Leon wasn't sure about what was more terrifying. The fact that the rabbits could easily cut through the tough ogre skin with their claws or the fact that they were incredibly coordinated and showing signs of intelligence. Or perhaps the fact that the leader of the rabbits didn't even need to come out himself.
The rabbits dragged the corpse of the ogre towards the giant rabbit, so Leon decided to take his leave and slowly stalked back to Aurora. Aurora saw that Leon looked different and was curious as to why.
"Big bro Leon? Are you okay? You seem…off."
Leaning against the wall, Leon sat down and crossed his legs.
"Well, I have some good news and some horrible news."
Aurora also sat down right next to Leon.
"I guess I'll take the good news first."
Leon sighed.
"Well, I followed the rabbit and found out that there are a whole bunch of them, so we won't starve to death if we hunt them."
Aurora gave a little praise.
"That's good!"
Leon remembered the ogre being easily overwhelmed and almost shuddered.
"But, it seems like the rabbits are quite strong and show an abnormal and scary level of intelligence."
Aurora didn't look too troubled and merely just said one thing.
"Don't fret big bro Leon. I know I'm a burden and not much help, but I trust whatever big bro decides to do. So just think everything through and I'll follow you to the best of my ability!"
Seeing the girl's enthusiasm, Leon gave Aurora a pat on the top of her head which made her hair messy, which led to her giving a pout.
Laughing at Aurora pouting, Leon closely examined his options and didn't like what he found. He was very hopeful that the exit he saw earlier would lead above ground as it was the only tunnel he had seen so far that actually sloped upwards while other tunnels merely stayed ground level or went down even deeper.
Plus the fact that the pair had no food left with only a canteen of water, he didn't know if taking his chances of finding nothing or getting loss was worth it. He knew that he would definitely not be able to take on the swarm of rabbits even if he was fully healed, but something told him to take his chances here.
Before Leon could decide the exact course of action, his stomach made a small rumbling sound as it shouted out its hunger.
'Well, I guess finding something to eat first would be our first course of action.'
In the end, Leon decided that he would try his hand at hunting a rabbit for two reasons. One was to obviously kill and eat it since the pair had no food at the moment. The second reason was that he wanted to see if he could handle it.
Leon knew fighting a horde of them was out of the question, however, food was a big issue and he didn't know if he would run into any other animals or something that would keep them from starving to death. So, he decided to see if he had the ability to hunt a rabbit.
Although Leon was taking a completely educated guess, he wanted to assume that the rabbits seemed to be collecting the shining glowing rocks that lit up the entire cave system. He didn't know why they would do that, but the fact that the leader of the rabbits leisurely sat atop a pile of the rocks made Leon suspect that the rabbit he had previously followed was taking the glowing rocks back.
So, Leon decided he would try to ambush the rabbit if it came the same way and take it back to the cavern he had originally ended up in. After explaining the plan to Aurora, he decided to let her go back to the cavern first just in case he couldn't defeat the rabbit and had to retreat.
Leon was fast, but he didn't want to take the risk of being slowed down by carrying Aurora if he ran from the rabbit. Aurora seemed to be deep in thought after Leon told her about the plan, but soon she merely agreed and told him to stay safe as she walked back towards the cavern.
Before she left, Leon left her the small piece of dried meat they had left, just in case, he didn't make it back.
With a plan in his mind, Leon sat behind an extremely dark part of the tunnel and started to wait for a rabbit. He didn't know if one would really come, but it was his best chance of fighting one besides running into the giant room and facing hundreds of them at a time.
Time went by slowly. A minute passed, ten minutes, an hour, and soon Leon had sat waiting for almost two hours before he heard anything. A few minutes before two hours, Leon heard a sound of movement in the far distance down the tunnel. After a minute or so it got closer and closer to Leon's position.
Sure enough, after a few more minutes, a snow-white rabbit with two large claws hopped down the tunnel until it found a big crystal near Leon and started to dig it out with its two claws. As it slowly used its tough and long claws to break the rocky walls and floor of the tunnel, Leon slowly edged closer to the white rabbit until he was only a few meters away.
Normally Leon preferred to practice using a sword, but since the tunnel itself was quite small. The space might affect Leon's fighting capability if he fought with a sword. He silently and slowly drew Ensis and used one of Ensis's abilities that allowed the sword to take the shape of two daggers.
The mighty sword turned into two elegant curved daggers that resembled a giant tiger's claw. Surprisingly, the color of the daggers was jet black which was quite different from Ensis's normal whitish blade.
(Authors note: the daggers look like big karambit knives
With a knife in each hand, Leon was about to pounce until a loud gurgling noise could be heard coming from Leon's stomach.
'Well, shit.'