Catch the Head Mod (Part 3)

The place I dropped into was a village square.

It was a charming settlement of cozy little houses, nestled deep within a cavernous subterranean hollow illuminated by artificial spheres of magical light. As soon as my boots touched the cobblestone, hushed murmurs rippled through the gathering crowd.

“Is that really the Head Mod?”

“Oh my stars, you can actually touch him!”

The residents gathered around me boasted wildly varied appearances. Some possessed ordinary human silhouettes save for a pair of long, velvety rabbit ears atop their heads, while others exhibited an uncanny, anthropomorphic blend of human and lagomorph features that leaned far more heavily into rabbit territory. Slowly creeping closer, they began poking at me with the tips of their index fingers. Once they confirmed I was entirely solid and real, their touches grew noticeably bolder, straying onto my cheeks and running through my hair.

“Goodness, he doesn't have long ears!”

“Wait, didn't someone say the Head Mod was a stunning half-elf girl?”

“Guess that was a lie! He's just a regular human!”

The rabbit beastfolk—or ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠simply the Rabbit Tribe—encircled me with inquisitive gazes, their soft features breaking into gentle, blushing smiles.

“Would you like to come over to my house and share some carrots?”

“Do you... want to touch my ears...?”

Flushed red beneath their snow-white skin, they alternated between flustered stammering and overt, shameless flirting. Long, downy ears brushed against my face to tickle my skin, while soft palms pressed gently against my chest. Every single one of them was breathtakingly gorgeous and refined, which might have been flattering—except for the rather pressing issue that roughly half the crowd were men.

“No! Stop! Don't touch me!”

“Aw, don't say that!”

“Come on, where's the fun in that?”

“We love you, Judddak-nim!”

Reason was completely useless. As the circle tightened and suffocation seemed imminent, a desperate realization struck me like lightning.

“Myoran! Where is Myoran?! Help! HELP ME!!!”

Not long ago, when Myoran had found herself in dire straits, I had lent her a hand. The moment I screamed her name at the top of my lungs, someone came hopping vigorously toward the square from the distance. Or rather... was that even a person?

“Judddak! Is that really you, Judddak-nim, myo?”

Twitching long whiskers, towering ears, and an undeniably dainty white body—an actual, literal rabbit came bounding up. A genuine, fluffy rabbit.

“Myoran?”

“Yes, I am Myoran, myo. I serve as chieftain of this rabbit beastkin village, myo.”

Astonishingly enough, this tiny lagomorph was indeed the very Gallery user I knew: Myoran.

“I truly never expected we would meet face-to-face like this, myo. To think you actually used the ticket, myo.”

Her deferential, formal phrasing ended with that peculiar verbal quirk, and slung across her petite frame was the unmistakable modern shotgun I had sent her. It was definitely Myoran. How on earth she managed to haul around a firearm nearly three times her own body length was another mystery entirely.

“I kind of almost died back there.”

“You made a splendid decision, myo. Nowhere in the world is safer than a rabbit warren, myo.”

“I suppose so.”

I glanced around at our immediate surroundings before looking back down at the tiny chieftain. “Still... did it really have to be *here*?”

“Of course, myo. Is this not the safest location in our entire warren for you to reside, myo?”

“I mean, technically, yeah, but...”

I cast a deadpan glance to my side. Thick, cold iron bars rose from the stone floor to the ceiling—the kind of sturdy iron grating you would only ever find in an underground dungeon. I was currently sitting inside an actual rabbit warren jail cell.

“Why the hell did you lock me up in a cell?”

“Because the common rabbits are eyeing you from every corner... I am terribly ashamed, myo.”

To be fair, Myoran wasn't exaggerating in the slightest.

“Haaah...”

“J-Just a tiny bit closer...”

“Judddak-nim, just once, please let me stroke your cheek just once!”

Rabbits with heart-shaped gleams in their dilated pupils clung to the metal grates, shoving their hands and wrists through the narrow gaps to claw the empty air toward me. They were thirsting after me like starving predators. Observing the spectacle, Myoran raised a tiny forepaw and pressed it against her forehead in sheer exasperation.

“I apologize, myo. It is an intrinsic racial trait of rabbit beastfolk to become hopelessly, madly infatuated with their benefactors, myo...”

According to Myoran, the goodwill and affection of the rabbit beastkin were absolute. If someone offered a starving rabbit a single carrot out of genuine kindness, that rabbit would fall head-over-heels in love on the spot.

“Even so, was it truly necessary to quarantine me like a dangerous specimen?” I asked, grimacing slightly. Not that I had any burning desire to step outside into that mob of grabby hands, but being locked behind iron bars felt a bit excessive.

Instead of a direct explanation, Myoran shared an old tale from her tribe's history.

“...A long time ago, a starving rabbit kin was saved through the benevolence of a human, myo.”

“And?”

“The rabbit fell in love immediately, myo.”

“Did they repay the favor?”

“They killed the human, myo.”

“Wait, what? Why?!”

The rabbit beastfolk were born possessing ethereal, breathtaking beauty. The kind of jaw-dropping handsome men and gorgeous maidens that humans fawned over in aristocratic courts were practically everywhere in their tribe.

“The human fell equally in love with the rabbit, and before long, the two blossomed into passionate lovers, myo.”

“Didn't you just say the human got killed?”

“They killed, and they were killed in turn, myo.”

“What kind of riddle is that?!”

The deeper the explanation went, the more lost I felt. As I leaned back to duck under grasping fingers thrust through the bars, Myoran lifted her head, an expression of grave solemnity on her fluffy face.

“They fell so violently in love that they embraced and made love relentlessly until the very moment their breath left their bodies, myo...!”

“...”

A rabbit beastkin who received kindness falls in love. The fatal complication, however, was that their affection didn't stop at devotion; it utterly consumed their minds. Consumed by reciprocal lust and adoration, the two had ravaged one another without rest until their bodies gave out from pure exhaustion.

“All that... just over a bit of food?”

“Regrettably so, myo...”

Hearing that grim legend, I slowly turned my head back toward the corridor outside my cell. I hadn't just given them scraps of food. I had provided heavy modern firearms to protect their clan, and I had integrated them into the Gallery network so they would never be isolated or bored again.

“I love you I love you I love you I love you...”

“I want to put him in my pocket forever and keep him all to myself, I want him to look only at me forever and ever—”

Several of them had already completely detached from reality. Resting daintily on her haunches, Myoran fluttered her long ears and offered weak comfort. “Still, once the mating season passes, their fervor should subside, myo.”

“And when exactly does this season end?”

“I have no idea, myo.”

If the chieftain doesn't know, who the hell does?!

Just as existential dread began to creep up my spine, Myoran swiftly produced a shimmering parchment from her fur.

“Do not fret! I have prepared a Rabbit Warren Escape Ticket for you, myo.”

“Oh, thank god!”

“Nooo!”

“Chieftain, you wicked creature! You menace to our people!”

“Here, please use it in peace, myo.”

It made sense—if an entrance ticket existed, there had to be an exit ticket. Relieved by her readiness to help, I looked down at the chieftain with genuine gratitude. “I have to say, you seem remarkably unaffected by all this.”

“In a warren teeming with rabbits driven mad by instinct, shouldn't there be at least one sensible lagomorph holding the line, myo?” Standing up on two hind legs, Myoran clasped her front paws neatly together and bowed her head and ears with refined courtesy. “I hope we may meet again under better circumstances, myo.”

“Yeah, thanks. I won't forget this.”

Riiip!

Offering a brief wave of farewell, I decisively tore the escape ticket down the middle.

Wuuush.

A circle of pale azure light blossomed beneath my feet, enveloping my body, and—

“...Wait, what?”

Absolutely nothing happened.

Finding myself still very much locked inside an underground prison cell, I slowly turned my gaze back down toward Myoran. The tiny rabbit paused, casually scratching behind one long ear with a hind leg.

“It appears... the expiration date has passed, myo.”

The Rabbit Tribe had lived in absolute isolation from the surface world for decades. Ever since the last member retreated into the underground burrows, no one had ever left, leaving the exit tickets to slowly expire in forgotten storage.

“Do not worry, myo. We simply need to craft a new one, myo.”

The solution was straightforward enough: wait until a fresh ticket was completed. While we waited, Myoran reached up and clicked a peculiar band around my neck.

“...A choker?”

“It is a target-protective magical artifact, myo.”

No matter how I looked at it, the leather band resembled a pet collar with a bell, but she insisted it was a protective ward. If anyone attempted to lay hands on me with impure or lewd intentions, it would instantly unleash high-voltage electrical current to incapacitate the aggressor.

“Why does it have to look like *this*, though?”

“It was originally developed for that particular brand of consensual roleplay, myo.”

Clank.

Myoran unlocked the cell door. Until the escape ticket was finished, she appointed herself as my personal bodyguard, sticking to my side like glue. I gently tapped the collar around my neck, feeling deeply conflicted. Walking around wearing a leather choker was undeniably humiliating.

Maybe I should just tell Myoran I don't need it...

If anything, wearing it only seemed to make the onlookers' gazes burn hotter. Just as I wondered whether we were being overly paranoid, a blurred figure burst out from behind a two-story wooden home across the square.

“I'm so sorry, Judddak-nim! Haaah, I can't hold back anymore!”

“Whoa, what the—?!”

A furry! A beastkin displaying the exact kind of anthropomorphic features certain internet degenerates would drool over leaped straight at me! But the instant soft, clawless paws made contact with my cheek—

BZZZZZZT!

“KYAAAAAGH?!”

Fierce blue arcs of lightning erupted from the collar, instantly discharging into the attacker's body. The beastkin collapsed onto the cobblestones, twitching uncontrollably, yet even as convulsions wracked their frame, their half-open eyes burned with an unsettling, euphoric ecstasy.

“Holy shit.”

A curse slipped past my lips on pure reflex. This wasn't a cozy fantasy village—it was a den of rabid hedonists.

A few hours after the revelation that the Head Mod had been abducted, the Otherworld Destruction Gallery was plunged into absolute bedlam.

With only sixty minutes remaining before an empire-wide IP ban purged every Adrian user from the system, reactions were all over the map. Some users vented furious rage, others merely spectated the drama with popcorn, while a growing faction appeared dead set on instigating a bloody revolution in the imperial capital.

The blue-badged Assistant Mods were powerless to contain the spiraling hysteria. Just as the board was about to detonate from collective panic, a brand-new post popped up and immediately shot to the Hall of Fame.

The comment section exploded in less than five seconds.

A hostage photo confirming the Head Mod's confinement had been posted for all the world to see. To make matters worse, the camera angle was ridiculously compromising—shot from slightly above while I sat curled on the floor behind iron bars, looking upward with an exhausted, submissive glare.

Seeing the comment section veer straight into utter degeneracy, I hurriedly opened the posting window before wild rumors solidified into canon.

While the entire board remained locked in a heated frenzy over my supposed abduction, an urgent post addressed directly to me popped onto the feed.

In the end, the long-smoldering powder keg had finally ignited.

A full-scale revolution had erupted across the Adrian Empire.