Chapter 492
Chapter 492
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 492
Chapter Title: Gedroits's Heirs, Fields (7)
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"So, this is a story from when I was little...."
I couldn't understand for the life of me why she was suddenly shifting to tales from her childhood, but I decided to listen for now. For someone as suspicious as Rabbit seemed to me right then, it wasn't entirely a bad thing that she was volunteering her own story first—
"Hmm, you're happy about the suspicious opponent stepping forward first with their tale, aren't you?"
"What?"
"You're judging whether that was just a probe or a question born of certainty, thinking about whether you showed any exploitable gaps that would justify that certainty, and now debating whether to handle it calmly or dodge."
"You read people well, huh?"
"Ah! You've decided to handle it calmly. Good job. If you'd dodged, I was planning to pick apart your lies point by point and tease you for being a liar."
"Tha—"
"Thanks for the praise. I do have a World Clear record myself, after all. Not quite on the level of Mr. Whoever's talent for 'making inferences close to the truth by scraping together info with terrifying observational skills,' but I'm pretty confident when it comes to reading people."
She had changed. The soft, radiant atmosphere had scattered like a lie along with her expression, replaced by Rabbit's doll-like face that fit perfectly in the silence of the concrete building.
"Is that your real face?"
"Less 'real face' and more like I've just relaxed my shoulders a bit. Pointing out a woman's bare face so bluntly? No manners."
A sense of wrongness. The reason I'd never let go of my suspicions about her was that faint sense of wrongness I'd been feeling. Not your everyday wrongness, but something so subtle you wouldn't notice it without decades rolling around in GG's world of schemes and ploys.
'The problem is, last time when I asked Rabbit why she chose Vex, her answer felt genuine.'
[Vex thought he'd got me hooked tight, but it was the other way around.]
No matter how I thought about it, Rabbit's expression as she said that had looked nothing but sincere.
That made it even more suspicious. A woman who went around wearing that 'mask' adored by everyone—just happened to fall head over heels for Vex? And the reason she gave was something like 'I fell for him without even realizing it!' that only a teenage girl would say!
For someone like me, who could be called terminal suspicion syndrome, telling me not to doubt such a blatantly shady figure was too harsh.
My judgment: Rabbit is genuine about Vex. Quite a bit so.
My judgment: Rabbit is a woman who lives wearing an extremely elaborate mask, and that pretty, stiff doll-like face in front of me might be her true self.
My judgment: For a woman like that to suddenly go 'I've fallen for you!' and rush into someone's arms proposing marriage... it's hard to accept logically.
And for someone like me who could guess that fact, her spilling all this to me was even harder to accept.
"I'm curious why you're suddenly doing this."
"Just... I'm baring my painful past and putting my all into being sincere, but you're sitting there with axe eyes, pretending otherwise while scrutinizing me. It pisses me off a little. So... this is me approaching first in the spirit of being a bit more honest. You like honesty, right? Professor Park."
"That's a tone that knows me well."
"To a certain extent? Professor Park. Rotten just the right amount like a wasteland survivor, just the right amount of cheerful. And yet ridiculously nosy."
"Tsk."
"At a glance, it looks selfless, but there's no sign of the 'good deeds' fixation unique to the hopelessly selfless. Looks more like an obsessive compulsion toward responsibility, a masochistic trait common in survivors who lived through loved ones' sacrifices. Based on that little stone grave behind the shelter, your expert military knowledge, and the soldier-like movements you show in combat, there's a high chance you survived thanks to your mother and comrades from your military days."
"...Hey."
"Signs of dissociative identity disorder, affection deprivation leading to... Hmm~ Want more? I could go on, but for maintaining a social relationship with Professor Park, this seems about right."
"You've already crossed the line a bit."
"I figured this much was needed for you to take me seriously. Oh, keep it secret from Dana? If it gets out that I know an outsider man inside and out, she might get jealous."
She put her finger to her lips with a '~I want to get along well with Dana~' look—pure classic Rabbit.
"Do you treat everyone you meet like that... 'in that way' normally?"
"Hmm, yeah? Like how you habitually check out everyone around you first?"
"Vex too?"
"Oh my! How rude."
"...Well, yeah. At least it seemed genuine with that guy—"
"There's no way I'd observe him at the level of an ordinary person. Way more meticulously than with someone like you—his fingertips to his toes, every scar on his body and the stories etched into them, I talked to him hard, observed hard, peered deep. And I plan to learn even more going forward."
"...What a world."
What the hell was I supposed to say to this. Should I pity Vex or envy him.
"This one's completely broken, isn't she?"
"You bet. Didn't know? A little disappointing."
Levit Princess. The one who'd always been bright and happy, earning the love of wasteland survivors... was deeply broken somewhere.
Unfortunately, the kind of 'broken' I couldn't help but understand.
"...Andrey Gedroits. You're one who cleared two of that man's worlds too."
"Being able to clear that weirdo old man's world~ means you're the kind of person who fits his philosophy."
Splash—
Rabbit dipped her fingertinger into the teacup, swirling it around and staring mesmerized at the vortex.
"Andrey Gedroits said his game was a device to 'discover' or 'train' completers, and for that 'training,' he chose endless conflict near-impossible to resolve, endless trials. Like a lump of carbon turning to diamond under extreme pressure at its limits, he believed the human who overcame all those trials would emerge as his desired 'perfect leader.'"
"The result? Just a bunch of shattered personalities all over the place. That genius's hurdles were too high for ordinary folks, right?"
"GG, made as a [Completer Manufacturer], gained infamy instead as a [Psycho Manufacturer], contrary to his expectations."
"Yeah, exactly. By his doctrine, it just churned out 'trash that couldn't withstand the pressure and broke.' And those crystallized personalities that endured that terrifying pressure—you."
Flick.
"Me."
Flick.
"And that guy over there, already beaten to hell and back before even entering the game."
Flick.
"Just these three. Those who quit midway were hopeless ordinaries to begin with, and the ones with even a sliver of potential got crushed hard by Gedroits's training program, all shattering and joining the ranks of [GG-made psychos]. You had to already be 'half-psycho'—beaten up plenty outside, jagged, sharp, hardened into your own solid form—just to survive the brutal pressure Gedroits prepared. That's my observation on why there are only three completer candidates."
Pointing in turn at me, herself, and the direction of the hammering sounds, Rabbit shrugged and said.
"Once you've cleared even one world, you should've expected the other person to be solidly broken somewhere. Professor Park's 'obsessive sense of responsibility,' Thousand Stream Emperor's 'drive to reach the unreachable inner superman,' or mine... various tendencies in observing people. We're 'completer candidates' because we've bent and hardened in directions like that."
"Hmm...."
Honestly, it gave me chills a bit. A person who only looks at 'people' when scanning surroundings. I'd thought Rabbit was one of the saner ones, but this was a crazier person than Thousand Stream Emperor perfectly masquerading as normal and blending in among people?
"Oh dear, don't glare at me with that scared face. It hurts my feelings."
"Sorry."
"No need to be that sorry. You just don't realize it, but you're just as weird as me or Thousand Stream Emperor. A person with nothing left but selflessness, not leaving even a scrap of yourself inside, only others! From a normal person's view, that's instinctively repulsive. It's just that in these chaotic times you're treated like a hero—if it were pre-war peaceful days, you'd be slapped with [Severe Self-Destructive Tendencies] and thrown in a psych ward? With like 50 priors for self-harm blackmail?"
"You damn bitch."
As I finally let a harsh word slip, Rabbit burst out laughing delightedly instead.
'Damn it. I really can't win against her in handling people.'
That 'damn bitch' just now... was like a declaration of disarmament, a signal that I'd treat her casually again after all that stiffness.
Like it or not, I like honest people, love straightforward and sincere conversations even more, and when the other side bares their deepest bottom to draw out empathy... I'm the kind who can't help getting swept up.
In the end, Rabbit had perfectly strategized Professor Park.
"Ahaha, wow. You have your cute side too."
"Get lost, Rabbit. I don't like scary women like you."
"No way? The Dana I know is just as scary and unique as me—"
"Waaah! I can't hear you! La la la!"
I plugged my ears before she could say more. I don't want to know any intimate details about Dana analyzed by this end-of-the-world human expert! It's poison! Definitely!
"So, why drag out this sob story full of wounds? To say the three completer candidates are all confirmed anti-social half-madmen, so let's get along nicely?"
"No, I said from the start. My story is related to Vex."
"So where in this story is that?"
"About my broken parts. Don't interrupt now. I'll answer questions after I'm done."
Rabbit puffed her cheeks cutely like she was sulking and sighed.
For me, facing her true self, that abrupt expression shift was downright terrifying.
****
Whirr whirr whirr—
"Rabbit, ma'am. No apple tea on site, so substituted with dried potato leaf tea as requested."
"Oh my, thank you! Such a polite child? Your name was... Tea Cat?"
"Tactical Combat Assistance Turret T.C.A.T-3000."
"Yeah, got it. Nice to meet you."
Rabbit moistened her tired throat a bit, then leaned in to whisper just to me.
"Actually, saying I wanted to take that drone home earlier? That was a lie too. I don't bring machines into my house."
"Because you can't read their inner thoughts like with people?"
"Spot on! Talking to sharp ones is easy~"
Rabbit sipped the dubious tea happily (I don't buy it) and continued without grimacing even a little.
"Do you know my name?"
"At least it's not Rabbit Princess."
How could a person's name be Bunny Princess? Unless the parents were insane.
"Right. My real name? First name Rabbit, last name Princess. Pretty, right?"
"Sorry. If you look into my heart, you'll see I didn't mean it that way—I stake my name on it—"
"Nah, if you felt my parents were crazy, you're right."
Right, apparently. Suddenly I was the bad guy who'd lumped her real name and parents together as insane.
"Precisely around age eight. Around when that famous [photo of a cute little girl beaming while holding a rabbit she'd personally butchered] everyone knows went viral, my parents changed their names."
Rabbit was the precious child of a precious family, it seems.
Parents full of vanity about being upper class, with enough wealth to feed that vanity. The kind who could buy their whining little daughter an expensive GG connector.
Of course, the delivered connector came bundled with a thin manual on 'precautions for use,' but Rabbit's parents weren't the type to care much about such trivia.
Their daughter was still young, just a lump useless except for family photos that looked harmonious.
"Ah, that type of people. You hear about them here and there—"
"Heard about, sure. Seen in person?"
"...No."
"Right? So I'm someone with a pretty rare background."
Anyway, the girl left neglected in indifference was Rabbit. Like any girl that age, she craved her parents' love, but her parents—busy with gossip, parties, professional training to look younger than their age, and snapping up the latest jewelry from fancy French stores first—had no time for the whining of a daughter who was just 'family photo accessory.'
And so, raised under emotionless nanny drone care, the one gift Rabbit ever got from her parents was that ultra-expensive early GG connector.
Of course, her parents gave it to her because it was a 'virtual reality game device where people lie there like dead rats for hours or days,' but Rabbit, unaware, saw it as the first proof of parental attention she'd ever received since birth.
"I was so happy. Especially once I learned how expensive it was—I was young, but I knew my parents loved expensive things. The connector was expensive, so they gave me something precious to them too! That's what I thought."
"...Tch."
"And the rest is well-known. The girl got hooked on her parents' gift, learned 'many things' from it, got familiar with the game's hunting and trading mechanics—and wanted to show her parents what she'd learned from their wonderful gift."
"Oh boy...."
"Yeah, exactly. It was a huge uproar."
The girl set a clumsy trap in the lush forest near home, but it wasn't as clumsy as thought—it caught a fat brown autumn rabbit.
The girl roughly butchered it with a kitchen knife she'd fetched.
That famous photo that soon topped world morning papers and internet news captured her proud smile amid bloodstains, snapped by a paparazzi chasing some mid-tier celeb.
A blood-soaked girl beaming with a kitchen knife in one hand and rabbit remnants in the other became a global celebrity known to all.
Reporters flooded in worldwide, requesting endless interviews from parents obsessed with 'celeb' status, and her abnormal development was blamed entirely on 'the terrifying connector and its game.' What started as simple buzz exploded into a mega-issue: 'virtual reality's horrific side effects,' shaking the world.
Terrified amid the onslaught of attention, the girl faced open message functions on the early connector—no filters for profanity or harassment.
Her parents, dolled up glamorously, held a press conference announcing they'd sue Gedroits Company for the highest amount ever.
The girl grew even more terrified. The raw curses now treated her like a money-making monster, and she couldn't think of a rebuttal.
As the lawsuit dragged on, with big names swaying the courts, the world's interest in the girl at its origin cooled.
Around then, her parents changed the girl's name to 'Rabbit Princess.' To draw maximum attention. So every time her name as plaintiff echoed in court, people worldwide would recall that origin photo and her parents.
Thus, while the world buzzed and bustled, girl Rabbit Princess alone endured the world's venomous words pouring toward an account of the same name.
"Hmm~ Up to here? You get the gist of how things went?"
"...No. Not at all."
I get what happened and how it unfolded.
But for me, inheriting life from both father and mother, this was the kind of story my brain couldn't process.
Parents treating their own child like an object that badly? Sure, I'd heard it was common, but could that really exist? Not teenage fiction mixed with complaints, but actual 'parents' like that?
"I can't even fathom what the fuck kind of situation that is."
"Can't understand? Tough luck. It's fact."
What followed was ordinary by comparison.
"The twisted-up girl grew into the 'perfect face, body, even voice as beautiful accessory' her parents wanted, and then—boom! War broke out."
"How'd you survive?"
"Thanks to trendy rich parents. Personal shelters were all the rage pre-war. Parents who'd ruined their faces with botched plastic surgery and still called themselves 'celebs' wouldn't miss that trend."
Rabbit said her childhood experiences had definitely broken her. Her parents' repeated scoldings were highly effective on the brain-fried girl, and she still obsessively craved perfection, standing out, being loved.
And as payback for years tormented by horrific messages: when someone looked at her 'in any way' and smiled, chatted, enjoyed themselves, she felt reflexive pleasure.
A twist born from a crumbling child's survival instinct. That was the ugly root of Rabbit's beautiful aspiration: 'as long as there's joy in any situation, humans can live on.'
"...Rabbit."
"My story's not over! Okay, question time. In this nauseating tale, where does Vex fit in?"
Rabbit's eyes were no longer vacant like a doll's glass beads. They boiled with sticky malice like what had shattered her child self.
"...The 'purity' you mentioned last time?"
"Exactly! Vex, this man is so, so pure. Unbelievably so for surviving this rotten world!"
Clatter!
Crash!
The teacup fell from the table and shattered. Breathing ragged, Rabbit grabbed my shoulders and yelled!
"Professor Park! Think about it! He's super rare! So rare you'd believe there's only one in the world! In this burning, rusting, dried-up world, is there another man as good and pure as him?"
"Pro...bably not."
"No! I guarantee there's not a single one! If there were, they'd all be corrupted by now! Because wasteland survivors all live relying on 'connectors'! They've touched the 'online' world full of damn filth! Unlike Vex! Unlike me, whose brain was stuffed full of online malice from childhood!"
Come to think of it, yes. War orphan Vex had no electronic resident ID, not even a connector ID under his name.
"Look at me! These dead fish eyes! Every time that man shyly smiles at my fake smile, I burn with shame all over! Because filth like me is tainting what might be the world's only purity! But... but I can't give up!"
Rabbit gripped my arm hard enough to draw blood. Not from my solid arm, but from her own nails breaking as she clung.
"Because... that man loves children. Vex is broken... in that direction...."
Ahh. No way.
"A person who can love children no matter the situation.... Unlike me, who can't imagine a 'loved child' no matter how many stories or videos I read—someone who can give all his love to our child...."
Drip, drip.
"With him... I can be perfect, su... sufficient.... Even if I can't... love properly, he'll embrace our child... enough...."
Like a perfect match made in puzzle heaven.
Scavenger Vex, prioritizing children above all due to childhood trauma.
Rabbit, perfect in every way, but unable to grasp 'a loved child' from her own trauma.
Not love at first sight or anything.
After obsessively investigating to a pathological degree, she'd concluded: him or no one.
Rabbit, wheezing as she forced out words, finally collapsed to the floor.
....Whew.
"...Yeah. No room for doubt here."
"Sniff, sob—"
"But you spilled all this to me for that? So I wouldn't doubt why you're with Vex?"
"We're... building a home.... Preparing to live... together...."
"I heard."
"I need to become... his family. Ian Desmond, Professor Park—you two are like family to Vex himself...."
"You want... approval?"
Shake shake—
"You both have sharp eyes.... If you find out later I'm a flawed woman like this, especially sly, deception-proof Professor Park you might tear us apart.... Sniff! Sob!"
This woman sees me as what.
"Honored by the high regard, miss."
Anyway, this felt like more than enough to confirm Rabbit's sincerity overflowing, and with Vex likely returning soon from his shock-proposal daze, if he saw Rabbit collapsed crying with blood streaming from her hands, that guy might gouge out an eyeball, so I opened my mouth to wrap up—
"So, I think we need to start a war right now."
"...What?"
The topic suddenly looped back around Earth to the main point.
"Raptor conflicts are always inevitable (sob!). Sure, sparking war now would halt Dome's surging growth, and who knows how long to regain momentum (sniff!), but just as survival always comes first in the wasteland, Dome's operations prioritize collective survival above all (sob!)."
"Uh, yeah.... Sure...."
"When an enemy with a knife at your back approaches, you turn and face them (sniff!), not pile on more armor. If enemies prep for war while allies chase economy, culture, science, all sorts of nonsense growth, it's clear who'll lose and vanish when you finally clash (grr!)."
"Uh-huh, yeah. Got it, so how about standing up first to talk? Wipe those tears, nose, nails...."
"Above all, the child I'll bear mustn't go through war. That kid... will absolutely grow up loved, in peace....! With board privileges, I'll hunt down everyone posting bad stuff about our family, kill them all... before anyone sees!"
"Yeah yeah! Fine, drink your kimchi soup, make a soccer team, totem-pole bad-commenters' heads, whatever! Just let's tidy up first—"
Bang!
"Rabbit! I, I, th, th-thought! I, I.... thought seriously... about it....!?"
"Oh god."
This was the sound of Vex, soul-scattered by the sudden proposal, returning.
The short guy's trembling homecoming, having pondered his lover's abrupt proposal.
And the moment big softie bomb-lover Vex, pushing through the crowd, bumped into her and got an earful on 'love and family,' eyes widening as he took in this mess.
"Sob, hic!"
"R-Ra, raaah, R-Rabbit?"
The one who should hear his answer greeted him with teary eyes.
The her who'd always treated his every word like the world's most precious thing, always beaming so wrinkle-free and bright you wondered if such a person existed—was collapsed bawling on the floor.
Puffy eyes, disheveled clothes.
Her delicate nails all broken and bloody, clear marks of resistance... stark on his closest friend's arm!
"M-Mis... understand."
"M-Misunderstanding. Rabbit, say something—"
"Waaahhh!!"
"Oh god! Miss! Not here—"
.
.
.
.
.
Crunch!
"...Pro. Fes. Sor!"
Short. Awkward. Stuttering. Child-loving, pure-as-can-be Vex (24).
But this moment, love-blinded macho with tunnel vision.
Crash!
"Hey! No! It's not! I said it's not!"
"I trusted you! Trusted you! Trusted you more than anyone!!!"
"Ugh! This bastard really stabbing!"
"Raaargh!!"
True to BDSM's top close-assault master, Vex's strikes targeted soft spots between half-breed's tough body, brimming with his terrifying affection.
....Smack—!
"That, that bitch!"
"You whoreeee!!!"
"Uwaaak! Sorry! Sorry!!"
In the merciless storm of monomolecular cutter, Professor Park witnessed it.
Rabbit, who'd been sobbing on the floor, gazing ecstatically at Vex charging his precious friend-like-family because of her, smiling!
'Fuck, we're screwed. This... is totally fucked no matter how you slice it!'
I'd already empathized with Rabbit's circumstances. His broken thought circuit couldn't say 'that woman's no good! Break up now!' no matter how harsh.
But that sight... thoroughly analyzing people, hiding herself, sly yet horrifically obsessive...
'Total system bitch!'
Uncannily like 'World,' the 4th World's system personality he knew so well!
It made sense, thinking about it. Rabbit was the top completer candidate until my 3rd World, so as the first over that long time, her data would've been analyzed extremely thoroughly, preciously, diversely by the system.
That damn system's constant 'according to learned emotional data'—that 'learning' very likely from Rabbit's personality, the female player closest to completer!
But... but!
"Why her of all people! Why that one!"
"Pro! Fes! Sor! Don't badmouth Rabbit!!!"
Zap zap!
"Gaaahhh!"
Like meeting a nemesis crawled from hell, the terrified professor's voice turned to agonized scream from the arc knife's electric shock digging into his back.
Professor explained, but Vex wouldn't hear; Rabbit had no intent to stop his ecstatic rage.
Thus, BDSM HQ's lovers' quarrel raged until Thousand Stream Emperor personally intervened to separate them.
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