All around me are the bits and pieces of meat my body didn't digest yet,
and its sight is enough to make me want to throw up again. The shock of
learning that this is reality was just too big. I don't want to believe it, but my
instincts tell me that everything that happened so far has been real. I really ate
a human and killed dozens of animals...
I died somewhere between the bath and going to sleep. Don't tell me it was
actually in the tub? Did I fall asleep and drowned? Or slipped and hit my
head? Either death would be more than lame and not even funny as a joke.
At least I certainly can't laugh about it.
So this means I can't go back? I'll never meet my parents again? Unlike
those protagonists who cross over to other worlds, who are all useless human
beings who seem to have no parents and no social life, I had a proper place in
the world. I was the sporty type, had friends at school and loving parents at
home. If I had continued with my track and field activities, I'm sure I could
have entered the Olympic Games eventually.
Granted, I've never been in a relationship and never even kissed, so I wasn't
a complete normI died a virgin!
It's been less than half a day, and my somewhat happy dream adventure has
turned into a nightmare. Only that this isn't even a dream, it's reality!
At least I wasn't dumb enough to try out dying in this world, to see if it
wakes me up. I don't know whether dying here will allow me to reincarnate
somewhere else or just ends my existence altogether. In the first place, am I
even still myself, considering it's an entirely different body and a different
world?
Argh, this isn't something a high school girl should be thinking about!
Well, I guess I'm not a high school girl - or a girl at all - anymore. I'm
something like an evolved slime with a body that defies the laws of physics.
I hold my head, feeling like it should start aching at any moment. This is
too much for me to handle. What should I do now?
My body is shaking. I did so many dangerous and horrible things, thinking that it's just a strange dream. Even though they weren't humans, I took more
than a dozen lives without batting an eye.
But it was for survival, so I should be forgiven, right? Except for that lasts
one, which was just an experiment.
Ugh, I'm a horrible human being.
Except, I'm not human! I want to cry!
That wolf beast is still inside me, in a different part of my insides that I
didn't vomit out. It's dead. I have a dead animal still inside me, beginning to
rot.
The noise of a nearby buzz saw derails my train of thoughts. It's one of
those cyber-dinos! It must have been attracted by the smell of my discharge.
Cutting a path through the forest with its massive jaw, it approaches my
location.
I have to run; I can't fight that. Now that I know this is reality, I'm seriously
scared of dying. I don't want to die again without having done anything with
my life!
The tree line breaks apart to reveal the beast, its massive head turning
slightly sideways to see me with one of its lens eyes. It's completely lifeless
and not a hint of malice can be sensed from it. It's merely a machine that kills
without emotions.
Much like how I must have appeared to the last few animals I killed.
It seems to have decided that it wants to eat me, as it begins to charge
forward with its jaws wide open. The machinery in its mouth, serving the sole
purpose of cutting and rending victims into small pieces, approaches me with
a dreadful finality.
I know I can outrun it, but now that I'm aware of my situation, and the fact
that I can die, my legs won't move. I'm afraid of messing up my escape and
dying anyway. What if I stumble? What if I get caught by surprise by some
other monster while running away in this unfamiliar land? There are so many
ways my life can end.
Something I can only describe as a black rift in space slashes through the
air and goes through the neck of the cyber-dino. It walks a few more steps
before the head comes off cleanly, revealing the inner mechanisms of its
body such as severed tubes and cables. Then it falls forward and slides across
the ground before coming to a stop right in front of me. The buzz saws in its
mouth slowly spin out, but there's no fire or an explosion. Just a machine ceasing to function.
"Ah, there you are, Chaos-chan!" A familiar voice remarks and I look in
the direction it came from. The demon queen is standing a short distance
away and waving at me. She's being accompanied by a figure wrapped in
heavy dark blue robes with a bandaged head, who's holding a gnarled wooden
staff. Maou-mama walks towards me, an apologetic look on her face. "Are
you unhurt?"
I look at her blankly. Why is she here? Did she come to get me? So was
this actually just training and it's over for today? Or was this all just a test?
Regardless, Maou-mama is like a radiant angel coming to save me from this
cruel world.
Ah, crap, I think I'm tearing up.
"Mama!" I finally call out, before jumping up and running into her open
arms.
"M-ma-?! Ahhh, what a great child!" Surprised at first, she expresses her
delight at being called mama. She embraces me softly and strokes my hair
with tender love. I'm seriously crying into her voluptuous chest now, though
from relief rather than from fear.
"It must have been scary, right? I did not intend to put you through this..."
She actually sounds sorry. Hm? Something feels wrong here.
"Wasn't this training?" I separate from her and look her up and down. She
seems a little fidgety and her eyes are swimming around. What's going on?
"Well, yes and no... I mean... Mama made a little mistake, you see... We
were meant to go to another place together, but I have bad control over
transportation magic, so we were separated." She looks away with a sheepish
smile, trying to avoid eye contact.
Look at me, oi.
"Oho, I see... a mistake, huh?" I cross my arms and look down at my
mother with a deadly glare. Now I'm seriously pissed.
"Teehee~" She sticks out her tongue and winks in a cutesy manner that
makes her look like a child. It unexpectedly suits her otherwise mature
appearance. But for the current me, that's the last straw.
Something audibly snaps in my head.
Since a certain demon queen has terrible control over magic and
accidentally threw a level one character into a level eighty area, even though she only wanted to teleport somewhere together, I'm now all the way back in
the throne room of the palace again. At least she was able to find me just in
time, or I would have come after death to haunt her.
By the way, the person in the dark blue robes who came with her was
introduced to me as the court magician named Mithra. He has the unique
ability to teleport people without using a magic circle, and when he does it,
it's also much more stable than Maou-mama's. Instead of the flashing lights
and violent pulling forces, there was only a gentle stream of colors and a light
breeze.
Using Mithra's abilities, Maou-mama was able to find me, even though a
teleportation accident like mine apparently always results in the person
ending up somewhere completely random. The place I just got rescued from
is called Yagrath, also known as the Dark Continent. And there are no
transportation circles on that entire continent, so even if I had known
teleportation magic, I wouldn't have been able to return from there by myself.
If Mithra didn't exist, I would have been stranded there forever.
"You did well in surviving for so long. Many expeditions have ended in the
jaws of the vularen packs that roam Yagrath, and even powerful lords were
ground into mincemeat by quakemaws." Maou-mama comments as we walk
through the palace. I assume vularen are the wolf-beasts, and judging by the
description and their names, quakemaws must be the cyber-dinos.
I killed a whole pack of those vularen single-handedly, but normally they
would be considered pretty dangerous? Aren't I pretty amazing then?
I'll keep that to myself for now.
"Now, Mithra will send us to the right place, so that we can begin your
training." With these words, Maou-mama motions to signal the court mage,
but I interrupt her.
"I just came back, mama. I'd like to rest a bit first." Even though I'm in
perfect shape physically, I'm mentally exhausted. I'd love to take a long bath
and lie in bed until I get over the fact that I died and reincarnated in the body
of a monster.
"I understand that you had a tiring experience, but it is best we start early
before too many false preconceptions about yourself become ingrained into
you." Stroking my cheek softly, the demon queen explains why we have to do
it now.
But I have no idea what she means by false preconceptions about myself.
Something like how my body works or my position in the food chain of this
world?
"Mithra, bring us to the Blood Pits of Rodens." Gesturing at the cloaked
mage, my mother orders him to use his magic.
Blood Pits. That sounds exactly like the place I want to go right now... not!
Once again, I'm enveloped by a stream of soft lights. Maou-mama and
Mithra seem to be standing on an invisible floor next to me, as we don't
actually move physically.
Within seconds, we arrive at our destination, and the stream of light fades,
revealing a muddy trench. The ground is plastered with wooden panels, and
the walls have been dug out from the dirt ground. There is an overwhelming
stench of blood and decay from all around us.
"... what are we doing here, mama?" I turn to her and see an excited
expression on her face, as her eyes are fixed on something behind me.
Turning around and looking up, I find a giant man three times my width
and two heads taller hunched over and towering over me. His skin is light
bronze and covered in scales, with shoulders directly connected to his head
and lacking a neck. And he has the face of a crocodile's.
It's literally a humanoid crocodile!
I very nearly turn into Hedgehog Mode to instantly kill him before I get
attacked, but I don't feel any hostility from him as he turns his head to look at
me with a yellow-green eye featuring a vertically slit pupil. There is curiosity
and wonder in his expression, though since he's still basically a crocodile, I
can't be too sure about that.
"Nilotec, how is your father?" The demon queen greets him in a somewhat
casual manner. She knows this bipedal crocodile.
"As always, he's grumpy and complains about the foot he lost in Your
Majesty's last campaign. But the old snapper's actually happy he was taken
along instead of being kept in his fortress." Speaking in a low growling voice
that seems to suggest anger, his words hold a completely different meaning;
he seems to be a pretty friendly fellow. Then he turns to me. "This your new
child?"
"Indeed. She is a really good girl." The demon queen practically raises her
nose in pride, a big smile on her face.
New child? Does it mean she's producing children all the time?
"So, the usual?" Nilotec bares his sharp teeth, and his lack of expressions only makes me think that he's trying to intimidate me. That must be his
version of a grin.
"No, she survived on Yagrath for almost half a day." At these words, the
croc's eyes widen as he turns his head again to look at me more closely. I
guess having the eyes on the sides of your head makes it hard to use both to
look at the same person when they're very close.
"Then we'll skip forward to the test." Now I can tell that he's joyful, most
likely looking forward to conducting this test.
I have a bad feeling about this.
Apparently 'the test' consists of dressing me in slave clothes and throwing
me into a small arena with about thirty captive humans. It's to test my combat
capabilities against intelligent and organized enemies, huh? They are all
wielding weapons while I haven't been given one myself, although that isn't
much of a problem for me.
The problem is the fact that my opponents are humans.
I'm standing amidst the prisoners looking just like one of them, so they
aren't aware that I'm their enemy. A middle-aged man wielding a wooden
club and wearing torn rags comes up to me with a haunted expression. He's
nervously peeking up at the demon queen's spectator's box, from where she's
watching with Nilotec standing by her side.
"Ya alright?" The man has a pockmarked face and bad breath, and I can
barely hold myself back from shirking away. He reminds me of the creepy
homeless man whom I once encountered on my way back home after going
out with some friends in the evening. I couldn't understand his boondocks
accent as tried to talk to me, while he followed me in the dark for a whole
block.
"What did they do to you, my lady?" A younger man dressed in ripped but
much more sophisticated clothes, wielding a sword and featuring much better
hygiene, approaches me from the other side. He seems to think that I was
tortured to the point where I lost my voice or something since I didn't answer
the first man.
Looking between the two, I assume that the former is a peasant and the
latter is a nobleman. And both think I'm a prisoner just like they are. But their
attitudes would most definitely change if they knew I was actually the
daughter of the demon queen.
"Alright." The crocodile calls out to me from the stands. Since his eyes
aren't the same as a human's, nobody can tell whom exactly he's referring to.
"Let's see how you'll deal with this bunch of humans."
Huh, what's with that phrasing? What exactly am I supposed to do here?
Fight them to the death?
"Is there a demon among us?" The young nobleman mutters while looking
around cautiously. It's clear he doesn't want to create a panic with that
suggestion, but the middle-aged man on my other side overheard it.
"What, one of us is a demon?" He shouts out in surprise.
Instantly, the humans all step away from each other and raise their weapons
in something that could only be described as a medieval standoff. Humans
are very quick to doubt each other, it seems.
"You! I haven't seen you around. Which squad are you from?" The peasant
turns to me while holding his club ready like a baseball bat, to whack me
with it if I make any wrong move.
"You lowlife, how dare you threaten a young lady." Stepping in front of me
and pointing his sword at the middle-aged man, the nobleman covers for me.
I really appreciate it, but would you do that if you knew I was actually the
demon among you? "Tell us your name and where you came from, my lady."
I wonder where he's coming up with the idea that I'm a noble lady. Maybe
it's because of my fair and spotless face. The other women in the arena look
much rougher, and all of them have tanned skin and straw-like hair - the
result of being out in the sun all day long and working the fields, I assume.
They should be suspecting me since I look completely different from them;
my facial structure and hair color is the way I looked before my death, but all
of these people look like westerners. How anyone here could mistake me for
one of them is beyond me.
"Hey, your hair is black." A woman remarks with a suspicious glare and
points her spear at me from a distance. I can hear others beginning their very
own inquisitions elsewhere, and voices grow louder everywhere in the arena.
"You're not from the empire, are you?"
Humans are just like that, aren't they? I've seen this happen before. When
people want to find faults with others, they will look for every little detail to
incriminate them with. While they aren't wrong this time, what if I was a
normal human who just happened to be different from the others?
The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
In a world where mob justice still exists, that's not entirely true. Because
here, saying 'a nail that sticks out gets pulled out and disposed of' would be
much more appropriate. After all, if it gets revealed that I'm a demon, they'll
lynch me.
"She's not saying anything. I must be right!" The pockmarked peasant
inches closer, ready to swing his club at my face.
"Cease this folly. Can you not see that the demons want to make us doubt
each other?" The young nobleman is trying to defend me, but more and more
people seem to have caught onto the situation and are turning my way.
Then I suddenly feel something piercing into my side. When I look down, I
see that the spear, wielded by the woman who first raised suspicions because
of my black hair, has been plunged into my exposed waist, all the way down
to the shaft.
But it doesn't hurt.
"Wha-?! How dare you!" Rounding me and swinging his sword at the
woman, the nobleman tries to scare her away. She lets go of the spear in
shock as if realizing what she just did. The young man turns to me with a
concerned expression. "Are you alri... ght?"
I pull the spear out with one hand and look down at my side, where the
hole closes up on its own immediately. There is no blood, and just like
poking a thick liquid, it returns to a smooth state on its own.
"Y-you... you are a demon!" Making a full U-turn in his attitude towards
me, the nobleman draws back with an expression of fear and hatred. In the
same move, he slashes at me and the sword cuts into my shoulder and goes
all the way down to my chest in what would be a grievous wound for a
human. My already ragged shirt falls off my chest and reveals the cut, which
is closing itself visibly.
What are these feelings I have right now?
My heart, which I shouldn't even have since I'm actually just an amorphous
being, is aching. The young nobleman stood up for me, but the moment the
truth was revealed, he didn't hesitate for a second to betray me. No questions
asked, no chance to explain myself.
The humans surround me completely, their weapons pointing in my
direction, and a mass of fear and hatred wash over me. It causes me to shiver,
and elation fills my mind; it seems that a Crawling Chaos basks in those
negative emotions as if it was nourishing sunlight.
And that's when I realize what the sensation just now was: Disgust and
disappointment. I find myself thinking that humans are only like this after all.
The encirclement, emboldened by their large numbers and the weapons
they wield, tighten the ring. Not a single one of them shows any apprehension
to participate in my lynching, as their faces betray their bloodlust and malice.
I feel my mind dull from the dark sensations that creep up within me, and
my heart grows cold and distant. My vision blurs, and the humans before me
turn into distorted figures only emanating a disgusting aura. Their negative
emotions flow into me like sweet molasses.
Simply irredeemable.
When I come back to my senses, I'm the only one left standing in the arena.
Several spears and swords are buried in my body, but I don't feel them at all.
At one point, without me even noticing, my forearms turned into large bone
blades - the one I used when I disemboweled the gorilla-like monster on the
Dark Continent. From their tips, red blood trickles down and seeps into the
dirt ground.
The dismembered and mangled corpses of the humans lie scattered
everywhere. And even though they are in such a state, there is no disturbance
in my mind. A part of me coldly analyzes the way in which I just killed thirty
humans, both men, and women. The rest of me doesn't even care.
They attacked me first, after all.
"That was incredible!" The demon queen applauds me from the spectator's
box with a radiant smile.
"I gotta say, she has great potential, Your Majesty." Nilotec has his arms
crossed and looks at the carnage I caused with what I assume to be a satisfied
expression.
Said majesty suddenly jumps down from the stands and walks towards me
with a spring in her steps. I remove the weapons stuck inside me by pushing
them out of my body, and by the time I'm finished, she's already right in front
of me.
"You did really well. None of your siblings passed this test as quickly as
you did." Maou-mama praises me and pets my head, even though she's
smaller than me.
I think I now understand what this whole thing was about. Its purpose was
to determine whether I would be able to kill humans or not. Morespecifically, how far I would let it come before I fought back and started
killing them. Maybe this test was conceived after some of her children
refused to kill despite their lives being threatened.
"What was this test for?" Looking around me once again, I take in the sight
of the massacre I committed. I'm asking just to make sure.
"That is no longer important." Placing a hand on my cheek, Maou-mama
gives me a beautiful smile. "You have shown that you are not bound by
anything."
I guess it's just as I thought and this was to test my resolve when faced with
humans. And after what I did here, I don't think I'll ever hesitate to kill
anyone again. That is, as long as there's no other choice.
When I think about it, under the same circumstances in my previous life, I
would most definitely not have been able to do anything. Being born in
Japan, I've always been far from war and death. Let alone kill them all, I
wouldn't even have fought back and most likely just been lynched. And the
same would have happened here if I hadn't been accidentally sent to Yagrath
and had to fight and kill for my survival there.
I think my inhibitions have completely disappeared with this. I've made my
peace with the fact that I've died and been reborn as a demon in a world
where it's all about killing or being killed.
"What's next?" I ask in a cold tone that surprises me. This shouldn't be a
reason for me to lose my emotions!
"We shall have dinner." Looking around us, Maou-mama states with a
happy expression. It's evident what will be on the menu judging by her gaze,
but I don't feel disgusted by the prospect. When I think about it, humans and
animals aren't that different - both are perfectly fine meat. It would be a waste
not to make use of all these bodies.
And I, for my part, am not a human anymore, so I shouldn't be bothered by
eating them anyway.