Angor took a turn in the air to gain a better view. This time, he saw the man sitting by the table… or not. Angor could not call it a "man" from its looks.
To be precise, it was a small bunny wearing a gentleman's attire. Should he call it Mister Bunny?
Less than half a meter tall, with a pure, snow-white coat, and long ears showing a pale pink color inside and decorated with soft, furry fringes. Its eyes had the color of a crimson gem, embedded on its adorable little head. The ears were almost as long as its own body. If one ignored all those strange decorations, it was just an extremely cute rabbit that could easily make any girl scream in delight.
Angor would have fallen in love with the creature too if not given the circumstances. Now, he already raised his alertness to the best extent and no longer had the mood to admire the rabbit's cuteness.
Most of Angor's attention was on Mister Bunny itself.
Its clothing was the biggest difference it had compared to regular pet rabbits. It was not wearing anything on the bottom. There was a tailcoat with lace edgings and red diamond patterns on it. A black top-hat sat between those ears, and a small badge with a smiling face hung on the edge of the hat. The most attractive piece was the small, gold-rimmed monocle over one of its eyes, which gave the adorable bunny some gentlemanly look.
Also, Mister Bunny was not sitting on the chair as Angor thought. It was floating in front of the table, with its eyes fixed on a thick book with a violet cover on the table.
Angor circled around Mister Bunny and realized that it would not pay him any attention, just like the other creatures. It might be that it was simply too focused on its book and never noticed the sudden visitor.
After roaming around the hall for some more, Angor only felt more and more curious about this world.
Was this really a parallel world? Did he just transmigrate? He could not get an answer at all. More importantly, he was no longer sure if he had passed the talent test.
As he fought with all the confusion, an idea suddenly crossed his mind.
No, the idea was so abrupt that Angor did not even know if that was his own idea, or it was someone else's. It was telling his mind to get back to the closet.
Getting back to the closet from where he transmigrated here… That was all the idea told him.
Without a doubt, Angor agreed with the idea. He was not sure where it came from but he trusted his instinct.
As he turned to leave the hall, he heard the sound of turning pages from Mister Bunny not far from him.
Angor turned back to look at the violet-covered book the bunny was reading and suddenly stopped his movement for some reason. He quietly floated to Mister Bunny and checked out the content of the book.
The book was standing on the table. The book cover was clear to read. There was nothing special on it, kinda like a romance novel loved by noble ladies.
There was a line of strange symbols at the top. Angor could not read them. It was probably the title. Then there was a cartoon-style picture below and a simply sketched castle in the background. There was a blurry cartoon girl in the foreground - red hat, long, curly brown hair, blue skirt, and white shoes. The facial features and her clothes were all not very detailed, like something drawn by children. The use of colors was great though.
A castle and a girl… Is this one of the "princess tales" Teacher used to tell?
All bedtime stories Angor ever knew were told by Jon when Angor was small. Most of the stories were about ancient figures which meant to lecture him about human virtue. A small part of them was Grimms Fairytales. Angor never liked them, but he still remembered some of the names, such as the famous "Princess Snow White" and "Cinderella".
This was why Angor instantly thought about those stories when he saw the cover drawn in a little girl's style.
He did not think about the cover for much time. He could not read it anyway, so he floated behind Mister Bunny and began reading the book.
He saw the content of the book just now and could only make out that it was a picture book.
Angor could not understand any of the words, but he could still speculate the story by the pictures.
It seemed like a fairytale.
A girl bumped into a strange land. She could drink some wine to become small as a rat or eat some cake to be as big as a giant. There was a bowl of mushroom soup; drinking from the left made her shorter while drinking from the right made her taller. With all of these surprises, the girl started an amazing journey with strange creatures.
Angor enjoyed the story. He felt somewhat familiar with it, but he quickly put that emotion away to keep reading the book.
Time passed. Things around him were becoming weirder, but Angor realized none of them.
Firstly, Mister Bunny was turning the pages along with Angor's reading speed. Next, the plush owls, poker soldiers, bunny teacups and rainbow dragonflies on the other side of the hall all came around him. However, Angor was totally attracted by the beautiful journey in the story and was completely oblivious of his surrounding.
Angor did not take any of the abnormalities to heart. Instead, he joyfully placed his own spirit together with the girl in the story.
Angor felt himself becoming the main character of the story and running after a talking bunny.
Everything was beautiful. All creatures here had peculiar looks, but they all showed kindness. Angor even thought that this was the wonderland.
As he kept himself immersed in the wonderful world, a sharp cackling came from the castle far away.
"Oh no, the Queen of Hearts is here! Shava, you need to leave, or the queen will turn you into a card!" urged the talking bunny.
The Queen of Hearts? Leave? Shava?
Angor stared at everything with a blank face.
Who's Shava? I'm Ango—An—Huh? Who am I?
He realized something was wrong.
He recalled seeing the bunny in tailcoat in the manor castle, and the bunny was—wait, what was the bunny doing?
The beautiful journey in Angor's mind instantly shattered into pieces. He knew he forgot something, and he knew he must remember it!
He screamed with his mind, but his memory kept falling apart until he could not even remember what he was doing just a second ago.
"Eeeheeheehee—"
"Shava, what are you doing?? Run! The queen is coming!" The bunny dragged Angor's hand. "This is dangerous, you need to go to my rabbit hole to escape!"
Next, Angor was unconsciously led away by the bunny.
The mountains afar were still booming with green, but all the fantasies now carried a lifeless strangeness.
"My rabbit hole is right there. Get in and let me deal with the queen," the bunny said before he pushed Angor.
Angor fell onto the ground with a trip.
The bunny was still urging him to get inside the hole, but sudden alertness came about Angor's mind.
"Get back to the closet."
The message appeared inside his head abruptly.
The closet? Angor's once blank expression turned sharp. He remembered the closet! He also recalled that he was taking his talent test, and fell into a strange parallel world for no reason, and a… a reading bunny!
When he realized everything, the world around him shifted. All became nothingness.
The "rabbit hole" was replaced by a bloody maw filled with sharp fangs. The adorable bunny behind him also turned into a tattered ragdoll with patches sewn all around it.
Angor stepped back, then quickly ran away from the maw.
As he left the area, he found himself back at the hall where Mister Bunny was.
He was no longer relaxed as before, however, because he just noticed that a group of card soldiers had surrounded him…