"Cough, cough... aaah, eegh..."
Tuzel the rabbit painfully flailed both hands. After several attempts, they still drooped down, as though all strength had left them. Yet from the blinking of its large eyes, it was clear that it had not lost consciousness—it had simply given up struggling.
Ruger sat beneath a fairly decent-looking tree. The injuries on his face and arms had mostly healed, but two wounds on his shoulder and waist were more severe and extremely difficult to recover from. While on the way here, he had simply used Lesser Sharpness to cut away the flesh and blood from those spots, making them easier to heal instead.
He studied the radiant glow rising from the rabbit's cottage, then lowered his head and began to meditate.
His mental power recovered quickly. The main expenditure had been filling his temporary spell slots; to avoid being caught in a scramble if something happened, he meditated briefly to recover, and the tension and fatigue swiftly drained away.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that he was not the only one meditating in the forest clearing near the cottage.
Clearly, everyone had had quite an eventful time just now.
"Interesting," Vito said.
Ruger also noticed that something was off.
Several wizard apprentices were glaring viciously at the rabbit.
Naturally, they included the nightmare wizard apprentice and the fat man following the path of faith. The demon wizard apprentice stood nearby as well, occasionally flexing his arms. As for the other wizard apprentices, they had not revealed themselves before, but none of them seemed weak in presence.
The old crone lay on the rabbit's recliner in the distance, resting with her eyes closed.
Tuzel the rabbit had escaped her clutches, yet it was sprawled on the ground. Judging by its movements, even getting back