Scammed...(1)
The entire body felt languid. In my hazy consciousness, the only thing I could grasp was this strange sensation of floating, as if my whole form were suspended in midair. It was like being back in the womb before birth. I surrendered myself to the gentle warmth inside and quietly savored the feeling. Compared to the pain and cold that had wracked me moments earlier, this place was heaven itself. Since the disaster, this was probably the first time my mind had felt so completely at ease.
The collapse of the old social order and the crimes that followed in its wake had left the world harsh for ordinary people. Things had calmed a little recently, but survival was still brutal. A faint vibration rippled through the space around me, spreading like ripples across a lake until it reached my body. Only then did I realize something I had missed: in this half-asleep state, I couldn’t feel my hands or feet at all. In fact, I couldn’t feel any part of a body. What I had been calling “my body” was nothing more than an unconscious label. Right now, I was simply one with this space, my consciousness drifting alone inside it.
“……”
It should have been terrifying, yet my heart didn’t stir much. I simply thought, Ah, so that’s how it is. The comfort and drowsiness of my current state overpowered everything else. Rather than worrying about what condition I was in, I found myself wishing this feeling would last forever.
While mulling over my situation, a memory surfaced naturally. It was from when I had just started working as a porter. The small company I’d joined right after graduation shut down after the disaster, leaving me with no way to make a living. The emergency savings I’d scraped together over the years had all gone toward my late mother’s hospital bills. If I didn’t do something, I would end up on the streets, starving. Ignoring everyone’s warnings, I shouldered a porter’s pack. I’d kept up with exercise for years, so I figured physical labor wouldn’t be a problem. Reality, however, proved far harsher than I’d imagined. The moment I stepped into that dungeon, I understood.
It was hell. Extreme environments no human could endure, swarms of unimaginable monsters attacking from every direction. Back then, hunters were far less experienced, so clearing dungeons was much more dangerous. Porters like me, who couldn’t even protect ourselves, were the first to die. Because the dungeon was fairly large, three of us had gone in together. Only I made it out alive. Surviving that nightmare had been nothing short of a miracle. Even the hunters who accompanied us had less than a fifty percent survival rate. I myself had been critically wounded by a monster’s ambush and barely crawled out.
The memory remained vivid. It had been pouring rain. Through the darkness, the sirens and flashing red lights of ambulances cut through the downpour. Barely conscious, I was loaded into one and rushed to a nearby hospital. After emergency surgery, when I woke groaning in pain, the doctor gave me some medicine I still couldn’t quite recall. The sensation I felt now was exactly like the effect of that drug: a drowsy calm that melted away every trace of physical pain and even mental stress, leaving only a strange, floating numbness. Later I learned it was a type of narcotic used strictly for medical pain relief, commonly administered as an analgesic in recent years.
Still, I didn’t feel like I was in a hospital. I couldn’t be sure whether that was true or not, but instinct told me otherwise. As I tried to think deeper about it, another vibration shook the space—this one stronger and longer than before. It felt like someone knocking on a door from outside. I wanted to stay in this comfortable place a little longer and tried to ignore it, but my returning clarity and the increasingly violent tremors inside refused to let me. In the end, I was swept up by that massive current and forced out of the space, back into that hellish world I never wanted to return to. I had no choice.
The interior tore open. A blinding flash of light burst forth, and I regained full consciousness.
-----
After some time, when the light finally faded, my surroundings came into sharp focus. I was inside a vast cavern bathed in a faint blue glow. It was unmistakably the same dungeon I had been in before losing consciousness. The location seemed different—perhaps deeper in some hidden gorge—but the environment matched. What mattered more, however, was a single undeniable fact.
I was alive. My mind was clear, and the pain that had wracked my body was gone. The conversation with that mysterious lifeform right before I died hadn’t been a hallucination. Otherwise, my survival made no sense. Stunned by the surreal reality, I stared blankly ahead for a long while. Everything felt new, as if I had been reborn. The damp moisture in the cave, the uneven texture of the floor beneath me—things that had seemed repulsive when I first entered now felt strangely comforting. The dark, secretive atmosphere no longer frightened me.
The proposal had been absurd: become a hero of justice in exchange for new life and power. Even an elementary school student would have laughed at how childish it sounded. At first, I’d thought it was some kind of prank. But now that it had actually happened, I could no longer deny it. Still unable to fully accept the situation, I unconsciously reached up and touched one side of my face.
Squish. Squish.
A moist, sticky sensation traveled through my hand. I kept pressing for a moment, drawn to the oddly addictive feeling, before belatedly noticing something was wrong.
…?
Had my cheek always felt like this? No matter how soft my skin was, it had never been this damp. A sense of unease rising, I immediately looked down at the hand that had been touching my face. The moment I did, my thoughts froze.
A small hand made of translucent gray liquid, so clear I could see right through it. My original hand—callused from years of hard labor—was gone. In its place was this slender, liquid-formed limb.
“……”
People say extreme shock leaves you speechless. But what I was about to face made that reaction seem mild. My gaze naturally traveled downward. Clinging to a faint hope in this impossible situation, I looked—and cruel reality crushed that hope without mercy.
The first things I saw were two unfamiliar mounds that had no business being there. Like my altered hand, they were made of the same translucent gray liquid, softly rounded and protruding. There was no denying it: they were a woman’s breasts. My once-proud, sturdy male body was nowhere to be seen. What remained was a soft, curvaceous female form composed of the same unknown liquid. The much narrower waist, delicate arms, wider hips, and the smooth, shapely legs below painted a picture I couldn’t accept. Even the part of me that had never been used… had completely vanished. The moment I saw the smooth, empty space beyond the slight rise of what used to be my groin, my eyes lost focus.
This had to be a dream. Otherwise, how could a burly man like me have turned into a slime girl? As denial set in, I reached up with trembling resolve and pinched my cheek hard. There was no pain. Only soft, springy elasticity met my fingers. I felt a flicker of relief. If there was no pain, then this must be a dream. At least that way I could escape this unbelievable reality.
But the voice echoing in my mind refused to allow even that escape.
[Huh? You don’t actually believe that, right? How’s a slime supposed to feel pain? Texture is one thing, but actual pain? Come on~]
The small figure that suddenly appeared bounced once, then casually swatted my newly formed chest with its front paw. The sensation from a place that shouldn’t exist on my body became the spark. All at once, the completely transformed feeling of my entire form crashed over me, and my stalled thoughts jolted back to life. With denial no longer possible, harsh reality swallowed me whole.
“A… Aaaah… Kyaaaaaaaah!!!… Hic!”
No one in this world could calmly accept waking up as a monster. Especially not when their gender had flipped on top of everything else. The shock doubled. While screaming in confusion, I suddenly clamped both hands over my mouth, eyes wide. That voice wasn’t mine. Instead of my usual low, deep tone, the sound echoing through the cavern was the high-pitched scream of a girl I had never heard before.
While I reeled in shock and terror, the suspicious creature lounged in the corner, watching me with lazy amusement, as if enjoying a fire across the river. Spotting that carefree attitude, I ignited with fury and charged straight at it. Grabbing its body, I shook it violently.
“You, you, you!! You perverted bastard!!! This was all your doing, wasn’t it?! What the hell did you turn me into?!”
My furious voice rang through the cave. I had shouted with every ounce of rage I possessed, yet the high, girlish tone that came out made even my anger sound like a cute tantrum. The creature didn’t budge despite my violent reaction. Instead, it twisted its expression into something bizarre and stared at me as if genuinely confused.
[?]
That shameless look only made my anger boil hotter. It wasn’t until I was practically radiating killing intent that the unidentified lifeform finally opened its mouth, slow and deliberate.