Chapter 1: A Nonhuman Otaku Wants to Become a Nonhuman

The world is full of people with truly peculiar tastes. Some love beautiful women. Some love cute animals. Some love towering slabs of muscle. And me?

"Ah, fuck. She is seriously so damn pretty."

I didn't hold back a shred of admiration as I stared at the picture on my monitor. In it was something that only clumsily mimicked a human shape. Where a head ought to have been, atop the body of a woman in a black dress some ten feet tall, there sat an enormous birdcage. Dozens of eyeballs crowded inside it, each one gazing a different direction, each one weeping. From beneath the cage, long tentacles shaped like human arms reached out.

An ordinary person would have recoiled. To my eyes, it was nothing but a beautiful work of art.

"This is real pure love."

I nodded, perfectly serious. For the record, my name is Baek Hoon, and I am twenty-five. By trade I am an ordinary office worker. By hobby, I admire creative works about nonhumans and creatures.

Of all of them, my favorite genre is the object head—a catchall for beings whose human heads have been replaced by objects, or by something grotesque. A gentleman with a television for a head. A woman whose head is a bouquet. A monster with an endlessly turning gear where a face should be. Those were my taste. Ordinary creatures were welcome too, of course. Tentacle monsters, spider queens, headless knights, things wearing a person's skin—I didn't discriminate. Only one thing mattered to me: how far removed they were from human.

"People who slap ears and a tail on a humanoid and insist that's a nonhuman need to take a hard look at themselves."

That was closer to a beastkin, or a demi-human, wasn't it? A true nonhuman, I believed, ought to have at least one part that human common sense simply could not parse. Personal taste, of course.

I moved the mouse and opened an internet community.

It was a fairly obscure community, the gathering place for those humans in Korea who loved nonhumans and creatures. Around those parts, I was treated as something of a celebrity. My handle was Nonhuman Pure Love Association President. The name was grandiose, sure, but in practice I was just an ordinary gallery user who posted nonhuman art every day and wrote up what I thought of it.

I attached the picture of the birdcage-headed woman I had just been admiring, posted it, and comments began to stack up before even a few minutes had passed.

I let out a snort of laughter. I had said it like a joke, but a fair part of me meant it. A world where nonhumans lived—where human common sense did not apply, where grotesque beings built civilizations of their own. If a place like that actually existed, how much fun would it be?

Of course, there were practical problems. Some monsters would treat humans as prey. Some beings would turn hostile for no reason other than that you were human. So I wanted to add one condition.

"If I'm going anyway, I'd rather be a nonhuman myself."

Dropping into a world of nonhumans as an ordinary human was out of the question. In a world like that, I wanted a grotesque form of my own. An object head, if at all possible.

"God, I really want to try being a television head just once."

I muttered it as I leaned back in my chair. If I were one, I could put expressions up on the screen, broadcast signals, even turn a channel instead of turning my head. Just thinking about it set my heart racing.

A soft chime. In the lower right of the monitor, a single notification window popped up.

"Huh?"

The sender was an account I had never seen. The name was Administrator, so at first I assumed it was gallery staff—but the contents of the note were a little strange.

"What is this?"

Figuring it for ordinary bait, I sent a reply without much thought.

The answer arrived almost at once.

"This guy's really locked into the bit."

It was fun, so I decided to play along.

In that instant, the monitor went black.

"Huh?"

At first I thought the computer had died. Then white letters began to surface in the center of the blackened screen.

"Whoa. Phishing sites come with full production value now?"

I was impressed. As pranks went, someone had put real work into this one. When I moved the mouse, the cursor behaved normally—but strangely enough, the window would not close. Alt+F4 did nothing. Calling up Task Manager got no response at all.

"Wait a second... this isn't a virus, is it?"

Only then did I grow a little uneasy, and I reached for the power button. Just before my fingers touched the tower, a new line appeared on the screen.

"......"

The last sentence snagged on me more than the rest. I might not understand their love. That was a slightly frightening idea. To some monster, swallowing another being whole might be a display of affection. Some existence might try to keep the one it loved sealed inside its body for eternity. From a human perspective those were horrific acts, but to them they could be perfectly sincere love.

"If that's the premise, it's actually even more interesting."

The moment I muttered that without thinking, the screen flickered.

"Huh?"

"Suitable? Suitable for what?"

I couldn't help bursting out laughing. At this point I wanted to see the thing through to the end. Worst case, I'd catch a virus, or get bounced to some weird site. With that careless thought I clicked YES—and I would go on to regret that choice for a very long time.

The first thing I felt was the sensation of falling.

"AAAAAAAH!"

My body was flung into empty air, and I could no longer tell up from down. Countless colors churned through my vision. In my ears was a sound like hundreds of people whispering at once. Someone was laughing. Someone was crying. And in the middle of it all, a child's voice.

"A new guest?"

Next came an old woman's voice.

"A human. How very long it has been."

Then a man's voice rang out.

"No. That is not a human."

"Then what is it?"

"A being not yet decided."

"Ah. So that is how it is."

"Then it may yet become a being like us."

The voices laughed, and the laughter bored into my ears and echoed inside my skull. I screamed and clamped both hands over my ears.

"Stop! Stop talking!"

At that, every sound vanished. A door appeared before my eyes. The pure-white door had no handle, and a gigantic eyeball was set into its center. The eye looked at me.

"Welcome."

"......Who are you?"

"I am the door that will guide you to the world you wished for."

"No, I'm asking who you are!"

"I have no name. If you wish, you may give me one."

The eyeball set in the door curved gently, as if it were smiling.

"Now. Come in."

"Wait! I'm not mentally prepared ye—"

The words never reached their end, because the door was opening. The white surface split from top to bottom, and from within, hundreds of teeth showed themselves.

"Huh?"

"May your stay be a pleasant one."

CRUNCH.

And the door swallowed me.

"Ghk—!"

I sucked in a ragged breath and opened my eyes, and cold air drove deep into my lungs. My whole body was soaked through with sweat.

"Hah... hah..."

My heart was hammering like mad. A dream? I thought so, and tried to push myself up—and something wet and yielding met my palm.

"......?"

The ground was ground, but it was wrong. What I had taken for dark crimson soil, looked at closely, was living flesh. Across its surface, thin cords like blood vessels writhed.

"What the fuck."

I snatched my hand away. The ground flinched. Something seemed to be moving beneath the meat. I looked around.

The sky was violet, and it pulsed like the belly of some enormous creature. Far off, a black forest spread, and the trees stood not on roots but on legs shaped like human fingers. The fruit hanging from every branch beat like a heart. The leaves struck one another and whispered in a language I could not understand. Beyond the forest, I could see a city. Needle-sharp spires thrust at the sky, and above them, vast beings like jellyfish drifted at their leisure. And above the city, a moon. Three moons. One of them looked like an eye.

"......Whoa."

My mouth fell open. I had dropped into some unknowable place, and I was afraid. But a feeling far stronger than that fear was pounding in my chest. Wonder.

"Insane..."

Laughter spilled out of me on its own.

"It's real."

The world I had imagined for so long was spread out before my eyes. A world where human common sense did not apply. A world where grotesque beings lived. Nonhuman Pandemonium itself.

"WAAAAAH!"

I threw both arms into the air.

"It's a real nonhuman world!"

A dry rustle. In that instant I felt something move behind me, and I turned on reflex. At the edge of the forest, a huge existence was crawling out.

Its torso was something like a spider's, but ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it had not eight legs—twelve—and a human hand tipped every one of them. Dozens of mouths gaped across its abdomen, and sticky saliva ran from them. The most grotesque part was the head. An old bridal veil was draped over it, and beneath the veil, where a face should have been, sat a round mass of flesh studded with hundreds of needles. The thing was about the size of a small bus.

"......"

I looked at it. It looked at me. Well—it had no face, so I couldn't actually tell whether it was looking. But every mouth on its torso opened at once, so it had certainly noticed me.

"Whoa."

The admiration just came out.

"The design is insane."

SKREEEEE!

In that moment the monster screamed and charged.

"Huh?"

Twelve legs drummed the ground. For a body that huge, it was unbelievably fast. I came to my senses far too late, spun, and ran.

"AAAAAH! Wait! Just wait!"

I was going to die. That thing was actually going to kill me. No matter how much I loved nonhumans, I did not want to be eaten. I could joke all I liked on the internet, but when a monster lined with hundreds of teeth was really charging to devour me, the story was different.

"I said I liked nonhumans! I never said I wanted one to eat me!"

I had posted comments along those lines, sure. That had been a bit. Nothing more.

BOOM!

The monster's foreleg slammed down where I had been standing. The ground burst, and dark crimson liquid sprayed in every direction. I threw myself sideways and barely got clear.

"Agh!"

My shoulder hit the ground, and pain rolled through me. In that gap the monster twisted. The mouths along its abdomen opened all at once, and long tongues shot out from inside them, each tipped with a bone hooked like a fishing barb.

"Shit!"

I rolled.

CRACK!

One tongue punched clean through the tree beside me, and the tree screamed.

"KIAAAAAA!"

"The tree's screaming?!"

There was no time to be shocked. A leg was already scything toward my waist. I threw up an arm to block it, but there was no world in which a human arm stopped an attack like that.

THUD!

"Ghk—!"

My body left the ground. I heard a rib break. I flew several yards and slammed back-first into a tree. I couldn't breathe. More than anything, it hurt as if my lungs had been torn.

"Khh... gh..."

Blood ran from my mouth, and my vision blurred. The monster was coming closer, slowly. The mouths along its torso gaped as if they were smiling. Only then did it sink in. This was not the world inside the pictures I had loved. It was a world where monsters truly lived and moved. They would not treat me kindly just because I liked them. Just as a human does not consider an ant's circumstances when stepping on it, that monster would not think of me as anything more than prey.

"Ha..."

A hollow laugh slipped out.

"This is... way too much, isn't it?"

Tears stung. I didn't want to die yet. I hadn't even been able to call my parents. There was a report I still had to turn in at work by tomorrow. Half a chicken I'd ordered yesterday was still sitting in the fridge. And above all—

"I haven't even... gotten a proper look yet."

I wanted to see even one more of the nonhumans that lived in this world. A familiar chime sounded.

"......What?"

A blue window rose in the empty air.

I read the message in a daze. Heteromorphic Head? The power to turn a head into an object?

"......An object head?"

For an instant my heart kicked hard. It was the ability I had wanted for so long. But there was no time to be glad of it. The monster had already come right up to my face. Its mouths gaped, and hundreds of teeth struck one another with a sound that crawled up my spine. I raised a shaking hand.

"W-wait!"

The monster did not stop.

"Please..."

In the moment its foreleg lifted, a single image rose in my mind. An old CRT television. White noise drifting across a black screen. A signal. I clenched my teeth.

"Heteromorphic Head!"

My vision flipped. Heat started at the nape of my neck, and then my whole head felt as if it were melting from the inside out. There was no pain. What I felt instead was a strange liberation, like spending a lifetime shut in a narrow box and stepping outside for the first time.

Creak. Crack. Bones rearranged themselves. Skin vanished. Hair scattered. Cold metal and glass took their place.

KRRZZZT!

White noise flooded everything in front of me. I understood, instinctively. My head was a television now.

"......Whoa."

My voice rang as if it had passed through an old speaker, but I had no room to admire it. The monster's foreleg was already falling toward my head. I shouted on reflex.

"Get lost!"

KRRRRZZZZT!

White light exploded from the television screen, and at the same time a razor-edged hiss tore outward in every direction.

SKREEEEE!

The monster screamed. Every mouth on its torso slammed shut at once. Its twelve legs began to move each according to its own whim, and the needles in its head struck one another in a grating discord.

"Huh?"

I stared at it, blank. The monster retreated, writhing in pain. Watching that, one thought surfaced.

Don't tell me the signal is actually getting through.

A human brain runs on electrical signals. Then the monsters of this world might be built on a similar nervous system. It was only a guess. Right now, I had no other method.

"All right."

I staggered to my feet. My ribs throbbed, and every breath felt as if it would tear my side open, but I laughed anyway.

"Let's try that one more time."

White noise spread across the television screen. The monster dropped low, wary, and scraped at the ground with its legs. In the next instant that huge body charged again. I didn't run. I focused on driving the screen's output higher.

The higher it climbed, the hotter the inside of my head became. It felt as if something were gnawing at my consciousness. I endured it. Just before the foreleg could punch through my chest, I released the noise.

"Now!"

KRRREEEEE!

The noise pouring from the television screen swallowed the space in front of me. The monster's movement slipped for an instant. Its legs tangled, as if each had been given a different order.

CRASH—CRUNCH!

The huge body lost its balance and went down, twelve legs snarled together, clawing at the earth.

"Yes!"

I didn't waste the opening. I turned and ran at once.

"I beat you, you bastard!"

That was a lie, of course. All I had actually done was flee. But I was alive, and that was enough. The monster's scream followed me. I didn't look back.

How long did I run? At last the forest ended, an old stone road appeared, and only then did I drop to my knees.

"Hah... hah..."

I had really survived. When I touched my head with a trembling hand, I felt cold metal. Along the edge of the screen were old screws, and a vent.

"Haha..."

Laughter spilled out.

"I really became a television head."

It was the object head I had dreamed of even in my sleep, and yet what came first was not joy. It was relief. Only a little while ago, I had nearly died. I looked up at the sky. Three moons looked down at me.

"......Right. I have to live."

However much this was the world I had wanted, if I died, none of it meant anything. So first, survive. Survive, adapt to this world, and find somewhere safe. And if I could, I ought to try talking with the people who lived here. I was thinking exactly that when—

"Oh my."

A voice came from behind me.

"What a truly curious person you are."

A woman's voice. Soft, elegant, with a playful note threaded through it. I turned my head, and I couldn't help swallowing.

A woman stood on the stone road. She looked to be about six and a half feet tall, dressed in a black lace gown, and in her white-gloved hand she held a small parasol. Where a human head should have been, above her neck, there sat an enormous clock. Roman numerals were engraved across a face ringed in gold ornament. Two hands moved slowly. Beneath the face, a silver pendulum swung.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

My mouth fell open before I knew it.

"......Whoa."

Whether she had tilted her head, or the clock had, the clock face tipped slightly to the right.

"Hehe. Is my appearance so fascinating?"

"No."

I answered at once.

"It's because you're beautiful."

Tick.

The clock hands stopped. For a while, the woman said nothing. Belatedly, I replayed what I had just said.

Ah...

Had I come on too strong for a first meeting? But I had meant it. The harmony of that antique dress and a grandfather-clock head was, quite simply, perfect. She opened her mouth again.

"......Beautiful, you say?"

"Yes."

"Me?"

"Yes. Your head in particular is really wonderful."

Tick-tick!

In that instant the clock's second hand began to move at an abnormal speed. The woman clutched the handle of her parasol.

"Oh my."

Her voice rose a little.

"Oh my, oh my..."

I grew anxious. Was praising a head rude in this world?

"Um, if that bothered you, I'm sor—"

"Not at all!"

She cut me off and took a sudden step closer.

"I am not displeased in the least. Rather..."

Ticktickticktick!

The hands moved faster still.

"I am truly overjoyed."

She folded the parasol, then bent at the waist with perfect elegance.

"A pleasure to meet you, gentleman whose name I do not know."

I ducked my head in a fluster.

"Ah, yes. Hello."

"I am Orvelia, the clockmaker who manages the time of this vicinity."

"I'm Baek Hoon."

"Baek Hoon..."

She repeated my name slowly, the way one might try to memorize the name of a precious jewel.

"What a truly beautiful name."

"Ahaha... thank you."

And then Orvelia suddenly leaned toward me.

"But, Mr. Baek Hoon."

"Yes?"

"If it would not be a rudeness..."

A small crack opened across the face of her clock, and through it dozens of tiny pupils appeared. Every one of them was looking at me.

"Might I examine your head a little more closely?"

"Ah, my head?"

"Yes. It is such a beautiful form."

I touched my CRT head. Until a little while ago I had been human. Now I was a proper object head. Between fellow nonhumans, taking an interest in one another might be the most natural thing in the world.

"Of course."

When I answered, Orvelia slowly reached out. The white glove caressed my screen, and in that moment every hand of the clock stopped.

"......Ah."

A rapturous sigh slipped from her.

"Truly..."

The pupils that had appeared on the clock face widened all at once.

"You have no time."

"Huh?"

I tilted my head. No time—what did that mean? Surely she didn't mean I didn't have long to live? But Orvelia did not answer. Instead she took one step back and gathered both hands before her chest.

"To think I would meet someone like you..."

Her voice trembled.

"I shall never forget this day for the rest of my life."

"Ah, yes..."

It was a little much. Still, getting a reaction like that from a beautiful nonhuman woman didn't feel bad. I smiled awkwardly, and a smiling face rose on the CRT screen of its own accord.

A clamorous chime burst from Orvelia's clock.

Dong! Dong! Dong!

"Eek!"

She wrapped both hands around her own clock.

"Uh, are you all right?"

"Yes, yes! I am fine!"

Orvelia answered in a rush. Then, carefully, she took my hand.

"Mr. Baek Hoon."

"Yes?"

"If I may ask..."

"Do you have a place to stay tonight?"

"Not yet."

"Then would you come to my mansion?"

I blinked.

"Your mansion?"

"Yes. There are many guest rooms, and I can prepare a meal for you as well."

She held my hand a little tighter. The pupils on the clock face curved softly.

"Above all, I would like to speak with you a little longer."

I hesitated. Following someone you had only just met, in an unfamiliar world, was dangerous. All the more so when that someone was not human. But she had been kind to me so far, and I had nowhere to sleep tonight. In the end, I nodded.

"I'll be in your debt."

In that moment Orvelia's clock hands began to move again. Unlike before, every one of them was turning backward, which was strange—but still. She laughed.

"Hehehe. By all means."

And then, in a very small voice, she whispered.

"At last, my time has finally begun to move."

I did not hear that whisper.

At the same moment, in the Black City at the heart of Nonhuman Pandemonium—where thousands of towers devoured one another's shadows—a being opened her eyes.

She sat upon a vast throne. Her body was much like that of a human woman, but above her neck, where a face should have been, there was a pitch-black void, and at its center floated a single red star. Around her, countless shadows knelt.

"......How strange."

She murmured.

"Something just came in."

One of the shadows asked, carefully.

"Your Majesty, is it an intruder from outside?"

The queen slowly shook her head.

"No. Too natural to be called an intruder. And yet too alien to be called a resident."

She lifted a finger and pointed into the empty air, and an image rose in the black space. In it was a man with the head of an old CRT, walking a road beside a woman whose head was a grandfather clock. The queen watched the image for a while.

"......Interesting."

Interest had entered her voice.

"This is the first time I have seen that child who manages time look so happy."

"Shall we investigate?"

"No."

The queen rose from the throne. In the void that served as her head, the red star burned bright.

"I will meet him myself."

The shadows stirred. The queen had not moved in person for hundreds of years. She paid them no mind. She looked at the CRT-headed man in the image and laughed, low.

"Baek Hoon, was it?"

She turned his name over in her mouth, as if tasting it.

"Please. Do not disappoint me."

In that moment, every shadow around the throne screamed at once. Emotion spilling from the queen's void was crushing their very existence. That emotion was curiosity—and in Nonhuman Pandemonium, it was one of the most dangerous emotions of all.

Meanwhile Baek Hoon, who knew nothing of this, was heading for the mansion with Orvelia. His head was full of a single thought.

Holy shit...

He marveled inwardly.

Wait. I actually just talked to a nonhuman heroine, didn't I?

A lifelong dream had come true. But Baek Hoon did not know what it meant, in this world, when a being who still resembled a human praised another nonhuman's form as beautiful. Nor did he know how dangerous it was to show a head in which time did not exist to a being who governed time.

A chime. A new message rose in his vision.

Baek Hoon read the message and tilted his head.

"What is this supposed to mean?"

Then he closed the window as if it were nothing of importance. Orvelia, who had been watching, asked carefully.

"Is something the matter, Mr. Baek Hoon?"

"No. It's nothing."

"Hehe. I see."

She did not let go of his hand. Rather, she laced her fingers through his, one by one.

"Then let us be on our way."

"Yes."

"I have a feeling tonight will be a truly wonderful night."

Inside Orvelia's clock, hundreds of pupils were smiling. She thought.

A person through whom time does not flow.

That was a thing that could not be, in this world. If someone had slipped free of the flow of time, it meant they possessed a rank higher than her own. Such a being had called her beautiful. Had even smiled at her first. Orvelia felt her clock hands spinning like mad.

Ah. If it is this person...

She wrapped Baek Hoon's hand all the more preciously.

You could stay beside me forever, couldn't you?

That night, countless beings of Nonhuman Pandemonium began to take an interest in a man whose name they did not yet even know—

Ah, I wonder what kind of nonhuman I'll meet tomorrow.

And the one standing at the center of it all was simply lost in a happy daydream.