19 - Rabbits

I felt a great sense of relief knowing the uniforms were free, but I'm still covered in blood. What kind of excuse am I supposed to make? Woke attacked me again? A pack of wolves chased me? Or should I be honest and say a rabbit tried to headbutt me but jumped face-first into a dagger?

[Ding! Hu Jung-Lee will ask why the Host is in the Elgin Forest in the first place.]

I thought students could go to the Elgin Forest.

[Ding! Apogees (first-year) students were supposed to meet their advisors after school.]

Why haven't I heard about this?

[Ding! The Host didn't pay attention to Heo Soomin's announcements after the attendance.]

Who's Heo Soomin?

[Ding! The Host gave her the title of "Lie Detector".]

Ah, that person.

Luckily, most of the blood is on the jacket, so I can just take it off. As for my shirt, I can just say I spilled ketchup or BBQ sauce or something. If people ask why I'm not wearing my jacket tomorrow, I'll just say I got it dirty because I tripped in a mud puddle.

[Ding! The weather hasn't rained in days.]

Some neighborhood kid was playing with the water sprinkler.

[Ding! The Host has lousy lying skills.]

When I die and go to heaven, I'll smack whatever deity made this system.

[Ding! The Host has the Unique Skill, "Immortality".]

I stayed silent.

I'm so done with this system. I want a refund.

[Ding! The chance of the Host going to a location called "Heaven" is 0%, but going into a location called "Hell" is 100%.]

Goddesses, the system is cursing me! Can't you do something?

[Ding! The Goddess of Luck and Fortune, Fortuna, laughed at the Host.]

[Ding! The Goddess of Death, Morte, mumbled that the Host will die today from his foolishness.]

Die? I'm not dying-

I was sent flying into a tree.

F*CK! WHO SHOT ANOTHER CANNONBALL AT ME?

I pulled myself up, turned my head, and glared at the unforgiving entity. A lop-eared brown rabbit stared at me with its beady eyes. Its nose twitched mockingly.

Right. These rabbits live in groups of two to… how many again?

[Ding! The Dwarf Rabbits live in fluffles of 2 to 50.]

'Fluffle'. Stupid system, correcting me.

I was about to pull out the Poisoned Sea Crescent to attack the rabbit, but then I realized the dagger was still part of the rabbit-kebab. Nothing else came out of my shadow inventory other than a useless silver coin. I quickly put the Woke token away.

I saw another brown blob in my peripherals. Just as I was about to turn in that direction, the blob smacked me on the cheek. I fell to the ground holding my jaw in pain, sighing in relief that it was not broken. The new ball then joined the lop-eared ball, and together they twitched their nose at me.

Another one? Why do they always target the face?

Luckily, I landed next to the poison-dagger-rabbit-kebab. I pulled out the dagger and turned towards the two rabbits, getting myself ready to slaughter this entire family of four, now three, who are twitching their noses-

Wait.

Three?

Where did the third one come from?

Another brown blob came out of the bushes. I'm just glad this one didn't head-butt me at all.

Then another.

Then another.

Then ano-

How many are there?

[Ding! The number of Dwarf Rabbits in this nest was 50, now 49.]

"-IVE!"

I turned my head towards the sound. A short-eared rabbit appeared.

Did it just speak?

"LIVE!"

It came from the left this time.

Another rabbit popped up.

It definitely just spoke.

"WOLF!"

Great, it's not shouting "LIVE" this time. Why can I understand these little blasphemes?

[Ding! Due to the Host's S-rank Skill, "Rosetta's Gift", the Host can understand and speak all languages in the world of Numen.]

"Right, another overpowered Skill." I mumbled.

Then all the visible Dwarf Rabbits tilted their heads at the same time. "Buck?" They asked all at the same time.

They're adorable, but under the masks of cuteness, they're monsters.

What the heck do they mean by "Buck?"

[Ding! The Host was mistaken for a male rabbit.]

Do I look like a rabbit?

"Buck?" The rabbits then looked at each other and asked.

"Buck!"

"Live?"

"Wolf!"

"Wolf buck?"

"Wolf buck!" I don't understand their conversation.

I guess being able to speak a language and understand the language are two separate elements.

Then all the rabbits turned towards me. "WOLF BUCK!" They declared.

Wolf, I guess, is their predator. Buck is a male rabbit. What the heck do those two words mean together?

[Ding! The Host was mistaken for a cannibalistic Dwarf Rabbit.]

What the actual-

I wasn't able to complete my thoughts because I received another headbutt... In the temple. My pain receptors overloaded from the trauma, and I passed out.

When I woke up, I was 3 feet away from a pile of fur.

What are they doing?

Since none of the rabbits noticed me, I took a few steps closer.

A green… thing in the brown pile was the first thing that caught my eye. I would've mistaken the green for grass, but the grass is starting to dry up and wilt due to the lack of rain recently. This green is highly saturated.

I was about to take a step closer when a rabbit lifted its head up. I can see it was chewing something red, but that's not why I stopped.

I squat down, getting a closer look.

The head of my former body was polka-dotted with red blotches where the hair and skin had been pulled off. In places where the scalp was still attached, dried blood caked the remaining hair together, creating a disgusting kelp-like mesh. A thick mat of rabbits formed a brown blanket on top of my corpse. The fur blanket was quickly turning from brown to red, and the rabbits lost their fluffy shape as they became soaked in blood. Concentrated near the stomach area, the fur blanket obscured most of the corpse, but the sound of mastication and bones snapping was enough to tell me all I needed to know. The limbs were not spared either, judging by how my "arms" were about half as long as I remembered. A rabbit got up from where my right hand was, an index finger still hanging from its mouth, and seemingly looked in my direction before joining the big pile of stomach-rabbits. As I watched, the mountain of rabbits on my guts got smaller, probably because most of them had burrowed into my rib cage. Just as I was about to turn away, I saw a hole in my side open up. A few blood-soaked rabbits crawled out, chewing on some intestines like ramen noodles.

I see. I'm currently in a spiritual state, just like the time I jumped out of a hospital window. If I had a physical body, I would've felt nauseous and would've probably thrown up again. I wish I was blind.

I clasped my pair of ghostly hands together, closed my eyes, and prayed.

My past self, you died a pathetic death because you were being an idiot. Why didn't you listen to Morte?

Oddly enough, this situation somehow reminds me of a certain isekai, featuring a delinquent-looking Japanese high schooler in a tracksuit stuck in a time-loop. Didn't he get eaten alive by rabbits too?

Another massive headache swept over me, which was weird since my head was on the ground. The next thing I saw was an orange and red sky. I felt the back of my neck getting pricked by needles, and my arms and legs felt like they were asleep. There was a weight on me, like a heavy blanket. I've never been the ticklish type, but the pressure around my stomach irritated me.

Wait. I can feel my body? Did I come back already?

I lifted my head when I felt the 49 brown-furred monstrosities turn towards me in unison.

"Live?" They asked in unison

Well, that's not creepy at all.

They blinked. I blinked. We had a bit of a stand off- uhh-

Well, I'm laying down, while half of this group of furred monsters are laying on me. It was clear what situation I'm in.

As I was thinking about how to prevent 49 adorable rabbits from masticating my guts, all 50 of us heard a loud, rough, un-rabbit-like shout of "FOOD!"

The rabbits looked at each other and screamed "WOLF!" before dashing away.

I had a lot of questions.

[Ding! The "FOOD" the Host heard was a howl from the Gray Wolves, a natural predator of Dwarf Rabbits.]

Do you mean those freaks that asked me if I was "talking food" when I jumped off of a cliff?

[Ding! Yes.]

I knew that was my cue to escape. I ran out of the forest as fast as I could, picking up my dagger and the rabbit corpse along with it.

At least I got something in exchange for my time and life.