True Vorpal Bunny (Danmachi SI) Ch.28 (Patreon)

Chapter 28:

Ali, or as she was more knowingly  known Aram Raza Shalzad, gazed down at the dress she was wearing. It was a beautiful piece of clothing that let her shoulders bare. She wasn’t used to wearing such feminine garments. It had been given to her after she had been carefully washed while the desert shook from the brawl outside of Leodo.

What kind of monster was the Freya Familia that a fight between their members was akin to a natural disaster?

Putting that thought out of her head, the girl who crossdressed as a prince steadied herself before she was escorted to the goddess’s room.

When a servant knocked on the door and they were allowed entry, Ali observed the room and its occupants while the door closed behind her.

As expected, Freya was lounging on a chair, that same smile that never left her face greeting her with its charming beauty. The desert princess had to force her gaze away.

Behind the goddess of beauty, there were the silver-haired attendant and the fat merchant. The merchant could barely keep his gaze away from Freya but he seemed to flinch before looking away. The maiden, on the other hand, looked at Ali and her gaze seemed to bore through her as if searching for any imperfection that would unsettle her goddess.

And then, on the bed, laying down and uncaring of decorum while a deity was in the room, there was the Hume Bunny, the one insane enough to spank a goddess with a leaf fan and reprimand her in public.

His body was covered in bruises and had a split lip, but from what she had heard, he and the tall Boaz man were the ones to drag the other seven adventurers back to town, all of them knocked out. Meaning that he had won the eight-on-one, or at least that the Boaz and the Hume Bunny decided they had enough once all the other fighters had been rendered unconscious.

The tanned rabbit who looked like he could have originated from Kaios looked back. His crimson eyes took her in like a bored cat who evaluated if she was worth the effort to get up and bother her.

Instead, his gaze shifted to his goddess.

“She’s here. Can I heal myself, yet?”

The goddess looked back at him with a small frown.

“You broke poor Allen’s leg. Maybe you should spend the night like that.”

“Don’t give me that. They have Elixirs.” Ali almost choked on her breath. Elixirs, plurals? “The only reason they aren’t using them is because they are saving them in case you hurt yourself. And when I say hurt, I mean getting a splinter  by leaning on a wooden rail or something equally asinine.”

Ali almost wanted to join the Hume Bunny in his scolding of the deity. Who used an Elixir on a splinter?

“And you say that as if we didn’t half-cripple each other on a weekly basis.”

Alis must have misheard that, clearly.

“Fine, fine. Heal yourself.” Freya waved the rabbit off before her eyes settled on Ali once more. “Sorry for ignoring you, especially after I was the one calling for you.”

The goddess apologizing was surprising enough that she almost didn’t catch the Hume Bunny chanting before he was covered in a golden glow and his injuries disappeared from sight.

[hr]

Iru stretched as the soreness went away while Freya started asking Ali about what she thought about the war between Shalzad and Warsa.

The girl stayed silent, and it was because she knew about the gods’ ability to sniff out lies. While it was common knowledge in Orario, outside of the Dungeon City the only ones who interacted with gods enough to know that tidbit were from the Familias of gods who decided to stay out of Orario or noble families who dealt with ruling gods since many took over kingdoms of their own, with the example of Rakia being under Ares’s control.

Between Alis’s aborted bow, the ones nobles used towards deities, and her refusal to answer some questions, Freya had quickly started piecing things together.

And then, she asked Bofman about the missing prince of Shalzad, and Iru’s enhanced senses caught the almost imperceptible flinch that went through Ali’s body. Really, Level 6 perception and the slightest knowledge of body language, and it was like you could read someone’s mind.

In his previous life, he could barely perceive obvious social clues, but now people were like open books.

The impressive part was Freya catching that with sheer experience on the human psyche. The goddess’s smile widened.

“Did the prince have any sister close to his age?” Freya asked Bofman but her eyes were focused on Ali.

Ali hung her head down while Bofman answered that the king didn’t have any daughters.

“Ali, you would certainly look handsome in men’s clothes. With some work, you could even look like the prince of a country.”

Bofman finally caught what Freya was saying.

Then, Freya started to explain how she guessed everything, from the bow to her poise and knowledge of deities’s lie detection.

“If people learned that Prince Aram was a princess, I wonder what would happen?”

This was the last straw. Ali couldn’t stay silent.

“Are you threatening me?!!” A roar escaped her mouth.

Standing beside Freya, Bofman flinched and took a step back. On the other side, Horn didn’t appreciate the tone Ali took toward her goddess.

For the second time in this trip, Iru had to intervene and stop her from stabbing someone.

“Let me go! I will stab this sow who dared to squeal at Lady Freya!”

With a sigh, Iru threw Horn on the bed. Before she could rise, Iru sat on her lap.

Horn froze, instincts battling between swift retribution for her goddess, and her body wanting to hug the cute rabbit sitting on her.

Then, Iru wiggled his ears, the soft appendages softly hitting Horn’s cheeks like kitten paws.

The silver attendant melted into a blissed-out state and started petting Iru’s hair.

Yandere-pacification style: Rabbit Body Pillow. Success.

Freya looked at the scene with some jealousy before focusing back on Ali.

“I’m not trying to threaten you, and I have no interest in the war.” Freya chuckled. “I was just teasing you to see your true form.”

After calming down, Ali asked to be fred so that she could go rejoin with her generals and that she would remember the debt she owed.

Freya acquiesced without a single issue. In her own words:

“Your collar has already been removed. You can move as you please. After all, I didn’t buy you because I wanted an enslaved puppet.”

Ali looked relieved, until Freya opened her mouth once more.

“However, I will make sure this debt is repaid.”

With those ominous words, Ali was then allowed to go back to her room.

[hr]

The day after, the princess was given traveling clothes and made to leave.

She froze upon seeing Freya waiting for her.

“Why are you here? You said you’d release me!”

“Yes, I did. But I didn’t say I wasn’t going to go with you.”

“Going with me? Why?” The princess was confused.

“Because I want to observe you. Your soul interests me. I want to see if it can shine brighter. If we had met earlier, I may even have wondered if you were my Odr.”

“Don’t toy with me!” Ali exploded. “I don’t have the time for a goddess’s whims-”

“Money.” The single word cut through Ali’s indignation.

“You don’t have the means to leave the city. I don’t know where you’re going but is it a place you can reach easily on foot?”

Freya got closer.

“Not only do I have money to buy what we need, I also have the fastest means of travel in the world.

Ali was confused. Freya clapped her hands.

“So, we’re going?” A voice came from above Ali’s head.

She looked up and beheld Iru floating above her.

“We’re going to fly you home, little bird.”