Prologue
There's an age-old saying that the most effective way to deal with shit is to smear some of it on yourself as well.
I like that kind of thing. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Paying people back in kind for whatever they dish out.
It's just that in my previous life, I never managed it. Either I was too busy putting on a clumsy show of dignity for the sake of other people's stares, or I simply lacked the ability and the guts.
But then the chance arrived.
……Well. It arrived, all right.
My first life had been nothing special. I'd read the room, bit my tongue when I had to, and muddled through a thoroughly ordinary existence—until it ended sooner than it should have.
My second life began when I opened my eyes and found I'd become a woman.
Did I hate it?
No.
I loved it.
Because I was beautiful. Ridiculously, unfairly beautiful.
Porcelain-white skin, enormous eyes, a high bridge of a nose, and vividly defined lips. Naturally silver hair and luminous violet eyes. If my previous self had passed this face on the street, I wouldn't even have dared to look it straight on.
I was more than satisfied.
The fact that the world of my second life wasn't completely identical to the last one didn't bother me much, either.
Four jet-black towers dropping out of a clear sky? Gates springing up all over the planet afterward?
Sounds thrilling, doesn't it?
With looks like these, I could have coasted through this life in comfort without breaking a sweat.
But what was I supposed to do with the masculinity still sleeping inside me—carried over, intact, along with every memory of my previous life?
And right then, the towers fell.
Maybe God looked down in pity on a man trapped in a woman's body and decided to grant him some mercy. Or maybe the whole situation was so blasphemous it enraged Him enough to rain catastrophe on the world.
Either way, it was already done.
And those towers—the Tower of Trials—came with difficulty levels you could choose for yourself.
After twenty years of living in a woman's body with a man's memories, I couldn't contain the sudden explosion of testosterone and picked the highest difficulty on the spot.
Not exactly a brilliant decision, maybe…… but damn if it wasn't cool.
Anyway, I was happy.
And then, on my very first trait draw, I pulled an S-rank?
It couldn't get better than that. Nice. Bravo. Whoa.
I was more thrilled than if I'd imagined my brother scoring a hat trick in a World Cup knockout match. The dopamine felt like it was going to melt my brain……
"……Fuck."
Sizzle.
I heard the sound of flesh cooking. I didn't want to hear it, but it was far too clear—because it was coming from my own arm.
A tongue of scarlet flame licked along my forearm, and the skin blackened almost instantly. The charred meat split open, and bright red blood boiled up through the cracks.
I clenched my teeth.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."
Even if you had to be out of your mind to adapt to a hellish difficulty like this—I was not some lunatic who got off on searing my own arm with fire.
It hurt. It hurt.
It hurt so badly my consciousness frayed at the edges and my vision went pure white. It felt like someone had seized every nerve running through my body from both ends and was yanking until they snapped.
Right in the middle of that white-out, an indifferent line of text floated up.
Undying One (S+) has activated.
The blackened skin twitched. Fresh flesh pushed up from beneath the dead meat—and the moment it surfaced, the flames swallowed it again and burned it away just the same.
Ssssssss.
Experience Devouring (S) has activated.
Flame Resistance has increased.
Pain Resistance has increased.
Flame Resistance has increased.
Pain Resistance has increased.
The best of the best—S-rank traits. Two of them, even.
"Ghhhk……."
……Why.
Just why.
Why the hell am I in this state?!
I thought I was about to coast on easy mode, Tower of Trials, you absolute fucking bitch.