I Became a Female Beast That Spits Ice from Its Mouth
I need a hiding place.
Recalling the strategy guide I’d seen on the Murim Gallery, I walked along the riverbank completely naked, my tail swaying behind me.
Sure enough, this really was the Murim. Even the prime riverside real estate had no people in sight.
If anyone built a house here, they’d be the perfect target for bandits coming ashore to plunder. That was probably why.
Well, it was lucky for me.
I was aware that my newly acquired body was quite beautiful, but that didn’t mean I wanted strangers watching me strut around in the nude.
“A cave really is the classic choice for a hideout.”
Hiding place. Nest. A dragon’s nest is a lair. Dragon lairs are usually caves. That was the thought process that led me to a cave.
There was no navigation system or anything, so I simply kept walking along the riverbank. I walked and walked in search of a cave.
“Huh?”
Then I suddenly looked back at the path I had taken. A perfectly straight line of footprints stretched out behind me. The spacing was completely even, without the slightest deviation in direction.
“Oh.”
Only then did I realize what the tail connected above my buttocks was for. It functioned exactly like an animal’s tail. I felt like I had gained perfect balance and an instinctive sense that transcended human limits.
Finding it fascinating, I continued walking, but no cave appeared.
“Maybe I should head into the forest.”
I glanced toward the trees, but it didn’t appeal to me. It wasn’t that becoming a Sea Dragon had made me afraid of dry land. I just knew that going inland would drastically increase the chances of running into people.
I still had some shame left. No matter what, I didn’t want to meet anyone while looking like this.
So I just kept walking. After several hours...
“Found it!”
I cheered. Between piles of rocks that seemed out of place along the riverbank, a cavern with a fairly wide space inside came into view.
I entered with a bit of tension. I had no desire to share a roof with bats or cockroaches.
I moved slowly inward.
“Oh.”
The interior was far cleaner than I had expected. Or rather than clean...
-Squeak, squeak.
-Squeak!
Was “they fled” the right way to put it? As if I had been the owner of this cave from the very beginning, every animal that had settled here first began bolting out all at once.
The arrival of an apex predator. The activation of their survival instincts. I hadn’t meant to, but I had become the cave’s one and only master.
“Thank you...?”
I muttered in a daze and went deeper inside. Right after that...
-Rooooooar!
The river water at the cave entrance suddenly reversed direction and surged inside. As if to thoroughly clean the place where I would live, the water rose up and rapidly washed the floor, walls, and even the ceiling.
During the process, none of the filth from the rats or bats, nor any carcasses they had eaten, splashed onto me. The water was washing away the grime at precise angles that took even that into consideration while cleaning my future home.
“So this is what a Sea Dragon is.”
I realized all over again just how inconvenient human life had been. In the life of a Sea Dragon, disgusting dirty animals and insects cleared out on their own, and the water acted like a personal servant that cleaned in my stead.
Thinking back to the days when I first moved into my own place, when the movers had tracked mud all over the floors and I had to scrub every speck of dirt before I could even live there... this was truly...
“The best.”
I walked deeper into the cave in a state of pure bliss. Water continued to overflow and wash the cave along the path I took. When I reached the deepest part, I found a perfectly flat area where I could just lie down and sleep, plus a spring.
It seemed connected to the river underground; minnow-like fish and freshwater crabs were living inside it.
“I can get food from here in an emergency.”
The fish had nowhere to run even if they wanted to. If I made a fishing rod, I could enjoy the thrill of catching them one by one, grill them over an open fire until crispy, and tear into that flame-kissed grilled fish.
“This is living.”
Just imagining it already made me want to moan in satisfaction. The only problem was securing drinking water. Should I boil it? Or create some kind of purification device? Since I still had a human-shaped body before becoming a Sea Dragon, I would need water...
“Since I’m a Sea Dragon, it’d be interesting if just touching water with my hand purified it completely...”
Huh?
“It actually works?”
While thinking about a water purifier, I dipped my hand into the puddle inside the cave. The instant I touched it, a clear boundary formed between the water in contact with my hand and the rest of the puddle. The murky water transformed into a completely transparent liquid.
I was convinced it was safe to drink.
“This body is seriously amazing.”
I became certain that I needed to understand every aspect of this body. Every single moment of living in it felt new. Even if it was just to make life in the Murim a little more comfortable, it looked like I would need to seriously study.
*
Quite a long time passed. It was more than enough time to learn about my body. How something buried in my chest would assert its presence under certain conditions. How a woman’s body was softer than I’d thought and made me want to keep touching it.
“No, that’s not the point.”
Earlier, seeing the water purify at my touch had made me think of a water purifier, but this wasn’t an exaggeration. It was an ice purifier with actual ice-making functions. When I held water in my mouth and thought about making ice, perfect little ice beads formed instantly.
This was basically the same as having both an ice maker and a refrigerator. With ice in a cave that stayed fairly cool even in summer, I could preserve food for a thousand years.
And this...
“Isn’t this perfect humblebrag material?”
Ice would be pretty rare in this era, right? There wouldn’t be air conditioners. Cold water wouldn’t be common. Based on my many years of community experience, this was the kind of thing that could draw endless envy and jealousy.
“This could be fun.”
I could dominate the emotions of all the n-year veterans in the Murim Gallery who screamed about wanting to eat ice again and wailed that they missed modern civilization. Since I’d seen image attachments on posts when I checked the gallery earlier, the system clearly had a camera function. That meant I could post vivid, high-quality bragging.
For the nickname, since I was a Sea Dragon, I should pick something that sounded strong.
The reactions were explosive.
The main moderator had even rushed over to leave a comment. Still, I didn’t reply to any of them.
When you hang around communities long enough, you naturally learn something. Whether it’s cosplay verification posts or women showing up in male-dominated forums, the moment people in those rare positions post proof and get flooded with comments, they get tempted to start real interaction. But that just wears down their value.
Even now it was obvious. I had only posted to show off a little, yet I was getting passionate cheers purely because I was female.
“For now, let’s keep a bit more mystery.”
I smirked and closed the gallery, then looked around the empty cave interior.
“Light does come in, but it’s weak.”
It would be nice to have a torch or two for lighting. I’d also need a proper place to sleep, and a table to put food on would be good too.
“Let’s start with water.”
Going outside naked to scavenge tools one by one wouldn’t be bad, but since I was a Sea Dragon, I might as well begin by getting used to handling water.
A Shinsu wasn’t just a superhuman who used their body well like martial artists. It was literally a divine beast. I had a body that surpassed human limits, so there was no need to stay trapped by human ones.
“It’d be nice if I could make something like a 100% liquid water bed. Since I’m a Sea Dragon anyway, I probably won’t have to worry about throwing out my back.”
Once I got more skilled later, I could make other furniture with water too. If I used water to carve down stalactites or those sharp protruding rocks and shaped them properly...
This would truly be a dragon’s lair. What other dragon lair could there be? I was already so excited I felt like I was going to explode. I needed to start the interior design right away.
*
Meanwhile, while Hae Sua, now a Sea Dragon, was busy fulfilling her dream of acquiring her own home and working on the interior design...
“What is this?”
“One of our boys was found floating on a natural raft that drifted down from upstream.”
“What?”
“The main fort master ordered us to search for Spiritual Beasts and capture any we found. We sent this guy, but he came back like this.”
“Hoo, so that means...”
“Yes. It means there is one. Whether it’s a Spiritual Beast or someone protecting it.”
This place was Gyeongchae, one of the fragmented branch forts of the Janggang Water Sect that ruled the entire Janggang region. The fort master nodded after receiving the report about the bandit Hae Sua had beaten into a pulp and driven away right after she fell into the Murim world.
“Narrow the search area to upstream. If we earn recognition this time, our branch fort will be able to obtain advanced martial arts.”
“Then we won’t inform the other branch forts and handle this among ourselves?”
“That’s right.”
However, those chasing after Hae Sua’s traces had no idea. They didn’t know that Hae Sua was a high-ranking Shinsu who couldn’t even be compared to ordinary Spiritual Beasts, and that among Shinsu she was an extremely rare specimen known as a Sea Dragon.
These foolish bandits were marching straight toward their own graves.