Sitting alone in a white cell with his back against the wall, a young man was now looking vacantly at his surroundings. His face was bruised and slightly bloody and the vivid red color made a striking contrast with the pristine white of the cell, and the clothes he was wearing.

The boy did not know how long he had been seated in that position, all alone, without moving nor opening his mouth to utter the slightest words. The only proof that he was even alive was the faint movement of his chest as he breathed in and out through his nose, his breathing faint and indiscernible.

His eyes did not even as much as flicker as the door opened and he seemed intent on not paying attention to anything or anyone around him.

“You are lucky. The director decided to lift your punishment. You can now leave.”

Only when he heard those words did the young man move his head and gaze at the guard near the locked door.He finally decided to stand up. The eyes of the young man were sunken and his face was slightly emaciated— proof that he had not been able to eat anything in quite a few days. Even then, there was a clear intensity and undeniable sense of power radiating in his beautiful jewel-like blue eyes.

His gaze was so intense, that the guard could not help but flinch and take a few steps back as he came face-to-face with the young man. Stopping outside the door, he gave a contemplative look at the young man, keeping his silence, as he made his way out of the confinement room.

The guard clearly remembered how this small child had nearly eviscerated and permanently maimed one of the guards with barely any difficulty whatsoever while simply using a fork and his teeth. Matter of fact, all of the metal utensils were subsequently changed after the incident so that the child wouldn’t be able to manipulate them to his use.

However, as though ashamed by his behavior against a little brat, the man couldn’t help but frown and curse under his breath, “Tch! Bunch of freaks!”

He soon regretted this action as the young man stopped in his tracks and looked back at him with a thin smile plastering his childish face.

“Tell this to your friend or rather all the guards. All of you are expendable.”

His voice was hoarse, low, and incredibly slow and pronounced. It was the aftermath of his parched throat as the water the boy received had also been rationed.

“If anyone ever dares to touch one of us inappropriately, well…”

His lips were cracked and he looked like the slightest gust of wind could push him down but the guard had no doubts about how dangerous this boy was. He had the impression of being stared down by a ferocious famished beast the moment he saw the young man eyeing him up. Shuddering involuntarily, he immediately left the room without wasting a single second, afraid of the ramifications that could follow if he stayed there any longer.

Now alone, the boy shook his head and gazed at the ceiling, wishing he could see the stars and leave this place forever.

“Adults suck.”

The boy swore with his hoarse, almost broken, voice.

One day, he would flee from this place and soar in the sky like the birds he saw in books.

One day, he would attain true freedom and gift it to others like him who suffered all their lives and had no way of escaping.

For now though— “I am hungry.”

He needed to eat.

***

The first thing Noah felt as he awakened from what had seemed like a prolonged slumber, aside from his stiff joints and heavy eyelids, was a sticky sensation covering his entire body.

What is happening?

His memory was hazy at first, as he was trying to shake off the sleepiness that almost made him collapse once more into another long slumber, but quickly, images came rushing in and he remembered what had transpired before he had dozed off. He had activated the so-called growth in the hope of obtaining more power or some sort of advantage in this universe where everything seemed too dangerous for him.

But— where am I?

Even as he tried to open his eyes further, all that greeted him was pure and unending darkness from all sides. Not a single shred or particle of light could be seen in his surroundings.

I need to leave.

The darkness and pleasant stickiness were both calming and appealing. They gave him a feeling of security he had not felt in a long, long time and one he did not wish to part from quickly.

But his wishes had nothing to do with the situation at hand. It was important for him to wake up and leave this place as soon as possible. And for that very reason, he pushed at the darkness.

His hands finally came in contact with something hard and so he pushed even harder than before. Cracks appeared over the surface of the hard object, showing a glimpse of the light beyond. Bolstered by this sense of light, akin to a ray of hope, he continued to push harder until,

Crack!

The cracks spread further and further until a side of the object collapsed and a hole was finally open for him to traverse.

***

When Noah broke out of his prison and looked behind him, he was able to see that the warm place he had emerged from was, in fact, a white cocoon, shaped like an egg.

The hell?

He was not even allowed to completely process this situation when a flurry of blue messages started appearing one after another in his field of vision, utterly blinding him from seeing anything except for the messages.

[Evolution complete]

[Detailed Analysis of all the physical attributes still ongoing]

[Synchronization rate: Low]

[Comparison with the integrated tiering system complete]

[Update of the system’s display complete]

After several dozen messages appeared in his vision, they all vanished and gave place to one large blue screen. One the screen was a display showcasing some overall information. The content of the screen made Noah don an utterly puzzled look, even going as far as to make him wonder if he was either dreaming or having a hallucination at the moment or not.

After all—

『 Name: Noah Ouroboros

Tier: 8

Main Class: Mecha Pilot

Growth Stage: Hatchling (90%)

Affiliation: -

Alias: -

Title: Pawn

Race: Human???

Path: Pending…

Thema: Pending…

Stats: Pending… 』

What the heck? Am I in a video game or something?

— Noah, you are finally awake.

Eve? What the hell happened? Can you tell me?

— Well, I think our incoming visitor would be more appropriate for the explanations.

Noah’s ears flickered at the sudden mention from his companion. All his senses flared into overdrive and finally started functioning properly at this instant. Immediately, his senses caught someone approaching the room and from her energy signature it was clearly—

— Dorothy Gale.

“Hello, Noah. How was your sleep?”

***

After entering Noah’s room, Dorothy couldn’t help but come to a standstill when she observed Noah with her own eyes. It had been some time since she had seen him. Looking at him now, she immediately noticed two key facts about him.

Firstly, Noah’s body had changed drastically. If before he simply looked like a cute chubby young kid, now he seemed close to someone in his late teens/early twenty something years. There still remained some traces of tenderness and chubby fat of his toddler self here and there, however, no one would mistake him for a child any longer; that was more than certain.

The second fact she observed was—

“Well, I think you have changed…” Dorothy coughed slightly to hide the faint blush that had colored her cheeks, spreading to her neck at breakneck speed. Immediately, she turned around and gave Noah the privacy that he surely needed right now.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Noah sighed out loud as he looked down at himself. He was so used to going around without clothes that he had not even noticed that he was buck-naked again. At this point, he even entertained the thoughts of being cursed with the faith of having to flash his naked body to all the people he met.

I hope this won’t become a habit.

Thankfully, his sense of shame had long since died off along with his sanity to some extent and he simply shrugged it off like nothing, “I think I need more than a change of clothes. A bath would be appreciated as well.”

“Of course. I will come back in a few minutes. Take your time.”

“Thanks.” Noah nodded as he saw Dorothy making her way out of his room.

“Oh, and Noah?”

“Yes?”

“I thought at first that you were a human or a variant that evolved because of the harsh condition of the planet you lived on. Clearly, you are neither and are closer to something along the lines of a cosmic beast. I want you to know— I do not care about your origins and neither does Oz.”

She did not turn around as she spoke but her voice had a clear weight to it, one that was undeniable and unequivocal, “Still, you should be careful about revealing your origins to others. Exotic and rare species with special talents are wanted throughout the universe and unscrupulous poachers will not hesitate to hunt you down just to sell you to a few curious scientists or some rich collectors.” There was an undeniable pain mixed in with the grave tone and the hint of warning in her voice. It was clear to Noah that Dorothy wasn’t just delivering empty words to him. No, this was personal; she was talking from experience.

“... I will be careful.”

“Sorry if it seems like I am nagging. I will leave you to your devices now. Let’s see each other in two system hours. The cleaner robots will take care of the mess.”

She waved her hand and left the room as the door promptly closed behind her. Noah, now alone, or as alone as one could be with the voice of a Parasite Queen inside their head, looked down at the mess he had created in the process of his evolution. A half-broken egg and gooey and gelatinous transparent liquid sprawled about everywhere. The shattered remnants of the egg shaped cocoon lodged on various surfaces of the room. It was a mess indeed.

Are you the one who did this?

– Partially. Your hibernation also took me out so I activated this egg with my energy to provide some protection for us just in case. But the amniotic fluid is not my creation.

Thanks. I did not expect this.

He sighed and made his way towards the half-broken cocoon he had just come out of.

“Let’s eat.”

A mouth filled with sharp rows of canines opened in the palm of his hands and soon disgusting crunching and chewing sounds filled the small room.

— Are you not worried about the cameras?

I am one hundred percent sure I am being monitored. Otherwise, there is no way Dorothy would know I was awake. But at this point, it doesn’t matter anymore, in fact, the more I show them the better it will be.

Noah did not wish to live a life where he had to constantly hide his power from others because of fear. Neither was he the kind of humble person who would hide his strength to appear normal.

Still, it was important to know how much exactly he could show without endangering himself and Oz was proving to be the best place for this.

***

It only took a few seconds for the broken shell of the egg as well as the fluids to be completely cleaned up by Noah.

Status.

Noah looked at his status once again but nearly nothing changed. The only difference was,

Growth Stage: Hatchling (92%)

Interesting

This whole interface was truly similar to something that he could only see in a video game back in his world. He was curious about what kind of number his status would show later on.

However, there were still so many questions that bothered him to no end. Out of all the things shown on the status window, the only contents he could get an understanding of were his main class and name, affiliation, and alias as well as his race.

Outside of that, what the heck was a Path or Thema? Why did he have the title of Pawn and what did Tier 8 represent?

So many questions and absolutely no one to answer them.

Normally in this kind of situation, the system itself should give me some kind of explanation, right?

At the very least the system did not seem sentient. However, how it was even working and projecting images in his brain as it did was another unknown variable that he was extremely curious about.

Did the scientists who created the Ouroboros core really put in a failsafe in case he fused with it? There was no other way to explain the actions that were taken when the system detected organic matter.I am getting a headache.

Noah sighed and walked into the bath. For now, he was going to enjoy a long bath and then he would meet Dorothy.

Things could be taken one at a time and who knows? Answers might come while he enjoyed some hot water. A scenario where he screamed Eureka(!) while taking a bath would be pretty interesting all things considered.

***

Sad as it was, Noah did not have the Eureka moment he wished to experience even while he keenly observed his status for the whole duration of the bath. What he did get though was a more clear understanding of his current situation.

His body had once again changed but he was not able to explain how. He did not think that his strength or speed had particularly increased. The changes seemed to be miniscule or in places that he couldn’t immediately observe. At the same time, however, he got the feeling that nearly everything about him had changed from the ground up. It felt like… everything had finally become right and balanced.

This should not be possible under any circumstances. Logic dictates that all people have different strengths and talents. Still, Noah was learning first-hand how to simply ignore all the thousands of questions that plagued his mind. All he needed to do was train and once he did enough of it he would certainly get all the answers he was so curious about.

Eve, You have a better understanding of my anatomy. Do you think you can scan the interior of my body and project the image?

— Do you mean… I see. It… should be possible.

Eve had already been able to replicate some of the functions of the machines she had digested. Thanks to that, she could even act as armor or in case of his fight with Omid, serve as a full-on Knightframe.

This function was not only useful for combat, however. No matter how Noah looked at it, this would be an indispensable skill for him in future scenarios if he wanted to keep his identity as a sort of evolving cosmic beast a secret while still having a certain ease at being self-sufficient.

No matter how much I trust or want to trust Dorothy, I cannot allow them to scan my body. At least not for now. Though nothing says they haven’t already done that.

Going back and forth about how much he could trust and was willing to trust someone without going past some limits was truly an exhausting game of mental gymnastics. He didn’t like those. However, the weak could only survive by being cautious at all times, and he was definitely the weaker party in their current relationship paradigm.

Eve fell silent for a moment, clearly analyzing something on her own. In the end, he received the equivalent of a mental nod from her after a while.

— I have more or less finished analyzing everything. I will give you a visual.

Noah’s vision flickered and two images representing the human body based on Da Vinci, a Vitruvian man, appeared in the air in front of him. One was fully blue while the other was a mix of blue and red.

— The blue side represents a normal human body based on my memories and the red color represents all the differences between the body of a normal human body and your own.

Noah could only laugh bitterly as he saw that the projection of his current body was basically more than 80% red. But there was not much he could do about the change and he had already resolved to accept that he truly could not call himself a human any longer. Physically, at the very least.

So, what are the changes?

— The first and clearest changes are your veins. The flow of your blood circulation is abnormal and follows patterns closer to that of Ouroboros. But you already knew about this. There is also the fact that the core is at the place where your original heart should have been. Technically, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that you are a biological Mecha in a human’s clothing at the moment.

Noah nodded his head in understanding. This was not new. Those changes had already happened after Eve had to completely reconstruct his body after his fight against Omid.

— Outside of this, things become even more interesting. There are many notable changes and if I have to summarize them, it would be that your body is optimized for survival. For starters, your skin, flesh, and muscles have now become much more solid and tougher than normal. Your bones in particular have solidified quite a bit. This makes you slightly heavier. But with your strength this is negligible.

— Outside of the main core, it also seems like you have two hearts. Those two are smaller and pump slower, but they are definitely functional and in case one of them gets destroyed you would still be able to function properly.

— Your brain structure has definitely changed. To begin, your need for sleep has been drastically reduced and even when you sleep, only half of your brain will enter into a sleeping state while the other half will stay awake at all times. It doesn’t take away the need to sleep entirely but I summarize we can now stay entire weeks awake with no problem whatsoever.

Am I a dolphin or something?

Noah chuckled at his own bad joke. This change was new and would have been extremely useful when he was alone on that deserted planet. In the past, he was simply able to stay awake longer without fatigue. This half-brain sleep would certainly be useful even in his future circumstances as he voyaged through the galaxy.

— Your stomach has also undergone some changes. This is not anything new but I believe our capacity to digest poison has increased tremendously. We would need to test this to be certain, though. Poison aside, you are simply able to digest food more efficiently and lower the quantity of waste to nearly zero.

— You have an additional pair of lungs, and their structure is completely different from the average human lungs. The way it processes oxygen in our body makes it so that breathing through your nose in itself is unnecessary, and you can breathe through your skin as well. In fact, at the moment, you should be able to breathe underwater and survive in the vacuum of space for a relatively long period of time. This structure is more similar to us Parasites.

Oh…

Another new and welcome change. Noah already had an increased lung capacity after his stay on that desolate planet but this was way ahead of anything he had evolved into.

He was torn between feeling happy or concerned in this case. The only case of animals on earth he knew could breathe through their skins were animals such as worms or frogs. As for being able to breathe in space…

He sighed, So why do I still breathe?

— Nothing but a habit. Even if you stop breathing now, nothing will change. In fact, you should try it. It will take some time to get used to.

He hesitated for a moment, but then simply stopped breathing.

Huh…

After the first few seconds, he felt an uncomfortable urge to simply breathe, more as an instinctive response than anything else, but once he fought past the urge he realized that, he did not feel that much different from usual.

It was weird; so weird that he just started breathing again on reflex. Taking a deep breath through his nose and out his mouth open, he repeatedly inhaled and exhaled.

I don’t like the feeling of breathing through my skin.

— But you will have to get used to it. This skill would be deadly in an ambush.

I hate it when you make so much sense.

Noah could not fight against Eve’s logic, so he simply continued to listen to the changes that constituted his current body.

Enhanced senses, increased perception, resistance against motion sickness, and increased production and distribution of hormones. Each of his various changes would increase his physical skill to an absurd degree and make him less prone to outbursts of emotion, be they positive or negative.

It even went beyond just that, as it seemed like he could detect heat more easily than before. The quality of his vision had undergone a massive change, as well as a whopping increase in his reaction time.

The list was quite long, and Noah realized that most of them were straight upgrades from the way his body had already adapted in the past. He once again understood why he had felt that weird sensation of balance at first.

The evolution he went through after this hibernation might not have made him stronger, but they certainly made him better. More efficient and far more deadly than he had ever been.

Without a shadow of a doubt, calling himself a human now would be stupid, as the only human thing about him was his morphology and exterior appearance. After all, even his bone structures had changed to become more efficient when it came to distributing force and shocks, as well as allowing a new range of movement that would make contortionists look at him with envy and jealousy.

Noah was not able to enjoy his bath as much this time around because of all that information, but in the end, he simply chose to look at the good side of things instead of pondering over the fact that he was becoming less and less human.

He was harder to kill now. Far harder to kill, and this was all that mattered in the end.

Survival.

Noah did not simply want to be a cockroach with high survival capability. He needed the power to match his survival stats, and Dorothy might be the first key to the completion of this goal.

It was time to pay her a visit and observe the world of Oz for himself.

My first true visit to an alien planet.

Technically it would be his second time on an alien planet and this would not be the first alien civilization he met. But since in both cases those first meetings ended with him fighting for his survival, he would only consider Oz as his first.