Bunny Girl

43 – The White Shadow Comes

49 Comments 
[Shedy] [Race: Bunny Girl] [Lesser Archdemon Lv. 2]
・The rabbit demon of Laplace. Trickster and guide of man’s fate.

[Magic Points: 14200/15600] 3600↑
[Total Combat Power: 15700/17100] 3900↑
[Unique Skill: <Causality Alteration> <Cyber-Manipulation> <Absorption> <Materialization>] 
[Racial Skill: <Fear> <Mist Form>]
[Simple Identification] [Human Form (Wonderful)] [Subspace Inventory]

I got to level two of Lesser Archdemon.

I only gained about 5 magic from killing a single normal person. Even if a soldier was worth 10, I still didn’t kill all that many people this time around. About 3000 of my magic gain was coming from out of nowhere.

“…was it you?” I spoke to the reborn Sapling. I thought I felt a faint wisp of mana reaching me, as though a response.

 

The souls of the 99 secret alpha testers, those who had died from the corporation’s betrayal, were resting in the World Tree. They would then be granted new lives as the reborn Saplings.

Who this Sapling used to be, I didn’t know. All the same, they had turned a fragment of their newly-gained lifeforce into a white magic stone to give to me.

Thanks. I’ll protect you, I swear it.

I and Blobsy continued building the small mulch hill.

*boing*

We finished our work. Blobsy jiggled on my shoulder, as though proud of a job well done.

 

I should confirm the location, at least. I climbed on top of a nearby mountain. There, I saw the town, so far away it shrank to the size of a button. I’d already known a new Sapling couldn’t be too far away from the old one, but this was probably 200 kilometers at least.

There was even a deep gorge in between. I was quite sure the new Sapling could grow to maturity without being discovered.

…I wondered how that country was doing. Well, the place was sure to be crowding with watcher drones anyway, and it wasn’t like I had all that much time to waste.

“Alright. Come on Blobsy, let’s go back.”

*boing*

As things were, it’d be risky to continue with the Southern Continent. We returned to the reborn Sapling and rode on the network, going back to the World Tree.

 

***

“The Dark Lady Fluffy Bunny decided to get started on her campaign of terror right away, I see.”

“I saw that sudden announcement. So what’s going to happen? Apparently the Sapling’s gone and you can’t use the Temple there anymore. Does it mean people from that country won’t be able to revive anymore?”

“Looks like it. New players can no longer choose the country, while existing players there would see their bases as ‘out of bounds’ and get teleported to the closest country.”

“I saw this in another game too, the thing where a human territory gets taken by the big bad and then you can’t use the town services anymore. Though in that game you could retake the town by killing enough monsters without dying.”

“Still no information on that front, huh. I haven’t seen any event quest to revive the destroyed Sapling either. Does that mean the monster players can live there now?”
“Hey peeps, so I bought the monster avatar DLC. And then on today’s morning, there’s a weird new quest. It says the objective is to ‘defeat the current Dark Lady and become the new Dark Lord/Lady’.”

“What? Monsters aren’t the Dark Lady’s allies? What’s with that?”

“According to what they said, that Fluffy Bunny isn’t a normal Dark Lord, she’s a world-destroying Demon. If the world is destroyed, it means the monsters will die off too, so the main goal of monster players is to grow stronger and become the new Dark Lord.”

“...that’s kinda different from what I imagined. I thought it’d be super cool to fight against humans under the Bunny’s banner, which was why I’d been thinking about buying the DLC, but now…”

“It kind of feels like the game direction is going all over the place, don’t you think? Like the game developers are flip-flopping.”
“That reminds me, what’s going to happen to that country now that the Temple’s unavailable? Is it going to turn into a hostile area full of monsters?”

“I can tell you about that, I picked Rantetrois as the spawn point back when I first signed up. Basically, the town got fucked up.”

“The Fluffy Bunny came there, right? Did you see her?”

“And it wasn’t just any normal destruction, either. There was a riot in front of a huge building, probably the king’s palace. I could barely see my feet due to the fog. I thought the Bunny was fighting, but turned out it was all humans killing each other. Now the whole street’s fucked up by mosaics. Couldn’t see shit.”

“Oh, so by ‘fucked up’ you actually meant the town turned into a pixelated mess…”
“So what’s going on in the Rantetrois region now?”

“I tested a few things out since I was nearby. Logging in and out still works at least, but if you die, you’ll randomly revive somewhere in your spawn country. But more importantly, monsters there are way too tough! Like the caterpillars. They must have gotten a 50% increase in stats.”

“The whole country’s an absolute mess now. I’m playing a monster avatar, and I can just go into villages just fine. They don’t have barriers anymore. The slaves ran off, the farmers are panicking and running from the black caterpillars eating their cabbages. I honestly wasn’t sure how I should be reacting.”

“I guess that country’s pretty much dead now.”

***

 

Near the northern edge of the Southern Continent lay the Principality of Rantetrois. With its Sapling destroyed, anything that used mana in the country were turning themselves off one after another.

With its high demand for mana, the first to go was the railway.

The locomotives did have magic stones as batteries, but they were only used to start the engine and as reserve mana in cases accidents occurred mid-way through a trip. In normal running, the rails supplied magic to the trains.

When the rails were no longer active, the trains stopped. Before starting up the train with the reserve mana battery, the conductors decided to call to ask about the situation. It was only then that they learned about the destruction of the Sapling.

 

The next to go were the lighting, plumbing, and other such essential utilities. The only bit of lamp oil and kindlings available were at the shops selling traveling goods. The people couldn’t even cook due to the lack of water. Unable to understand the situation, they fell into panic. Chaos reigned.

Next to fail were the magic equipment managing the slave collars, and almost at the same time, the barriers protecting towns and villages from monsters. Demihumans began their escape.

In farming villages with nothing but a simple fence, Fiend Wolves commenced their attacks, looking for livestock to feed on. The humans were still fending them off, but their own food supply was beginning to look dire. People were going into forests to get firewood despite lacking proper preparations, which often resulted in them being attacked by monsters. The situation was spiraling into unmitigated disaster.

The people in power took no time in escaping the country on express carriages, together with what valuables they could carry. Bit by bit, society unraveled. The Principality of Rantetrois was slowly turning into a wasteland.

 

***

 

The events that had transpired in the Southern Continent — the loss of a Sapling, and Rantetrois’ ensuing descent into chaos — were being taken under serious considerations by the Central Continent, by nature a continent sensitive to information of all kinds. In contrast, the other continents did not attach as much importance to the matter. Perhaps they weren’t even aware of it.

52 years ago, the 92nd Sapling was discovered, and a new country was born. Torbandeux, a relatively young island country.

However, no one was interested in it, due to the simple fact that the island had nothing but forests. Despite being the 92nd, it was only 18 years ago that development truly started, when one of the nobles of the 97th country, the large country Torbasept, decided to stake their claim.

Despite being called a ‘country’ due to possessing a Sapling, Torbandeux had only just recently become a small village. It had just the bare minimum of soldiers and about two thousand settlers.

 

Convenience and comfort were still far away, but the people were lively, full of spirit. There was no lack of smiles on their faces. Night after night, in taverns they declared their dream of turning their village into a true nation. And working toward that dream were hundreds of beastmen slaving away without rest.

 

The Sapling still had nothing more than a simple fence surrounding it. Stakes were driven into it to gather mana. Standing on top of a fortress constructed a few years ago, the young governor of the country was watching the tree, all the while taking sips of alcohol.

And then, in front of him, the impossible happened. All of a sudden, the Sapling turned white.

“Wha…”

And shattered into dust.

Where the Sapling used to be, there now stood a girl, white rabbit ears drooping from her head. He stared at her, dumbfounded. She noticed him and gave him a gentle bow. Then she disappeared in a blink of an eye.

 

With the Sapling’s blessing now gone, Torbandeux returned to its true climate of a northern island. An abrupt blizzard ravaged the village. The citizens could do nothing but ran for their own lives, leaving their demihumans slaves behind.

[Shedy] [Race: Bunny Girl] [Lesser Archdemon Lv. 3]
・The rabbit demon of Laplace. Trickster and guide of man’s fate.

[Magic Points: 15200/18700] 3100↑
[Total Combat Power: 17000/20500] 3400↑
[Unique Skill: <Causality Alteration> <Cyber-Manipulation> <Absorption> <Materialization>] 
[Racial Skill: <Fear> <Mist Form>]
[Simple Identification] [Human Form (Wonderful)] [Subspace Inventory]

Author’s Notes: Demihumans were used to toiling away without the convenience of mana, so as long as they had tools, they could survive even if the mana was gone. Climate’s worse now, but it was still more peace of mind than they ever had under the humans’ rule.

A few years later and the beastmen might actually get fluffy fur again!

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49 thoughts on “43 – The White Shadow Comes”

      1. Not really.

        Exponential growth in forces, military strength until a final stand at the centre of it all.

        The storyline is definitely hard to reach a good end, but in this case I believe the good end would be to destroy all remaining 97 saplings and reaching the point of becoming a true demon. The next 10 or so are likely to go down with little resistance, but after that military efforts are likely to expand greatly; or retreat for a last stand at the world tree itself; creating tools and magic and so on.

        The likely outcomes are that Shedy destroys the link with Earth; preventing avatars from coming again (possible), else new avatars cannot be created without a friend to use as a pointer. Others are that she gains the support of the main base of avatars and pushes out the jerk guy, or she reaches a point where she can directly alter the past; present and future and kills the jerk in all timelines. Difficult, but not impossible for Shedy.

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        1. I wonder if she can kill player’s real bodies using causality alteration? I’d guess it would take a huge amount of mana, but maybe it will be worth it once she’s a greater Archdemon. It would be a huge wake up call, and the government and corporation would suffer a pretty big backlash once their ‘game’ started killing ordinary civilians.

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        2. It would be hilarious if they prepared a last stand at the world tree itself since Shedy has no intention of destroying that. She just has to take out the saplings.

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          1. Yes, except that that’s what the narrative becomes even if it will never happen.

            Also, Shedy would be killing everyone to get to the world tree and then take out the corporation. So having the narrative there (even if it’s incorrect) provides some means of … improving their ability to work as a group I guess.

            The alternative is she does a purge and straight up hunts humanity, so gathering around the world tree (the final known place of one of those trees) makes it easier for her, plus she would have backed them into a corner in totality. Even if it isn’t correct, it’s still giving the players enough information to gather for a stand.

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            1. Not to mention that if it came down to that, it’s likely the world tree itself would turn it’s formidable defenses on the humans at the same time.

              I do think we’ll see at least some of the players side with her once they learn the truth. Then again, there will be some who are nutty to start with who wont care or even deliberately go against her out of craziness or greed.

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    2. Most games that advertise themselves as letting you play the bad guy pull that “oh you’re bad but not as bad as that other guy” stuff, very rarely do you get something like Soul Nomad’s demon path where you’re so evil it would make Uncle Stan blush.

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      1. Yeah, I remember Soul Nomad.
        The demon path is so evil that losing in the final level is the good ending lol.

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    3. Being able to play the bad guys during a state of exception is a bit like having your cake and eating it, too.

      Except this is an ad-hoc narrative and they’d already revealed Shedy, so people got attached to that.

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    2. This is a fun story, but pretty much all of the bad guys’ plan requires EVERYONE to be pants on head retarded for it to work.

      And apparently everyone is that stupid, because NOBODY has noticed yet.

      I swear, the average Scooby-Do villain could have come up with a more logical plan than this.

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      1. I know, right? Here we have a highly advanced AI, capable of human thinking, and it controls hundreds of thousands of NPCs

        Deeefinitely not suspicious, of course.

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        1. I agree its high;y suspicious, but at the same time its less suspicious than teleporting to another world and “mana” being a real thing. We already know theoretically the amount of computation power needed to simulate real human minds, so its not a stretch to say that one day it might be possible to achieve it (at least in a rudimentary form, since you don’t need to simulate real humans, you just need to fool the players into believing that they are real).

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  5. I feel like Shedy has revealed a card she didn’t need to reveal already, IE that distance between saplings is a non-factor. If she hadn’t jumped halfway across the world to take down a relatively undefended sapling, she could have saved that piece of knowledge for an ambush on one of the central continents heavily guarded saplings. She could have easily misdirected them into thinking she was far away, by only attacking nearby saplings. Only then she should have jumped into the central continent to try and blitz down as many as she could before they caught onto the ruse.

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    1. Look at it this way. This means that from the start they won’t be able to focus their forces anywhere.

      If the central continent or Corporation want to stop her they’ll either have to predict her next target or equally scatter troups.

      The most likely situation is for the central continent to turtle itself which will make it harder to attack but make her conquest of the outer region extremely easy.

      Meanwhile the central guys will have no idea that each fallen country earned her a powerup so by the time she goes for them she’ll be a lot stronger.

      Liked by 1 person

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    2. Heavily defended means that she actually can’t do that, she got bounced some distance from Rantetrois’ low budget shield, and unless the shield exploit from the older final Fantasy games is viable here, she probably can’t port near any of the major countries.

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  10. Thanks for chapter.
    I can’t wait when see another massacre when Shedy going to earth again. They much idiot anyway, to think give mission to became dark lord rather than become Shedy ally.
    If they give mission getting close with her it can monitor Shedy(it doubt that Shedy is care, but better than make impossible by try defeat her).
    Well… they will become Shedy food(magical power) anyway so it either same, but if they can’t think this level that means they are idiot or truly underestimate Shedy.

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      1. What I mean is use player as spy and attack her like before, attacking her nonstop when then know her location. There a way to increase security in place when she going attacked if they know place her attacked.

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  12. it’s the little odd that the fate of the demi humans is relegated to an author’s note.

    does the author use the notes to just add anything they forgot to write before?

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    1. I think it makes quite a bit of sense. The story is written in first person, so general world knowledge is hard to come across– especially when shedy is sniping world trees and massacring humans before talking to them.

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  14. This seems a bit blasé for what seems to be turning into plain genocide… I agree the humans are doing bad things, but to not present even a little conflict with something like this sits wrongly with me.

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    1. They were too dyed in the colors of the corporation for mercy, just look at the method they extract the mana, and the sudden shift in attitude when the person doing all the killing shows her bunny ears.

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      1. It’s still genocide. I just feel that should be treated with a bit more gravity. Not by the characters, necessarily, but by the narrative.

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    2. She’s a demon, she doesn’t care. If this is by the same author as Lax Demon then demons basically exist to fuck you up and make sure you know your place when you get out of line. If they aren’t scary and cruel then you won’t behave yourself.

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      1. The characters can be blasé, but it’s another thing for the *narrative* to be blasé, especially since it’s not strictly first person. The framing is the issue.

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    3. Well… that’s fair, but…
      There is a place in the world for silly simple good-versus-evil stories. The important thing is to let the reader know that they are supposed to leave their sensibility at the front door. Humans are evil, beastmen are good, the protagonist is a mature beastman trapped in a child human body who gets a perfect magical conversion… throw your suspension of disbelief at these facts and everything gets better!

      If you want some sort of conflict over whether or not the human species should be exterminated, then you may have to give up on this story. Meanwhile, my spirit-self is a Dalek! So Imma stay ‘n have fun!

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      1. Sure, one can willfully not analyze the text they are reading. That seems both unwise and less enjoyable to me, though. I am consuming the message either way; I’d rather do it with my eyes open.

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      2. She’s not here to wipe humanity out. She’s here to remove them from their position of power because they’re acting like spoiled brats. This will probably result in the destruction of civilization as they know it, but that kind of civilization is fundamentally doomed to failure anyway. If they were less reliant on the Saplings this wouldn’t have been such a problem.

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  17. “It kind of feels like the game direction is going all over the place, don’t you think? Like the game developers are flip-flopping.”

    “Now the whole street’s fucked up by mosaics. Couldn’t see shit.”

    The Info-dumping chapter was quite forced, but the story is very entertaining. Especially those two comments were hilarious. Thanks for working hard to translate that pearl!!!

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  18. I’ve been thinking this since we were first showed them. But the Demi-Human are gonna eventually lead a rebellion.

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