Do You Think You Have Two Lives?
Do you think your lives are two or something?
Rina was born into an ordinary fisherman's family in a coastal village on the outskirts of the Colorado Barony. From the age of eight, she helped her father and mother mend nets, carry the fish they'd caught that day, and do household chores. They didn't have a boat for long-distance fishing, but her father was a proper fisherman who could take their sturdy little vessel out to hook some catches, and they had a cozy home that kept out the cold winds.
The massive tsunami that engulfed the Colorado Barony was what swept her into the beggar village. As a port city thriving on relay trade, the Colorado count's family reaped enormous commercial profits, and to protect the harbor, the city along the coast had breakwaters. But those were only to safeguard the lord's castle and the city center for trading with merchant ships from foreign lands. The breakwaters didn't extend fully to the fishermen living on the outer coastal edges of the Colorado Barony. There were some natural ones, but they couldn't stand against a colossal natural disaster.
Rina remembered that day clearly: it had been sunny until morning. Her father had said the clear weather and lack of wind made it perfect for heading out to sea. But after lunch, dark clouds suddenly gathered, and a storm unlike any other came crashing in. Rina, who had boarded the boat with her parents to fish, was swept away by waves towering several meters high and dragged into the depths.
She couldn't understand why such a massive, horrific wave had struck that day. Nature wasn't something humans could predict recklessly, but it had been a perfectly clear day. Yet the heavens... God indifferently claimed the lives of her parents, sparing only her. And it didn't stop there—the tsunami didn't just take her parents; it wiped out her home and the neighboring village too. Rina was the sole survivor of the fishing hamlet.
The adults were dead, the village reduced to rubble, and she'd lost her parents. She couldn't even find their bodies. Was it luck? The tsunami that ravaged the village had washed her back near the shore, allowing her to survive. Coming to her senses, Rina groaned in pain, dragging her limping body through the wreckage of her home and village, endlessly calling for her mom and dad as she searched.
But all that remained was a graveyard filled with the fishy sea stench and the reek of rotting corpses.
"Waaah! Just take me too! Take me where my mom and dad are!"
How long did she cry? Why had a heartless God taken her parents? Why had only she survived? Why must she endure this pain? The young Rina wept until she collapsed from exhaustion days later. The sea, which had once fed her family, became a nightmare etched into her soul. Desperate to flee the ocean that had stolen her parents—a sight she couldn't bear—she turned inland toward the city of the Colorado Barony.
Rina wandered aimlessly through the Colorado Barony. Some kindhearted souls took pity on her starving, collapsed form and offered small helps—a scrap of bread or a few copper coins begged for barely kept her alive. Though young, at nine years old she had a certain charm. Some lecherous adults offered "help" while eyeing her body with foul intent, even groping her. Still, she wanted to survive. Could she reunite with her parents by throwing herself into the sea? The thought crossed her mind, but the terror of death and the sight of the ocean froze her body with resurfacing nightmares, preventing any suicide attempt.
That's how she ended up drifting into the beggar village. There, she settled in the domain ruled by a beggar king named Ian. There were many older than her, but Estelle was about the only girl as composed as Rina. She used the bread and vegetables the kids begged for to make stew, doing her best to fill the bellies of the beggar village folk. Though young herself, the harsh world had forced maturity on her.
Ian, who usually sneered at her stew as slop especially on empty days, didn't hassle her for filling his gut. Instead, he didn't hide his lust for her precociously developing figure, mismatched for her ten years.
One day amid such routine, Rina got dragged into the fight between Ian and Libert like the other kids, used as a meat shield. Ian wouldn't normally take girls, but in beggar brawls, numbers mattered, and losing territory meant losing your livelihood—so he hauled everyone to the fray.
That marked the turning point in Rina's fate. Sold at the slave market with the others, she became a test subject for an evil mage and a sacrifice for demon summoning. She turned into a monster.
Street vending had just kicked off, the haggling heating into a brawl. Amid it, Rina's body was changing—her true form emerging.
Pladeus had injected her with an ogre's essence core and blood, using magic and alchemy to reforge her body. He wanted guardians for contingencies—ogre-strong knight protectors. The Black Tower Lord, lich pinnacle of dark magic, wasn't immune to surprise attacks. Not all mages had top combat reflexes; they used familiars or soul-infused living armor as guardians. Solo battlefield mages were rare war-mages, sword-mage hybrids.
But Pladeus craved more. Having broken taboo demon summoning and become undead, exiled from Magus Civitas on paper, he feared inquisitors from the temples. His familiars and necromancy were weak to holy magic, so he turned to chimeras.
Countless trials, fusing beasts and monsters with humans. His experiment log listed over 100 subjects, detailing our agony alongside demon summons and tests.
'A pursuit of change—perfect for the ManbianjaDantalian.' Five changes, five sacrifices. Pentagram stars overlapping inversely to form ten, the number of perfection. Magic was demonic domain; to summon, create an environment suiting the demon's nature. Human experimentation suited Dantalian, center of all change.
We were ironically the luckiest subjects that day—most minor errors meant live explosion. Of our ten, two burst that way. Arachne. Ogre. Basilisk. Flame demon. Frost demon. Soul eater. Hell hound. Demon contractor. That's what we became.
Rina, inheriting the ogre's monstrous physique, transformed. Her arms, thicker than a grown man's, swelled with use. The adult-sized robe tore with shrieks against her expanding bulk; trapezius, lats, and upper body ballooned like inflating balloons.
Pants ripped too, revealing thighs bull-thick, quads split in four ridges, tendons like sweet potato vines pulsing over skin like living things.
Crack! Crunch!
"GRRROOOAAARRR!!"
"Wh-what?! What's with this girl?!"
"Monster!"
"Kyaaah!"
"Run!"
"Call the guards!"
"A-Actor! Rina?!"
"Rina sis!"
"Sis, calm down!"
Fully feral ogre now, Rina's roar from thickened traps shook the city with primal fury. Thugs pissed themselves, collapsing; weaklings fainted from her killing intent.
Our crew was stunned just ten minutes into vending amid the chaos.
"Oh dear, oh dear~ Tsk tsk! Step back a bit, Malcolm. I'll try to stop her."
In old mage guise, my speech was pure geezer. No choice—I began an incantation for binding magic.
"Rina. Calm down now. Hol—"
Whoooosh! Boom! Splat!
"GRRROOOAAARRR!!~~"
!!!
'What?! No such spell in Ostis's memories! What school of magic is this?!'
A red-glowing magic—liquid orb?—flew in, striking Rina and sending her flying. She breathed steadily, knocked out but alive.
'Knocking out ogre-fused Rina in one hit? Piercing skin and magic resistance that shrugs off Fireball with minor burns?!'
Thud, thud.
"You central continent trash daring to cause chaos in my city?"
!!!
"Do you think your lives are two or something? You central continent trash!"
The one who'd downed Rina strolled out leisurely from afar, haughty expression fixed on us.