Chapter 18. Some Habits Don’t Die Just Because the Door Does

Chapter 18: 18. Some Habits Don’t Die Just Because the Door Does

I didn’t know what to say... After a moment I scratched the back of my neck and tried to hide how much that meant to me by being an idiot, which was my default setting.

"So does this respect... you know~! Come with a free food?" I asked. "This counts as an achievement that comes with a reward as well, right?!"

"I saved a girl and killed a slaver, and I’m about to get arrested! I think I deserve at least one decent meal."

"Sure. I will buy you a meal," Elsbeth said.

"Hoh~!?" I grinned. "Really?!"

"And then you will pay me back twice the price."

"Ehhh... I take it back... more like I prefer the version of you that threatens to kill me."

A tiny, hiccupping sound came from the corner.

’Huh?’

I looked over and saw Millie with her hand pressed over her mouth, and I realized she was laughing. It was a small and innocent-like laugh... and she was clearly trying to stop herself, but her shoulders were shaking and her ears had popped halfway back up.

My god... that’s the most precious thing I’ve ever seen! Beastwomen are the best, even if she’s not aggressive like Wolfy over here.

"Sorry..." she whispered. "I-I’m sorry... I just..."

"Nahhh! Don’t apologize about it, Millie," I said. "That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all day... your laugh, that is."

She flushed, and her ears flopped down again, but she kept smiling anyway.

...

Later... once the sun had gone down and the bells had finally stopped, Millie shuffled across the floor and sat down near my feet.

She picked at a loose thread on the shawl for a while, working up to something, and I let her take her time.

"Uhhmmm... Can I say something, mister...?" She said.

"M-mister?! I-I’m not that old... you can just call me Leon!" I replied while pointing myself with my thumb.

"Ohh... L-Leon..."

"What, something you want to say, Millie?" I smiled.

"Uh... Can I... Can I..." She closed her eyes just to take a deep breath. "C-c-can I...?!"

"H-huh?" I tilted my head to the left a little.

"CAN I... stay with you...?" she finally asked, still keeping her eyes closed.

But then she manages to take some courage in her by looking at me with those bunny eyes. "I... I don’t want to be a burden or anything for you, Leon..."

"I can work... and I’m excellent at cooking and cleaning! And... I won’t talk much." She then lowers her head. "But... I’m scared of being alone again."

Oh... my god. That’s... that’s the most precious thing I’ve heard all day, and I SWEAR ON MY LIFE that she’s going to be saved starting now.

"Sure~! You can stay as long as you want," I said. "But you don’t have to work or anything... and you don’t owe us anything."

"If you ever want to leave, you can... but ask us first, okay? That’s the point."

She stared at me. Then she nodded very slowly, and she reached out and held on to the end of my sleeve.

"Someday..." she said in a small, careful voice, "I want to be strong enough to protect somebody, too! Just like the way you protected me..."

I couldn’t help it. And so I smiled.

"Then I’ll help you find a way! I promise!"

She smiled back, but this smile is different... it looks tiny and also wobbly, and I felt it somewhere deep in my chest.

Ding!

I jumped. The window had popped open in front of me, bright against the dark of the granary, and I almost swore at it for ruining the moment.

[LUST SYSTEM: RADAR UPDATE]

[New SSS-Rank Target Registered]

[Name: Millie]

[Species: Bunnykin, Lunhare Bloodline]

[Rank: SSS]

[Status: Suppressed]

[Bond Status: Unestablished]

[Hidden Quest Unlocked: The Moon Rabbit’s Lost Home]

[Objective: Discover the truth behind Millie’s bloodline and the people hunting her.]

[Reward: Unknown]

I read it once... then again. The name on the screen didn’t change, and neither did the warning at the bottom.

She wasn’t just a beastwoman I had happened to rescue, and the more I looked at it... the more I understood how much bigger this was.

Someone had put that band on her wrist for a reason, and I’d just killed a man who was probably only a small piece of the chain.

"You really are thinking about helping her," Elsbeth said, watching my face. "Aren’t you?"

"You heard what I said a minute earlier... I already promised."

She let out a long breath. I braced myself for a lecture, but it didn’t come.

She looked only at me, then at Millie, and then back at me again.

"Then do not make promises you cannot keep... Leon Levarion."

"I won’t."

"I believe in you," Millie said softly, and her fingers tightened on my sleeve.

I looked down at her and then past her at the broken window and the dark city beyond it, where lanterns were swinging through the streets and the last of the warning bells were still tolling.

Somewhere out there... people were already searching for the man who had killed a slaver in the market.

And somewhere farther away, other people were looking for a rabbit who had no idea what she was worth.

For the first time... since I’d woken up in this world, I started to feel like the power I’d been given might be meant for something bigger than me.

I really hoped I was ready for it.

...

I have done many stupid things in my life... but I think the stupidest thing I ever did was sit in a freezing granary at midnight while also bleeding through a bandage made from a dead man’s tablecloth and looking at my own hands like they had personally betrayed me.

The fire in the corner was barely bigger than a dinner plate. Elsbeth had built it small deliberately so the light wouldn’t leak through the holes in the roof, and it made the whole room look like the inside of a lantern.

Millie sat close to it with her knees pulled up and the cloth-seller’s shawl wrapped around her shoulders, sneaking glances at my arm every few seconds like she was checking a pot that might boil over.

Elsbeth stood by the door with one hand resting on her sword, listening to the bells and the shouting that came and went across the rooftops of Frosthaven.

My arm... it still hurts as fuck. The pain was... throbbing, making you aware of every single heartbeat, and every time I flexed my fingers... fuck! The cut from the guard’s sword pulled open a little and reminded me that I was a stupid, mortal idiot.

"You know..." I said, because silence has never been my strong suit for this kind of thing, "...in one day I saved a beautiful woman by killing my very first bad man... and lost my worthy place to sleep.

"Honestly... there should be some kind of award for that."

Elsbeth didn’t even turn around. "You got it... that award is not dying tonight."

"Uh-huh... That’s a really low bar."

"Your bar is too high for a human who nearly bled out in a marketplace."

Millie let out a tiny snort, the kind that escapes before you can stop it. Then she saw me looking at her and clapped both hands over her mouth so fast that her ears flopped forward.

Can this bunny girl be cuter?! My goodness...

"Sorry..." she said through her fingers. "I didn’t mean to be loud."

"Millie..."

"Y-yes?"

"You can laugh at any necessary time, you know? You don’t need anybody’s permission to laugh."

She blinked at me while covering her face with her hands.

Slowly, one finger at a time... she lowered them, and a small, uncertain smile crept onto her face. It was the kind of smile you give when you’re testing whether a floor will hold your weight or not.

So to respond to that adorable smile, I smiled back and tried to ignore the ache in my chest. She was free, and for the moment, she was safe, but I was beginning to comprehend that simply breaking open a cage did not automatically remedy all the harm the cage had inflicted upon her.

Traumatic experience can be a bitch... and so can PTSD.

Some habits don’t die just because the door does.

I should know... I had a whole collection of them.

...

At some point, Elsbeth said we needed to leave the city before sunrise, and I got up to look out through a crack in the granary wall.

I’d planned to check the street for patrols... But what I actually saw was a line of lanterns bobbing along the road to the north gate, and what’s even worse is that there’s a column of guards herding a group of people between them.

They were beastwomen... They walked in a chain, the same way the ones I’d seen that afternoon had walked, with their collars linked together and their heads down.

I forgot about this...

But then I saw one of them tripped on the frozen ground, and a guard hauled her on the chain until she dropped to her knees in the dirt.

He said something that made the other guards laugh, and then they dragged her up and kept going.

I stood there with my forehead against the cold wood and thought about the faces I’d seen that afternoon... Their drooping ears... torn clothes... eyes like unlit windows...

I had walked right past them... I had stared at them for maybe ten seconds while trying not to feel sick and then followed Elsbeth into the market to gawk at clockwork birds.

I’d had a hundred good reasons, of course... I didn’t understand the situation, I had no money, and starting a fight in a crowded street would have gotten everyone killed.

Every one of those reasons was sensible... and every one of them had started to taste like shit.

"I should have... helped them," I said, mostly to the wall.

Elsbeth had come up behind me without making a sound, which she did a lot and which I’d decided was a form of cruelty. "You do not even know where they were being taken..."

"I could... you know... find out about it."

"And when you find them... what then?"

"Will you fight the entire garrison of Frosthaven with one rusty sword and one arm that cannot close properly...?"