The sun is streaming through the room’s window by the time I succeed. But succeed I did! For the first time in this world, I stand up on my own two feet.

All night I practiced forming myself into a human, and it was a tortuous experience. I never realized how many moving parts my body had on Earth. And as easy as it is for me to make a complicated web of skin and teeth with this body, making a specific shape is still hard.

Despite that, I still did it. Not only did I do it, I also made myself a small frilly dress too! It looks a bit fancy compared to what I’ve seen people wearing, but I’ll consider it bait. What is more tempting to scumbags than a well dressed teen girl?

Oh right, I also made myself a teen again. I figured it would look more natural for another teen to be following Betton around. It has nothing to do with not wanting to look like a creep as a twenty something woman with a kid.

Speaking of Betton, he’s still sleeping like a baby. Since I’m bored, and don’t feel like waking him, I twirl my new black hair with my fingers. The feeling is so nice, I’ve missed it since waking up here. This hair is also way nicer than what I had back home. It better be, since I spent an hour getting it right.

I tried to make my face similar to what I looked like back home, but honestly? I’ve kinda forgotten what I looked like. It had been at least a year since I had seen it when I got sent here. No mirrors in the facility.

So I just kinda wung it. And I have to say, I’m gorgeous. My face is angular, with a pointy nose and chin. My eyes are dark and have a sharp look to them. My eyebrows are also flawless. I guess being a monster has its perks.

Rustling sounds come from the bed as Betton wakes up. He stretches leisurely, his eyes drifting around the room. He looks past me at first, but quickly locks onto me. His eyes go wide and he freezes like a frightened deer.

I smile at him, returning my teeth to a more natural needle shape. He notices the dagger shaped ivory in my mouth and quickly calms down. Kid seriously was more nervous seeing a girl than a monster.

He frowns. “So, I’m going out shirtless then?”

────────────

The innkeeper shoots the two of us some odd looks, probably wondering where I just appeared from, and why Betton has no shirt. Despite her obvious curiosity, she keeps her mouth shut. So the two of us sit down at a roughly made table to eat a bowl of porridge each.

Betton quickly inhales his food, finishing his entire bowl in seconds. I blankly stare at the kid, somewhat fascinated at how much he can eat.

He meets my gaze, his eyes surprisingly steady. “I need a new shirt.” His tone is flat and firm. Guess he’s not afraid of me anymore.

I nod at his statement. “Right, wouldn’t want people thinking my brother is a pervert.” Betton flinches as I emphasize the word ‘brother’.

He rubs his face, clearly distressed, but doesn’t complain. I’ve already trained him so well! I take my time finishing my breakfast, which is horribly bland compared to everything else I’ve eaten so far. Betton watches me like a starving stray, which gives me oodles of entertainment. I’m glad I didn’t kill this one.

After finishing my meal, and resisting the instinct to eat the bowl as well, the two of us leave the inn. The moment we step out of the low building we’re assaulted by the bright sun, and that strange humidness from before. Its smothering presence is almost overwhelming, but the people nearby all seem fine.

I glance at Betton, who also seems unaffected. “Isn’t it horribly humid out?”

He looks at me funny, like I have two heads or something. Which I don’t… but I wonder… “No, actually it’s perfect out, but it’s always perfect inside the barrier.” He shrugs.

The barrier. When those words leave his mouth, the hairs on the back of my neck raise. “What’s the barrier?”

Again he gives me a wide-eyed look. He points at the massive crystal in the center of town. “The townheart makes a barrier, it keeps out mons—” He cuts off his words, suddenly looking worried.

Now my hackles are really raised. “It keeps monsters out? Is that what you were going to say?” Anger bubbles up in my guts. The boy cowers a bit as he nods. “And you let me walk into it, without telling me?!” My words are quiet but full of venom. The anger flooding through me makes my skin ripple unstably. I take a deep breath and try to calm myself. It took me an hour to build this body, I’m not going to lose it because I got mad.

“I-I didn’t mean to. I w-wasn’t trying to hurt you or anything, I just…” Betton looks at the ground.

I stare at the young man’s face, causing him to avert his gaze. I like it better when he’s scared like this. “You just what? Betton?”

For some reason his cheeks flush. “I-I forgot you were a monster! Since you c-could talk…”

Like a popped balloon, my anger disperses. I let out a sigh. “Alright, fine. Tell me more about this barrier, to make up for your mistake.” My voice softens, but I keep my eyes hard.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

He gives me a sheepish smile. “S-sure, like I said, the barrier keeps out monsters. But it also makes it more comfortable for humans inside it, even giving people a slight boost to their mood. Things like that.” He finally looks up at me again. “I know it doesn’t do that for other races, so maybe it does the opposite for monsters?”

Hmm… it makes a little sense, if you ignore the giant mind altering rock that people live around. “But why was I able to get inside then? If the barrier is supposed to keep monsters out?”

The two of us sit down in an abandoned plaza to talk. In the center of the weed infested square sits a large, dry, fountain. We both perch on its stone edge. Betton quickly loses himself thinking about my question. After about ten seconds of silence, I get incredibly bored.

While he thinks, I take a look around. This place is odd, even for a fantasy setting. The architecture isn’t anything like medieval Europe, like most fantasy settings I’ve read. Instead the buildings, regardless of material, are incredibly compact in a strangely modern way. Most of them are physically sharing at least one wall with a neighbor, if not more. The buildings are also all at least two stories, with a large portion of them reaching four.

That’s not the only weird thing. The level of technology is all over the place as well. Most of the buildings are made of crude lumber or cobble, but then there’s what look like electrical streetlamps everywhere. On top of that, everything is ridiculously clean, at least for what their buildings would make you expect. At most there’s a cloth bag of garbage sitting in the path occasionally.

And all of that is ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the two slightly smaller cities hanging above this one. The giant purple crystal has two massive platforms, each holding a section of buildings as dense as what’s on the ground. On top of that, there’s nothing holding it all up that I can see. The giant stone plates are just stuck to the crystal.

My sightseeing is cut off by Betton finally talking. “I… think, I figured it out.” I raise an eyebrow at him. “J-just hear me out.” He takes a deep breath before starting his explanation.

“So, m-monsters all have a small thing in them, a tiny crystal. It’s… well the church says that it's their soul. People also say the barrier keeps monsters out by repelling the soul crystal…” He pauses. “M-maybe, the pain you felt, when you entered the barrier, was your crystal shattering?” His gaze nervously scans my face for a reaction.

I speak slowly. “What… usually happens, if a monster’s crystal is… shattered?”

“Hmm…” He thinks on it. “Well, adventurers always say to hit it. But that’s a joke, I think, since the crystal forms randomly…” He’s getting off track. “Anyway, adventurers say if you manage to hit it, the monster dies.”

My mind flashes back to the Tall Fella that I killed. The small hard thing I crushed had to have been a soul stone… But if my soul stone shattered… “Why am I alive?”

Betton shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe because you’re smart? Or strong? I know people have kids with smart monsters sometimes…” He blushes like a maiden at the thought.

Whatever, I’m alive, that’s what matters. And as a plus, I can go inside the barrier. “I guess it all worked out then.” Betton nods at my words happily. I don’t let him stay that way long. “The next time you forget to tell me something that could get me killed, I’m eating a limb.” I give him a smile, letting my teeth turn sharp.

The kid turns pale before slowly nodding.

────────────

Since I’m bored and irritated, I look for what looks like the roughest way to go and head in that direction. In no time the two of us are in a darkly lit slum, nestled under the giant stone shelf above. Most of the underside of the next layer of the city has giant lights, used to brighten the area. The section of town that I lead the two of us has only the remnants of whatever lights are used to keep things lit around here hanging above it.

With the lights from the streetlamps as the only illumination, we roam around. Betton is shivering furiously, terrified of our surroundings. I’m not sure why, everyone else we’ve seen has been just as wary of us as he is of them.

As we round a corner, a large man steps in front of us. Well, I say man, but he’s clearly not human. At least not totally. The mountain of a man has blue scales running on his arms in patches, like some weird rash. His one eye is also slitted, and his hair is thin and missing in spots. He looks like someone tried to cross a reptile and a human and failed. Messily.

He doesn’t say anything, just smiles down at the two of us menacingly. Behind me Betton starts quietly whimpering to himself. I just stare at the man, as far as I’m concerned size means nothing. Physical damage doesn’t seem to mean much to my new body. A hand the size of my head reaches down and clamps onto my upper arm.

“C’mon girl. Let’s go meet—” His words are cut off as my arm falls apart.

The pale limb loses its shape, becoming a tube of bright pink flesh. Teeth sprout on the outside of the tube in neat rows. I grin. Time to try out something fun. The man tries to pull his hand away, but I reach over and grab his wrist with my still human hand. My new set of sharp fangs start to move, up and down. They quickly gain speed, becoming a crude biological chainsaw.

I smile as the guy’s hand is cut to ribbons around my limb. After his hand is sufficiently mangled, I let go of his bruised wrist. Before he can get far I thrust my transformed arm at him. The bastard hadn’t even moved, too busy staring at the gorey stump attached to his wrist.

My new toy bites into his stomach easily, cutting through it without resistance. All I’m missing is the loud roar of a chainsaw and I’d really be a slasher villain. Maybe I could make an organ to… hmm… As I think about my eventual destiny of becoming a horror movie monster, I absentmindedly move my arm around inside the man.

At this point the guy is just staring down as I go to work. He’s probably deep in shock. Kind of a letdown, since he’s not really reacting anymore. Whatever… draws less attention I guess. Yeah, focus on the bright side!

Finally the dude slumps to his knees, his eyes dull and lifeless. I pull my saw out of him, excited for an actually tasty meal after that awful porridge earlier. My arm dissolves into a pink mess again before rapidly forming a large beak. I hungrily tear into him, eating most of him in just under a few minutes. Hmm… cherries this time. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern with the flavors. Once the man’s corpse is fully… disposed of, I turn and look at my partner in crime.

Betton is just crouching, drawing shapes in the dirt with his finger. His eyes are empty.

“Betton.”

He jumps in place, coming back from wherever he was, and looks at me. “You done?” He asks. Guess he was bored. I give him a nod, which makes him frown.

“What?” I ask, annoyed. He just motions up and down the front of my dress. I look down to see what’s the problem. If he hits my nose, he’s losing a finger. But no, there is an actual issue. I’m totally drenched in blood. Head to toe, totally red. “Oh…”

I think on it for a minute before coming up with an idea. I split my skin like an orange, leaving the peels only attached at the top of my head. Then I flip them, and reattach them. I learned this trick cleaning hotel rooms! With the clean side of my skin now facing up, I reapply the dress texture. For some reason Betton’s face is really pale, was my trick that lame?

Whatever, time for us to find more food— victi— investors.