Regroup at the Bunnykin Inn

By the time you arrive, Jas is back behind the reception desk with a new button-up shirt, this one white with thick, vertical black stripes. It doesn’t appear to fit her any better than the last one. She calls over one of the bunnykin maids and tells the girl to show you to your rooms, after which you’re both led upstairs. The maid, a cheerful girl with chestnut hair pulled back into a ponytail, shows you down the long upstairs hallway, past all the smaller rooms. At the end of the hall, the last two doors on either side are spaced out more than the rest you’ve seen. According to the bunny maid, your party has been booked for three of their four suites tonight. The last room on the left side is the one she designates as yours, with Blythe and Lia across the hall. Eager to set your camping gear down, you part with Blythe in the hallway and enter your suite.

When you heard suite, you were picturing the kind of luxurious living space you’ve seen in movies where the main character suddenly inherits a fortune from a dead relative. What you actually walk into is closer to your idea of a regular hotel room. The door opens into a short entry hall, with a vanity set into the wall to your left. To your right is a door opening into the first actual bathroom you’ve seen since you died and became a demon lord, complete with toilet, sink, and bathtub. Further in, two full-size beds rest against the right-hand wall, with enough space for a dark wooden end table to sit between them with a crystal lamp and a clock. On the left side of the room, directly opposite the beds, sit two chests of drawers; each is simple, reaching your waist in height and holding empty drawers for you to store your things in. Finally, at the back of the room there’s a writing desk and a simple wooden chair underneath a large, curtained window.

You waist no time chucking the tent and bedrolls into one of the dresser drawers, and then your attention is drawn to the window. You can’t imagine the view is any good from where you’re at: the inn is off the main road, so if anything you might get to stare at a back alley and the wall of another building. Yet, the evening light pushing through the curtain is piquing your curiosity. The curtain pulls easily to the side, but what’s less easy is the work your brain has to do to understand what it’s seeing. Outside the window is a picturesque view of wind-swept grasslands in the late evening. This definitely isn’t the view that should be outside your room, so there must be some kind of magic at work.{if BKnowsUrDL = 1} You’ve seen magic like this once before, in the strange library where you obtained your book of beginner spells.{endif} If you think about it, you haven’t been in very many nice, what you could consider middle- to upper-class, establishments since your isekai life began. Maybe this is just a common window enchantment, you think. I’ll have to ask someone later.

The nearest bed calls out to your tired body, so you flop down on it and instantly fall asleep.

…

You’re awoken by the sound of knocking at the door. Judging by the luminescent twilight passing through the window, you can’t have been asleep for more than an hour. Seconds later, you hear Blythe announce herself and ask to come in. You quickly answer that it’s alright to enter, then readjust yourself into a sitting posture on the edge of the bed. Both Blythe and Lia enter, Lia moving to the bed nearest the door and dropping your rucksack onto it. The bag looks significantly heavier than it did earlier, which you take as a good sign. You move from the foot of the bed to the side in order to get a better look at everything Lia’s about to show you, and Blythe comes to seat herself beside you. Getting the gist of the impromptu seating arrangement, Lia sits down on the other bed facing you and Blythe, the rucksack placed beside her ready for its contents to be displayed.

“Okay, first,” says the cat-eared woman, “I don’t know about you two, but I’m starving. Here.” The first things she pulls out of the bag are three large apples. She hands one to Blythe first, then pulls back suddenly when handing one over to you. There’s a history between the two of you regarding apple theft, after all; no doubt that’s what this taunt is about. It doesn’t last, however, as she does pass it to you a moment later. After a few minutes of apple-munching, she’s ready to start her show-and-tell. She pulls out coin purse after coin purse at first, dumping the contents of each onto the bed in one ever-increasing pile of drachmas and tossing the empty purses aside. Most she doesn’t comment on, but occasionally a particular money pouch stands out to her and she tells a little story about the asshole or the drunk who she copped it off of. She pulls out your magic basics book and sets it aside. Next comes a fighting knife she apparently slid right out of its sheath on the original owner’s waist as she walked past. Her hand dives back into the sack, this time pulling out the little glass eye you got after killing the tentacle monster. Lia spins it around until the pupil is facing her, and then she freezes, all color draining from her face.

Precious seconds tick by as her breathing starts to accelerate.