Bunny Girl Evolution [A Monster Evolution LitRPG]

What happened next could only be described as utter chaos. Sophie shouted Nick’s name before rushing to hug him. Nick was left speechless at the appearance of Sophie and the naked woman, and barely managed to react in time to catch her jumping off the table. Bianca smiled and joined in their hug while also subtly turning Nick so he wasn’t facing toward the table.

Meanwhile, Elise felt like she was suddenly a thousand feet underwater, the air compressing around her as the nude woman’s yellow eyes bore into her. Maia seemed to be affected by proximity as well, and Elise noticed her trembling slightly in the corner of her eyes.

“It was you!” said the woman.

“Dammit, Irylax!” shouted the jester and the king simultaneously.

“Wh- wha- I’m sorry?” squeaked Elise.

The next moment, the chaos grew as the king and jester suddenly leapt onto the table, and the nude woman rapidly turned around to face them. Elise and Maia gasped as the pressure vanished, then started rapidly backing up as what looked like a battle began. The nude woman started gathering mana in her body and raised her hands as if to cast a spell at her two attackers, only to freeze mid-motion. It was only for a split second, but it was enough for the two to get their hands to her head, each putting a hand on her temple.

For almost a full minute, the three were frozen in that position, and Elise and the others all held their breath, waiting for someone to move.

“Sophie, is she a friend?” asked Nick, drawing his sword.

“Wait!” she replied. “They’re helping her!”

“They are?”

“...I think so.”

They waited a bit longer until the three on the table suddenly broke apart, and the massive mana that had been gathering within the woman dissipated.

“Better?” asked the king.

“Yes,” said the nude woman, much calmer now.

“Now put on some clothes,” said the jester.

“Hmm? Oh. Right.”

Elise barely sensed even a hint of mana, but suddenly, the woman was clothed. Somewhat. It covered the important parts, at least. She turned back around and Elise felt the pressure return, though this time more controlled and less angry. Elise made eye contact briefly before turning away. Despite the fact that she had been nude not ten seconds before and was still standing on a table in the royal audience chamber, she bore not a hint of shame, and in fact, she looked more dignified than anyone Elise had ever seen.

“So you were the one spying on my disciple,” she said.

“What?” asked Elise.

“And you must be her brother,” said the woman, ignoring Elise and turning to Nick.

“Thank you for taking care of my sister,” said Nick, bowing.

“She did more for me than I did for her,” said the woman dismissively. “Also, what are you? You’re not human anymore.”

“What?” asked Sophie turning to her brother.

“A pseudo-dhampir,” said Nick.

What does that mean? wondered Elise.

The woman walked forward and crouched down at the edge of the table, staring at Nick.

“Hmmm,” she said. “I see. Interesting. Well, you are officially under my protection.”

Elise felt that there was some kind of subtle power carried by those words, but when she didn’t elaborate on what that meant, it kind of fell flat, leaving most of the room confused.

“...Thank you,” said Nick. “But what exactly does that mean?”

“Ah, right, I forgot to introduce myself,” said the woman, standing up and smiling. “I am Irylax!”

She stood proudly in place for a few seconds, then frowned when no one reacted.

“Has it really been that long?”

“About 500 years,” said the jester.

“And you blew up the city that knew most about you,” said the king.

“I’d be surprised if more than a few thousand people recognize your name,” said the jester.

“I’d be surprised if more than a few hundred did,” said the king.

“Damn,” said Irylax. “Well, I am Irylax, scourge of the North Sea, and the strongest black dragon in the world!”

“Actually, I think Indrax is stronger right now,” said the jester.

“What?!” asked Irylax. “That runt?!”

“Yes, he’s been doing well for himself,” said the king.

“Wiped out a dwarven kingdom a little while after you disappeared,” said the jester.

What?! thought Elise.

“He’s got a pretty big territory right in the middle of the biggest country on the continent right now,” said the king.

“Hmmmm, I’ll have to pay him a visit,” said Irylax. “Regardless, you, Nicholas, now have the protection of a dragon. And your fiancée too, I guess.”

“I-” stammered Nick. “Thank you. Truly. I don’t-”

“I should do at least this much for my goddaughter’s family.”

“Goddaughter?” asked Nick, glancing between Irylax and Sophie. “Sophie, what happened to you?”

“Well, so basically…”

Sophie launched into a short but animated explanation of how she had opened her eyes to find herself on the mysterious island with no one but Irylax–who she called Iris once or twice– to keep her company. She spent a few months there training, dealing with Irylax’s constant insanity until eventually, they were able to break through the mysterious barrier, at which point Freddy appeared and handed them a teleportation scroll that took them into the audience chamber.

“Ah, dammit, Freddy,” said the king.

“He got us,” sighed the jester.

“That he did,” said the king, shaking his head. “He probably knew they would arrive during the audience.”

“Wasn’t the timing too good though? We were just about to start.”

“He can’t predict the future, can he?”

“Hmmm, I’ll need to talk to Freddy too,” said Irylax. “Does Ostra still exist?”

“We’re actually going public,” said the king.

“Well, not completely,” said the jester. “But mostly.”

“I see,” she replied, putting a hand to her chin. “I’ll have to go visit. But first…” she turned back to face Elise. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

“I- I’m Snowberry.”

Elise cringed internally as her name was auto-translated into Common, but she had expected it, and wanted to do it. She glanced at Sophie, whose eyes were open wide.

“The rabbit?” asked Irylax. “Show me your true form.”

Reluctantly, Elise transformed back into her changeling form.

“Ohhhh,” said Irylax as soon as she did. “I understand now.”

The pressure vanished and Elise felt like a literal weight had been lifted off her shoulders as Irylax turned back to Sophie.

“Well, I won’t get in the way of your reunion. You two come with me.”

“Awww,” said the king and jester simultaneously. A moment later, the three of them vanished.

“What the fuck just happened?” asked Maia.

“Snowberry!” exclaimed Sophie extracting herself from Nick’s arms and running to hug Elise.

Elise let herself be picked up and after a few seconds, found herself leaning into it as Sophie stroked the back of her head.

“You got so big!” said Sophie.

“Yeah…” said Elise, feeling incredibly awkward.

“And you can turn into a human!”

“Sometimes,” Elise said. “It’s on cooldown right now since I transformed back.”

“That’s so cool!” she exclaimed. “What about Mom and Dad?”

“...They’re… gone,” said Elise quietly.

“Oh,” said Sophie.

“I’m sorry.”

Nick walked over and hugged both of them as Sophie started crying. They spent the next ten minutes in silence before Sophie stopped. When she did, the tears dried up almost instantly. Elise found it a little strange how quickly she went from sobbing to straight-faced, but she didn’t pry.

“So what happened to you guys?”

Nick and Bianca told their stories, and Elise gave the abridged version of her own, and then the conversation later turned to other things. They talked about hosting a funeral, at which point Elise was finally able to bring up the fact that she had salvaged the bodies. It earned her a grateful look from Nick, after which he went on to talk about how they would want to be buried back at the cabin.

“Is the monster still there?” he asked

“Yes,” said Elise, now back in her human form and scowling.

“Then we’ll have to take care of it,” he said. “I’ll recruit some knights and we’ll hunt it down.”

“I’m coming with you,” said Elise.

“No, it’s-”

“I’m. Coming. With. You.”

“...Alright.”

“Me too,” said Sophie.

“Absolutely not,” said Nick.

“But I’m strong now!” she said. “I have {Mana Manipulation}!”

“You’re barely 13,” said Nick. “You’re not going.”

“Well, you’re barely 20,” she retorted. “Iris- I mean Irylax is like a thousand years old. You’re basically a child too.”

“Sophie, this isn’t going to be a fun adventure. It’s serious.”

“I am serious!”

“Sophie, I’m not going to let you-”

“I’m going!” said Sophie.

As she spoke, her eyes turned yellow and slitted, just like Irylax’s, and a wave of mana spread out from her. For a moment, the pressure she exerted felt almost like the dragon’s before fading away. Nick was rendered speechless for a few seconds before responding.

“Fine,” he said. “But you’ll be in the backline.”

Sophie nodded. “Fine.”

“...Alright then,” said Nick. “And once the monster is taken care of, we can hold a funeral. And after that… Sophie, do you still want to go to Jelor Academy?”

Elise found the sudden change in tone and topic a little jarring, but Sophie seemed to like it, getting excited about the prospect. Elise thought it sounded interesting too, and idly wondered if she would be able to attend too after she evolved and was able to hold her human form indefinitely. She wasn’t the biggest fan of school back on Earth, but of course, Earth didn’t have magic.

She was definitely interested, but she also wasn’t sure if there was even anything that could benefit her there. Sure, learning more about the world would be useful, but as far as she was aware, the university was mostly designed to help the humanoids find their paths, and had heavy emphasis on building curriculums that guaranteed specific rare classes. She obviously didn’t have much use for any of that. She could still take classes that were more purely academic in focus, or, after evolution, she could maybe fake her way through one of the courses, but she wasn’t sure if that would be all that useful. It was something she would have to talk about with someone more knowledgeable, and fortunately, she was in the kingdom of changelings, so there was no better place to ask.

The conversation soon turned to other topics, finally allowing Maia, who had been sitting awkwardly on the side, to join in. Elise stayed mostly silent and continued thinking about her future. She had achieved most of her goals. She saved Nick and Bianca, found Sophie, reunited them, and she had made plans to bury Sylvanna and Corwin and hunt the warg. After that… she was free.

She wanted to evolve before they hunted the warg, but with that being her last specific goal left, she had to think more about the distant future. There had been a lot of revelations in the month leading up to Operation Blood, all of which had added layers of complexity to her situation, but it still all boiled down to one root question. What did she want to do?

It wasn’t an answer she had on hand, so she started making a mental list of things she knew about herself. First, she didn’t like feeling powerless. She had plenty of that during her stay with the dwarves and drow, and she hated it. She didn’t like seeing injustice and being unable to do anything about it. One of her proudest moments, looking back, was when she had used {Fey Bargaining} to force the brothel owner to treat her employees more fairly. She had taken action, and not only did it work, but she didn’t even need to spill any blood. So something that would let her continue to do things like that was a must.

She also enjoyed hunting. She hadn’t wanted to fully admit it when talking to Hans, but she could no longer deny it. Something about hunting and leveling, and the way it let her see the fruits of her labor so clearly triggered something primal in her. It was almost scary. At first, she thought it was something about her new species was messing with her head, and while she didn’t discount that entirely, she also realized that it was not something completely new either.

She had felt similar feelings back on Earth. She never hunted, or fought, but the way she felt when she won a race in track and field, or when she aced a difficult exam felt very similar. It wasn’t a new feeling. Just a new way to experience it. That said, she definitely still enjoyed it and wanted to continue experiencing it.

This wasn’t completely relevant to her future path, but it confirmed that she did want to keep leveling up and evolving. She liked Jag a lot, and respected his feelings, but having already experienced the boring human life, she knew she wanted to try the other option. The one where she kept pushing forward, trying to reach the top. While she didn’t really expect to make it all the way, she would still at least try for godhood.

With that desire came a few caveats. As Rayna and Titania explained, reaching godhood with a class tied directly to someone else was not ideal. That limited her evolution options a bit, because if she took a class directly tied to Titania and reached godhood with it, she would be forever under Titania.

So, she wanted to reach godhood, and she wanted the power to not feel powerless. That was a bit vague, but she could also narrow down her paths more with just that. After what she experienced and learned about aether, she knew it was probably the best route for her. During her conversation with Rayna, she talked a bit about her options if she went with anything other than a purely aether-focused evolution, and Elise wasn’t particularly drawn to any of them.

A self-healing berserker type evolution sounded powerful, but Elise didn’t like getting hurt. And if she wanted to try something more like Hans, where she fought normal with some supplementary aether skills, she would have to go a long way to make up the difference in stats she had missed out on in her early evolutions. It wasn’t insurmountable, since each new evolution would come with more and more stats, but she would always be just a little behind.

That left her with really just the pure aether classes, of which she immediately ruled Healer and Supporter out. She wanted some skills that could do that, but she didn’t want to be dependent on anyone else. She wanted to be self-sufficient. That left her with Illusionist. It was a pretty vague classification, but just by having the idea in her head that it was the direction she wanted to go, she felt much more sure of herself. She would have to wait and see what her evolution options would be before deciding on anything more specific, but having a general idea was good.

As for how she would reach that evolution? Well, she was in a nation ruled by monsters. They had to have some good hunting grounds nearby. She would have to ask, but she expected it wouldn’t be too difficult. And based on how the conversation was progressing, it sounded like the Grays would be staying for a bit, if they were allowed to, so that they could relax and enjoy being together again. Nick would write some letters and get some things sorted out, and in a few weeks, they would return to the forest and hunt the warg. Until then, Elise had a lot of free time that she would be able to use to work toward her next evolution.

After about an hour of talking, they finally split up, Nick, Sophie, and Bianca going off together while Elise and Maia were left to their own devices. Elise left the audience chamber soon after, deciding she would look for Sandra to ask about hunting grounds, only to find her waiting just outside the door.

“Oh, Sandra,” said Elise. “Can I ask you a couple quick questions?”

“Of course!” said the other changeling. “But not right now. The king wishes to speak with you. Alone. This time, he’s in his office. I’ll take you there.”

“Do you know what he wants to talk about?”

“Ostra business, I think,” said Sandra. “But I don’t know any details. Let’s go.”

Elise followed Sandra through the castle to an office on the top floor. Inside, the king was waiting, though he looked much less regal, now reclining in a cushy chair. The jester was there as well, sitting on a desk, and Irylax was sitting on a small couch, once again naked and leaning back with her arms spread on the backrest.

“Ah, you’re here,” said the king. “Come, sit down. We’ve got a really funny idea we wanted your help with.”