While the best items in Gacha Love were found in dungeons – which were unlocked as you progressed through the game – there were usually books or smaller items to be found in event locations. There were three such locations in Clara’s house, and while this was three years too early for the events, it was possible that at least some of those items would already be there.

  The closest one was Chef’s diary, but however nice the man seemed to be, she didn’t think he’d respond well to seeing an oversized dust-bunny paging through his private thoughts. That left the library and the training ground. The library was inside, but the training ground was conveniently nearby, so Pandy headed there.

  Her hops covered the ground with surprising speed, and she soon rounded the side of the house, seeing a path that split in two directions. One branch led to a small flower garden that wasn’t used in the game. She could see a glass door in a glass wall at the far end of it, so that must be Lady Alice’s conservatory and tearoom, which made sense according to Pandy’s mental map.

  Jumping up onto a low bench, Pandy stood on her back legs, ears standing straight up as she peered off down the other branch. Yes, from her heightened vantage point, she could tell she was heading in the right direction. The event took place in the winter, with snow on the ground, but there was no mistaking the practice dummies and the small building where wooden swords and other training items were stored.

  Pleased, Pandy hopped back down to the ground, then headed for the building. There was actually a book and an item here, but she would start with the book. The item would be a little tricky to get when she was only fourteen or fifteen inches long and six pounds soaking wet. Of course, the book was inside the building, and she didn’t have opposable thumbs, so she might end up leaving empty-handed. Or empty-pawed, as it were.

  She was cautious as she approached, but she didn’t see or hear anyone nearby. All of her bunny instincts screamed against crossing the wide open area containing the practice dummies but she really had no other choice. Fortunately, no sharp-eyed hawk or falcon spotted her, because she had no idea what would happen if one scooped her up. Would it eat her, or would it take a bite and find that whatever she was made of had gone bad quite some time ago? Did hawks and falcons eat carrion, and did Pandy qualify?

  The question of her own suitability as a prey animal was driven from her mind when she spotted a single window, which was open just enough to allow a fresh breeze into the building. That made sense, because no matter how you tried to clean sweat-soaked leather, there was only so much you could do. It probably stank terribly in there. Well, she was about to find out.

  Concentrating on her back legs, Pandy stared up at the window and thought At first she thought it wouldn’t work, but then her muscles bunched without her consciously telling them to, and she was launched through the air. Her face smacked into the window with an awkward thump, incurring three points of damage, but as she slid back down, her tail slipped through the gap, quickly followed by the rest of her body.

  Hop successful. 12.5% experience gained towards next level.

  The inside of the building was as musty and funky as Pandy had feared, and she wrinkled her nose as she hopped toward an open chest stuffed with damaged armor, such as studded leather tunics missing studs and a rusty chainmail cowl. Theoretically, apprentice knights were supposed to clean and repair these items, but of course it never actually happened in the game. They were just there to make the scene look more realistic, at least for the most part.

  In the game, Clara just pushed the chest aside, but looking at it now, Pandy was willing to bet that it weighed a hundred pounds or more. There was no way Clara could really have moved it, at least not without a Strength score that belied her size, and Pandy certainly wasn’t going to be able to either. Of course, Pandy was quite a bit smaller than Clara, so she simply slipped into the dark and cobwebby gap where the trunk was pulled out so its lid could lean back against the wall.

  And there it was. One musty, dusty old book, which smelled of mold and whose cover crumbled slightly as Pandy shoved it back out into the open. That cover was gray and unreadable, but Pandy knew what it was: Barton’s Handbook for Clumsy Warriors; Weapons, Woes, and Wonderfully Bad Decisions.

  Using her soft pink nose, Pandy flipped open the cover, sneezing as a cloud of black mold rose into the air. Thankfully, she didn’t actually need to breathe, so she let it settle around her, covering her gleaming white fur in filth once again. It seemed she was destined to be dirty during her time as a rabbit.

  Her eyes quickly skimmed over the faded lettering, only half-conscious of smudges and holes in the pages. She was certain those hadn’t been there in the game, but of course this was reality, or at least she had chosen to treat it that way. She had a feeling that believing she was in a fictional world would quickly lead to bad decisions, if not outright madness, and besides, Pandy was actually happy being a rabbit, digital or not.

  The author, who was presumably the eponymous Barton, discussed all sorts of simple weapons. There were chapters on knives, swords, spears, and bow and arrows, but also boomerangs, slingshots, and various fighting gauntlets. Pandy always read this book when she unlocked the training ground event, because not only did it count toward Bibliophile’s Bounty, but it also gave the player the option to-

  CONGRATULATIONS! You may now select a weapon proficiency from the following:

  

  
• Sw0?eth


  

  

  
• Kn?aw?


  

  

  
• ??α???


  

  Pandy stared in dismay at the words hovering in front of her. What was that? What was any of it? The book was supposed to grant her a weapon proficiency, yes, but it was supposed to offer the three that were most compatible with the way Clara had played to date. It took into account her skill and stat levels, which love interest – or interests – she had the greatest connection with, and what weapon she used when she fought in dungeons. All it did was grant a bonus ten percent to skill gains in that weapon, but it added up, making the end-game noticeably easier.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  She shook her head. None of these made sense. Which made its own kind of sense, in a way. After all, a rabbit couldn’t wield a sword or throw a boomerang, so she’d known it was possible this wouldn’t work. Best case scenario, she might have gotten a boost to her Bite attack or something similar, but this clearly wasn’t the best case.

   she thought at the display, but it stubbornly hung there. she tried, then, Again and again she tried to dismiss it, even kicking and biting at it, but it ignored her, obscuring half her vision, demanding that she choose something.

  She was more than a little desperate when she realized she was overlooking the most obvious option. She should simply select one and move on. But the options were clearly broken, so who knew what they would do to her? Would she sprout the hand necessary to wield a knife, or implode into a tiny piece of bunny fluff?

  But there was one more possibility. If she used the gacha button, she could get a fourth option. If her luck held, that option would be the best one for her. Of course, if it didn’t hold, and the new option was also gibberish, how would she know?

  Glumly, she stared at the letters, which almost seemed to pulse in the air. As far as she could tell, she could select one at random, ignore it and let it hang in front of her for the rest of her un-life, or try to spin a gacha. Only the last one was really tempting, but she didn’t think she’d been imagining the smoke coming from the button the last time she used it. Had that only been because she was standing in a burning room at the time, or was it because there was something wrong with the button itself?

  Deciding that it wouldn’t hurt to just look at the button, Pandy thought, as hard as she could, while picturing the heart-shaped button in her mind. Usually, it hung in the upper right-hand corner of the screen as you played, constantly reminding you that it was there if you were willing to pay for it, but she made a habit of only playing until she used it, then quitting the game and not starting it again until the four-hour wait was up and she could get another free spin.

  When the button appeared, it was blackened on one side, only the letters ‘IN!’ still legible on the other. The smoke she’d seen last time had changed from a slow trickle to something that indicated actual fire was on the way. Even its usually glossy surface was dull and cracked.

  Well, that wasn’t good. Pandy edged toward the button cautiously, whiskers quivering nervously. Was this a sign that the button really was about to break? If so, would it take the whole…whatever this was with it? Or would she just be stuck with the default choices from here on? After all, there was no indication that one of the original choices wouldn’t have worked, it was just that she couldn’t read them, so she didn’t know which one to pick.

  Pandy stood still, caught in such a quandary that she found herself completely unable to do anything. She didn’t want this world to break. She liked being Thaniel’s rabbit, for however long that lasted. Why had she thought it was a good idea to hop over here in the first place, rather than watching the boy learn to ride a horse?

  But she knew. Her position was temporary at best. If she really was undead, then she would continue to…exist, for lack of a better word, for the foreseeable future. Yes, Thaniel loved her right now, but eventually he would grow too old to carry a bunny with him everywhere, even one that didn’t make messes and occasionally read books while he slept. Even if he didn’t, she was certain he wouldn’t be allowed to take her to school, which meant that her time with him was measured in months, if not weeks.

  And what would she do then? She didn’t want to hop off into the forest and become a wild animal. That sounded dirty and dangerous, and even if she was effectively unkillable, she still didn’t want to be torn apart by foxes or made into a hat by some eager huntsman.

  She also didn’t want to be sent back to Thaniel and Lian’s home, where she would probably be stuffed into a cage and forgotten. Even if Cassie did check on her now and then, she was sure the maid wouldn’t slip her cheese or the occasional piece of bread coated in clotted cream, which was something Pandy had only discovered after coming to this world, and wasn’t willing to give up.

  But for one brief moment, during that fateful fire, Pandy had had hands. They weren’t her hands, since her nails never got that long before they broke, and her fingernail polish always chipped or smeared moments after it was applied. Still, as a human being, she could explore this world, and maybe even check up on Thaniel now and then, just to make sure he was all right.

  So this book was a test. If she could use this time of relative safety and ease to gather a few items and skills, she would be in a better position to take care of herself until she could find the one item that actually mattered: the Charm of Shifting Faces.

  The Charm was an end-game item, only used to trigger a series of amusing or touching scenes, where Clara pretended to be different people in order to watch a sort of epilogue. She acted as one of the villainess’ companions in order to see her lose her position in the school and society. She could pretend to be someone in each of the spurned love-interests’ lives in order to see how much they regretted not pursuing Clara fervently enough. There were several more, and in each one the character she pretended to be could change the situation; saving the villainess, soothing the boys, or making things worse for everyone.

  But Pandy had another use for it, if only she could get it. If she was right, she could become someone else, at least temporarily. The description of the item made it clear that it could only be used for a maximum of eight hours a day, but that would be enough.

  If Pandy could be a person – almost any person, really – for eight hours, then spend the rest of the day as a rabbit, she would be perfectly happy. At least she could get a part-time job and keep herself in carrots and turnips, and when she managed to embarrass herself and get fired, she could just look like someone else and start over. If she found a job she liked, she could even get hired for it over and over. Surely even she would eventually become competent if she did that!

  But here was a very large, smoking wrench in her plans. If she couldn’t read the options the Charm gave her, how could she be sure she was going to spend the day as the right person? If she was hired for her dream job as ‘Eva’, and came back the next day as ‘Max’, she really would never be able to have any kind of life. It might almost be worth it to go back and lurk around Thaniel’s home in hopes that someday he would come back for her. Not that rabbits were generally very good at lurking, but hopping just didn’t have the same ring to it.

  Pandy shifted from foot to foot, disturbing the rectangle of black dust on the ground in front of her. The gacha button had never let her down before. In spite of her worry, the familiar shape of it was so very tempting, even if it was on fire just a little bit. If her worst fears came to be, and this whole peculiar existence ended, at least it would be over before she got any more invested in it. She didn’t even need to worry about Thaniel any more, since she was sure Lian would take care of him from here on.

  Lifting a dirty paw, she reached toward the glowing heart.

  “Stop!” cried a voice, and a thin-fingered hand reached out to grab her paw.