외전: 외로운 토끼의 이야기
Long ago, in the dimension of Eriel.
This was a place where the dimension was named Eriel, the planet was named Eriel, and even the continent was named Eriel.
If there was one defining characteristic of this world...
It was that the power inflation was absolutely, utterly ridiculous!
For the inhabitants of Eriel, wielding magic was nothing special.
In fact, to be considered normal, one had to possess at least one other power on top of magic—be it battle qi, beast transformation, divine power, aura, or even some bizarre evil spirit (?).
It was a common sight to see children out for a stroll roasting passing monsters with fire magic for a quick snack.
And it was perfectly natural for those same children to grow strong enough to blow up an entire village with explosion magic just a month later.
Seeing this, the adults would simply say:
"I wanted to burn down a village once, too."
"Then why didn't you?"
"The village elder put up a dimensional isolation barrier, so I couldn't."
"Ah."
Indeed, the power inflation here wasn't just severe; it was at a level where power itself had seen the inflation and run away in terror!
Yet, even in Eriel... there existed a race that was deeply despised.
The beastkin rabbits, who possessed humanoid bodies and rabbit ears.
They were tragic creatures who possessed weak magic, couldn't use battle qi, and couldn't even properly unleash their beastly nature.
Their physical abilities were slightly superior to humans, but that was it.
No matter how fast they ran like the wind or how easily they could snap a tall tree with a single kick, they could neither outrun human magic nor shatter barriers woven from mana.
To these rabbit beastkin, the word "slave" was nothing out of the ordinary.
Humans toyed with their bodies under the guise of calling them cute, stole their food because they were "gentle," and put collars on them to treat them like slaves because they were "good-natured."
Yet, even without humans, they were a race so fragile that a passing dragon could wipe out an entire tribe in an instant.
Their only saving graces were their high fertility rate and an incredible digestive system that allowed them to survive on practically anything.
Thus, they had lived their lives taking unilateral abuse and exploitation for granted.
And among them was a small, nameless rabbit beastkin.
Constantly bullied, robbed, and abused, she had come to a realization.
'Emotions are useless. They only make things harder for me.'
She discarded all her negative emotions, reaching a state bordering on enlightenment.
Then, one day, she asked herself a fundamental question about her existence.
'...Why do humans bully us?'
It wasn't out of resentment or a desire for revenge... it was pure curiosity.
No matter how much she pondered, she couldn't find an answer. Eventually, she decided to take action.
Hiding in a thicket, she threw a piece of rotten fruit at a human's head for the first time in her life.
Splat!
"Argh! Who did that?!"
The human startled by the fruit hitting his head.
The humans around him flustered.
The humans shouting in anger, demanding to know who threw it.
'...Huh?'
At that moment, the emotion she felt was pure amusement.
Revenge? A sense of justice?
She felt absolutely nothing of the sort.
'This... is incredibly fun.'
Unlike the negative emotions she had discarded in the past, a positive emotion—the first she had ever experienced—filled her heart.
The mere fact that she, who had always been bullied by humans, was now the one bothering them was exhilarating.
Ah, so that's why they do it, she understood. It was so fun that it made perfect sense why humans kept tormenting them.
In that case, wouldn't the fun double if they messed with each other?
With that thought, she immediately began preparing countless pranks to play on the humans.
Placing rotten fruit on the heads of sleeping humans, digging pitfall traps to make them fall in...
Every day, she played minor pranks on the humans and cackled with glee.
"You filthy rabbit beastkin!!! I'll kill you!!!"
"Ungrateful brat! We spared your life, and this is how you repay us?!"
Watching the humans swing their swords and fire magic into empty air in fits of rage was utterly hilarious.
Just because she was a rabbit beastkin didn't mean she was stupid. She easily evaded their pursuit using escape routes she had prepared in advance.
'Humans are such a foolish race!'
And so, it seemed like this "fun game" between her and the humans would go on forever.
But peace did not last.
Enraged, the humans gathered soldiers and invaded the rabbit beastkin village.
The result... was a horrific massacre.
Houses burned, and the rabbit beastkin were slaughtered without putting up any real resistance.
That night.
"Ha... haha..."
Having hidden and survived until the very end, she was still laughing in the middle of the village filled with the corpses of her kin.
'I don't get it... If you kill them, you can't tease them anymore. Why on earth did they kill them?'
Her expression was one of sheer incomprehension at human behavior.
Her curiosity far outweighed any fear.
The death of her kin? She didn't feel a shred of guilt, so not a single tear fell.
She figured that if they hated her so much, they should have just killed her. Wiping out her entire tribe instead was just proof of how incredibly stupid humans were.
Thinking about it that way actually put her in a bad mood.
'...Now that I think about it, this is ridiculous.'
Her kin had been painfully killed all because humans were so brainless.
Wouldn't the world be a better place if all these stupid humans just died?
As she was thinking this, the air tore open, and someone stepped through.
A grotesque entity with a blood-red body and bizarrely twisting horns.
The being, known to the world as a "demon," greeted her in a frivolous voice.
"Kihahahat~! Greetings, cute and cuddly little rabbit~!"
"...Who are you?"
"Me? You ask who I am? Kihaha! I am the Demon of Wrath, and I absolutely adore the emotion of anger! You can just call me Satan~!!"
In the village reeking of fresh blood, Satan introduced himself with exaggerated gestures.
His tongue was so long it seemed to stretch down to his neck, and his mouth was torn wide, almost reaching his ears.
"By the way, why are you laughing all by yourself when your kin are all dead? Or... are your emotions broken? Hmm?"
She stared at Satan, offering no reply, simply observing him.
"...It's been hard to find an interesting soul lately, but you? I've got a really good feeling about you~! Kihahaha!"
Satan laughed frivolously and pulled a jar out of a dimensional rift.
Inside the jar was a dark red soul, still burning fiercely.
"This is the eighty-seven-year-old soul of a priest! This guy spent his entire life serving his god. So, I killed his whole family, killed everyone around him, and even killed the people he saved! And do you know what? Right before he died, he wailed at his god, asking why He hadn't saved them! Oh, the look on his face~! It still makes me laugh just thinking about it!!! Kihahahahaha!!!"
Shoving the jar back into the rift, Satan pointed a finger at her.
"In that sense, you too~! You're the perfect fit for my collection! If you get so angry that you lose your mind—I bet your soul will burn with a truly exquisite flavor~!!"
She stared blankly before tilting her head.
"...What is that? What are you going to use it for?"
"To display! To admire! To enjoy! And when I get bored of it, I might even eat it! Kihahahahaha!"
Satan began spinning and dancing on the spot.
"A soul captured at the absolute peak of its wrath! Lined up neatly on the shelves of my palace! Admiring them all~! Isn't it magnificent? You should consider it an honor~!"
After listening to Satan and thinking for a moment, she spoke.
"Are you insane?"
"......I'll take that as a compliment~! Now, here's the deal~!"
As Satan reached out again, crimson mana bloomed from his fingertips.
"I'll be very generous and help you~! I can bring all your kin back to life! In exchange, you just have to hand over your soul, and our contract is complete~! How about it? A total win-win, right? Opportunities like this don't come often~!"
Satan demanded her soul in exchange for resurrecting her kin.
However, she couldn't bring herself to believe a word he said.
"Then help me first."
"Hoho~?"
"I'll see how well you help, and then I'll think about it."
"Oho~ You're quite a bold little cutie, aren't you? I like you even more now! Kihahahahahahaha!!!"
Satan laughed heartily and spread his arms wide.
Wrathforge
Red smoke erupted from Satan's body, enveloping the surrounding corpses.
The dead bodies began to squirm, bones reassembling and flesh knitting back together.
However, her kin were not restored to their original forms.
A bear-rabbit with a massive body.
A mackerel-rabbit with the body of a mackerel and rabbit-paw fins.
A rab-rab-rabbit with three heads.
A crow-rabbit with black wings.
A spider-rabbit with eight legs.
"■■■■■—!!!"
The villagers, who had clearly been "rabbit beastkin" just a day ago, had mutated into twisted, monstrous rabbits, letting out incomprehensible screeches.
The mutated rabbits then immediately charged toward the human village.
Before long, the distant screams of countless humans being slaughtered echoed through the night.
"Kihahahaha!!! How is it? Isn't it magnificent? They've been redesigned so stylishly that you can't even recognize their old selves! And they're much stronger now thanks to my authority! I heard that becoming strong was the long-cherished dream of the rabbit beastkin, and I just fulfilled it for them~! Aren't I just the sweetest?!"
At Satan's words, she let out a dry chuckle.
"They certainly got stronger."
"Right? Right, right, right?!"
Satan clapped his hands in excitement.
Then, his face twisted into a sly smirk as he demanded payment for his "help."
"So—! It's time to make a decision, my little cutie~? If you hand over your soul, I might even turn them back to normal, you know? After all, your kin turning into monsters is entirely your fault—"
"No, it's not."
"......Huh?"
"You're the one who made them like that. Are you stupid?"
"......What?"
She retorted with an expression of utter disbelief.
"You're terrible at lying, you look weird, and your dialogue is so childish... Honestly, humans are better at this. Why don't you go learn a thing or two from them first?"
For the first time, Satan's face stiffened.
"...You dare call me inferior to those trashy humans?"
The frivolous tone and exaggerated gestures from moments ago vanished completely.
In their place, an immense authority of Wrath began to leak out, assaulting her mind.
In truth, the humans attacking the rabbit beastkin village had been a play orchestrated entirely on a stage prepared by Satan.
He had stoked the conflict between the races to make them fight, hoping anyone would produce a delicious, high-quality crop of wrath.
Therefore, exposed defenselessly to his authority, she should have lost her mind to rage from the very beginning.
Yet, even as Satan unleashed his authority at maximum output, she remained completely unaffected, without a single speck of anger. It was an anomaly.
"You can't even understand that? How is your comprehension worse than a human's? Do you lack basic intelligence?"
"I could tear your flesh to shreds right now and rip your soul out by force... you know that, right?"
At Satan's death threat, which was dripping with growing rage, she looked slightly surprised for a split second before giggling.
"Wait, aren't you the Demon of Wrath? How can you get so angry over a little talk? A demon who controls wrath can't even control his own anger? Wow~ What a waste of a title."
"...Shut... your mouth...!"
Thoroughly triggered by her words, Satan's rage escalated.
At the same time, his authority of Wrath grew even stronger, but absolutely nothing happened to her.
It was as if the very emotion of "anger" had been completely excised from her being.
And at that moment, she thought of the magic words that would completely blow Satan's fuse.
"Triggered?"
"...I am not triggered!!! I am the great Demon of Wrath! I have lived for an eternity, there is no way I would be triggered by the words of a mere, insignificant rabbit beastkin—"
"Boomer?"
"Aaaaaaaaargh—!!!!!!!!!!"
Having completely lost his mind to rage, Satan roared at her.
His entire body swelled and expanded as his mana went wild, erupting uncontrollably.
Then, a sudden anomaly occurred.
Thump!
Something began to spasm inside Satan's body.
The authority of Wrath had moved.
The condition to maintain that authority was to feed it "high-quality wrath" at regular intervals.
Satan had spent his entire life feeding anger to his authority.
However—
At this very moment.
The "most plump, delicious, and high-quality wrath" had been served on the authority's plate.
And that was none other than Satan's own rage.
The authority of Wrath was deeply satisfied.
Instantly picking up its fork and knife, the authority began to feast upon the most appetizing and nutritious wrath of all—Satan himself.
"A-Argh—!! No! Stop! I am not the prey—!!!"
As Satan's body was devoured from the inside out, his form began to compress grotesquely.
Ultimately, Satan was swallowed whole by his own authority of Wrath. Left without a master, the power of the authority drifted in the air.
And then, the authority immediately sought out a new vessel.
"...Huh?"
She opened her eyes, having been briefly knocked out by Satan's roar.
The rabbit beastkin had somehow defeated Satan through sheer verbal trolling.
Within her now resided the authority of Wrath that once belonged to Satan. Having devoured its former master, the authority had reborn her into a far more powerful being.
After sitting there for a long while, she walked down to where the human village used to be.
Thanks to the mutated rabbits' wild rampage, all the humans there lay dead in gruesome states.
"Ah, they're all dead. Now I can't even tease them anymore."
Just then, a brilliant idea struck her.
"Then can I just bring them back to life? Let's see, uh... Wrathforge?"
Wrathforge
Red mist erupted from her body, enveloping the human corpses.
If it had been Satan, he would have created monsters combining animal and human traits.
She, on the other hand, fused all the human corpses into a single entity.
What resulted was a massive centipede monster with rabbit-like features.
Because so many corpses had been fused together, each individual leg of the creature resembled another smaller centipede.
"This is the perfect look for you guys."
Riding atop the newly born monster—the giant centipede-rabbit—she looked up at the sky.
The sky was clear, and the breeze was cool.
Since that day.
Rumors began to spread like ghost stories among adventurers about grotesque, mutated rabbits spotted deep within the abandoned forest.
The terrifying rumors claimed that these mutated rabbits wouldn't attack unless their territory was breached, but anyone foolish enough to trespass would meet a gruesome end.
The rumors persisted for years, but since the mutated rabbits never left their territory, humans suffered no further harm.
Eventually, as no one dared to trespass anymore, the rumors of the mutated rabbits' domain... slowly faded into oblivion.
Then, one day.
"GOMTOKI-!!!"
"Whoa! A bear-shaped rabbit! So cute!"
A mysterious little angel who had appeared in Eriel just a few days prior.
From the very moment the angel, who introduced herself as Tricia, crossed paths with a certain rabbit beastkin—
The story of saving the fantasy world of Eriel began.
The first page of a delightful and hilarious adventure had officially turned.