During the development phase, even if I didn’t give him any orders, Brave Pekkle’s presence alone boosted the abilities of all Pekkles—and boosted them even more if I assigned him to take command.
On top of that, beneath my ribbon overlay was the Santa Hat I was forced to wear all year round. Even with their current debuffs, they’d probably be able to work almost as effectively as the stagnated Bunownies.
“Next, for the oasis—”
Just as I was considering setting up my crab traps, a furious cloud of dust rolled in from the direction of the structures.
“Bunny-bun!”
Something burst from the dust and rammed straight into Brave Pekkle.
“P-Pen?!”
“Bun, y’know!”
Rub, rub, rub! A lone Bunowny, armed with a spear, was nuzzling its forehead against Brave Pekkle’s chest. He seemed a bit...overly friendly.
“S-Settle down, pen!”
Brave Pekkle shoved the Bunowny back with a flipper to the forehead.
“Got it, bun!”
Even then, the Bunowny tried to keep up the nuzzling a while longer, but Brave Pekkle’s resistance was too strong. It took a while before it relented.
“Pen, pen.”
“Bunny bun bun y’know.”
The two of them got into some dialogue animations.
“Hmm...those are unique animations. But...I feel this dialogue might be dangerous.”
What about it?
“With that said...the Buno-no-meter hasn’t detected anything abnormal. A relief, that.”
“That Bunowny’s awfully chummy with Brave Pekkle.”
Santa Hat Bunowny had a special interaction with Chris too, but nothing beyond that. And yet, this Bunowny was showing an extreme reaction to Brave Pekkle.
“That one’s Brave Bunowny,” Emoji explained.
“Ah...I see.”
Among the development zone’s creatures, this was a special Bunowny that held the “hero” position.
“Did you get him from the treasure chest at the bottom of the dungeon?”
“Aye. I dug into the dungeon’s floor and turned up a key.”
Wow, that’s some serious luck, Emoji. Or does she just dig everywhere? Should I press her on that? In my case, I only got my key when I tried reeling in a lord from the underground lake.
Regardless, having a special Bunowny already on the roster was bound to make development go a lot smoother.
“A Bunowny with a spear, huh? Mine was a Pekkle with a shield.”
“Right, Kizuna’s Pekkle has some insane defense. I practically became invincible after I put on the costume modeled after it.”
Brave Pekkle was a Pekkle min-maxed for defense, after all. He would automatically guard in a pinch, and it was never a waste to summon him in any important battle. He even unleashed a special move on occasion that dealt some nice chip damage.
Anyway, it seemed that some special interaction triggered whenever two hero-class development creatures came into contact.
“Brave Bunowny, huh... Judging by our Brave Pekkle, I bet it’s got a nasty quirk or two.”
With Brave Pekkle, his flaw was that his stress bar rose way too quickly, and once it crossed a certain threshold, he’d start to get toxic.
“Indeed. The island lord ought to know how to handle a Brave Bunowny as well.”
“How does it differ from Kizuna’s Pekkle?” Kanade asked.
“Just the fact it has a spear means it’s clearly meant to fill a different role.”
Emoji nodded at my supposition. “For starters, his first peculiarity...he would only ever take orders from female players.”
“Female players?”
“Aye.”
Silence fell over Emoji, sis, and I. A Bunowny that only listened to women... What kind of lech-hare-ous rabbit were we dealing with here?
“How would that work for me?”
As someone who was openly crossplaying, I wondered what category the Bunowny would lump me into.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have many open crossplayers, so it is hard to say. Most likely, it has to do with what you set your avatar as.”
Well, I would hate it if the game started peeking at who’s behind the screen.
Surely there were players using female avatars in this second life just to enjoy wearing pretty outfits. There were always at least a few guys playing girls in any online game, and most just did it because they preferred watching a girl character instead of a boy one. Thus, a lot of people ended up crossplaying whether they were into that sort of stuff or not.
“Like the Pekkle, Brave Bunowny’s stress gauge would rise exceptionally fast. But he did have the specs to match. The issue, however, was that once his stress rose above fifty percent, he would change completely. He would begin decrying all female players as ‘pigs’ and only listen to male players. When that happened, he would start adding ‘y’knows’ to his ‘-buns.’”
Hey now...that’s one dangerous Bunowny. Especially for all those folks sensitive about gender stuff.
“So he’s a real bother...” Kanade grumbled. “To summarize, the moment Lahal gave him a task that put him over fifty percent, he stopped listening to a single word she said.”
“What’s more, he had a troublesome habit of working on his own accord, regardless of orders.”
So, once his stress crossed fifty percent, he’d flat-out ignore commands, and he’d go off on his own to work and build up stress whether he was ordered to or not. If her pioneering team had been cooperative, she could’ve gotten a male player to take over, assigning Brave Bunowny to a different task or putting him back on standby. But if her story was to be taken at face value, no one was willing to help her.
“The previous members would deliberately push the Bunownies to Karma-fy to fight them, and unfortunately, he was the easiest to get to that point. I always tried to keep him below fifty percent so he was still within my control, but alas.”
Yeah... Brave Bunowny was pretty much a sitting duck. Day after day, he was pushed to his Karma form to be beaten and used.
Wait, hmm?
“So Brave Bunowny turns Karma if his stress gauge hits a hundred percent?”
That’s strange. Brave Pekkle turned into Wrath Pengu when he capped out.
“Nay, he turned into something else—a special boss through a special event. That’s why he was so often hunted down.”
What a tragic fate.
“But that was only until I triggered a different event. I heard it from the reports on the island lord’s development. You found a red-haired doll in the dungeon and used it on the Brave Pekkle, yes?”
“Oh...so they found one too.”
Of course they did. Those self-proclaimed frontliners were all battle maniacs, so surely they never slacked off on diving into that dungeon. They may not have cared for developing the land, but they were desperate to catch up to the other players with the dungeon... And that led them to finding the red-haired doll.