Clara was hauled out of the Great Rabbit’s warehouse by her ears.
Then, she saw the Azure Cavalry, who was supposed to be dead.
“*Squeak!?*”
Clara cried out loudly, but for an ordinary Moon Rabbit dangling from a rabbit soldier’s grip, the Azure Cavalry didn’t even bother to look up.
The rabbit soldier didn’t give her a hard time, simply preparing to send her back to the underground area where the ordinary Moon Rabbits belonged. The Moon Rabbits’ social structure was simple, appearing to lack any reward or punishment mechanism. Even though she had made a mistake, she wasn’t being held accountable.
Escaping only meant being caught and brought back; this time, her wandering resulted in nothing more than being tossed back.
Inside this air-raid shelter-like basement, there were tunnels connecting to the main base. Under the rabbit soldier’s watchful eye, Clara obediently rolled back down the tunnel into the underground.
Despite the attack by Clara and Sista, the expected mass migration hadn’t occurred. With only four heroes remaining, even a fool could conclude that they wouldn’t be able to defeat the rabbit soldiers even if they attacked all at once…
Were Psycho and that Matriarch popping champagne somewhere right now?
It was a shame she still hadn’t seen the most crucial figure—the Matriarch.
Upon returning to the tunnels, Clara didn’t go back to work.
To her, all the surrounding rabbits were fools. The rabbit soldiers were nothing but muscle-brained idiots. In this place, not clocking in was the same as not working. It was incredibly easy to slack off in this rabbit hole.
Currently, Clara was loafing around in a secret tunnel she had dug herself. Nyx was assisting her in organizing her thoughts and brainstorming a plan. **[So, what do you plan to do next?]**
‘Since I know the Azure Cavalry is upstairs, we have to find a way to get close to him.’
‘No, approaching him might be difficult. Should I try to instigate a rebellion among the ordinary Moon Rabbits first?’
Judging from the previous escape, there was definitely a portion of Moon Rabbits who can’t stand the process of using their lives to create rabbit soldiers. If she could unite them under her command, she might be able to weaken the effective force of the Fourth Disaster.
**[Then how do you plan to incite these Moon Rabbits?]**
‘First, I have to make them understand their own situation.’
The ecosystem of the resort site is fragile. It can’t withstand the unrestrained hunting and breeding of these Moon Rabbits. Once everything edible has been consumed, this group of Moon Rabbits will still starve to death.
The Fourth Disaster won’t save them when that time comes. After all, they’re just biological weapons. Taking them along would only be asking for trouble, so they’ll likely just let the rabbits be destroyed along with this site.
‘If there’s a way to make them understand this, I might be able to trick—cough, I mean, guide them toward an ideal direction for their evolution.’
That meant controlling their numbers, reducing their breeding impulses, and improving individual intelligence and quality.
Other animals might not be able to do it, but for something that can iterate several times a day, the possibility exists. Moon Rabbits and Earth rabbits are entirely different species; these are just a lunar swarm wearing rabbit skins.
**[The more complex and advanced a species is, the slower its reproduction becomes. Therefore, the direction of making them “harmless” is correct, but it will take a long time.]**
‘Oh! Nyx actually agrees with my perspective!’
Clara was a bit surprised. She even felt a little… happy? **[In that case, how do you intend to inform the ordinary Moon Rabbits of all this?]**
‘Uh, I haven’t… haven’t thought of that yet.’
Clara was immediately stumped by the question.
In this regard, she truly had no clue, no matter how much she racked her brain.
The biggest problem among the Moon Rabbits was communication. The Fourth Disaster had placed shackles on them in this regard. Despite having intelligence that was considered excellent among animals, the Moon Rabbits had not evolved a unified way to communicate, let alone a language.
**[The modification Fran mentioned might be possible by adjusting the data. By using a modified combat unit capable of speech to breed with female rabbits, the offspring would be able to understand language…]**
‘Hey, stop!!’
Nyx was saying something truly terrifying in a calm tone.
‘There is no way in hell I’m going to have children with a female rabbit!’
‘Wait, can combat units actually have children with other Moon Rabbits?’
**[If necessary, Clara can also give birth.]**
‘Do—Do not say another word!!’
Clara slammed her rabbit head against the ground, trying to erase the imaginary image of ‘a seven-month pregnant Clara tenderly stroking her protruding belly’ that had popped into her mind.
Wait, the person staying by her side was…
Sista?!
‘Does he count as the father?! How would that even work?’
**[Aside from that, Nyx currently has no other method of communicating with the Moon Rabbits.]**
‘In the end, there’s still no way!’
Clara rolled around in the tunnel and scratched her fluffy, chubby rabbit rear with her claws.
When those rabbit soldiers commanded or called the roll for the ordinary Moon Rabbits, they only used body language. Even those guys couldn’t speak, so it seemed there really weren’t any good means of communication.
With communication comes the formation of writing, culture, and civilization.
However, for a useful biological weapon, communication was an unnecessary existence.
**[Wait, that might not be entirely true.]**
Nyx seemed to have thought of something else.
**[If communication is completely impossible, then how do the Moon Rabbit Matriarch and Psycho command these rabbits? They can’t possibly use body language to issue all their orders.]**
Those rabbits were conducting guerrilla warfare yesterday; they must have received some kind of order to react so quickly. It was as if someone were directing them from behind the scenes.
Recalling the air-raid shelter, there was no verbal exchange between Psycho and the Moon Rabbits, yet those rabbits automatically rushed out to buy her time to escape.
While it wasn’t a spoken language, there must be a command system!
Having found a direction, Clara scrambled up from the ground, her rabbit legs flailing.
**[As for what it is exactly, we will only find the answer by getting close to the Matriarch.]**
‘In the end, it all circles back to that one, huh?’
‘No, let’s start with that strange Azure Cavalry as the point of entry.’
Looking left and right, Clara slipped out of her dedicated slacking tunnel and looked toward the passage she had rolled down earlier.
The chaos at the main base had been brought under control. The Moon Rabbits had returned to their respective posts, doing whatever they were supposed to be doing. There were also rabbit soldiers standing guard by the tunnels.
Rabbits other than Clara didn’t really know how to slack off, and the rabbit soldiers were very dedicated to their sentry duties.
At the very least, they were more professional than the resort’s security personnel.
Clara knew she definitely couldn’t get through. Even if she tried to rush past, she would just be tossed back.
‘How annoying. How am I supposed to sneak past?’
Just as she was at her wit’s end, another rabbit soldier came down. It casually pointed out several ordinary Moon Rabbits and then led them back upstairs.
‘What are they going to do? Is it a mission?’
Thinking carefully, the rabbit soldier who had caught her in the infirmary—the one who showed her the miracle of a rabbit turning into a human—had also been accompanied by an ordinary Moon Rabbit.
When rabbit soldiers went on missions, they would choose to take ordinary Moon Rabbits with them.
And the air-raid shelter above was the regular entrance and exit for the rabbit soldiers, who were too large to squeeze through the rabbit holes, to leave the main base.
‘I see…’
Having made up her mind, Clara hurried to catch up and blended into the group.