In the end, Gaius took her to one of the open-air beds that were laid out in the camp, and started treating her with some medicines from the impromptu infirmity that had been created in the makeshift fortress. Sure, there were one or two roofless rooms that also had beds, but Gaius didn’t want to go back to Heritage Basestation only to have Nakama stare at him and call him a man whore, or whatever words that were in fashion these days.

“You, girl, have far less considerations than an eleven-year-old boy like me…” Gaius wiped her face with a piece of cloth, which had been dunked in warm water and rung dry. The little boy had chalked the symptoms of his captive down to something like a cold, but after a couple of memories returned to him, he’d found a resemblance to moderate hypothermia.

It was a blindspot that Gaius had — the Climate Control ability his mutated Stellar Core had was constantly running, which accounted for why he had subconsciously ruled out any conditions related to heat or cold.

After wiping the girl’s face dry, Gaius covered whatever exposed skin she had with strips of cloth. It made her look something like a mummy, but it was a necessary sacrifice for a swift recovery. Other than that, he’d barely touched the girl anywhere, which made the little boy a bit chuffed about his medical skills.

Gaius stood up after some colour returned to his patient’s face. He’d requested for a couple of partitions, which had come along with a curious Mai, who helped him set it up around the bed afterwards. The treatment would have ended there, but the curious rabbit girl had started a round of poking at this unconscious human on the bed.

“Wow,” said Mai. “a human really only has one set of ears.”

Gaius looked at the rabbit ears frolicking on Mai’s head and replied, “It’s more like ‘Wow, you have two sets of ears’ than anything else, you know. I too have one set of ears, so why aren’t you exclaiming in awe now?”

“You’re a boy.”

Gaius nearly tripped over flat ground at this response. The only thing that prevented him from falling was his instincts, which automatically took over his body to help him find firm footing again. After recovering his balance, the little boy folded his arms and said, “What’s gender got to do with this?”

“Everything!”

“Ok, go on…”

Mai’s ears quivered. “Mum told me that we cannot show appreciation or interest in males, especially male rabbit beastfolk! So even though I’m curious, I’m not going to ask you any personal questions. Mum told me that if I did, the male would establish, err, dominance and conquer me!”

Those words entered Gaius’ left ear, and came right out of his right. “Conquer you? Establish dominance?”

The little lecturer fell into a daze, before the assassin within him recalled one of the many fun facts of Earth — rabbits were prolific breeders. If his memory was right, male rabbits in particular were usually neutered to prevent pet owners from coming back to see a giant field of bunnies.

I suddenly wish that I didn’t recall this memory. Gaius shivered as the implications of Mai’s words became clear to him. She apparently wasn’t too sure about what these words meant, but from the looks of it, rabbit-type beastmen didn’t have just one beast trait. Clearly, an endless sex drive was the other beast trait that male rabbit-type beastfolk had…and Gaius just remembered seeing one in Heritage Basestation.

To his knowledge, Mai was the only rabbit-type girl here…so that guard in this camp must have been really holding it in. Gaius wanted to express his amazement at the horrendous self-control that guard had, but it was a bit inconvenient to do so now.

“Yes,” said Mai, “that’s what my mum said!”

“Did she tell that you to all your siblings?” replied Gaius.

“Only to my elder sisters! When she gave us that talk, fifteenth sister and I were made to sit down and listen.” Mai pouted sadly, as though as there was a more unpleasant memory associated with it.

Fifteenth? Gaius nearly tripped over himself this time. What the hell, and is that’s just sisters alone?

Gaius doubted that rabbit-type beastfolk gave birth to offspring based on litters, but it was entirely possible that they had an increased propensity to have twins or even triplets regularly. That said, as far as he knew, anatomy of any given beastfolk had no difference with that of humans, with the exception of beast traits.

“I see.” The little lecturer kept his face straight. “Well, since you’re so curious, I’ll have you take care of this girl for the time being. She’s suffering from hypothermia, which simply means that’s she too cold.”

“So why not light a fire?”

“Eh?” Gaius blinked. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

After a few fruitless seconds of trying to reason out yet another blind spot in his cognitive processes, Gaius got down to work. His fingers fluttered as he drew a single sigil of ignition, while Mai watched from the side. Clearly, it wasn’t the first time she’d seen Sigil Manifestation before.

“There’s just enough space for a small fire, I guess.” Gaius looked around at the partitions that surrounded the bed. “Mai, do you happen to know where I could get some firewood or items that will burn well?”

He hadn’t finished his question when the teenage girl ran off, leaving behind a string of words that essentially boiled down to ‘I’ll be back with the firewood’. The boy smiled at the sight of the hyperactive and proactive Harvester, before turning back to the unconscious Knight.

Only he knew that this girl here was a Knight. And well, he hadn’t had much of a chance to loot any of her belongings. After keeping his ear out for the possibility of Mai returning suddenly, the boy began to pat down the unconscious Knight.

The first item he took out was a quartet of knives, all artfully decorated and loaded into a wooden case. Gaius had used it before, on Earth, but his case was more intricate. The general gist was that a simple hard shake would shoot the knives inside towards the direction of the shake, but the little boy had seen no need for such an item on Orb.

He could toss four knives at an equally fast pace now…and more importantly, the only knives he had was the one he’d received when he entered the Basestation. If he wanted to shake 4 such cases at once, Gaius would need more knives first.

The second, third and fourth item the little boy plundered from the unconscious Knight were run-of the-mill artefacts, like a Straight Shot that had been tied each of her legs, as well as the Palisade that was hanging off her belt.

How poor. Gaius couldn’t help but think back to the foreign Harvester called Michelle, who used to have the unique Moonshot. He sighed, and then tucked the pilfered items into his own clothes.