Hanna POV

  It was around two and a half hours before I found my legs, but I?a had fared much worse thanks to my rough treatment near the end. She was conscious and mostly unharmed, but was content to y in bed basking in the afterglow of our passionate lovemaking. I didn't known if I loved her or not, and I'm sure she didn't know it either, but I would do right by the mother of my child.

  Speaking of.

  The system had let me know that all my progeny would be id as eggs. This is because my children will take on any adaptations I have at the time of conception, meaning that in the future my children may have adaptations that would present a danger to their mothers. I look at my cws, then tense my leg muscles before grimacing. The idea of my child kicking in the womb and punching a hole in their mother was not a pretty sight. With all that in mind, it was pretty damn decent of the System to so this.

  Did this mean I wasn't human, though? I wasn't ready for an existential crisis right now, so after wrapping my paramore in her bnkets I shifted my armor ptes back into position and walked out to Astera where people were both avoiding me and staring weirdly. I guess to them I was still an animal? A powerful, intelligent one, but an animal nonetheless. And neither me nor I?a had made attempts to be quiet.

  Hmm.

  I wasn't going to correct them, as I'm not even sure I was human anymore. My, ah, unique body had lead to me being ostracized from any group of people I knew and dating, God dating was a nightmare. People were real accepting online, said they were willing to keep an open mind, but while I felt welcome and accepted, I never felt wanted. Not the way I?a had.

  She felt her body react to the thought of I?a, but rather than go back in her room and give her more affections till they both rut themselves to death, she flew over to the docks, staring at the ocean. Thinking.

  I'm remarkably okay with not being human anymore. This world, how it changed me both physically and mentally.

  I loved the fighting, I'd realized. The triumph over beasts that would eat me just as soon as I'd eat them.

  I loved the feeling of growing stronger. The mutations were painful but oh, so worth it.

  As I looked at the sea, an idea suddenly hit me. Seriously, if this were a cartoon you'd see the light bulb go off.

  "System. Are there microscopic life forms on this world? Are they worth any bioenergy?"

  「Report: There are indeed microscopic life forms in this world, simir to krill or pnkton, but the bioenergy rewards are small, only a second or two at most.」

  I grinned. There were animals on earth that could devour millions of pnkton and krill by the hour via filter feeding. With my ravenous appetite, I could out pace these creatures, and my estimates put the number of krill I could eat in the trillions. How long was a trillion seconds?

  Rounded up, it was thirty-two thousand years.

  And I haven't ever ate until I was full, so it could be more.

  But before I could open my mouth to ask how much the filter feeding trait was, the system interrupted me.

  「Congratutions to the host for discovering a bioenergy loophole! In return for assisting the system in discovering and patching this by removing bioenergy rewards from creatures less than the size of a fingernail, you have been awarded one free mutation」

  "..."

  「...」

  "..."

  「Five free mutations?」

  "Piece of shit!"