Re:Ant Lord-Chapter 175: New Follower?

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By hour eight, the silence between them had softened, not into comfort, but into a mutual understanding. The kind of quiet that didn’t need permission. The kind of silence where survival recognized survival.

Azhara walked five paces behind Kai. No closer. No further. She matched his rhythm with the obedience of a shadow, never once stepping on deep water she had yet to test. She watched the direction of his eyes and adjusted her path accordingly. If he stopped, she stopped. If he veered, she veered.

She didn’t ask questions. Not because she had none, but because she knew now wasn’t the time.

When he bent to collect a larger meteoroid chunk, she circled to the side and swept up the smaller, broken flakes he left behind. Shards that might have sliced open someone untrained. But she brought them without pause, blood dripping from her palms from razor fragments. It bit through her fur and skin.

When his breathing grew sharp from exhaustion, she didn’t speak. She just placed a moss wrapped water pouch at his feet. It was soft and slightly damp. It had been soaked hours ago near a sulfur spring. She had kept it wrapped and shaded beneath her armpit to preserve its coolness.

She had nothing to prove. But she proved everything.

Kai’s eyes followed her this time, not just in combat calculation, but in measured curiosity. He watched as she hunched to carry a larger chunk of star Meteoroid iron, at least twenty kilos, dragging it across sharp terrain by rope, pulling with both hands. Her shoulders shook. Her thighs strained. And her palms were raw, torn, embedded with glittering glass. It left bloody handprints on the stone. Probably she picked it up from half buried ground.

But she didn’t flinch. She didn’t complain. She just endured the pain.

Finally, after she placed the second large fragment beside the others, Kai stood and spoke.

"...Luna could use someone like you."

The words fell like a shock into still water. Azhara froze. Her breath caught mid draw, chest rising, eyes wide. Her ears twitched once, then locked toward him in sharp attention.

"You’re both rabbits," Kai added, voice even. "She’ll have someone of her species beside her. It’s not a bad idea."

There was a pause.

Azhara’s lips moved slowly, uncertainly.

"She..." Her voice cracked faintly. "You mean that beautiful rabbit girl, right? The white-haired one who was with you... the big chest?"

Kai turned his head slightly, his eyes sliding toward her with a dry glint. For the first time he truly looked at her chest, face and full body.

He snorted. "Hey, yours aren’t small. You look okay."

Azhara’s mouth parted in stunned silence, and then—a blush bloomed across her cheeks. Not from shame. Not from heat. But from something she hadn’t felt in her entire life.

Warmth of man’s complement.

She smiled... Not seductive... Not teasing... Just a genuine, innocent girl’s smile.

It was fragile. Brief. But it bloomed like something foreign and forbidden on her battle hardened face and body.

Because in the savage rabbit clan, there was no room for innocence. No space for softness. From the moment she could stand, she had been taught how to kill. How to cut through throats. How to break a skull with a knee. Their people weren’t raised—they were forged, like weapons, in the caves of blood and violence.

Kindness? That was for prey.

Laughter? A waste of breath and show weakness.

Love? A myth for warriors like her.

She had never once received a compliment from a man. Not without it being followed by a challenge, a threat, or a fight. Not once had a male rabbit from her clan looked at her with admiration. They called her "the Bone Claw," "the Wild Slayer," and worse, Evil spawn. Even the stronger males of her age feared her—not because of her body size, but because of her wildness. Her unpredictability. Her refusal to bow.

She was a warrior. A killer. A rabbit of violence.

And then... Kai called her beautiful.

Not directly. Not romantically. But the acknowledgement. The sheer casualness of it felt like sunlight slipping through the cracks of a sealed burrow.

No one had ever looked at her and seen her as a woman. They saw fangs. They saw claws. But he... he noticed her chest. He teased her.

He saw her as a woman. And at that moment, something cracked.

She didn’t understand the warmth blooming in her chest. Didn’t know what to do with the heat crawling up her neck, or why her fingers suddenly felt too big, too clumsy, hanging at her sides.

But she smiled. Just once. And for the first time since her blood-soaked childhood... She felt seen. Not feared. Not challenged. But maybe... wanted in sexual desire!?

A rabbit who’d spent her life crawling through ruins, bleeding for survival, burying her sisters, suddenly remembered how to smile.

She tilted her head down to hide it. "If I follow her orders... will you take me with you?"

Kai didn’t hesitate. "You’ll follow mine and hers."

His tone hadn’t softened. His authority remained steel. But there was a shift, a door not fully closed.

"Your job would be," he continued, "to protect her. Help her in every way possible. She’s young. Strong, but not careful. Keep her alive."

"Of course," Azhara said quickly, straightening her back like she was taking a military oath.

Then there was a long pause. Her hands, still bleeding faintly, curled in her lap. But her mind drifted.

Kai had complimented her chest.

That wasn’t what she expected. Not after lightning storms and blood and silence. She hadn’t been complimented since before her sisters were slaughtered. Her ears twitched again. She thought, "Was that... flirting? Does he want to mate with me? I really want to do it with him."

She bit her lower lip, unsure whether to feel proud or embarrassed from her lustful thoughts. Then mentally slapped herself, "Focus, idiot." But she couldn’t stop smiling.