Chapter 1: I'm Not a Human?

Hunters… they are ranked from S to E based on their strength.

They appeared shortly after portals began invading Earth, unleashing monsters and causing widespread destruction.

The job of hunters is simple: hunt the monsters, clear the gates, and leave.

But I never knew this, nor could I understand this. Every time I watched them hunt our kind, an inexplicable surge of anger would boil within me. Yet, no matter what I did, I would die… again, and again, and again.

I just want it to end.

I can clearly see the sword as it swings toward me. The world turns upside down, and then, suddenly, there's darkness. I blink once, and the light returns.

This is the mild version—the softcore treatment.

The real pain begins when they capture me. They chip my nails off, sever my fingers, arms, and legs, and rip out my organs—yet they let me live, all because I can regenerate them.

And the next day, they hunt me again...

I can hear a weird voice in my head - "Kill the humans!"

"Punish them for their sins!"

"Destroy them!"

"Massacre them!"

It is the voice of an unknown female who seems to weep from a distant place. I can hear it and probably others do too, and maybe that's why, we attack the humans in the first place.

However, over time, the voice has vanished...

Now, the humans barely come here...

...

Today was particularly no different.

I don't recall what happened yesterday, so I'd like to call today as Day 1.

Today, humans walked through those shiny, blue foggy, circular doors. Portals is what they referred to.

My friends and family were hungry since we were the only beings in this place and we didn't want to eat each other.

The hunger was uncontrollable and that's when they entered.

My entire tribe rushed at the first sight of the humans, to kill and eat them!

I stayed back.

Something told me to stay back... something, weird, that levitated in front of me, almost stuck to my face.

『Mission 1: Stay back and Watch.』

『Reward: 1kg bear meat』

I didn't know what 1 kg meant, but the word meat was tempting.

I stayed back, watching everyone run forward.

And then, I saw splashes of blood.

I saw my family get beheaded in just a second and then many fountains of blood.

Many of my kin fell to the ground. Half of them had lost their arms and had big wounds on their bellies. The rest were already dead and their bodies just made the echoing thud sound.

As for me... I just stared at them.

I turned back, to look at the kids... who stared intently at the scene ahead.

They had yet to identify their parents, but seeing the massacre, they started crying.

They were hungry too. Their parents, intended on getting some food even at the cost of their lives, but five minutes past and none of them remained alive.

I turned back, looking at the humans, one of them, a female holding a long sword, really sharp, approaching me.

I didn't know what happened but I couldn't move.

'Is this fear?' - I thought to myself, silently as I was paralyzed.

I could do nothing, not even blink as the sword came down swiftly, striking me in the chest and splitting me open.

As I fell to the ground, I noticed blood oozing out of me.

The woman stared at me with the look of disdain as I had raised one of my hands, trying to tell her to spare at least the children.

She ignored me. Perhaps she didn't understand, but that didn't matter.

The children were also monsters to them.

She walked, after giving a brief nod to other humans there and saying something, and then stood in front of those pitiful, mother-seeking children.

Her blade, once again came down with swiftness, killing all the kids.

The cave had fallen silent. The cries, vanishing into darkness.

My vision had started to get blurry as I barely noticed my own heart, sliding out of my open chest. I succumbed and was in a place I call... 'Darkness'.

I opened my eyes and there was light.

The light was emitted from the blue portal; it was the usual.

The cave wasn't so dark thanks to that.

I was in my usual spot, the same place where I had died.

I turned back and noticed... the same family that had just been killed.

We didn't have names, but that wasn't a problem. We could still communicate.

But at the moment, I didn't say anything to them.

I stared and stared, noticing how the children played in the arms of their mothers.

I noticed how, despite the grievous hunger, they didn't cry.

And I noticed... the skeletal remains of children and adults, their decaying flesh, and worms that feasted on those who had died due to hunger.

I noticed...

...worms?

They called me crazy when I suddenly started sprinting!

Startled, they looked at me, only to see how I crashed into the wall.

"Papa, Uncle Gubzo is funny, hehe."

"Funny? He's just gone mad."

"Gubzo, has hunger finally got your head?"

"Gubzo, you alright?"

"Gubzo-"

"Gubzo-"

"Gub-"

So, I have a name.

On the ground, happy about at least one fact, I stared at the bodies of the dead, specifically at the worms that wiggled and moved from part to part.

I noticed them, but I didn't touch or pull them out immediately... for that thing appeared and stuck to my face again.

『You have discovered pregnant Mokrs.』

『Mokrs are flesh-eating worms that feast on animal proteins.』

I understood the words and finally knew what these worms were. But the question that hung with me was... could we eat them?

I thrust my hand, got a bunch of them, and hurled back to the tribe.

"Worms!", I screamed, catching their attention.

Crazy, they had called me for sprinting off and now, they called me Savior, for bringing them food.

It wasn't disgusting, but tasty, as they said when they feasted one by one, first feeding the children.

I stood back, my hands now empty as I sprinted back and kept bringing worms for them to eat.

The children were happy and so were the adults.

A weird smile, quite nostalgic, formed on my face even without me knowing...

...but this smile came at the cost of something... something that inverted it almost instantly.

They started coughing up blood. It started with the children and then the adults, everyone who had eaten a worm.

They started screaming, confused, the pain was unmeasurable.

But I stood there, staring at them.

They fell to the ground, again with the sound thud echoing as the children's cries got louder and then finally silent.

I stood there, watching all these as I stared at the thing stuck on my face, reading just two parts 'Flesh-Eating Worms' and 'Pregnant'. They had eggs…

I stared... stared and continued to stare... before finally walking, picking up a worm and eating.

Before long...

I died.

『You died.』