How did I even end up in a situation like this?
Leonard could only brood silently. His body was completely naked, bound by thick vines wrapped around his wrists and neck like leashes. The end of the vine was held by Alice, who walked ahead of him, occasionally yanking the rope whenever Leonard slowed down.
Prisoner of war. This was exactly like being a prisoner of war.
A few monts ago, the fight had been... brief.
Emma moved first. Leonard thought he could dodge. But the rabbit woman’s body moved at an unbelievable speed. In an instant, the spear was aid at his neck. Leonard reflexively stepped back, but Alice was already behind him. One kick to his leg, and he went down.
These two slender won, who physically weren’t any bigger than him, lifted him easily. Leonard struggled, but their grips were like steel. His punches did nothing. His kicks were caught and twisted.
He was defeated in less than thirty seconds.
They were fast. Strong. Way beyond anything he’d expected.
And this was the result. Leonard walking through the forest, naked, tied up, heading toward so village he didn’t know.
Occasionally he tried to talk, tried to explain, but Alice and Emma ignored him like he didn’t exist. Lily, behind them, just stayed quiet. No one wanted to listen.
So Leonard decided to use his ti wisely: brooding.
He focused his thoughts on the screen that had appeared earlier. But this ti he focused it on himself. And just as he suspected, the screen materialized.
[ Leonard Harrington ]
[ Stage: 1 ]
[ Evolution Progress: 0/1000 ]
[ Bloodline: — ]
[ Conquered: 0 ]
[ List: — ]
Leonard read it several tis.
This really was like a video ga.
Stage 1. Evolution Progress 0/1000. Sa as Lily.
But his Bloodline was empty. A dash. Nothing there.
Conquered? List? What did those an?
He tried focusing his thoughts on those words, hoping so additional explanation would appear. Nothing. The screen sat there, unresponsive, like a digital statue.
’Useless system,’ he complained internally. ’Give so information. What’s the point of a system if this is all it does?’
He tried thinking about other things. Tried to summon a different screen. Nothing. This was all he could see.
Okay. So this system only showed basic status. No hints. No tutorial. No quests. Nothing.
Great. Just great.
Leonard started thinking. Trying to find a reasonable explanation.
Okay. I got jumped by holess guys, passed out, then woke up in a weird forest with rabbit-eared won. There’s a system in my head. This sounds like...
Like isekai. Like those isekai webnovels he used to read.
He rembered—back in the early days of unemploynt, he’d gotten addicted to reading webnovels. Isekai genre, reincarnation, systems, all that. Stories about people dying in the modern world then waking up in another world with special powers.
But those were just fiction. Nonsense.
I don’t believe in nonsense like that.
But on the other hand...
This was too real to be a dream.
Maybe it was a virtual reality experint? Maybe his brain had been plugged into so hyper-advanced simulation?
But why beastkin? Why rabbit ears?
He recalled another story. A web novel about a man sent back to the Stone Age who could only think about sleeping with primitive won.
He quickly pushed that thought away.
I’m not that desperate.
There’s no way I’m in a story like that.
No way.
"We’re here."
Alice’s voice cut through his daze. Leonard looked up.
And his mouth fell open.
In front of him stretched a settlent. Houses built from large wooden posts driven into the ground, walls made of woven branches and dried leaves. Roofs of densely packed thatch. A few buildings looked sturdier, constructed from stacked stone held together with clay.
But it wasn’t the architecture that stunned Leonard.
It was the residents.
Beastkin. Dozens of them. So walking, sitting, working, talking—all with various animal characteristics fused into human bodies.
Near the gate, a man with large curved horns on his head was sharpening a stone knife. Beside him, a woman with a swishing cow’s tail was drying at on wooden racks.
In the distance, Leonard saw a group of small children running around—so with long ears like Lily, so with short furry tails, one even with small, undeveloped deer ears.
And in another corner, Leonard saw sothing that made him stop.
Humans.
Or at least, creatures that looked human. n and won with normal body proportions, no animal ears, no tails, no horns. They were sitting near a campfire, cooking sothing in clay pots.
Leonard focused his gaze. The system screen appeared above one of them.
[ Bloodline: Ape ]
Humans really were descended from apes.
So... at least he hadn’t completely lied earlier.
Emma yanked his attention with a sharp tug on the rope. "Stop gawking. Walk."
Leonard stumbled, then kept walking. But his eyes stayed busy observing.
The villagers turned to look as they passed. Whispers started spreading.
Leonard glanced back, looking for Lily. That innocent rabbit girl was walking behind them, carrying sothing on her back.
Firewood. A bundle of firewood tied to her back. And that bundle was... impossibly huge. Its diater was almost twice Lily’s own body, towering above her head. If stacked on the ground, its volu was probably equivalent to a double-door refrigerator.
And Lily was carrying it. Easily. Like it wasn’t a burden at all, just a regular backpack.
That had to be dozens of kilos.
And she was walking with it like nothing was happening.
Leonard swallowed hard. Their strength... Emma and Alice had taken him down effortlessly. Lily, the smallest and most innocent among them, could carry that much wood.
What was going on in this world?
"Hey," he called softly.
The girl turned. Her dark eyes looked at him, but she didn’t answer.
"Thanks... for trying to help earlier," Leonard whispered.
Lily looked down. Didn’t respond. But Leonard saw her ears twitch slightly.
"Don’t talk to her." Alice yanked Leonard’s rope again. "You’ve caused enough trouble."
Leonard chose silence. For now.
His eyes kept scanning the surroundings. And only now did he notice sothing strange.
Walls. But not man-made walls.
In the distance, at the edge of his vision, Leonard saw towering cliffs of rock. They surrounded this area—forming a kind of giant circle. In so places, the cliffs were steep, almost vertical. In others, more gradual but still difficult to climb.
This... this was like a massive crater. Or a valley enclosed by cliffs.
Forest inside, village in the middle, cliffs all around. Like a natural fortress.
They kept walking past wooden and stone houses, past campfires and drying racks, past a group of rabbit children who stopped playing to stare at him with curiosity.
Finally, they stopped in front of a building.
This wasn’t an ordinary house. This building was larger, sturdier, made of neatly stacked stone held together with clay. The thatched roof was thicker and higher than the other houses. At the entrance, two wooden posts were carved with spiral patterns and animal figures.
The Chieftain’s house, apparently.
Alice pulled the rope, pushed open the bamboo-woven door, and entered. Leonard followed, with Emma behind him and Lily staying silent at the doorway with her firewood.
Inside, the room was spacious. Light ca from small holes in the walls and a few coconut-shell oil lamps. In the corner, there was a pile of fur and animal hides that probably served as a bed. On the walls hung various weapons—spears, bows, stone knives, even sothing like an axe made from bone.
But Leonard didn’t see any of that.
His eyes locked onto a single figure.
A woman.
She was sitting near the window, a beam of sunlight falling on her body. In her hands, a giant bone—maybe half a ter long, pure white—which she was carving with a sharp stone knife, shaping a pointed tip.
But her face...
Beautiful. No, more than beautiful.
The woman appeared to be in her early thirties. Her hair was long, pure white like snow, naturally wavy, cascading down to her waist. Above her head, two long rabbit ears—longer than Lily’s, fuller, with fine fur that almost glowed in the sunlight.
Her eyes were blue. Ice-blue, sharp, but sohow captivating. Her skin was fair and flawless, contrasting with her clothing made of light brown animal fur.
That clothing...
Leonard needed a few seconds to process what he was seeing.
The clothing was quite revealing and barely covered her intimate areas. The fur top covered her chest, but only halfway. The shape of her large, firm breasts was clearly visible, curving beneath the soft fur, with a deep, tempting cleavage. Her wide hips were wrapped in a short leather skirt, but their curve couldn’t be hidden—perfectly arched, inviting.
Around her neck, a necklace of small bones.
She was working on her spear with complete concentration, the muscles in her slender but defined arms moving beneath her fair skin. Every movent was graceful, yet there was strength there. Strength that didn’t need to be shown because it was obviously present.
Leonard stared at her. Couldn’t look away.
So beautiful. Unrealistically beautiful.
How could a woman this beautiful exist in a place like this?
She was like... like a goddess who fell from the sky and accidentally landed in a primitive village.
Her body...
Leonard felt sothing stir in his body. Sothing that definitely shouldn’t be happening at a ti like this.
Reflexively, his bound hands tried to cover his lower half. But the vines were tight, his movents restricted. He could only hunch slightly, hoping it wasn’t too noticeable.
Shit. SHIT.
Why now?!
Alice stepped forward, bowing her head respectfully.
"Mother," her voice was reverent. "When Emma and I were gathering firewood in the southern forest, we found this intruder. He entered our village territory... sohow."
The woman stopped carving the bone. Slowly, she looked up.
Those blue eyes stared at Leonard.
From head to toe. Then back to his face.
Leonard felt like an insect under a magnifying glass. One wrong move, and he might die.
She smiled faintly.
"Intruder?" she repeated, her voice deep, lodic, but with a cold edge.
She set her half-finished weapon aside, then stood.
When she stood, Leonard realized: she was tall. Maybe 180 cm, with long legs revealed by her short skirt. Each step made her curves sway, made the fur on her top shift, occasionally revealing more than it should.
She walked closer. Her eyes observed.
Leonard looked down, trying to hide his embarrassing physical reaction. But he could feel her gaze—tracing his back, his shoulders, his legs, returning to his face.
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