster while traveling from his hometown of Shizuoka to Tokyo and awakened as a mage. Transportation ground to a halt, plunging the country into unprecedented chaos, and he was unable to return home. In the end, he did not make it back until after the infamous Iruma Coup had ended.

The Magic Sword Mage's appearance changed drastically through mutation, and it took many twists and turns before his family back home accepted him, but it was said that the family's final relationship was a very good one.

The Magic Sword Mage had acquired a magic sword through mutation.

Just as a mutated Transcendent might acquire a tail, tentacles, or wings, the Magic Sword Mage had gained a magic sword.

The Magic Sword Mage generally had the appearance of an ordinary human. However, he had nothing above his neck. The hilt of a sword protruded from the cross-section of his neck in place of a head, and during battle he drew his magic sword from his neck. He was a peculiar species sometimes called an Oddhead.

He could breathe despite having no mouth, see despite having no eyes, and hear despite having no ears. Yet this strange organism known as the Magic Sword Mage naturally still needed to eat. His method of eating was to suck up blood and flesh through his magic sword.

That was why he was called the "Magic Sword Mage" rather than the "Sword Mage."

The magic sword was alive.

It hungered for blood and corroded its owner.

And as though in exchange for the shackles that resembled a curse, it granted its owner power.

The magic sword was a thick, double-edged greatsword with a blade over 100 centimeters long. Its unbelievable sharpness—its material had long been unknown—was the subject of an anecdote in which a fly resting on the blade was sliced in two all by itself.

A slash delivered with the proper footwork and body movement could fly through the air, cut through magic, and cleave an enemy into eight pieces with a single stroke.

The more its owner swung the magic sword, the more physically honed they became. Their senses grew sharper, their body tougher, and their physical abilities stronger.

It was a genuine magic sword, heavy as a crag to an enemy yet light as a feather to its wielder.

Another appealing quality was that anyone who knew how to swing a sword properly could draw out its performance. Transcendents, demonfolk, and ordinary people could all use it. In fact, there was a record of the Vampire Mage wielding this magic sword to perform spectacularly during the Iruma Coup.

On the other hand, the magic sword's backlash was equally severe.

Its hunger gradually grew familiar to its owner, until they became desperate to cut down prey and satisfy its craving for blood and flesh.

The magic sword honed its owner's body, but as payment it drained their magic power and eventually reduced them to dust.

The magic sword was a demonic blade that granted its owner tremendous power, drove them mad, and ultimately erased them from the world.

As long as the Magic Sword Mage wielded the sword he had drawn from himself, he could use it without suffering any drawbacks. However, the magic sword displayed its true value when wielded by someone else.

For that reason, after returning to Shizuoka, the Magic Sword Mage spent more than a decade searching for a suitable wielder before meeting Kobayashi Kanta, who was the leader of the Yaizu City Vigilantes at the time.

Kobayashi Kanta had a magic-shaping disorder.

He possessed abundant magic power but was unable to shape it into magic.

In other words, he could not use magic.

In the early days of magic, that fatal congenital defect was precisely what made him suited to become the magic sword's bearer.

The abnormal nature of his magic power completely nullified the magic sword's siphoning of magic power and its urge to massacre.

Even when the magic sword tried to devour its wielder's mind and body, it had no effect whatsoever because of his condition.

At the same time, he received the magic sword's benefits in full.

"Turning misfortune into good fortune" was a phrase made for Kobayashi Kanta. His congenital inability to use magic also functioned as a unique constitution that allowed him to ignore the magic sword's drawbacks while enjoying only its benefits.

Kobayashi Kanta became the Magic Sword Mage's partner and friend.

When the Magic Sword Mage's younger sister married Kobayashi Kanta, they became brothers-in-law.

After the Magic Sword Mage died, members of the family who inherited Kobayashi Kanta's constitution became the magic sword's wielders.

That was the beginning of Kobayashi Ittō-ryū.

Kobayashi Ittō-ryū was founded on special footwork and breathing techniques that drew out the magic sword's true power, so its full strength could only be unlocked when wielding that sword.

However, those techniques could also be applied to ordinary swords. Swinging a normal sword with the magic sword's distinctive footwork and breathing techniques would not make its strikes fly through the air or split apart, nor would they cut through magic.

On the other hand, that unique footwork and breathing had become a magical form of health exercise. Swordsmen who mastered Kobayashi Ittō-ryū felt better when using magic. The weightless feeling and dizziness caused by magic-power depletion were reduced, and anyone capable of controlling magic power could see that it flowed smoothly and gracefully.

Making one's magic-power flow beautiful did not actually accomplish anything. It was like having a beautiful way of holding chopsticks: aside from seeming beautiful, nothing else happened.

Even so, Kobayashi Ittō-ryū spread widely, centered on Shizuoka, as a rare school that allowed even ordinary people to achieve magical refinement through training.

In Shizuoka City, where the main dojo stood, it had even been incorporated into middle-school physical education classes. Including people who had only learned the basics as a hobby, more than 90 percent of the population could be considered practitioners of Kobayashi Ittō-ryū.

The current heir to that school of history and tradition—that is, the sole inheritor of the magic sword—was Kobayashi Isshinsai.

He was forty years old, and it had been five years since he inherited the magic sword after his predecessor retired due to age.

Isshinsai's skill as a swordsman was a level below that of the first and second masters, but he excelled at management. He opened dojos in Tokyo, where the prevailing attitude strongly favored magical ability, and increased his student body by targeting people with too little magic power to make a career as mages.

Isshinsai was proud of Kobayashi Ittō-ryū. Precisely because he could never become a truly first-rate swordsman himself, he wanted to increase the number of students, broaden the school's foundation, and create the groundwork for producing such swordsmen.

Naturally, he also welcomed idle old men and ladies who merely dabbled in it as a form of magical health exercise. Kobayashi Ittō-ryū was not limited to sword saints. Anyone who trained the four pillars of mind, technique, body, and magic through swordsmanship could become a practitioner of Kobayashi Ittō-ryū.

Tokyo was the source of trends. Anything that became popular in Tokyo spread throughout the country.

For that reason, Isshinsai frequently left his hometown of Shizuoka to teach enthusiastically at the Tokyo dojo.

It was in the middle of one such teaching trip that the idea of joining a reclamation team came up.

One of his students, who worked for the Ministry of Defense, brought him a flyer recruiting members for the Sado Island reclamation team.

It had been a long time since humanity's habitable territory had shrunk because of the Gremlin disaster. The recovery of former habitable zones that had returned to nature was being carried out step by step, depending on the circumstances.

The reclamation teams that recovered those habitable zones were bundles of honor and vested interests.

The Alraune and the Yamagami family, among others, were famous for frequently sending people to reclamation teams and distinguishing themselves. After carrying out reclamation work, they would put down roots in the land without returning, becoming notable figures in reclamation sites across the country.

When Isshinsai saw the flyer recruiting members for the Sado Island reclamation team, he slapped his knee and exclaimed, "This is it!"

Reclamation work always involved battles with monsters. If he distinguished himself there and showed the world that Kobayashi Ittō-ryū was still here, recruiting students would become easier and the school's prestige would increase. They might even be able to open a dojo on Sado Island.

Isshinsai immediately took several senior disciples and knocked on the Ministry of Defense's door.

Perhaps thanks to Isshinsai's years of self-promotion, the name of Kobayashi Ittō-ryū's magic-sword users was reasonably well known within the Ministry of Defense, and the entire group, including his senior disciples, was welcomed onto the reclamation team.

The first expedition to Sado Island ended without incident.

No Transcendents participated, but one demonfolk did, and they were also loaned a grand magic scroll, magic-stone wands, and Mamono Scissors.

While the demonfolk and the mage corps engaged the Class 2 monster that ruled the island, Isshinsai single-handedly defeated one Class 3 monster and more than ten Class 1 monsters. Including the Class 2 and Class 3 monsters, he cut down more than a hundred monsters in total.

His senior disciples also carefully cleaned out every corner of the island, focusing on the Class C monsters. Although they had made no spectacular displays, they greatly impressed the Ministry of Defense inspectors.

After wiping out the monsters on Sado Island, the expedition team built a temporary encampment and returned to the mainland once, leaving several people behind.

Then they crossed to the island again on a second expedition, bringing people who wished to settle there.

Isshinsai also brought his beloved twelve-year-old son, Kobayashi Kento. Although it was still undeveloped land, the monsters had been wiped out, and he thought broadening the boy's knowledge through firsthand experience would be valuable as part of his education.

And then.

The second expedition team was wiped out, leaving behind only a twelve-year-old boy swordsman and a rabbit-eared demonfolk woman.

The cause of the annihilation was a monster that had been overlooked.

Sado Island was famous for its gold mines. The island was riddled with tunnels. The tunnels dug after the beginning of the modern era were relatively well maintained, so they had been thoroughly checked for monsters. However, the Sado mines had a very long history.

Tunnels dug during the Edo period had collapsed entrances or had been hidden by vegetation, and no maps remained. It was utterly impossible to inspect the inside of every tunnel on Sado Island.

The main tunnels had been checked anyway, but the inspection had been insufficient.

In the middle of the night, a horde of Class A mole-type monsters poured out of an old tunnel, leaving the reclamation team to meet its doom. Even after the sentries sounded the alarm and the combatants led by Isshinsai joined forces against them, they were crushed beneath the horde.

The combat unit alone could have decided to retreat. However, there had been many noncombatants on the second expedition. Because they could not abandon the noncombatants and retreat, they all died together.

Inside an old tunnel in the mountains far from the encampment, Kobayashi Kento stood blankly before his father's corpse. Miminaga watched him sorrowfully. The corpse, illuminated by moonlight shining through the entrance, was pale and made the fact of his death impossible to deny.

Miminaga was a demonfolk woman with the appearance of a young, tall, slender woman and fluffy rabbit ears. She looked to be around thirty, but her actual age was over eighty. Both of Miminaga's parents were Transcendents, and she had inherited more strongly from her father, giving her a long lifespan.

"Boy, don't let it get you down so much. I'm sorry about your father."

"If I hadn't held everyone back. If I'd been strong enough to fight alongside Dad...!"

Kento pounded the ground with his fist, shedding tears as he lamented what had happened. In response to the grief of the young boy, who had not even gone through voice change yet, Miminaga deliberately replied coldly.

"Then you'd be a corpse too, boy. You saw how many there were, didn't you? You're lucky just to have survived. You're a child. Don't think about how you could have fought."

"You don't understand, big sis. Dad died protecting me!"

"You're right. I can't understand your pain, boy. But don't forget that I'm the one who carried your father's corpse all the way here."

"........... Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Kento bit his lips hard enough to draw blood, but he still thanked her. Miminaga smiled. Isshinsai must have been a very good father to raise a child who could still say thank you in a situation like this. The shock and grief of losing such a parent were beyond imagination.

"It was incredibly lucky that we acquired a ghost Gremlin during the first expedition. Once we take the body back to the mainland, we can revive him."

"...Huh?"

"Huh?"

Kento stared blankly at Miminaga's attempt at consolation.

Miminaga was startled by Kento's surprise, then realized a few moments later that she had misunderstood.

She had assumed the boy was depressed after witnessing such a gruesome death, but apparently he had mistakenly thought his father would not come back to life.

"You don't know about resurrection magic? There was a news report saying the Blue Witch discovered it, wasn't there? Once we return to the mainland, the reclamation team has a ghost Gremlin. With this degree of damage, we can revive him without any trouble."

"Then... Dad will come back to life?"

"Yes."

Kento let out a long breath and rested his forehead against his father's broad chest.

Miminaga gave a wry smile. She had thought the twelve-year-old boy was remarkably composed for his age, but apparently his knowledge was more age-appropriate than his demeanor.

"Boy, you should read the newspaper a little more."

"I read the newspaper!"

"Just the four-panel comic on the last page, right?"

Kento flinched after being hit right on the mark, and Miminaga laughed cheerfully.

The annihilation of the reclamation team was not funny in the slightest. Still, the fact that they had found the room to laugh was unquestionably a good sign.

"Come on, boy. Once you've stopped crying—"

"I'm not crying!"

"...Once you've collected yourself, let's talk about what we're going to do now."

Kento roughly wiped his eyes with his sleeve and nodded with reddened eyes.

The two of them whispered together, with Miminaga taking the lead as they assessed the situation, but the outlook was grim.

The giant moles, covered in scales and roughly the size of adult men, were still there, even though they were two hundred meters from the encampment. The burning log cabins provided light, making them easy to see.

The horde of moles had seemed like a tsunami during the attack, but the desperate counterattack had not been in vain.

More than a dozen giant mole corpses lay scattered around, and some living individuals were bleeding and twitching.

Only five were still in good health. Those five were busily gathering corpses and stacking them high in a well-balanced pile at the center of the encampment.

Their actions were clearly intelligent. However, the only magic they used was rock projectiles spat from their mouths.

They had overwhelmed the team through sheer numbers, but each one had been relatively easy for Miminaga's magic or Isshinsai's magic sword to defeat, so they were probably Class 3 monsters.

They had batted away Ice Spear magic with their scales, so halfhearted attacks would not work. There were five of them even without counting the injured individuals. It was a serious problem.

"Even if it was a split-second decision, hiding here was a bad move. It's too open outside this tunnel. If we go out, we'll definitely be spotted.

I'm a second-degree practitioner of Kobayashi Ittō-ryū. If I work together with you, big sis, can't we break through?"

Kento gripped his magic sword and said something encouraging. However, Miminaga noticed the uncertainty trembling in his eyes and gently admonished him.

"Even your father couldn't defeat them. We'd better not let our guard down.

Let's take stock of our options. I still have a fair amount of magic power left—around 1800K, I think. If those moles stood still one at a time, I could kill three of them. It hurts that they destroyed my wand.

I could return to the mainland with return magic and call for reinforcements. But until I brought them back, you'd have to hold out on your own. That's far too dangerous.

I'm out of ideas, but... does that magic sword have some secret power that could turn the situation around? It's made of Life Iron, isn't it?"

"Huh? You can tell?"

"By its texture. I saw Life Iron through connections at my family's business."

The mysterious magic sword had once been an object of pure mystery, but as magic studies advanced, the shape of that mystery had gradually become clear.

The black metal that made up the magic sword was believed to be the recently discovered magic metal Life Iron. Processing Life Iron into the shape of a sword did not produce a magic sword, so scholars believed that either it was a similar but different material or some special processing was required.

The physical enhancement that occurred in magic-sword owners could also be explained by a paper published in an academic journal the previous month. The magic sword probably contained a Magic Spiral.

Perhaps it could connect deeply to ley lines, or perhaps the magic sword itself functioned as an artificial minor ley line.

Either way, there was no doubt that it was caused by a function related to the Magic Spiral and ley lines.

Miminaga had hoped for some hidden secret of the magic sword made from magic metal, but Kento shook his head.

"I don't think I have any technique that can defeat all of them at once. Dad might have known one, but I can only use three techniques so far..."

"Being able to use three at your age is impressive enough. We could run through together... No, we can't leave your father's body behind. Those moles seem to be gathering corpses. But carrying him and escaping would be difficult. Hmm."

"Oh, right! Do you think the back of this tunnel might lead somewhere else?"

"True. It's worth checking."

The two of them explored the depths of the tunnel by the light of a small magical flame, but they reached a dead end before they had gone fifty steps and turned back.

They considered hiding at the very back of the tunnel and waiting for the moles to go somewhere else, but the moles had poured out of an abandoned mine. The inside of the tunnel could not be considered safe, and if they were attacked at the dead end, they would have no way to escape.

The more they talked and the more they thought, the more doomed everything seemed, driving Kento into a panic. Miminaga tousled his hair, then thumped her chest.

"Leave it to me, boy. Even in the worst case, I'll get you home safely. You only need to help a little."

Miminaga winked as she said this. Her profile looked dependable, but more than that, she was so beautiful that Kento's heart pounded. It was an even stronger feeling than when he had been seated next to the cutest girl in his class.

"...Then I'll get you home, big sis."

"Ha ha! I'll get you home, and you'll get me home. Perfect plan, right?"

For some reason, Kento felt like showing off and made a grand promise. Miminaga laughed happily.

Kento laughed along with her, but when he saw his father's corpse lying at his feet, his smile withered and disappeared.

The boy and the big sister had grown closer, but that did not mean their situation had improved.

When the two of them looked outside again, the moles were dancing a bizarre circle dance around the tower of corpses they had piled up. The tower, made by mixing human and mole corpses together, looked like a hideous totem pole.

Kento watched while fighting down nausea, but after the moles had danced for a while, they climbed onto the tower, bared their fangs, and began eating the corpses. Kento let out a scream.

Very few monsters killed people for fun. Most killings were for maintaining territory or obtaining food.

Miminaga had made a mistake.

Because Kento had seemed so calm, she had allowed a boy of only twelve to keep watching a shocking and horrifying scene.

His scream reached the moles in the distance. The eyeless faces of the giant moles all turned toward the tunnel where the two of them were hiding. Without missing a beat, they simultaneously launched rock projectiles with astonishing accuracy.

The tunnel was straight. There was nowhere to run――――

Just as death flashed before Miminaga's eyes, Kento came to his senses and leaped in front of her.

"Magic Dust Blade!"

Kento took an extraordinarily low iaijutsu stance and unleashed a powerful slash that left a black trail. That single stroke swirled and expanded, slicing the five rock projectiles into powder.

Because magic-sword techniques included area attacks, it was customary to shout the technique's name both as a warning and to avoid catching allies in the attack. Miminaga was not a student of Kobayashi Ittō-ryū, so she would not understand the name. But Kento could not change the habits of techniques that had been etched into his body since he first took up a sword on his fourth birthday.

The moles realized there were survivors and came charging into the tunnel, spitting rock projectiles from their mouths.

It was like a small tank charging at them.

Kento desperately continued unleashing magic-sword techniques, but he could do no more than defend himself, with no room even to check whether Miminaga was safe behind him. Sweat ran cold down his back as the five giant moles bore down on him.

Magic Dust Blade could not cut through the moles' scales.

Kento had not yet learned the magic-sword technique his father had used to cut the moles down.

Even so, as the future heir of Kobayashi Ittō-ryū, Kento did not retreat a single step.

His legs trembled. His heart quailed.

Even so, Kento did not stop using his techniques. He was able to keep going without stopping thanks to his unceasing training and the person he was protecting behind him.

From behind him came a deep sigh and a calm voice.

"Boy. Everything you're about to see is a secret. Can you promise me?"

"A secret!? Okay, but you said your magic can only kill three of them, and there are five...!"

"I'm the child of the Great Wolf and the Rabbit. But I'm also a disciple of the Hunter."

Miminaga stepped forward and stood beside Kento.

Facing the approaching monsters, which drooled and made unpleasant noises, she took the stance of nocking an arrow to a bow held in empty space.

She had been told never to show anyone this magic.

But she hoped her master would forgive her under the circumstances.

"For hunting, three things are enough: a weapon, the right frame of mind, and a wife to see you off."

She did not have what could be called an ample supply of magic power. She poured in the minimum amount necessary for activation and formed a golden bow and arrow surrounded by a soft phosphorescent glow in empty space.

"You too, boy, will one day be able to manage with a single arrow."

With the continuation of the chant, the golden bow and arrow flashed five times.

Miminaga did not hesitate to chant the third spell, one she had never used before.

"Hunt or be hunted."

In exchange for an explosive increase in power, the arrow would pierce her if it missed its target.

Miminaga's eyes were not as good as her master's, nor was her aim as precise.

But since she would not get a second shot, she had to make certain of it here.

Miminaga drew the bowstring back as far as it would go, offered up a prayer, calmed her mind, and gently released the string.

The golden arrow crossed the distance between them in an instant. Just before striking its prey, the lethal arrow split into five, spreading its fingers wide, and blew the five giant moles apart in a burst of explosions.

On the night of the full moon, a magnificent rain of blood fell from the cloudless sky.

Kento stood stunned by the slaughter that had taken place only ten steps away.

A swordsman of any standing would not neglect zanshin even after losing both awareness and sight, but his mind was completely elsewhere.

"B-Big sis...? What was that? What is this? I've never seen magic like that...!"

"It's magic I learned from an old man who lived nearby. I wonder what kind of magic it is?"

Miminaga had successfully landed every shot. She slipped her trembling hands into her pockets to hide them and pretended it was nothing special.

When she had learned it from Uncle Murakumo as a child, she had never questioned it. She had been thrilled to receive the secret spell of the best mage in town and had innocently sealed their promise with a pinky swear.

But as she grew and aged, she came to understand how abnormal the magic she had learned really was.

An absurdly long range.

Abnormal power.

It could even be used alongside magic that made the caster completely unknowable.

Everything about it was wrong.

The fact that it contained sounds impossible to pronounce meant that he had been either a Transcendent or demonfolk in the first place.

And yet, judging by the magic power she could see, he was unquestionably an ordinary person. It was impossible to imagine a Transcendent suppressing his magic power. No matter how you looked at it, he was far too good at hiding it.

In the end, she never learned what he truly was. More than ten years had passed since the day he had whipped his aged body into shape and disappeared into the mountains, yet she still often wondered whether he might suddenly come back.

Whatever the truth, the two of them had been saved thanks to the secret magic he had taught her.

Miminaga lightly patted Kento's shoulder and got him to lower his guard.

"Anyway, I'm glad you're safe, boy."

Her figure, illuminated by the pale moonlight as she smiled and made her rabbit ears sway, and her gentle voice were seared intensely into Kento's mind.

The moonlit rabbit had no idea that her words and actions had delivered a deep-impact-level shock to the boy.

And so the boy swordsman, whose tastes had been utterly rewired, and the rabbit-eared hunter headed for the pier where the ferry to the mainland was moored, taking turns carrying the corpse.