Afterword - Book 5 - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Chapter 3: A Tagalong

(Original Chapter Title: The Tagalong)

No, this is not a chapter about girlscout cookies.

The System has made Ranthia powerful, but at her level she's still no match for the fury of nature. It's sometimes easy to underestimate just how disastrous something like a snow storm can be—even our modern architecture, infrastructure, and material sciences can struggle with it. And the System has real numbers driving it, which means I can make realistic calls about just how resilient Ranthia might be in different conditions.

These are not good conditions for her. Especially not in a skirt and sandals with mostly bared arms.

But hey, she managed! And her reward for survival is... theft!

And yes, there is an explanation for how the bunny can teleport at her level. Ranthia correctly guesses a piece of it here. It's not just that caster monsters are kind of weird (though they definitely are).

One thing I like about this chapter is we get to see a side of Ranthia's personal ethics that usually doesn't get to come up much. Rabbits are food, but she's already made her dinner... and, at the end of the day, the rabbit is just desperately trying to survive. Ranthia can respect that, hence why she shared her precious food.

And for all her self-commentary about considering making the rabbit into breakfast, that had never seriously been on the table. There was no universe where she would have done that, even if the snow had continued to leave them trapped.

Oh, here's a teaching moment: Clover survived going for a day without food, but IRL even half of that would have been a major medical emergency. Rabbits have to keep grazing; that's why they should have unlimited hay to go with their actual food. And their food can't be all sweet "junk food" like fruit! Never trust a bunny's tummy for what they need in their diet.

They are silly.

But Clover has vitality, and the System makes for a heck of a force multiplier when it comes to survival (...which is the opposite of the point I made when I started this afterword, yes). Unfortunately, Ranthia still has to climb a mountain, which isn't exactly an ideal task to attempt with a wild animal that keeps jumping out of her backpack.