Chapter 18
The word ‘Beast’ was nothing short of a universal shield.
“…No, why already…….”
“It seems horned rabbits have a shorter gestation period than normal rabbits, sir.”
“How can creatures at least twice the size of rabbits be like that?”
“Isn’t it because they are Beasts?”
“Haha, well, this is…….”
Our wait had not been very long.
Because the very next day, we were able to spot newborn horned rabbits crawling out of the burrow to bask in the sunlight.
It had been roughly twenty days since we built the horned rabbit ranch in our territory.
“Did those things start breeding the mont they moved in?”
“Isn’t a rabbit’s fertility already well-known, sir?”
“Even so, that’s really sothing.”
I looked again at Black Rabbit.
Even he hadn’t expected this, his round eyes showing his surprise.
-Indeed, Beasts. Of course, they must have received a growth ‘buff,’ but still, this is beyond imagination.
The rampage of horned rabbits, astonishing even the ssenger of God himself, was only just beginning.
The next day, and the day after that, the number of baby horned rabbits kept increasing.
It was an utterly insane rate of growth.
Apparently, horned rabbits birthed even more offspring than regular rabbits.
News of the newborns had already spread throughout the territory, and the residents were in a festive mood.
In this light, Harold’s decision to prepare slaughterhouses and storage beforehand had not been a false alarm after all.
“Three weeks of pregnancy, three weeks of growth.”
“If we just wait six months, there will be enough rabbits for the entire territory to feast and still have leftovers, sir.”
“This is insane. I always wondered why the Forbidden Areas’ monsters never decreased in number……”
Countless monsters lived in the Forbidden.
And most monsters were carnivorous.
Even if they preyed on each other, without sothing sustaining the bottom of the food chain, they could not form such an ecosystem.
I had always wondered what exactly sustained them—today, I found the answer.
It was the horned rabbits, breeding like mad, that supported the monsters.
Even without the growth buff, the fertility of horned rabbits was an absurd force of nature.
“Starting from only twenty rabbits, they’ve already multiplied at this speed. Just how many horned rabbits do you think live in those mountains?”
“That certainly sounds reasonable, sir.”
Watching the horned rabbits multiplying rapidly, I looked around the ranch.
At a much faster pace than expected, the workers of the territory were rushing to expand the fences.
After all, the field had no other use except raising horned rabbits.
If we dedicated the entire field to them, we could raise at least tens of thousands.
Dr. Nickel grinned with a sly, sycophantic smile.
“Does this an even Lord Johnson now recognizes the value of Otherworld Studies?”
“Yes, I do recognize it. With such results, how could I not? This success is entirely your achievent, Dr. Nickel.”
I smiled calmly and acknowledged his contribution.
It was true that Black Rabbit had supported from behind, but Dr. Nickel’s theory itself had been extrely accurate.
Even without Black Rabbit, it would have only taken more ti—the horned rabbit ranch would have succeeded eventually.
‘Otherworld Studies, huh. Perhaps it is a proper field of learning after all?’
Otherworld Studies.
Co to think of it, it seed quite a valuable discipline.
Having driven out the monsters and reclaid humanity’s forr strongholds, people’s priorities would gradually shift from ‘survival’ to ‘developnt.’
‘In the era of survival, basic food, clothing, shelter, and safety were paramount. But in the stage of developnt, people would desire convenience and enjoynt—things beyond re survival.’
Wouldn’t we eventually try to return to the glorious days before the Great Cataclysm?
The royal capital had been completely reduced to ruins and vanished, but the records of that age still remained, being discovered here and there.
‘In that sense, discovering new spices like pepper or the breeding thod of horned rabbits carries great aning.’
Many things from the Otherworld had proven useful to us.
From small things like pepper, to Beasts, and even monster byproducts.
All of these were from the Otherworld.
‘Especially our Johnson Territory—it’s surrounded by two Forbidden Areas.’
Though still weak now, that ant the potential for growth through research was more than sufficient.
“Good. Since this task ended successfully, I shall continue to support your research in the future.”
“Thank you kindly, my lord.”
“By the way, where exactly did you acquire this knowledge of Otherworld Studies? Honestly, I never once imagined that horned rabbit droppings would be such an important factor.”
Otherworld Studies was a discipline without roots.
The na sounded scholarly, but in the end, it was just a collection of information about the Otherworld that we hadn’t known.
The truth was, there were only two ways to acquire knowledge about the Otherworld: through direct research or observation.
‘A mysterious matter indeed.’
There wasn’t even any grand research facility nearby.
It wasn’t as though Dr. Nickel himself had done great research—it was most likely information he had picked up sowhere. But I was curious about the true source.
If I could bring both Dr. Nickel and his informant into the territory, it would greatly aid our studies of Otherworld matters.
“Haha, is this not all thanks to the wisdom of our ancestors?”
“The wisdom of our ancestors?”
So, I casually asked, but Dr. Nickel gave an utterly absurd answer.
The wisdom of the ancestors, he said.
What on earth did ancestors have to do with Otherworld Studies?
The ancestors probably hadn’t even known that another world existed.
“Our ancestors, they were truly extraordinary. Even before the Dinsional Rift appeared, they had already foretold the arrival of monsters. There are at least thousands of related docunts!”
That couldn’t be true.
If that were the case, then when the Dinsional Rift appeared, there would not have been such mass panic.
Sure, a teor had fallen on the capital, but the real catastrophe had been the appearance of monsters.
Back then, everything had descended into chaos.
But Dr. Nickel only raised his voice further, sounding more convinced of his own theory.
“Furthermore, the reason why nas like Orc or Ogre sound familiar to us is because our ancestors already recorded depictions of them. Isn’t that why?”
“No way…”
Of course, this world also had culture.
Especially before the Great Cataclysm, the Otherworld was said to have achieved a highly developed magical civilization.
And as civilization advances, the arts advance with it.
As part of literature, fantasy novels—works depicting imagined things—had begun to spread.
Starting with heated romances between knights and ladies, to imagined beings such as Orcs, Elves, and monsters.
They even adapted myths and classics into new stories.
‘In particular, just before the Great Cataclysm, I heard even things like gates and supernatural powers were being used as novel material.’
Just like in the world I had originally lived in.
In a world without the internet, most works spread through books, but they were still quite popular.
And after the Great Cataclysm struck, people began defining monsters that crossed through the Dinsional Rift using the ones described in those novels.
‘If monsters suddenly appeared in modern Earth, wouldn’t we follow a similar process?’
Of course, even the sa monster could differ slightly depending on the novel, and sotis the actual monster’s traits did not match at all. But if one made a rough comparison, the differences weren’t all that great.
‘For example, Gnolls.’
The gnolls that appeared in reality differed in appearance and habits from those in novels, but both shared the similarity of having canine-like heads.
So when dog-headed monsters appeared during the Great Cataclysm, people called them “Gnolls.”
But that wasn’t the important part.
“Are you saying these so-called docunts of the ancestors are actually novels?”
“Haha, novels? No, they are the Bibles our ancestors left behind for their descendants.”
“Ha… Dr. Nickel, that’s……”
Dr. Nickel cut off and rattled on.
“My lord, think carefully. Before the Dinsional Rift even erged, they accurately foresaw the arrival of monsters, and interpreted the events to co in countless different ways, recording them in writing. How can you dismiss that as re novels?”
“That’s just coincidence.”
“Nonsense. If only our incompetent leaders had taken the prophets’ words seriously, the kingdom would never have been paralyzed the mont the Great Cataclysm began. Ah, and do you recall the prophets always saying, ‘Is this even a country?’ Looking at the situation now, those words ring perfectly true.”
Apparently, this man firmly believed that the fantasy novels popular before the Great Cataclysm had not been re fiction.
‘If that’s the case, then could this an…….’
“Let ask you this—did you also learn the habits of horned rabbits from those docunts left behind by the so-called prophets?”
“Yes, exactly. Though the docunt called them ‘Horn Rabbits,’ their appearance was nearly identical, so I thought they might be the sa species. As expected, our ancestors were great.”
“Do the other scholars of Otherworld Studies also conduct research the way you do, studying this so-called wisdom of the ancestors?”
“Haha, most of them are similar, yes.”
‘Damn it. So that ans the success of the horned rabbit ranch was nothing but coincidence.’
If the source of Dr. Nickel’s wisdom was Otherworld fantasy novels, then the situation was clear.
It was all chance.
The fact that this world happened to have novels featuring monsters was still absurd, but if I considered that human imagination was similar everywhere, it wasn’t entirely impossible.
Perhaps there had been another transmigrator during the ti when fantasy novels were popular. Or perhaps this world itself was the setting of so novel or ga I didn’t know about. But in the end, those things didn’t really matter.
‘Even if such hidden stories exist, what can I possibly do about it?’
They were nothing but useless speculations.
‘Still, it is a sha.’
From my perspective, realizing that Otherworld Studies amounted to nothing more than coincidence was painful.
I had hoped it might serve as a breakthrough for the developnt of the territory, but now it all felt terribly hollow.
‘I already knew it was a discipline without roots, but shouldn’t there at least be so kind of foundation?’
One thing was certain: if I had known earlier that its source was a pile of novels, Dr. Nickel would have been expelled on the spot.
Even if the Diary itself had pointed to such information, I wasn’t insane enough to believe fantasy novels were prophetic texts.
-That man is completely insane.
Black Rabbit, who had been pricking his ears and listening silently from the side, finally gave his verdict.
Dr. Nickel was mad.
I thought the sa.
I had known he wasn’t normal, but I hadn’t expected this level.
‘Ha, well. What more can I expect?’
In any case, the horned rabbit ranch had ended in great success.
Asking for anything more would be nothing but greed.
So, I decided to bury all thoughts of Otherworld Studies deep inside my chest and not concern myself with it again.
It was the day that both Dr. Nickel and Otherworld Studies fell completely into the abyss of my judgnt.
Reviews
All reviews (0)