Elise filled Nina in about the rules, which were the same as she had told Nalia. By that point, the rabbitkin that had ran away were starting to come back, so Nina went to talk to them about what had happened.

‘So, did you learn anything from watching her teleport?’ Elise asked Nalia.

‘A bit. I’m still far away from learning to to use teleportation magic, but that did help a little. Still, there was something strange with the way she teleported.’

‘What exactly was strange?’

‘From what I felt, she went straight into the spatial warping to move herself, instead of using spatial awareness to set the target position first.’ Nalia replied.

‘I see. I believe this means that woman was teleporting to a known set of coordinates, probably a prepared fallback position.’

‘Makes sense… But that still leaves the mystery of how she was able to teleport straight inside this cave.’

‘Yeah. I’m gonna have to ask the rabbits about what happened exactly, but first I should make sure Hiroka knows we’re okay.’

Nina was helping a bunch of other rabbits carry away the body, but there were still a few others who had stayed behind and were looking at the duo of human and fairy. Elise called over one of them, a boy who looked a bit older than Nina.

“What’s your name?” She asked when he came over.

“I’m Carlos.” Was the reply.

“Okay Carlos, I called you over because I’m going to make a report and I want you to listen to it so you know I didn’t say anything about you guys.”

Elise wanted to reassure the rabbits at least a little bit, considering the situation. The boy was a bit surprised but nodded.

She took out the communication stone and spoke her report into it. She didn’t go into much detail, only saying that she had engaged a Stranger who managed to run away, and asking them to tell Hiroka that the two of them were fine, so she only needed to wait for them to come back at the same place where they had separated. Elise also added that she would send a more complete report after getting more information.

Soon after sending the message, she received a short reply acknowledging her report and saying that Hiroka would be informed.

Then Elise turned to Carlos and asked her question:

“Can you tell me what happened when that woman appeared?”

The boy grimaced but nodded and began speaking. The Stranger and her armor had suddenly appeared in the middle of the cave. Carlos had actually been right there when it happened, and he said she had seemed surprised upon seeing them, but soon after began making demands, wanting to see whoever the chief was and then ordering her to bring any ‘shining stones’ they had.

The chief had tried to tell the woman that they had nothing of the sort, but she hadn’t believed her and began destroying houses to try to force cooperation. Then the victim begged her to stop because they really didn’t know what she was talking about, but she lost her patience and attacked him.

“And you appeared right afterwards.” Carlos concluded.

It wasn’t a complicated story so it went quickly, but the information in it was certainly important. Elise thanked the boy for his help and began to talk to Nalia.

‘So the Strangers apparently want stones of some sort. I wonder if the alliance knows about it.’

‘Hiroka certainly didn’t know about it, but I imagine they know and are keeping it a secret for some reason.’ Nalia guessed.

‘It’s possible that they have a good idea what exactly the Stranger’s goal is, but don’t want to spread it around because it involves something they’re keeping secret.’

‘Yet out mysterious opponents are aware of whatever it is, at least to some extent.’

‘There’s many reasons this could be the case, but that’s not important.’ Elise put in ‘What’s important is that their knowledge is strangely spotty. That woman knew enough to be able to teleport into this hidden cave, but apparently didn’t know that there were rabbits living here.’

‘Yeah, this cave is something even the beastkin from here are unaware of… Though maybe some of them know but are keeping it a secret to protect the rabbitkin.’

‘It’s possible, but regarding the Stranger’s knowledge, it could be that they have some way of scanning the areas of the forest enough to pinpoint likely locations for their targets to be but no way to search for them directly.’

‘And an underground cave of this size was a likely location, but when that woman came and found other people already there she got paranoid that they were hiding things from her.’

‘Yeah, but I also think she was angry and impatient about something, so it didn’t take much for her to blow up.’

‘Angry about something… Do you think it had anything to do with that guy we captured?’ Nalia asked.

‘There’s really no way to know.’

+0+

A bit after that, Nina came back accompanied by a middle-aged rabbit woman, who introduced herself with:

“My name is Lisa. I am the chief of this village and would like to thank you for your help against that monster.”

“I’m Elise. And she was already my enemy, so you don’t need to mind it too much.”

Nalia also introduce herself, and then Lisa replied “Yeah, my niece here told me about the matter with the Strangers, and I would like to discuss some things about the situation. You promised to not reveal us to your bosses, but you need to report about the fight you had, don’t you?”

“Yeah, and there was a member of the alliance with Nalia when she detected the enemy who will definitely report that the encounter happened around this area, so it’s quite possible there will be other beastkin examining things around here.”

“Understandable. Thankfully we have an emergency hiding spot deeper down. It’s a smaller cave but has enough space for us to stay for a bit. There’s only one tunnel leading there, which we can collapse behind us after we go.” Lisa spoke naturally “If we bring all our belongings down with us, then they won’t find out about our tribe even if they discover this cave.”

“That makes things simpler. I’ll report that the Stranger had teleported inside an underground cave and Nalia found a hidden tunnel leading to it with her magic. It would be too easily exposed if I lied saying that the fight happened on the surface.” Elise said.

“Simply not saying anything about our existence is already more than enough.”

“But chief, there’s not enough food for that.” Nina cut in “Our main food stores were destroyed. I know there’s some reserves in the secret refuge, but it’s not enough to feed everyone for that long.”

“I know, so we’ll need to do some emergency extra harvesting and then… We’ll just need to do our best.” Lisa hesitated for a bit, but didn’t change her mind.

“That’s-” Nina wanted to argue, but Elise cut her off saying “There’s something I want to say.” In a firm voice, causing the two rabbits to look at her.

“About your food situation…” She put a hand inside the bag and pulled out the jar of food pills, causing them to do a double-take at it appearing from out of seemingly nowhere.

“Those are food pills.” She continued “A single one of those is enough to keep someone fed for three days. How many do you think you would need to get through this crisis?”

“Ah, that, I mean… We only need enough to tide us over until the harvesting spots we set up around the cave start giving out enough for us to feed ourselves, so I think maybe… forty of them, or perhaps just thirty...? Is there anything we could do in return for them?” Lisa was caught off guard by the sudden offer.

“You don’t need to do anything. There’s more than two hundred of those pills inside the jar, I know how to make more and it doesn’t require any materials that can’t be easily harvested anywhere. They aren’t something super valuable to me, so why not give them to people who need it?” Elise said “I don’t need any payment for something like that.”

“Then… In the name of the Reite tribe of rabbits, I will accept your offer. And I hope you at least accept my thanks in return.”

Elise had no issue with that. She gave Lisa forty food pills and the rabbit woman left to tell the other members what they were going to be doing next. Nina remained behind.

“You, what you did was…” She began to talk but couldn’t find the words.

Nalia realized what the issue was and told Elise, who looked to the rabbit girl and spoke:

“That was something I wanted to do. And I would have done the same thing even if you weren’t going to become my partner.”

Nina swallowed hard and looked down “I see…” She said.

There were a few seconds of silence before she looked back up into Elise’s eyes and said “I’m ready.”

+0+

The actual contract part was quite simple, similarly to how it had been for Nalia. After it was done, Nina’s face suddenly went white.

“Wait, I just realized a problem. How are you going to train me when I can’t show my face outside without revealing the existence of the village?” She asked “I could pretend to be a member of another rabbit tribe, but as soon as people realized that wasn’t the case…”

“No need to worry.” Elise reassured her “We were thinking about that earlier and Nalia had an idea.” She motioned to the fairy, who flew in front and began explaining:

“I took a look at the armor that woman was using to fight. It is made of pretty high quality metal, but more importantly it was used to channel magic in such a way that it became very well suited for the task. A lot of it is unusable after what we’ve done to it, but I can employ some metal shaping magic to take the intact parts and turn them into something else, like a smaller suit of armor.” Nalia smiled at Nina.

“A suit of armor I could wear?” She understood after a moment “And you’ll pretend that it is just an empty suit of armor? Will that really work?”

“Yes, with some effort.” Nalia replied “You already know how much the beastkin rely on their sense of smell, so they are unlikely to look much further when they don’t smell anything from inside the armor. That means I just need to use some small enchantments to prevent outsiders from seeing or hearing anything they shouldn’t.

“And I’ll anchor the boost spell both to you and the armor, so the magic tied to it hides the existence of our camouflage spells.” She finished.

“Err… If you think that will work, then that’s fine by me.” Nina said.

“Alright, then I’m gonna start working on our ‘autonomous armor’. You and big sister can discuss your training in the meantime.” Nalia then flew off to do what she said.

Elise followed the cue “Okay. I understand that you want to become stronger, but in order to find the best way to train you, I need an answer to this question: What does the strength you want look like? What is your image of strength?”

“I…” Nina began but then stopped and started thinking seriously. That was something that would shape her future, so the rabbit girl wanted to make the right decision. Elise waited patiently for her decision.

“I want…” Nina finally decided herself after more than ten seconds of thought, but struggled to find a way to express it into words “I mean… You know those stories, where people use skill and techniques to win against enemies that are much stronger than them?”

“Yes.” Elise responded.

“I don’t want to be like those people.” Nina’s words contained a trace of anger “I want to be the one who’s so strong my enemies have to resort to those things just to get the smallest chance of victory… And I want to win against them anyway.” She finished, her tone revealing a desire that bordered on obsession.

“I see…” Elise said “In that case, I know exactly what to do. You see, we didn’t get a chance to talk about it until now, but the reason I’m so confident I’ll be able to take you to the peak is because I was raised by the Transcendents, the most powerful people in this world.

“Out of all of them, the one who has the highest physical strength is big sister Larina. As such, she is the physically strongest person in this world. I believe that training you in the same way she trained herself would be fitting.” She spoke with a smile.

Nina swallowed hard. That smile and those words somehow felt almost threatening, but she nodded firmly.

“Alright then, it’s decided. You shall undergo ‘Full Awareness Training’.” Elise said.

“What do I need to do?” Nina asked.

“In short, this training is based around obtaining a deep awareness of your own body in order to train your soul under the physical aspect.”

“… Huh?”

“Okay, maybe that was a little obtuse. To put in plainly, you shall be training yourself to harness the power of your soul, but this power can be used in many different ways, so your training will be done while focusing on your body in order direct the way your power will be expressed.” Elise explained.

“I… Think I understand. So I need to focus on my body and then what?” Nina asked.

“That’s everything. It may sound like something easy to do, but I guarantee that you will soon realize how difficult it actually is.” Elise said “However, for me to be able to train you properly, we’re gonna need to get used to communicating via contract bond.”

Nina still seemed confused, but did not question Elise’s instructions. The two began their first awkward mental exchanges, slowly getting a feel for each other while talking about casual topics. The rabbitkin mostly explained the way things worked for the tribe, including the way they ‘cultivated’ mushrooms and the like as their main source of food, while Elise told the story about setting off on a journey and how things had gone so far, including her first encounter with Nalia.

Their conversation became more and more natural, and they had already become relatively comfortable with each other by the time Nalia approached to say that it was done. Nina turned around to see it and was unable to contain her shock. Standing near the remains of the Stranger’s armor was a completely new one. It was much smaller, being pretty much the same size as the rabbit girl herself, but the difference in design was actually even more prominent.

The new suit of armor looked threatening in a whole different way from the old one. It didn’t have the sharp corners, the skull-like head design or the large weapons, but while the old one looked like an inanimate showpiece even in movement, the current armor seemed to be about to pounce without needing to move at all. Its design was also extremely functional, without any extra bits jutting out and overall giving an impersonal feeling. That feeling was enhanced by the nearly featureless head, the gaps of the visor being the only such ‘feature’, but seeing the empty inside through them only contributed to how alienating the whole ensemble felt.

The armor had also been dyed entirely black.

“What do you think?” Nalia asked.

“It looks… Amazing, but I have a few questions.” Nina replied.

“Shoot.”

“First of all, why is it black now?”

“To make sure our allies don’t confuse it for a tool of our enemies. I just decided to make it black because it felt more fitting. Doesn’t it look cool?” Nalia spoke proudly “I also refined and reshaped the metal, so with that and some defensive magic, it will become quite resilient.”

“I see… Second question: Won’t they see me through that visor?”

“No, because of this small trick.” She waved her hand, and the interior of the armor ‘shifted’. A moment later Nina realized that it was actually an object that had been placed right behind the visor, with an image showing a fake ‘empty armor interior’. Nalia then manipulated her magic to widen the visor’s gap so she could move the object out for Nina to see.

“This thing is like a magic mirror.” She explained, moving it around to show how it was completely see-through from the other side “It’s harder to detect than a pure illusion, since the only additional magic I use simply makes the image seen right even from different angles, so the power will just be camouflaged by the general magic of the armor.”

“Ahh…” Nina understood “Okay. And I was gonna ask how I was supposed to get inside, but if you can just open up the armor like that…”

“Yep.” Nalia confirmed.

“And that’s how it is.” Elise cut in “Nalia will keep up some magic to move the armor, in addition to a boost spell anchored to both you and it, which will allow you to help out on our mission. The boost magic will no longer be necessary after your training begins to bear fruit, but she will still keep some of the energy around for camouflage purposes.” After a moment she added “And Nalia being able to move the armor by herself will also be useful to give you some extra training time.”

“… You mean… I’m gonna be training inside the armor while you’re just moving around?”

“Yep. It will be impossible for you to focus on walking while doing the first step of your training, but we can’t afford to waste any time, so we’re gonna have to do it like that.”

Nina took that in “That sounds a bit scary… But I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m definitely gonna become strong.”

She had no idea the extent to which her resolution would be tested during the following days.