Ch.2Falling (2)

A forest shrouded in thick snow fog. White boots trudged forward, cutting through the accumulated snow.

The fog was so dense that ordinary people would hesitate to take even a single step.

With each step, snow clung to her boots, and her feet sank into the swirling snowfall.

With visibility reduced to almost nothing, it was the kind of weather where normal people would likely be found as corpses, having lost their way.

It looked as if she had entered the mountain right after an avalanche. Yet the woman moved forward without hesitation.

Her steps were so quick that the falling snow seemed to glance off her, and her blue-gray eyes constantly found the path she knew through the thick whiteness.

Even the heavy snowfall, hanging like a curtain, seemed unable to stop the woman.

Holding a sling in her hand, ready to respond to whatever might appear, the woman headed somewhere beyond winter.

The intensifying snowfall cleared only after she had traveled some distance. Releasing the tail she had been holding in her mouth, the woman gazed downward.

Where her snow-white boots had stopped, there was a pit.

Inside the pit was a lump of meat.

That was the only way to describe it.

Surrounded by broken and fallen trees, the woman thought it looked like an egg, and the deep snow pit resembled a nest.

And if that pit was a nest, then what lay inside was an egg.

The woman stared at the egg.

An egg that was gradually writhing and solidifying into the form of a man.

As she watched the finally hatched man, the woman’s tail swept across the snow-covered ground.

*

Escaping wasn’t actually that realistic.

But since it was the best I could do, I didn’t particularly regret or feel sorry about it.

It was the best I could do with my capabilities, and if I hadn’t acted, I would have just lived as livestock until slaughter.

And I wasn’t the kind of weak man who confused when to step up and when to back down. In my view, that year was the right time to act.

Though the plan wasn’t perfect, I didn’t hesitate.

Nothing could have been perfect anyway.

If I had visited this place even once in the game, or if escaping was something I could have experienced even once, it might have been different.

But for me, escape was inevitably something unfamiliar.

How would a kind and ordinary student like me ever experience a prison break?

Moreover, as a homunculus who was, according to the setting, already an escaped livestock of the mastermind, being recaptured would only mean death.

None of those who periodically attacked me ever tried to capture my character gently or asked me to surrender.

So I had never been captured and escaped, nor was such an event prepared in the game, and the prison structure was unfamiliar to me.

I didn’t know how the masterminds treated their livestock, and I didn’t even know exactly where I was.

Everything had to be learned through trial and error. But how could I afford trial and error when my life was at stake?

Although I wasn’t a weak man, life was precious. That’s why I spent a year in that prison.

Even if I didn’t know everything, I needed to gain at least minimal information and confidence.

So I consistently took time to investigate.

[Dexterity: 20(+5)]

Dexterity represents mental agility, senses, and skill. I adapted to the homunculus’s extraordinary senses that surpassed common sense and used them to understand the prison structure through hearing alone.

[Strength: 20(+5)]

And with strength far exceeding that of humans, I broke free from my restraints and attempted to escape.

[Health: 20(+5)]

Even if I got injured or hurt in a fight, as long as my head wasn’t cut off, I wouldn’t die.

I actively moved around looking for a way out while searching for my sister.

I firmly believed that my sister was somewhere here too.

[Class: Warrior – Mourner]

But now I know.

My sister is probably dead.

I say “probably” because I still don’t want to accept it.

It would have been better if there were no traces of her here, but that wasn’t the case.

I obtained a class that matched my build, but it wasn’t such a happy thing.

If I had known this would happen, I should have read the settings more carefully.

Of course, not much would have changed even if I had read them.

But sometimes one can’t help but have such regrets.

Especially right after falling from the mastermind’s fortress that seemed to be above the sky.

I drifted in darkness, not even knowing if I was alive or dead.

Nothing was certain.

I had jumped from a height that even a homunculus might not survive.

My arm was severed, and I was cut in various places, losing a lot of blood.

If I hadn’t been a homunculus, I would have died from shock long ago.

So naturally, such thoughts came to mind.

The thought that I might be dead and heading to the afterlife.

The anxiety that my soul might have been stolen by those vampires and stored somewhere at the moment of my death.

It wasn’t just a baseless delusion. Given that their technology far exceeded the average of Grim Darker, the medieval dark fantasy, anything could happen.

Of course, I was afraid and anxious. I almost wished that when I opened my eyes, I would find myself dying.

I hoped to feel terrible pain in my body and to be slowly dying.

I hoped not to wake up in an unknown space to be greeted by vampires.

After drifting for a long time in silence, with no sense of time and unable to feel my body, the shore I reached was somewhat cold.

A cold, slender shore. A touch that gently brushed my forehead and pushed back my hair.

It was familiar.

It was the touch of the only family member who took care of me when I had a fever.

It was similar to the touch that felt good when I had a fever with cold hands and feet.

A hand that felt cold and cool, yet somehow kind.

Long, slender fingers with calluses that gently brushed my forehead and pushed back my hair.

Was it all a dream?

Were that year of pain and the subsequent suffering just a nightmare?

I wish it had been.

“…Sister?”

It was a word that came out unconsciously.

But there was no answer.

That’s when I realized how much was different.

I couldn’t feel the weight of the blanket I often used to cover myself because I disliked heat, nor could I sense the characteristic light of a turned-on computer through my eyelids.

I was afraid to open my eyes, afraid that what I had been trying to ignore might be real. But I couldn’t keep my eyes closed forever.

So I confirmed the being who had been stroking my hair.

It was a completely white being.

But it would be inaccurate to say it was just white.

Her smooth skin was certainly snow-white, as was the hair covering her nape and the side hair that fell past her jawline.

But her short hair grew darker toward the tips.

It was a unique color. An appearance that suggested everything I had experienced was real.

Additionally, the occasionally swaying tail and the ears on her head were impressive.

The woman twitched those ears and said:

“How old are you?”

“…Pardon?”

“You called me sister.”

The conversation was making sense.

How?

She could understand what I was saying, and I could understand her.

I couldn’t comprehend the principle behind it.

But there was no time to think. A tail thicker than a decent forearm was slithering toward my face like a snake.

“Mmph.”

“How old?”

I couldn’t understand the situation. Not only was the place I woke up unfamiliar, but someone even more unfamiliar was asking about my age.

I wasn’t sure how to answer.

Nineteen?

Or twenty, since a year had passed?

If it was physical age rather than mental age, I might be about 1 year old, but even that wasn’t accurate.

Pushing away the tail with effort, I opened my mouth.

“Tw-twenty?”

I couldn’t afford to be younger. I had unconsciously called her sister, but age was a sensitive issue.

That’s why I gave the highest possible value. The unidentified woman who had been tormenting me with her tail merely raised the corner of her mouth in a smile.

“So I am your sister.”

I lost. I should have said thirty.

“You can call me sister.”

“No, that’s okay…”

“That’s a shame.”

The woman stood up after saying that. Due to her light attire, much was revealed.

A well-trained body without excess fat. Long legs stretching as she yawned.

And a thick, spotted tail swaying gently behind her waist.

A descendant of the shapeshifters and an outcast from the three clans of masterminds.

She was a beastkin.

And likely a snow leopard beastkin at that.

It was obvious just from the thick tail with the distinctive snow leopard pattern.

I was staring at the woman’s long, thick tail when I flinched at the shadow cast over my face.

“Put these on.”

It was clothing. Clothes slightly larger than my body. A shirt with a peculiar color scheme and medieval-style pants integrated with socks.

Only then did I realize I was naked. Before I could cover myself, the woman who had asked me to call her sister opened the entrance of the tent and nodded.

“Come out when you’re feeling better.”

A breeze blew in at that moment, tickling my hair.

It was a cold wind. It reminded me of winter, but it felt refreshing rather than cold.

It was a feeling of being cleansed inside.

So much so that despite being completely naked, I felt the urge to feel more of the wind rather than cover myself.

Of course, that was inevitable.

It was the first breeze I had felt in a year.

It was the openness I was enjoying for the first time in a year, the outside world I was seeing for the first time in a year.

It was a refreshing feeling that seemed to prove how different it was from the life of livestock who had only been drained of blood and neglected for an entire year.

Honestly, I didn’t care whether it was a cold wind or a winter breeze. It was just new.

I sat for a long time in the place the woman had left, cooling my body with the wind coming through the widely opened entrance.

It was only after quite some time, when I started to feel a bit cold, that I gathered and put on the clothes.

Considering the homunculus’s extraordinary resistance to the environment, it must be quite a cold place.

The north perhaps? Given the presence of a snow leopard beastkin, that might be the case.

Reflexively recalling the locations of various dungeons in the north, I stepped outside and encountered the woman standing at a distance.

Her appearance was quite different from before.

She was wearing a cloak with snow leopard-like patterns, and underneath, something that looked like sturdy white armor at a glance.

Her arms were relaxed at her sides, but she was keeping her distance from me, and flames flickered behind her.

Before I could fully process the realization that I was alive, the woman spoke:

“Are you feeling better?”

“Yes, thanks to you…”

“Then I have something to ask you.”

There was something ominous about it. It felt like cold water being poured on my foggy consciousness that had just awakened.

As I began to pay attention to that ominousness:

“What are you?”

I belatedly recognized what the woman was holding in her hand.

It was a weapon.

A sling and a hatchet. I belatedly realized what kind of world I had opened my eyes to, and what kind of being I was.

“You should answer carefully.”

I was a monster in a dark fantasy.