“Where the hell am I…”

  I muttered under my breath, trying to piece together what had just happened.

  The last thing I remembered was walking down a crossroad, reading a light novel about a guy getting reincarnated into a fantasy world full of magic. The traffic light turned green, I stepped forward—

  Then I saw bright headlights. It was unnaturally too close.

  And after that…

  “Ouch.”

  The memory suddenly came back. The weightless feeling of being thrown into the air. The impact, the extreme pain that drowned everything else out.

  I swallowed and forced myself to look around.

  “This isn’t a hospital.” I murmured, which was pretty obvious.

  I was inside a dark, damp cell. The air felt cold, and the stone walls were filled with cracks. There was nothing here except for an old bed pushed against the wall. Along with an iron cell door.

  I stared at the iron door, my heart pounding as I tried to come up with any logical reason for why I was here.

  “…Yeah,” I muttered under my breath. “This definitely isn’t normal.”

  I tried to walk toward the door, but my legs suddenly gave out and I crashed onto the cold floor. Startled, I tried to push myself back up, only to realize my legs wouldn’t respond the way I expected them to. A strange unease crept over me as I reached down to touch them with my hand—

  “…Were my legs always this short?”

  Something was wrong. Completely wrong.

  I ran my hands along them again, panic rising as the truth sank in. They were shorter, much shorter than they should have been. My panic grew as I hurriedly grabbed my head, checking for anything else that felt off, only to freeze when my fingers brushed against something unfamiliar.

  Long hair.

  “…Huh?”

  It was too dark to see clearly, but now that I paid attention, I noticed something else. My voice sounded different, higher, thinner, almost shrill.

  Like a girl’s.

  “What am I doing here?!” I shouted. “Where is this place?!”

  I rushed to the iron door and started banging on it with all the strength I had, the noise echoing through the corridor as I screamed for help. No one answered. I kept at it for what felt like hours, pounding and shouting until my arms burned and my throat went dry.

  Eventually, exhaustion won.

  Too tired to even scream, let alone stand, I dragged myself back to the bed and climbed onto it. The surface was hard as stone, but I no longer had the strength to care.

  I closed my eyes. And let the darkness take me.

  [(0)]

  I woke up to the sound of hurried footsteps echoing down the hallway. I wasn’t sure how I managed to hear them from inside the cell, but perhaps this new body simply had sharper senses than I was used to.

  Groggily, I sat up, only to realize that I felt strangely refreshed. My head was clearer than before, my thoughts no longer foggy or sluggish. Now that I could think properly, I tried to piece together what was happening to me.

  I had been hit by a car. I was pretty sure of that much. I probably died, or at least, I should have. And yet, I had woken up in a body that clearly didn’t belong to me.

  Was I dreaming?

  Or maybe… my injuries had been too severe, and the doctors had told my parents my body wouldn’t make it. Maybe this was some kind of experimental procedure, putting my mind into a new body.

  Yep, none of those explanations really made sense, but I pushed them aside for now. What mattered was that there were people outside the iron door.

  “HEL—!”

  I shouted and slammed my hand against the door again, trying to get their attention.

  CLANK.

  However, instead of making the banging sound, the iron door bent inward with a low, groaning sound. I froze as my head tried to understand what was happening. Yesterday, it was solid as a rock. Now it looked like soft butter being pressed by hand.

  Panic surged through me as I stared at my palm. I felt no pain at all, just a dull sensation. The hand didn’t even look like it had hit anything hard at all, maintaining its deadly white skin.

  “…What,” I whispered, my voice shaking, “is wrong with this body?”

  Before I could dwell on it any longer, loud shouting erupted outside the cell, snapping my attention toward the hallway. Heavy footsteps closed in fast, and moments later, several people in full metal armor rushed into view. They looked like something straight out of a medieval movie with strange baton-like weapons raised in their hands.

  “Um… hello?” I said hesitantly, forcing my voice to sound calm despite the bent iron door.

  “Number 9 is conscious!”

  “Subdue her!”

  “Catch her!”

  Before I could even react, two of them charged straight at me, their batons lifted as if they were about to strike.

  “HEY!”

  Pure reflex took over. I squeezed my eyes shut and swung my arm wildly. The moment my fist connected, something felt terribly wrong.

  The armored man was launched across the room. His body slammed into the far wall with a sickening crash, and he slid down limply, leaving a dark smear behind as the baton clattered to the floor.

  The corridor went deathly silent.

  “…W-what?” I whispered.

  My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might tear out of my chest, but even through the panic, I noticed something strange. My senses told me he was still breathing. Barely, but alive.

  That realization didn’t make things better. It made them worse.

  “She struck him bare-handed!”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Restrain her! Don’t let her move!”

  “Permission granted to use artifacts!"

  The remaining guards hesitated, fear creeping into their movements as they repositioned themselves, circling me instead of rushing in. Their batons crackled faintly now, glowing with blue electricity.

  I took an unsteady step back.

  “I—I didn’t mean to—” I said quickly, my voice shaking. “I don’t want to hurt anyone!”

  No one listened.

  They kept advancing, spreading out to block every path. I backed away instinctively until my shoulders hit the cold stone wall, leaving me nowhere to run.

  “Number 9 is highly dangerous,” someone barked. “Do not treat her like a little girl!”

  My first thought was that the body must have belonged to a girl, but it wasn’t the time to care.

  “Please, listen to me!” I shouted, desperation in my voice. “I don’t know who you are or why I’m here, but just let me go!”

  “Number 9 is now showing some sign of hallucination.”

  However, the armed guards didn’t even bother to listen anymore as the one who looked like the leader continued to do whatever he wanted. “Perhaps her memory system is damaged.”

  That was it.

  Hearing this, something inside me snapped. I finally realized that these people aren’t going to help me, and they never will. I have no idea what was going on, and I might be the one who is at fault here. But, I did know that people who meant well would at least try to listen.

  They obviously didn’t. They didn’t even pretend to.

  “…You brought this on yourselves,” I murmured.

  Before I even realized I’d moved, my fist was already flying.

  The leader reacted fast, raising his blue electricity baton and shifting his stance like a trained soldier, clearly expecting me to go down from the contact alone due to the shock.

  He never got the chance.

  The moment my punch connected, his body was lifted clean off the ground. His armor crumpled as he was hurled backward, smashing through the iron doors of the cell across. The momentum didn’t stop there, he tore straight through them, only coming to a halt after slamming into the wall and even breaking them.

  But this time, my heightened senses told me the truth.

  He was dead. He wasn’t breathing as the first man I had punched.

  The guards froze where they stood. All traces of aggression vanished, replaced by raw fear as they slowly backed away from me.

  “…Commander?” someone whispered.

  I stared at my trembling hand. Despite being struck earlier by an electricity baton, an artifact, from what I had overheard, it looked completely normal. There was only a faint sting left behind, barely enough to register.

  My breath came out uneven.

  I hadn’t meant to hit him that hard. I hadn’t even wanted to hit him at all. However, no matter how much I tried to deny it, the result was already there. I had crossed a line.

  And judging by the way the guards looked at me now, they knew it too.

  “Number 9 is deemed too aggressive,” a voice spoke up.

  The man raised his baton, and with a sharp metallic sound, a sword slid out from it, the baton acting as a sheath.

  “Guards, permission to kill Number 9 is granted,” he said. “All responsibility will be on me.”

  The guards drew their swords from their baton-sheaths one after another. I could only tremble as I tried to steady my shaking breath.

  ‘I have killed a man. I have killed a man. I have killed a man.’

  The thought kept repeating, no matter how hard I tried to force it out of my head. My eyes shook hard as the guards closed in, their swords raised.

  Then something inside me began to boil over. I didn’t recognize the feeling. I didn’t even understand what was happening anymore. My thoughts felt hot and crowded. But one thing was clear. They were the bad ones. They were the ones who attacked first. They were the ones who locked me inside a cell, watched me like an object. They kidnapped me. They stripped away my body, my name, and turned me into Number 9. I was just defending myself. That was all. Anyone would do the same if they were cornered like this. If they were hunted down without being listened to even once. I didn’t choose this body. I didn’t choose this strength. I didn’t choose to kill anyone. They forced my hand. If they were trying to kill me, then resisting wasn’t wrong. If they treated me like a monster, then what else was I supposed to do but act accordingly?

  My trembling slowly stopped.

  A thought inside me, a beautiful voice belonging to a girl started to get louder as I smiled.

  ‘Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them.’

  Just as I was about to move, something else caught my attention.

  Another man stepped forward.

  He wore emerald-colored armor, more ornate than the others, a long cape flowing behind him and a massive sword strapped to his side. He looked like the very image of a knight straight out of a legend, and the way he frowned at me made it clear he saw nothing but disgust.

  “Sir Hewerd!” the man who had granted permission to kill me shouted, relief flooding his voice. “You’ve arrived!”

  Sir Hewerd didn’t even spare him a glance.

  “You were having trouble with this girl?” he said coldly. “Pathetic.”

  That was it. I lunged.

  I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care about their explanations, nor about the consequences. All I wanted was to tear this knight apart, to erase that look on his face.

  But before I could even reach him—Something flashed.

  In the blink of an eye, Hewerd was in front of me. His hand clamped down on my head with overwhelming force, and the next moment, my vision spun as he slammed my head into the floor.

  The impact rattled my skull. A sharp ringing filled my ears as the boiling emotions inside me suddenly drained away, leaving only confusion behind.

  ‘What… am I doing…?’

  The thought barely formed as my consciousness began to slip.

  Normally, I would have panicked by the situation I was in: surrounded by strangers, pinned down, helpless. But instead, something deep inside me felt strangely calm.

  Comfortable. And then, everything went dark once more.

  [(0)]

  “Actually, Magisets Morona,” Mg. Oliver said, suddenly realizing something, “shouldn’t we warn Instructor Demo about the Frenzy mode the homunculus have? You know, the one that activates when their life is endangered?"

  Mg. Morona was finishing up the paperwork for the upcoming training and the newly assigned Magisets who would be overseeing the homunculus. Without looking up, she simply raised an eyebrow.

  “And what do you think I’m doing right now?”

  “…Sorry.”

  Silence followed.

  The secretary stood quietly nearby, observing, while Morona continued sorting through the documents. As she thinned the stack, she suddenly stopped and turned toward Oliver.

  “Tell me, Oliver,” Morona said. “What do you think about homunculus?”

  “Um…” Oliver hesitated, unsure what she was really asking. “They’re… children, I guess?”

  “And?”

  “They’re created to fight for their entire lives,” he continued carefully. “And I think that’s… too cruel.”

  “And?”

  Oliver was sure the secretary was watching their conversation now, but he pressed on anyway. He was already in too deep to stop.

  “I was thinking,” he said quietly, fidgeting with his hands, “maybe… once the war is over, someone could take care of them. They look like children, and maybe they’d want love, or a family, or—”

  “Alright, Oliver,” Morona interrupted as she handed him a document.

  “That’s very kind of you,” she said. “Please sign here.”

  “Uh… thank you,” Oliver replied. Without reading the document, he signed his name.

  “So, um, what do we do now?” Oliver asked as Morona handed the papers to the secretary, who accepted them with a nod. Morona stepped back. “Do we go to a different department? If so, I’d like to visit the research divi—”

  “Quiet.”

  The word hadn’t even finished echoing when a figure appeared. A flash of sword and a wet splat rang out as Oliver’s voice, and life, were cut short. His head hit the floor and rolled to a stop, eyes still wide.

  Sir Hewerd calmly wiped his blade, his expression filled with nothing but disdain, before sliding the sword back into its sheath.

  “You keep using me like a pet,” he said coldly, glaring at Morona. “That was the last favor I owe you.”

  Morona didn’t respond. She walked over to Oliver’s body, knelt down, and gently closed his still-open eyes.

  “…Fool,” she muttered quietly. “I told you to be careful with your words.”

  The secretary didn’t even flinch. She simply straightened the stack of documents in her hands.

  “Magisets Morona,” she said flatly, “from this day forward, you are not permitted to leave this laboratory until further notice. The Homunculus Project must not become public knowledge.”

  Her gaze shifted briefly to Oliver’s corpse, now being carried away by guards.

  “Any attempt to escape or spread information,” she continued, “will result in the same outcome.”

  “…Alright,” Morona replied with a tired sigh.

  She stood up and followed the guards as they led her deeper into the laboratory, leaving the bloodstain behind as if it had never mattered at all.