"Pfft, hahahaha!" Hearing the rabbit-eared girl's cry of despair, Canary, who had been silently enjoying the show, immediately burst out laughing, clutching her stomach with schadenfreude.
"Big Sister Canary, you have a truly wicked sense of humor!" Lamia covered her mouth and giggled, having witnessed the entire exchange.
"Is it really okay to say that about me?" Canary blinked, glancing at Su Mo. "Lord Su Mo deliberately didn't help Leticia just now either. If I'm a mean-spirited person, doesn't that make him an accomplice?"
Faced with this soul-searching question, Lamia, raised as a princess of the vampire clan, smiled with utter ease. "Master simply trusted in my sister's abilities... How can that be the same?" she replied, shamelessly displaying her double standards. That's right, it was a double standard!
Even if Su Mo had also been watching the show, could one call their own master's actions wicked? It was clearly a sign of trust in Leticia, a belief that his sister could handle this little rabbit-eared girl!
"...I have nothing to say." Canary raised her hands in surrender.
After two minutes, with Lamia's gentle comfort and a word from her idol, Leticia, the rabbit-eared girl finally recovered from her shame.
"S-sorry, I lost my composure just now!" She stood up and immediately bowed in apology, her etiquette impeccable.
"No need. It was our fault too for deliberately scaring you," Leticia apologized in return, then turned to glare at Canary. "So, do you believe our identities now?"
"Mhm!" The rabbit-eared girl nodded vigorously, stealing a glance at the shadow beneath Leticia. "I heard from my mother that Lady Leticia has a Gift granted by a pure-blooded dragon, the Draconic Remnant. Thinking back, that's what you used to catch me before. I was just too flustered at the time to notice."
The rabbit-eared girl was no fool. Once the physical details matched up, she found that many other details also matched the information her parents had told her, and she finally let down her guard.
"That's good," Leticia sighed in relief, then asked curiously, "Your mother has met me? By the way, I forgot to ask your name. How rude of me."
"My name is Black Rabbit, but that's just a nickname. My official name will be given to me at the birth festival," the rabbit-eared girl blurted out in response to her idol's question. "As for my mother, she said she met Lady Leticia a few times when she was intervening with a Demon Lord's Host Master authority, so she knows your fighting style."
Hearing Black Rabbit spill all her family's information, Leticia was slightly taken aback, realizing something. "That one's daughter, a name given at the birth festival... Could it be that you are the main character of this birth festival, the Divine Child of the Moon Rabbit clan?"
"That's right!" Little Black Rabbit nodded, a bit embarrassed. "I didn't really want to make such a big deal out of it, but everyone in the clan hopes that I can lead the Moon Rabbit clan to prosperity when I grow up, so they wanted to use this opportunity to build some confidence and celebrate."
In front of her idol, Little Black Rabbit let down her guard and quickly explained the Divine Child's birth festival.
In the age of myths, even the retainers of gods and buddhas had a high probability of dying young. Only those who survived past the age of ten could cross the dangerous line of death and live on.
Therefore, following this tradition, the Moon Rabbit clan considered ten years old to be the age of adulthood. Only a Moon Rabbit who had lived for ten years was qualified to receive their own name and become an officially recognized member.
The meaning of the Divine Child's birth festival was not to celebrate a biological birth, but a sociological one. As for true physical adulthood, that would probably have to wait until she was two hundred years old, when a young Moon Rabbit who had absorbed enough lunar essence would suddenly grow up with a pop, evolving directly from the loli physique of a ten-year-old to the teenage body of a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old.
Of course, not every Moon Rabbit's coming of age was worth such a celebration. The reason Little Black Rabbit received this treatment was that at birth, she had received the blessings of four of the Twelve Devas, obtaining an unprecedented four divine weapon-type armaments and being born with the long-lost sovereignty of the moon.
Therefore, she was treated as the Divine Child of the Moon Rabbit clan. The clan generally believed that her birth heralded a period of great prosperity for them and had high hopes for her. This expectation put a lot of pressure on the young Black Rabbit, which was why she had run off to pick mushrooms alone before the festival began.
"I see," Leticia nodded in understanding after hearing Little Black Rabbit's story, then smiled. "Just a few days ago, we held a birth festival to celebrate a new, excellent descendant, and now the Moon Rabbit clan is welcoming an excellent heir as well. Could this also be a sign, foretelling a period of great prosperity for our Arcadia Grand Alliance?"
In a world teeming with gods and buddhas like Little Garden, such a thought was not considered feudal superstition. After all, destiny and auspicious signs truly existed in this world. No matter how you looked at it, these were all good omens.
However...
"It's not good to raise a flag like that now!" Canary shook her head and retorted. "Usually, when someone says that, they either truly welcome prosperity or face the disaster of annihilation. Such auspicious signs are too dangerous."
"Annihilation... how is that possible?" Leticia looked speechlessly at the spouting nonsense from Canary. Even without considering Su Mo's protection, how many people in Little Garden would dare to make a move on Arcadia, and how many could actually wipe them out? They were the community that had defeated the Dystopian Demon Lord!
Seeing Leticia's standard flag-raising attitude, Canary shook her head and reminded her, "Have you forgotten the Demon Lord Alliance? Without Lord Su Mo..."
"..." Hearing this, Leticia's expression turned grim, and she finally took Canary's words seriously. Indeed, without Lord Su Mo, they would not have been able to handle a conspiracy of that level. Canary's worries were not unfounded.
"Demon Lord Alliance? Lord Su Mo?" Hearing Canary's words, Little Black Rabbit repeated the two terms, not quite understanding. The former sounded very dangerous, and as for the latter... "I think I've heard that name somewhere before?"
The news of the change in leadership of the Christian god-group had spread throughout Little Garden. Anyone with a little bit of a channel knew about it and had taken note of Su Mo's name. Little Black Rabbit also knew about this incident, but she was more familiar with the title of the Master of the Christian Church, God, and hadn't paid attention to God's name.
And now, more than this big shot from her memory, she was more concerned about another point. "Is this big sister also a vampire?" She had wanted to ask this ever since she confirmed Leticia's identity. Lamia and Leticia were cast from the same mold. Apart from their completely different demeanors, one look was enough to tell they were sisters.
"That's right! I'm Lamia, my sister's younger sister!" Lamia nodded.
"...Lady Leticia's younger sister?!" Due to association, Black Rabbit's favorability towards Lamia also increased a lot. Then, she turned her gaze to Su Mo, very curious about this black-haired, black-eyed man.
This curiosity wasn't entirely due to Su Mo's handsome appearance, but also because of the others' attitude towards him. What kind of person could make even a Knight of Little Garden like Leticia so respectful?
"Lord Su Mo... I'd like to ask, are you..." For some reason, the more she heard the name, the more familiar it sounded.
Just as Black Rabbit was about to ask Su Mo, the sound of musical instruments suddenly came from not far away, growing closer and closer.
A procession of one hundred Moon Rabbits, with grand ceremony and impeccable etiquette, stood on both sides of the main road in the forest.
Black Rabbit's parents, the leaders of the Moon Rabbit clan, led the procession forward and bowed deeply to Su Mo's group with utmost respect.
Even Little Black Rabbit was taken aback by this display. She noticed that the Moon Rabbit clan had even laid a red carpet made from the fur of phantasmal beasts on the ground, a rare sight.
In her memory, this was the highest ceremonial item, used only in the grandest festivals to worship the main god who created the Moon Rabbit clan, Indra.
"Father... Mother..." The rabbit-eared girl stared dumbfounded at the solemn attitude of the Moon Rabbit clan. Who was this grand procession for?
Looking back, she saw that Canary and Leticia had already stepped aside; clearly, it wasn't for them. No matter how good the relationship between the Moon Rabbit clan and Arcadia was, they were ultimately allies.
They wouldn't use the etiquette for welcoming a main god to welcome them; that would be too presumptuous.
And if it wasn't for Arcadia, the only options were Su Mo, who was standing with her, and his maid, Lamia. Even if Lamia was a vampire princess, she wasn't qualified to receive such a ceremony.
And although she didn't know Lord Su Mo's true identity, he certainly wasn't their creator god, Indra.
Therefore, after thinking it over, Little Black Rabbit realized that the Moon Rabbit clan's grand ceremony could only be for her? Huh? Is my status as the Divine Child really that high? Why didn't I hear about this part before? My parents don't usually treat me like a Divine Child when they're teaching me!
With that thought, looking at her parents bowing at a ninety-degree angle before her, Little Black Rabbit scratched her head embarrassedly and said,
"Everyone, please rise! You too, Mom and Dad. You don't have to be so respectful to me. I'm not used to it!"
As soon as she said this, the entire scene fell silent again. Little Black Rabbit keenly noticed that her parents' backs seemed to have stiffened in an instant.
Huh? Why's that? Were they moved by my filial piety?