Bradon

It had been two months since the horned rabbit, Bokdol, came to Bradon Village.

When the monster first arrived, many villagers with children were worried.

However, Bokdol became the village’s mascot with its unique friendliness and cuteness, and everyone came to love Bokdol.

Bokdol would stay still even when children came to touch its fur and hug it, and it would lick their hands like a puppy.

When the children opened their hearts and approached Bokdol first, their parents couldn’t help but like Bokdol too.

Running around with the children during their playtime was one of Bokdol’s daily routines.

Smartly, Bokdol was careful not to hurt the children with the horn on its forehead, and it made sure not to pop the ball with its horn when playing ball with them.

Once, some dogs in the village, known for their strength, gathered and barked at Bokdol.

It was a struggle for dominance between animals.

Bokdol only made ‘Keureureureung’ sounds and didn’t attack first.

A dog as big as Bokdol rushed to bite it.

Bokdol nimbly dodged and rammed the dog’s belly with its horn.

The dog howled in pain with a hole blown through its belly.

Naturally, the dogs raised in the village couldn’t win in a fight against a forest monster like a horned rabbit.

Smartly, Bokdol didn’t attack any further and just watched.

Fortunately, Lucy came with a healing potion in time, and the dog was saved.

People were relieved that Bokdol’s aggressive instincts as a monster weren’t that high.

If it were a wild horned rabbit, it would have rammed all the dogs with its horn until they died.

After that, no village animal bothered Bokdol, which was a bonus that made Bokdol happy.

Bokdol was raised at Lucy’s potion shop and home.

Lucy lived in a detached house made of wood and stone.

The basement of the detached house was a potion workshop, the first floor was a medicinal herb and potion shop, and the second floor was the living space.

Bokdol lived with Lucy in a rabbit house installed on the second floor.

The reason Bokdol could live inside the house instead of in the yard was that, commendably, it was well-trained with its potty habits and enjoyed being washed.

Two months had passed since Lucy started raising Bokdol, and now she couldn’t imagine life without Bokdol.

Bokdol always looked only at Lucy, whether she was sad or happy.

When Lucy held Bokdol’s plump and soft fur, it felt like the stress of the day flew away.

Elvin sometimes joked to Lucy, “Marry Bokdol.”

Elvin was sometimes a little jealous of Bokdol being so close to Lucy.

However, Elvin also preferred seeing Lucy’s face brighten up because of Bokdol.

In fact, Bokdol was friendly to Elvin too, which made Elvin open his heart to some extent.

Bokdol’s favorite day was when it went to gather herbs with Lucy.

Today, Bokdol followed Lucy on her way to gather herbs.

Bokdol sniffed around and found the herbs Lucy wanted.

Bokdol also threatened and chased away wild monsters.

Lucy said.

“Bokdol-ah. Find me some Helona grass~”

“Kkyuuuung!”

Bokdol sniffed around and pointed its right forepaw to one side, implying to follow it.

“It’s so amazing. How does Bokdol understand what I’m saying? Hehehe.”

Lucy followed Bokdol for 15 minutes and was able to find a cluster of Helona grass.

“Bokdol-ah. You have to protect Nuna while I pick the Helona grass. Okay?”

“Kkyuung!”

In between picking the Helona grass, other horned rabbits or goblins looked at them, but they just left when Bokdol threatened them.

This is because wild monsters usually don’t invade the territory of other wild monsters.

Sometimes wild monsters attacked, but Lucy and Bokdol could easily win if they joined forces.

“I picked a lot today. It’s all thanks to Bokdol. Hehehe. Bokdol seems to bring a lot of good fortune. Let’s go back to Bradon Village now.”

“Kkyuung!”

Lucy thought as she happily returned to Bradon Village with Bokdol today.

‘I should give Bokdol some chicken it likes for dinner today~ And I should sleep hugging Bokdol. Hehehe.’

The ecology of monsters is still largely shrouded in mystery, but Lucy, who had lived with Bokdol for almost two months, had mostly figured out Bokdol’s preferences.

Lucy gave Bokdol delicious boiled chicken breast for dinner and left to eat out with Elvin.

“Bokdol-ah. Nuna is going to eat with Elvin Oppa today, so take care of the house~”

“Kkyuuuung! Kkyuung!”

Lucy came back home and slept hugging Bokdol.

“Bokdol-ah~ Were you lonely all this time? Let’s sleep together~”

The next day, when Lucy woke up, Bokdol didn’t wake up.

Lucy thought Bokdol was still sleeping and went down to the first floor to run the potion shop.

But strangely, Bokdol didn’t come down to the first floor even after several hours had passed.

Usually, it was the time for Bokdol to go out of the shop and run around the village excitedly.

Lucy felt uneasy and went to the bedroom on the second floor.

There, Bokdol was still lying down.

“Bokdol….”

Lucy called Bokdol in a trembling voice.

Bokdol slowly raised its head and looked at Lucy with painful eyes.

“Kkyuuuung”

There was no strength in Bokdol’s voice.

As if it was about to die soon.

“Bokdol-ah! What’s wrong, Bokdol-ah! What happened!”

Lucy hugged Bokdol, crying in fear of losing it.

Bokdol’s body, which had been running around so vigorously just yesterday, had no strength at all.

Lucy picked up Bokdol and ran down to the underground potion workshop.

First, she needed to know what had happened to Bokdol’s body.

Lucy put a stethoscope on Bokdol’s body and listened to its breathing sounds.

The breathing and heartbeat were irregular.

Some parts of its body were even cold.

Lucy fed Bokdol a healing potion that was often prescribed for pets.

Bokdol seemed to get better for a moment, but after 5 minutes, it lost strength again and was in pain.

Even feeding it a new healing potion didn’t make much difference.

“Waaah! Bokdol-ah, you can’t die. How can Nuna live without you! Waaah!”

Lucy ran to Elvin with Bokdol in her arms.

Elvin was on guard duty.

Elvin was surprised to see Lucy’s eyes swollen from crying and asked.

“Lucy. What’s wrong?”

“Elvin. Bokdol, Bokdol…”

“Calm down. Take a deep breath.”

“Bokdol has been sick since this morning and hasn’t woken up.”

Elvin looked at Bokdol with a serious expression, and it really looked like it was about to die.

Elvin comforted Lucy and took a vacation to save Bokdol.

“Lucy. Let’s go to Priest Melissa right now and ask her to use recovery magic.”

“Okay, okay.”

Lucy and Elvin went to the only church in the village where Priest Melissa was.

Lucy showed Bokdol to Melissa and pleaded with a desperate face.

“Priest Melissa-nim. Bokdol is very sick here. Please use healing magic.”

“Healing magic is quite expensive, are you okay with that?”

“Yes. I know. Please use it anyway.”

“Alright. It’s 10 gold.”

In battles, priests use healing magic for free, but in this peaceful era, healing magic is the church’s main source of income.

This is because healing magic can treat things that cannot be treated with healing potions.

Even when Priest Melissa used healing magic, Bokdol’s condition did not improve.

Priest Melissa said with a pitiful expression.

“The fact that healing magic doesn’t work means that this pain is a natural form for the horned rabbit. This horned rabbit seems to have lived out its natural lifespan.”

“That can’t be. Waaah.”

“Lucy. Calm down.”

So Lucy and Elvin had no choice but to take Bokdol back home.

“Waaah. Bokdol, what should I do? It’s only been two months. Waaah”

Elvin quietly hugged Lucy until she stopped crying.

“Lucy. It’s very, very sad that Bokdol is dying, but Bokdol must have been happy to be with us too.”

“Hic.”

“Isn’t it possible that Bokdol came to us because it felt that its lifespan was coming to an end? Maybe it wanted to get to know the existence of humans before it died.”

“Hic… Yeah.”

Lucy slowly nodded in agreement.

At that moment, Bokdol, who was lying on the table, slowly lifted its body and approached Lucy step by step with trembling steps.

“Kkyueueueueu”

As if using all of its last energy.

“Bokdol-ah! You mustn’t move!”

Bokdol moved to the end and leaned its face against Lucy’s chest.

Lucy shouted.

“Bokdol-ah!”

“Bokdol is still okay. It seems like Bokdol wants to be with you until the end. You spent the most time with it.”

Lucy nodded at Elvin’s words and gave the brightest smile she could show.

“Bokdol-ah. Let’s sleep together tonight, Nuna.”

Elvin said.

“It’s late today, so I’ll go home. Call me if you need me. I’ll run over anytime.”

“Thank you so much, Elvin. You’re the only one I have. Hic. I’ll definitely call you if I need you.”

“I promise. I’m going. Bye~!”

Elvin quickly left Bokdol and Lucy alone and returned to his house.

Lucy talked about the things that had happened with Bokdol, considering Bokdol’s last moments.

Bokdol also looked deeply into Lucy’s eyes, nestled in her arms while she was talking.

Bokdol seemed to be aware of its end and was listening attentively.

Lucy slept hugging Bokdol that night.

The next day, Bokdol was not breathing.

Bokdol’s death was a great sorrow for the village, so Bokdol was buried in the village square.

The tombstone on Bokdol’s grave read, ‘Horned rabbit Bokdol, who was the cutest in the village. Buried here.’

All the children in the village cried in front of Bokdol’s grave, giving it the grass and snacks that Bokdol liked the most.

The village adults also looked at Bokdol’s grave from time to time, recalling Bokdol’s joyful anecdotes.

Bokdol will be with all the villagers in their hearts until the end.

————————–

I, Kim Cheol-soo, finally felt a cool sense of liberation.

It had already been two months since I had been acting as a cute pet horned rabbit.

I had been acting for too long, so I was confused as to whether my ego was a pet horned rabbit, and at some point, I even enjoyed it.

The reason I had endured for two months was because it required 100 evolution points to dominate the brain of a human-like higher life form.

When I came to Bradon Village, my evolution points were 7pt.

For the first few days, I wandered around to thoroughly memorize the structure of the village and the people.

Acting as a cute pet horned rabbit was a bonus.

Bradon Village reminded me of a village in the Middle Ages.

Most of the village floor was dirt road, and there was a square in the center that was used as a market.

Most of the buildings were wooden houses, and there were also buildings mixed with stone and wood.

In front of the square, there was a slightly larger house made of stone, where the village chief lived.

Merchants from outside brought goods on mobile carts to the square and traded with the villagers.

The outside merchants sold food, weapons, beauty tools, etc. to the villagers, and bought herbs, potions, monster by-products, etc. from the village’s shops.

Sometimes people wearing wide-brimmed conical hats and robes and carrying canes came, and they showed magic shows to the village children.

At this time, I could definitely feel that this was another world.

This village felt like a developed village with active trade rather than a simple rural village.

Roughly counting the number of buildings, there seemed to be about 300 households.

The important figures were Priest Melissa, who ran the village church, Guard Captain Winston, and Village Chief Edgar.

Some adults seemed to have the power to defeat monsters.

The village chief decided on the village’s major and minor affairs by holding meetings with the village’s important personnel.

The village was surrounded by wooden fences and stone walls, and the village guards stood guard on the walls.

The unit of currency in this world was 1 gold for 10 silver and 1 silver for 10 copper.

Comparing the prices, 1 copper was roughly 1,000 won in Earth units, 1 silver was 10,000 won, and 1 gold was 100,000 won.

After looking around the village for 10 days, I could almost understand what kind of village it was.

When Lucy hugged me and slept, I tried to penetrate Lucy’s brain.

At the moment I was about to give up on the horned rabbit’s brain, the thought that I might fail to dominate a human brain, a higher intelligent life form, flashed through my mind.

When I thought deeply about wanting to dominate the brain of a higher intelligent life form, I heard a sound.

Ttiririring

[100pt of evolution points are required to understand and connect with the brain of a higher intelligent life form, a human.]

My mouth dropped open.

I’ve been collecting points little by little so far, when will I collect 100pt?

So I spent two months collecting points.

Fortunately, even if I completed achievements with this horned rabbit’s body, I could collect evolution points.

I earned 5pt when I first made a hole in the belly of the village’s hopeless leader dog.

I could also collect evolution points by following Lucy to gather herbs and catching low-level monsters such as goblins or other horned rabbits with Lucy.

The total evolution points I collected were 167pt.

In the end, I made Lucy’s mind unstable and acted in pain so that Lucy could hug me and sleep.

Actually, it wasn’t acting, it was really painful.

The brainstem of a living organism’s brain is a very basic center that controls life activities such as eye movement, heartbeat, and breathing, and the diencephalon secretes hormones to maintain homeostasis.

I gave a strong stimulus to the brainstem and diencephalon, making them a mess.

As a result, life activities became irregular and homeostasis was broken, causing the horned rabbit to die in just one day.

I was shocked when Lucy fed me a healing potion and asked the priest for healing magic.

But since this wasn’t due to external injuries and was considered a natural phenomenon of the living organism, I was relieved when the brainstem and diencephalon didn’t return to their original state.

When the dying horned rabbit was sleeping in Lucy’s arms, I came out through the horned rabbit’s nose and entered Lucy’s nose while she was sleeping.

I went in very quickly, so Lucy probably didn’t even notice.

I sprayed a lot of anesthetic mucus on the upper part of the nasal cavity and made a thin hole to enter Lucy’s brain.

‘Dominate Lucy’s brain.’

Ttiriririring

[Using 100pt, connect to the brain of a higher intelligent life form, a human.]

Now there are 67pt of evolution points left.