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Chapter 16: The Rabbit's Growing Unease
Lately, Bell Cranel couldn't shake the nagging sensation that the world around him had shifted several degrees off its axis. It was a difficult feeling to articulate, but the people he interacted with daily were acting... wrong. The air in Orario felt charged with a strange, static energy whenever he walked through the Central Park or navigated the limestone corridors of the Guild.
Whenever he ran into Eina or Haruhime, they both became suddenly, inexplicably suspicious. The moment he so much as mentioned "studying" or "spending the night," their composure would shatter like thin glass. Eina would fumble her documents, her face flushing a frantic, high-temperature red that reached the tips of her pointed ears. Haruhime was even more delicate; she would hide behind her voluminous sleeves, her tail stiffening as her eyes darted around as if he had just proposed something scandalous in the middle of a busy street. Their agitation was so visible it felt as if he were accidentally stepping on a conversational landmine every time he spoke. Is there something wrong with my voice? Bell wondered, his internal monologue spiraling into self-doubt. Or maybe I'm accidentally using some weird slang I picked up in the Dungeon?
Ryuu Lion, however, was in a league of her own. Normally the picture of elven stoicism—a pillar of calm amidst the storm of the Hostess of Fertility—she had recently become a magnet for bizarre, clumsy accidents. He had seen her trip over absolute nothingness in the middle of the tavern, her tray of ale clattering to the floor while she stood frozen, staring at him with a look of profound betrayal. On one particularly traumatizing occasion, she had completely misheard him. When Bell mentioned wanting to try a new "cake" he'd heard about, Ryuu's eyes had gone wide with shock, her mind apparently jumping straight to "marriage".
"I will never wear such a shameful wedding dress!" she had shrieked, her face a mask of mortification before she launched a localized assault of frantic gestures that nearly sent him through a window.
Desperate for answers, Bell had turned to Lili for advice back at the Hearth Manor.
"Everything is perfectly fine, Master Bell," she had told him, leaning in uncomfortably close. Her shoulder pressed against his in a way that brooked no further questions, her aura radiating a strange, possessive intensity. "Everyone is simply tired. Lili thinks you should just treat them as you always do and not worry your head about it."
The atmosphere she radiated was so heavy and "un-Lili-like" that Bell had immediately dropped the subject, but the unease remained like a cold draft. It wasn't just his inner circle, either. As he walked through the streets, total strangers would look at him with eyes burning with what looked like pure, unadulterated jealousy. This seemed particularly prevalent among the male adventurers—warriors who usually looked at him with respect or apathy now glared at him as if he had personally stolen their life savings and then mocked them for it.
On the flip side, the goddesses and female citizens—and even a few male gods—watched him with a different kind of gaze. It wasn't hostile, but it was certainly strange—a sort of predatory fascination that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, as if he were an Almiraj surrounded by a hundred hungry wolves.
"And the Loki Familia is the worst of all," Bell sighed, resting his forehead against the cool wood of a tavern table. "Every time I see them, they're either trying to punch me, inviting me on a sudden date, or screaming at me to stay away. Everyone is just... off."
"Ah... yeah. That sounds like a lot to deal with," Welf replied, his voice trailing off into a non-committal mumble.
"Welf! You have to believe me, it's really weird! Even for Orario standards!" Bell pleaded, his voice tinged with genuine distress.
Bell had tracked Welf down at a quiet, out-of-the-way tavern far from the usual hustle of the Hostess of Fertility, hoping for a bit of grounded, "big brother" logic while the smith took a well-earned break from the forge. But Welf wasn't looking him in the eye. Instead, he was staring off into the middle distance, his gaze narrowed as if he were trying to read a sign on the far side of the city.
"Wait... Welf, do you know something?" Bell asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
"I mean, it's not that I 'know' something exactly, it's just... how do I even put this?" Welf took a long, slow draw of his ale, pointedly avoiding Bell's interrogative stare. "Look, Bell. It's... well, it's probably a bit too early for you to understand. Or something like that."
"What is that supposed to mean? I'm a Level 4 adventurer! I've seen things in the Deep Floors that would turn a man's hair white!"
Welf let out a massive, weary sigh that seemed to vibrate his entire frame. He finally looked at his younger friend with a suddenly serious expression, scratching the back of his head and looking torn before finally speaking with a heavy, paternal voice.
"Bell, I'm only going to say this once. You're still young. I know you're a Level 4 and you don't have to worry about money, but you need to be careful when it comes to women. I'm not saying you can't do... whatever it is you're doing... but for the love of the gods, use protection!"
...What?
Bell's mind went completely blank. A chaotic slideshow of mental images—confused cats drifting through space, monsters in the dungeon, and actual physical shields—flashed through his brain as he tried to bridge the gap between "everyone is acting weird" and "birth control".
"Lil E-unit is actually terrified lately," Welf added, taking a malicious, older-brother joy in Bell's spiraling confusion. "She's convinced that any day now, a woman carrying a baby is going to kick down the front door of the Hearth Manor and demand child support."
"Wait—WAIT! What are you even talking about, Welf!? A baby!? Whose baby!?"
Bell's scream was half-shriek, half-sob. Welf just leaned back, a distant, amused look in his eyes as he used his younger brother's romantic crisis as the perfect side dish for his beer. There truly was no better entertainment than a junior's unintentional love life—or in Bell's case, his total, oblivious lack of one.
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Across the city, in a room that smelled perpetually of spilled ink and drying parchment, a young woman sat hunched over a desk. Her pen moved with the frantic, rhythmic energy of the possessed, the scratching sound the only thing breaking the silence of the night.
The sales for the Bete x Bell book had exceeded her wildest dreams, and the gold was piling up in a small chest under her bed. She'd even received fan letters from a goddess who claimed to be a junior to her own patron deity, begging for more "intimate details" about the werewolf's hidden soft side. Orario was currently in the midst of a silent, fan-fictional revolution, and she was the one holding the torch.
The profit was undeniable. She was already weighing her options: a sequel to the werewolf story, or perhaps a bold new venture into a Hedin x Bell dynamic—the "Strict Teacher" trope was a goldmine waiting to be tapped.
"Are you really planning on keeping this up?"
Her patron goddess had wandered into the room, leaning over her shoulder to squint at the messy, ink-stained manuscript pages.
"Is that a complaint, Goddess?" the author asked, her pen never pausing.
"It's not a complaint, exactly," the goddess replied with a shrug. "But weren't you just being chased through the streets by half of the Loki Familia executives? And I heard the Freya Familia was hunting you down before that. Don't you think it's time to call it quits before you actually get turned into dungeon bait?"
"No way!" the author barked, her eyes alight with a terrifying creative fire. "I'm on a roll! If I wimped out now just because two big-shot Familias are scary, even Mikey would laugh me out of the room!"
"Whoever that is," the goddess muttered, though she didn't push the issue. "Well, as long as you're okay with the risk, I won't stop you. You're bringing in plenty of money, so keep at it! ♡"
The author rolled her eyes at how quickly her goddess had folded for the promise of more Valis. It didn't change the fact that her goddess's allowance was still suspended until she paid back the Familia funds she'd "borrowed" for her last vacation—funds that the author had earned herself through her literary blood, sweat, and tears.
With the Loki Familia material mostly exhausted, it was time to branch out. She tapped her pen against her chin, thinking. She still hadn't touched the dreaming girl at Miach's pharmacy, or the black cat waitress at the Hostess of Fertility.
And then, of course, there was that "Curse Woman" who specialized in purging the filth of the lower world. Maybe I'll save her for the post-War Game arc, she mused, a wicked, entrepreneurial grin spreading across her face as she dipped her pen back into the ink.
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