When I was six years old, I was called into the living room of our house. The wallpaper was frayed, peeling off like a nasty scab, but that was the worst of it. We had planned, as a family, to repaint the whole house together. Father and mother remarked it would be a fun activity since Mia was going to inherit it when she became an adult.  

“Mother, did my results come in?” I asked after sitting down. My mother, with her brown hair and hazel eyes, opened the letter father had given her. No, it was already cracked open, so what used to be sealed within was already known.  

“Acrobatics… Failed,” she whispered. Father was sitting near her, and he stood up. With a fist formed from years of watching his son live a life of failure, he brought a heavy blow upon my frightful face.  

It wasn’t the first beating… It wouldn’t be the last beating… 

“Aeronautical Design… Failed.” Another punch. This one knocked me to the ground. Waves of pain erupted from my face, blood dripping down my two nostrils.  

“Aeronautical Engineering… Failed. Archery… Failed… Classical Music Theory… Failed. Modeling… Failed. Steam Worker… Failed. You’ve failed everything… Why are you doing this to us…?” 

Father’s fist was soaked in my blood by the time he stopped. Consciousness was just a tiny thread, and I clung to using all that I had. His eyes were dead… Unmoving and devoid of all care and love he once had for me… 

“Daddy, is it time for my birthday?” asked my sister. Mia was just a year younger than me, yet she had all the favor in the family.  

“Of course, sweetie. We can also celebrate your excellent future. The examiner said there hadn’t been anyone with your aptitude for physics in over 50 years.” When my father said that, he looked back at me and shook his head. He then turned to Mia and continued to offer his praise. “You’re our bundle of joy… There are great things awaiting you, sweetie. You can do it… I know you can.” 

From then and there… I knew I had no place in the Fenton family. I was especially sure of that a few days later… 

Because they attempted to abandon me on the other side of the city.  

Or was it the country? I can’t even remember anymore, but it really doesn’t matter. For a small child, being a hundred miles from home was the same as ten thousand.  

In either case, the bond between parent and child was irreversibly broken. 

---

“AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL THEM!!! Why did I just take it over and over and over again FOR TWENTY GODDAMN YEARS?!?! FFFUUUCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!!” 

Two decades’ worth of repressed anguish and fury exploded from my mouth when my eyes opened. I said everything I had been carrying deep down… Curses flowed out as easily as rain in a thunderstorm.  Everyone who’d treated me like shit… I didn’t leave off a single name.  

But as suddenly as this rage overcame me, it abandoned me for greener pastures.  

Without any warning, my activity log was filled to the brim with information, but it did very little to answer any of my questions. It just created more. Why wasn’t I angry? Where did the rage go? I saw something referencing wrath, and I had felt wrathful, but…where did it go? The blazing inferno of relentless fury… Why was it extinguished? What… What was the last thing I saw? 

There was the trial, right? Then Will’s betrayal. Quella and the others, too, since they never believed in me. I was thrown into the void? Then I counted… Did I…reach out with my anger? Shit, I can’t remember. 

“Gah, and why is it so bright? Huh--- Waahh!!! My… My voice… What happened to my voice…?” The voice that uttered those words did not belong to me… It couldn’t have… I was male, and the regal, queen-like tone I heard was so far out of the league of my wispy, scratchy throat that the two couldn’t have been more different.  

I looked down and saw a pair of breasts attached to my chest. My skin tone was a palish cream white, yet my legs were golden bronze. My hands went to my chest, but the arms that came into view were dark gray. I leaned over a bit more to rub my legs and stopped when I saw a penis. Was it mine? It looked like nothing of the one I remembered having. This one was the color of dark ash, yet it was big, thick, and girthy, like a large snake laying down to rest. A quiet plop spurned me to action. Within half a second, I stood up and realized I wasn’t outside.  

The entire ground was a grassy wonderland, with each individual blade of verdant wonder providing something colorful for my eyes. The trees, tall and brown with thick, fat leaves branching off of healthy limbs, blocked out what must’ve been an artificial sun. A substantial amount of shade littered the ground, and it all looked mightily inviting to sleep on. Even the air felt clean and refreshing. The sound of a waterfall cascading down into a pond was music to my pointy ears. But then my eyes landed on the five gray clay coffins in the middle of the room. A tablet floated above each one. 

Besides the strange sight, it felt like I was in the very definition of a naturalistic paradise. 

Everything caught my eye, but I couldn’t split my attention multiple ways. “Okay, I should start at the pond. Some instinct is telling me it’s palatable,” I said, flinching at my newly feminine voice. Even as I stepped over to my goal, my footsteps were a familiar sound. It was odd and hard to understand, but it offered some comfort. 

 “Woah… Is… Is that me?” I said, staring at my reflection in still water. 

The face with an open mouth of surprise—the one that stared back at me from the water’s surface was not the one I was born with. The skin was fair and delicate, smooth to the touch like soft silk. The eyes gazing up at me were light brown.  

A timid hand reached up to poke at the two new pointy ears, which extended more sideward than upward. The edges of them were quite sharp, not rounded like my human ears. But the most drastically different thing was my hair, which looked like sweetened honey. Compared to the greasy brown rag that used to just barely cover my head, these golden locks that warmly brushed against my neck were gorgeous. If I moved just a bit, I could feel the ends of my hair tickle against my rear, which was curvy and well-rounded. 

“So, this chest isn’t mine… I was a guy… I’m a girl now?” Perhaps someone I knew would have loved to be in the situation I found myself in. Without even realizing it, a pair of feminine, dark gray hands, with nails that seemingly looked like they had received the best of attention and care, started exploring this brand-new torso. The boobs I were currently fondling were just that. They were just sacks of fat that happened to be too big for my new hands to completely conquer, so I settled for pinching my nipples for half a second to try something. But they ever slid downward, bypassing a toned stomach until they came to my crotch.  

My old body had nothing like this new penis, which must’ve easily been 7 inches. Its ash-like appearance was almost like a brighter version of the skin tone on my arms. In a blind motion, I proceeded to keep my hands moving down. Both slipped around the shaft, wrapping it gently in a soft embrace. When they reached the end of my uncircumcised penis, they traveled down the back side on a direct course for my dangling testicles.  The hands of a woman… The soft fingers of a female…wrapping around and showing care to my sensitive bits. It was a sharp contrast to that beastfolk as she brutalized me.  

When I think about that, why can’t I get angry? Why doesn’t rage flow through me like a torrential downpour when it was so prevalent a moment before? I know it’s there, so why can’t I access it? 

After touching my crotch, I continued to examine these bronzed legs of mine. Like my arms, they were slim and slender, yet I felt the powerful muscles lying underneath. Would it be a blessing? A curse? This tension and springiness gave me the confidence that I could run for hours without worry. 

“This body isn’t mine. It’s not mine!!! This voice… This chest… Everything is all wrong! But why does it feel inviting?  I should be scared to have my soul wrapped in a new container of flesh. Especially one that feels powerful and fresh, but that foreign feeling scares me…” 

When Meruria descended, it felt like someone had taken over my body. My thoughts weren’t my own, and my actions didn’t reflect what I wanted to do. It felt wrong… It was all wrong! If I don’t have control over my body, then what do I have?   

Why did I say ‘container of flesh?’ Is… 

After taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and opened them while exhaling. The activity log said something about a skill, and it had an odd name. When I opened the Status Menu, things were different. 

N/A 

Chimera 

Lv. 1 

SP: 0 

Title: Lesser Chimera 

Sub-Title: N/A 

Skill Menu [+] 

Mastery Menu [+] 

 

My name was erased? I went back to Lv. 1? I didn’t know where to start, but I hoped whatever was within my Skill Menu could explain something. I looked at the very first one, not at all ignoring how it was categorized as a Divine Skill.  

• Wrath, Flames of Inexhaustible Indignation
  • Allows the user to control their anger when this skill is invoked. The more they allow wrath to fester within their heart, the more powerful the user will become. Excessive or improper use can cause the user to fall into an uncontrolled rampage, transforming them into a mindless beast with an instinct for destruction.  

The anger I felt towards Meruria and those traitors helped me? The skill had to be working because I was freely thinking about them, and I was entirely leveled headed about it. No, it was like I knew I was angry at them, but the anger itself wasn’t present in my mind at all. But invoking a skill? 

I had to test it out. “[Wrath, Flames of Inexhaustible Indignation!]” A crimson-coated dial appeared in my sight. It was to the top-left of my HUD, near my name, but I could move it around my vision. 

I imagined turning the dial, starting slow at first because I was venturing into the unknown. With it set to 10, possibly out of 100, I immediately found it hard to not punch the nearest object. My previously apathetic mind started to feel extreme rage. My breathing increased as air huffed out of my nose like an upset bull.  

At 20, I was screaming and raging, yelling threats of violence towards my greatest enemies. “MERURIA!!! I’M GONNA RIP OFF YOUR HEAD AND SHIT DOWN YOUR NECK!!!  AAAAHHHHRRRAAHHHHH YOU’RE GOING TO FUCKING DIE!!!!!” 

This raw feeling of negative emotion… It gave me the strength to keep myself together because that was what I had to do. It was my only companion during that long, lonely, arduous time in the void. 

If I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t have been standing here, in this spot, on this day, with a body I wasn’t familiar with, with the chance to strike back and quench this relentless fury in my heart.  

Anger was a close friend. Rage, hatred, fury… They all worked together for my benefit, and they were bowing down, just waiting to do my bidding. 

Why turn it down? You’re nothing without the inferno inside you. Fighting against it means betraying yourself… Allow yourself to be consumed… Taste its succulent milk, then drown yourself in its familiarity. You know you want it… 

A voice in my mind argued in favor for the skill the moment I twisted the dial down to zero, and it took everything I had to ignore its sweet whispers.  

“Stop… Get out of my head!!!!” I shouted, falling to the ground and crushing the comfortable grass. Warm, salty tears leaked from my eyes as shivers wracked my body.  

Stop trying to force these thoughts into my mind!!!! Why did it feel like my soul just allowed my body to be controlled like a puppet…? That wasn’t me speaking… It wasn’t me stomping around…What…is… I don’t understand… Shit, I have to push forward… I just have to keep marching ahead…  

It took time for me to calm down, but I eventually read through the rest of my skills.  

• Eyes of the Huntress (Lv. 10) 
  • Allows the user to see at a far distance while tracking fast moving objects with the utmost ease. In addition, it also grants the user the ability to perceive night and darkness as if it was day. The user’s eyes will slowly turn to a light gray when this effect is in use. 

• Timeless Existence (Lv. 10) 
  • The user is removed from the passing of time and cannot die from old age. 

• Nature’s Workshop (Lv. 3) 
  • Grants the user the ability to create miscellaneous items from materials found in nature. 

• Scholar’s Tongue (Lv. 10) 
  • Grants the user the ability to quickly master unknown languages.  

• Dead Eye (Lv. 6) 
  • Grants the user increased accuracy with firearms, bows, and throwing weapons. 

• Heat Resistance (Lv. 10) 
  • Grants the user resistance towards heat.  

It was bright, so I couldn’t test the night vision portion of my skill. Tracking fast objects would help. Would that be something I did passively?  

Seeing my title was all that I needed to see to understand my situation. Well, almost. I didn’t know how I became like this, but it was evident that I was made up of around five different body parts that were both male and female. It didn’t seem like they came from the same race. 

I should have been extremely freaked out, but what could I have done? This body… Being turned into a Chimera was the only reason I had a chance to enact my revenge. Was I a hypocrite, then? Five bodies, one soul. Did the soul make the body, or did the body—bodies— make the soul? What if that was why I had no name? 

What if I lose my sense of self…? Shuuta Fenton doesn’t exist anymore...? 

I’d probably have an eternity to think on that because Timeless Existence, if it could be trusted, guaranteed old age wouldn’t be the cause of my death.  

In short, that was simply incredible. In my world, health care had advanced far enough so that living a century and a half wasn’t out of the question.  

But no time limit?  

The rest of the skills seemed to be self-explanatory, but I had one more Divine Skill to look through. And it looked to be related to my current predicament.   

• Chimeric Mastery 
  • Biomass – A resource used to fuel Chimeric Transfiguration. Capacity will grow faster the more it is used. Biomass can be used to regenerate dismembered body parts and heal wounds. Biomass is gained upon successful Assimilation of organic material. Biomass is used to satisfy a Chimera’s hunger and thirst. 
  • Assimilation – An ability that allows the user to physically and spiritually devour their target, provided they have enough mana, and take their target’s strength for themselves. If used on the same type and species of monster, there will be diminishing returns.   
  • Chimeric Transfiguration – The ability to morph the user’s body to match those they assimilate. The more the user is transfigured, the more Biomass is required to sustain it. Current Transfiguration Limit: 10%  
  • Assimilation Mastery – The ability to master the skills belonging to those the user assimilates. The user must be partially transfigured into the being that has the skill the user wants to master. The more powerful the skill, the more the user must be transfigured. Once a skill is mastered, it can be used at any time. Grants access to the Mastery Menu. 

Okay, I need to take it slow and examine it effect by effect. You can't act rashly. 

[Chimeric Mastery] came with multiple skills. Biomass was another resource to manage, which was probably the yellow bar underneath the blue one. It couldn’t just regenerate like mana, so [Assimilation] would handle that. If the description could be trusted, I just had to eat food. [Chimeric Transfiguration] would allow me to take on the characteristics of those assimilated, but I didn’t know how to do either of those.  

[Assimilation Mastery] would allow me to learn the skills of those assimilated? That all sounded nice, but I just didn’t know how to do that. Mastery Menu came from this skill. 

It had my other skills listed, and they were mastered.  

So many questions swirled around my mind, and I just didn’t know where to start.  

Or even how to start answering them. 

How did I turn into a chimera? Where am I? Why do I look like this? How did I get these skills? What happened to the winds of infinite void?  

Wait… I…saw words, right? Didn’t that… Yeah, it’s coming back… Something spoke to me and asked me to… What did it ask me? Why did it…turn me into a chimera? 

Like everything else, I’m just going to have to roll with it until I could find some answers. Ah, wait, there’s something else. **** Skill? The name of the skills is fine, but its classification, I think, is unreadable. 

• Hermes Trismegistus  
  • Status Cloak – The user may freely edit their Status Menu to hide what they do not want displayed. The changes are visual only. 
  • Analysis – The user may analyze a target to receive information. (Needs Initialization) 
  • Map – The user receives a map of the world, but only the locations they have been are filled in. It can be placed anywhere in the user’s vision, zoomed-in, and zoomed-out. The user may search the map to find a person, place, or thing, and once found, they may place a waypoint to track the target. Waypoints may be shared. (Needs Initialization) 
  • Radar – On the map, foes show as red blips, allies as green blips, and neutral parties as white blips.  (Needs Initialization) 
  • Timestamp– The user may see the current time in regard to their current location. This skill comes with a calendar available for use. (Needs Initialization) 
  • Storage – The user may store items in a dimension that is not affected by time, temperature, or gravity. (Limit: 50lbs) (Needs Initialization) 
  • Auto-Loot – The user will automatically gather and store items within [Storage.] (Limit: 30 Feet. Limit: Cores Only) (Needs Initialization) 
  • Artificer’s Arsenal – The user may store their crafting supplements and supplies in a realm where they do not degrade. In return, they cannot be used to cause harm or injury. This skill comes with [Appraisal]. (Needs Initialization) 
  • ?????????? ?? 

“Hermes Trismegistus... That sounds familiar. Honestly, all these abilities sound amazing. Especially if [Map] and [Radar] work like I think they will. Being able to do a search for a person or object and then marking it with a floating waypoint? It’s too bad everything but [Status Cloak] requires initialization, and I don’t know what that is... Didn’t I see something about a Conduit? And why is it **** Skill and not Divine Skill like my other two? And why the ‘????’? Is there another skill?” I spoke to myself while browsing my Status Menu for any information that could have been useful, but nothing stood out. I thought about giving myself a name with [Status Cloak], but being known as Shuuta Fenton unnerved me, so I waited. Besides, I didn’t have to do it now. 

Plop! 

Looking up, I saw red and purple fruits grow from the size of a seed to something larger than a grape in seconds, then observed as it landed near me. I wasn’t hungry or thirsty, yet something inside told me it was safe to eat. 

Trust the voice? Don’t trust the voice? Or was it instinct speaking to me? Instinct belonging to a body part that I wasn’t born with. The longer I stared at the growing fruit, which clung to the tree for safety and nourishment, the more I wanted to eat it. The desire grew within me. It was my voice. It had to have been my choice, and that was why I grabbed the fruit when it fell. 

My teeth chewed, biting the skin and tasting the delectable juice hidden inside. I enjoyed the flavor, which tasted like a mix between an apple and a watermelon.  

“I did this. You didn’t guide me to do this… I’m my own person…” I whispered, the juice dribbling down my chin and onto the sacks of fat on my chest. I ate and ate, popping the tasty snacks into my mouth as quickly as they grew back. 

After eating my fill, I kneeled down and scooped the cold, refreshing water to my new mouth. It tasted far better than the toilet water I had to drink at home and at the academy. Sweet nectar quenched my thirst, and for the first time in forever, I actually felt somewhat safe. I had no reason to believe the tree would stop producing food. 

Military strategists often say brash assumptions lead to losses. Does that apply to different worlds, where even the laws of physics differ? 

I swallowed three more mouthfuls and turned my attention to the left-most coffin. I briskly walked towards it, reaching out to grasp the stone tablet. 

The text was unreadable at first, but then…  

[Scholar’s Tongue] has activated! New Skill: [Orc Language]  

It was like someone flipped a switch inside my mind. Suddenly, the words started to make sense. 

Languages are considered skills? Huh…But there’s no level after it?