The Rabbit and the Knight
Here in the Gallery City, Ellen was the first person to show me any kindness in this cold, indifferent metropolis. In this timeline, how exactly was I supposed to keep her alive? The simplest method would have been to tail her all day and swoop in dramatically at the critical moment. But that felt tedious and contrived. Besides, would someone of Ellen’s caliber really fail to notice she was being followed? And who could say for certain who might come after her? Then there was the matter of how she would react afterward. All of it sounded like a massive headache.
The next option was to make direct contact. Something like, “You’re fated to die at someone’s hands today. Got any long-standing grudges I should know about?” Yeah, that would go over great. Her wariness would shoot through the roof, and that was assuming she didn’t just stab me on the spot. There was also the butterfly effect to consider. Even if I helped her dodge her death flag today, if she had enemies, she’d eventually get taken out somewhere I couldn’t see. So what was the most fundamental solution, even if it meant taking the long way around?
Find the root cause and rip it out before it could grow. In other words, I needed to pile up the corpses of people—or beasts—in this Gallery City today. That was exactly why I’d dragged Tosuni around during the day, gathering information. The time limit was nightfall. If I didn’t intervene, Ellen would be murdered in the lower districts. I could have tried to intercept her killers directly, but without any intel on the enemy, she’d still end up as a cold corpse. Probably right in front of my eyes. That kind of trial run didn’t appeal to me at all.
Just because I could regress didn’t mean death disappeared. That was what I believed, anyway. But things had gotten twisted right from the start. Instead of gathering intel before the hunt, it looked like I was the one about to become the prey.
In irritation, I yanked Tosuni’s leash.
-Snap!
“Tosuni. You know Ellen?”
“S-Save me! This man is dragging me off to rape me!”
Instead of answering my question, the little rabbit betrayed me without hesitation. True to her opportunistic nature, she didn’t miss the chance presented by the nosy Samaritan who had taken the bait on the antenna. But damn, that pissed me off. Who the hell was raping who? I told her I wasn’t some hairy brute.
I grabbed her rabbit ears.
“Aha! So you two don’t know each other!”
“Eep?! Fuck! Let go of meeee! You human! You wanna get smashed by that Corridor Walker over there?!”
Oh, there it was—her real personality. No wonder she’d been playing the pitiful victim earlier. Now she was baring her teeth like a wild rabbit.
“Release that therian.”
At Ellen’s command, I tilted my head. It really wasn’t what it looked like, you know? It was all a misunderstanding. But what was the point in explaining? I decided to brazen it out.
“Ugh, this is ridiculous! Excuse me! Are you really threatening me just because you heard what this pink rabbit said?”
“What?”
“This is my legitimately captured rabbit!”
Ellen narrowed her eyes. Her silver bob swayed as she asked suspiciously.
“You’re saying this girl is your legitimate slave?”
“No way! I didn’t think you were that kind of person! Calling someone a slave?”
“Then…?”
I lifted Tosuni and shouted.
“She’s my pet! Can’t you see the leash?”
“Y-You bastard! Let go of meee!”
I held up the struggling rabbit girl. Ellen’s gaze grew even sharper.
“Nonsense.”
-Click.
Her hand moved to draw her rapier. Ah, maybe my word choice had been poor. I hadn’t meant to provoke her on purpose.
‘A fight?’
‘Looks like two Corridor Walkers are about to clash!’
‘If they both die, let’s get ready to loot the bodies!’
Hmm. Maybe the true specialty of the Gallery City was watching fights. As I watched the swarm of flies gathering with one mind, I thought to myself: Tsk tsk, how foolish. The ones who should be creating the spectacle are the ones cheering the loudest. Looking at their behavior, I almost sighed. This was completely missing the point.
Getting into unnecessary trouble here was the last thing I needed. Time to stop playing around and tell the truth.
“Look, this rabbit tried to rob me and got caught. That’s all there is to it.”
“He’s lying! Corridor Walker, sir! Save m—mmph?!”
“……”
Honestly, what a deceitful rabbit, interrupting her owner while he’s talking. Feeling a bit heated, I gently covered her mouth and said,
“Oh? Want me to skin you today?”
“Mmph—!”
‘Ooh! He’s gonna do it!’
But it seemed my threat had the opposite effect on the onlookers and busybodies. With a chorus of cheers, the knightess stepped forward.
-Whoosh!
Straight to the point, huh? The performance from that alley flashed through my mind—the image of an arm being severed in an instant. The distance closed in the blink of an eye.
Honestly, sparring with Ellen hadn’t been on the schedule. Still… might as well get a taste?
Crack!
A hastily made magic catalyst. I raised the trash wand. From the staff cobbled together from garbage, crystals began to form.
“Ugh!?”
I felt the rabbit wrapped in my arms snap her eyes wide open. What’s wrong, scared? It was just a basic magic catalyst made from cheap debris I picked up at the dump.
“Feeble, rising, crystal.”
-Crack!
A three-word magic activation. Effective range: fifteen meters. The pathetic amount of mana engraved in my body and soul was sucked away. It had been so long since I last used magic! Haha!
You’re already within my stand’s range! Take this! Emerald Shower!
Thud!
A chunk of crystal the size of a baby’s fist shot from the tip of the wand. The target was Ellen. She didn’t stop. Instead, she tracked the trajectory of the flying crystal with her eyes.
Crunch!
The projectile was sliced apart with laughable ease. Shards like broken glass scattered through the air and clattered against the ground.
“Cheap tricks!”
Ellen’s roar didn’t slow her charge in the slightest. Now, no matter what anyone said, it was her turn. But it was still my turn, too.
“Hey, look at your feet.”
“!”
Crack!
Ellen, who had ignored my warning, flinched as she felt the ground beneath her crumble. Warriors and martial artists knew how important footing was. In that sense, Ellen’s steps were being thrown off by the spikes of crystal rising from the floor. Had I made them deliberately brittle? Why not enjoy how slippery that crispness made things?
I could already picture her tumbling. The first projectile had been a feint. The real aim was the crystals sprouting from the ground. Why else would people train footwork? Why armor their feet with greaves or caliga? Because you needed solid footing to crush your opponent.
“Hup—!”
-Crunch!
But our knightess was incredibly tough. In a split-second judgment, she shattered the crystals she’d been standing on with a single stomp. Yeah. Raw power beats everything. You can just kick away pebbles and grind them to dust. Even if there’s a boulder underneath.
And Ellen had done exactly that. But then… what on earth had killed a knightess capable of such a feat? It was genuinely curious.
“Cheap tricks won’t work on me!”
I nodded at her spirited roar. Fair enough. Then I’d just have to do things my way.
The rapier came in aiming to sever my arm. I moved my body into its path.
“!?”
-Shiiing!
Not my body—Tosuni’s body. Ellen’s extended sword path twisted. Tosuni, equally frozen, was there too. She probably couldn’t even see the trajectory, but she must have flinched when I thrust her forward.
“I told you, Tosuni. You’re my meat shield.”
It wasn’t out of malice. Just business.
-Slice!
After the sound of something being cut, a spray of blood bloomed.
“W-What?!”
Ellen turned pale as she saw the blood splattered across her cheek and face. She must have thought she’d cut something when she pulled her sword back. Her breathing and stance collapsed for a moment.
Whatever the case, our compatibility was terrible. With me, at least.
I dropped the rabbit and drove the shortsword I’d hidden in the gap of Ellen’s armor. Armor and plating techniques created exploitable gaps precisely because they existed. The weak resistance and friction as it slipped between the left pauldron. Then the shallow sensation of skin at the tip of the blade, an extension of the shortsword. If I pushed any further, it would be fatal.
Strength. Speed. Agility and reaction. Ellen surpassed me in all of them, but every single advantage was dragged down by her momentary collapse. That was what combat sense meant. Experience was the textbook of violence. There was always a moment when overwhelming differences could be overturned. Like an eagle that had been soaring through the sky suddenly falling low enough for a ground-crawling beast to sink its teeth into its throat.
Ellen, you really are naïve. To think you couldn’t even see through such a basic feint. If I pushed the blade in deeper here, it would be over.
But I stopped my hand.
“!”
The next instant, unseen violence slammed into my face.
Crack—!
It was probably the sound of flesh and teeth shattering.
“Ugh?”
The voice that came out, stepping on my torn lip and broken teeth, was my own. At the same time, I realized I was lying on the ground with the back of my head against the pavement. The sky spun wildly, and the pain in my body arrived late. Must have been hit by a gauntlet.
From my slanted vision, I saw Tosuni scrambling to her feet, still wearing the leash.
“S-Serves you right! You stupid human!”
Look at that mouth on her. Well, after being used as a meat shield once, I suppose she’d earned the right. Even if she didn’t have a single wound on her body.
‘Ooh! The woman won!’
‘Kill him!’
Amid the mix of jeers and cheers, Ellen approached.
-Step. Step.
The knightess stopped right in front of my shattered face. She pointed her rapier at me as she did so.
Whoa, no. Don’t do that. I’m saying this for your own good, Ellen. You might get just a tiny bit upset?
Ah, was I going to retire here? The pain was so intense it felt like one of my eyeballs was about to pop out. More importantly, how painful would it be to die at the hands of the very person I was trying to save?
“—Guh.”
I writhed on the ground like that. To end up like this after just one hit. It really drove home that Ellen wasn’t merely fast. Or maybe I was just that weak.
Her indifferent gaze gradually filled with killing intent. But instead of stabbing me, she used the rapier to lift my sleeve.
“The blood you sprayed earlier… you did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
Exactly. The long cut on my hand. I’d sprayed that blood specifically to startle her. To think she hadn’t seen through such a simple deception. It must have been the shock of possibly having cut the pink rabbit.
“At the end… why did you stop?”
Her question made me laugh. She must have taken it as mockery, because her expression darkened. She must have had many questions about my actions. The one who had shown mercy and held back against the knightess Ellen was simply too frail an immortal.
If I had coldly driven the blade in back there, Ellen would have been badly wounded. Probably as badly as I was now. Had my brain been rattled? Dizziness washed over me and my mind began to blur. It felt like every sense in my body had been completely wrecked.
Looked like this round was a bust. I’d probably be detained or interrogated by the enforcers she called. Should I just reset cleanly and investigate again?
I struggled to gather my broken mouth and spoke.
“Hey. Hesitation is death, you know?”
“……”
“It’s a pro tip, so remem—”
My head lolled before I could finish. Ah. So it wasn’t just my face that was broken. My neck bone must have snapped. I felt my tongue curl back inside my mouth. I recognized this sensation.
Blackout.
Something akin to death came over me.