Why is this happening to me? I know I offered my soul to that evil genie, but this a bit too much. Ouch! I tripped on a rock again. No good, I have to hurry up and get away!

Earlier, when I was still in shock over the fact that I had become a girl, the 5 people whose footsteps I heard earlier saw me. They were pointing at me and saying something. At first, I thought they might be friendly, but the various people in chains behind them told me otherwise. 

And so, here I am now, running for my life. The tone of one of my pursuers changes to be slightly lower and more monotone. After a few moments, a hand shoots out of the ground and trips me. Those people catch up to me without a problem now that that earth hand is holding me down. They're all blonde and have pointy ears. Hmm, these must be elves. The slaves behind them were all what I presume to be human and beast-people like me.

Those guys are shouting something at me while chaining me up.

"Vin arle sernheide tyn imir!"

"I'm sorry, I don't know what you're saying..."

Well, I don't think it'll make a difference no matter what I say at this point. As expected, they chain me up and add me to the line of captives. There are 2 beast-people, a middle aged guy and an old woman, as well as a young human man. Let me see if I can speak to these guys. Maybe I've been speaking in the beast-person or human language the whole time and these guys can understand me, even if the elves can't!

"Hey, can any of you guys understand what I'm saying?"

The beast-woman glares at me, the human ignores me, and the beast-man just smiles at me and winks. Ooooh! Is he telling me to keep this language a secret from our captors or something so we can talk safely? However, his follow up hand-gestures proved me wrong. Damn that genie, did it give me a super sexy face or something? Because I don’t think my body is anything extraordinary. I'll kill it if I ever see it again! Though, I never saw it in the first place...

Our captors just march us silently through the forest. After my failed attempt at conversation, all of us stayed quiet, even the elves. We marched for a few hours before reaching a small spire in a clearing. It's diameter is a little bit more than a tiny cottage, but it's exceedingly tall and tapers off at the top. It's made out of some kind of brilliant white stone.

One of the elves knocks on the door, and a slit in the door opens. The elf holds up some papers, then the door promptly opens. Inside is a large magic circle etched onto the ground, taking up the entire floor of the tower. We are escorted to the center, and one of the elves stands there with us while chanting something. 

I'm a little bit scared. What if I'm a human-... beast-person sacrifice or something? The other guys don't look too worried, so maybe I can relax? There's still the possibility that they just accepted their fate. Should I take my chances and try to run?

Before I can decide, a bright light blocks my vision, and when I can see again, I'm at a different spire, but one similar to the other one. I can tell this is a different spire because all of the elves, except for the one that was chanting, are gone. Also, the humidity, air density, temperature, etc. here are all different. It seems that my senses are really sharp now. I guess that's one good thing I got out of this… change.

We're lead out of the spire and into a cave. I can tell the cave is dark, but at the same time, I can still see perfectly fine. My new senses are strange, I'm really not accustomed to this yet. We walk for a few hours more before reaching a wider section of the cave where a sort of camp has been set up. There's a table here with some tools on it, some lanterns, and a small tent in the corner.

The elf hands us some pickaxes and a single lantern. Damn, I was hoping the work would be easier. Oh, maybe I also have amazing beast strength! I take the pickaxe and start hacking away at the place the elf directed along with the other slaves. For now, I'm being obedient because I have absolutely no fighting experience except getting one-sidedly beaten up in middle school, and because I don't know the extent of this guy’s magic. Even if it was with the aid of a magic circle thing, this guy is capable of teleportation, and he probably knows the earth magic from earlier as well. Plus, the other 3 slaves all seem like they know what they're doing, and they haven't retaliated even though it's a 4 versus 1 and we're now armed with pickaxes. I'll follow their example since I don't want to die.

Our work is to excavate a tunnel, not to mine for ores or anything like that. It's truly boring work. Also, I have the same strength as a I did before coming to this world, which was nothing out of the ordinary, so I didn't get super beast strength after all. In fact, even that middle-aged beast lady is mining faster than I am.

"Vin arle grif vetuun nes!"

This is a phrase I've gotten used to hearing over the past couple of weeks. It means 'You there, work faster!" or something. I usually get beaten shortly after hearing this. This time however, the elf is saying something else too.

"Arle suun ret al torm!"

As always, I have no idea what he's saying. The beast-man nudges me with his elbow then points slightly above and towards where the elf is. Ah, I'm probably supposed to follow him. I do as I'm told, since, again, don't have a death wish. After all, this is where my last death wish got me.

We stop at the camp area, and the elf starts saying a bunch of stuff that I can't understand, as usual. He's smirking like he's saying something funny. The more he says the more my head tilts to the side. Seeing my confusion, he sighs and makes gestures with his hands similar to the ones that beast-guy made not long ago… WHAT?!

The shock must be showing on my face, because that smirk is back on his face and he's even laughing a bit now. He puts a collar on my neck and chains me to the ground, near where the other slaves' bedrolls are. Shit. I start thinking of ways to get out of my predicament, but before I know it, the other slaves are already entering the camp section. 

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The two beast people are laughing at my predicament, and the human guy is expressionless as usual. The elf is somewhere else right now. He frequently leaves via the spire, presumably for work.

The beast-guy is approaching me now, and with an extremely lustful look in his eyes. I have a plan though. This guy has more strength than me, more speed, and more experience. There's no way I'll be able to fight him normally. That’s why I wait until our bodies are close. Extremely close. Without warning, I knee him in his special place with as much strength as I can muster. Even I feel the pain from that. Sorry, random beast-guy.

Before he has a chance to recover, I wrap my chain around his neck and don't let go. This entire plan hinges on the fact that I can kill him before he recovers from the cheap shot. This guy is flailing his legs and still trying to lift my chain off himself, but it's not enough. He's already lost too much oxygen to put up a good fight. I kill him easily. Shouldn't killing people be harder than this? Surprisingly, I might have the capacity to be a serial killer. Neat.

Wait a minute, what happened to the other 2 slaves? I look over the corpse’s shoulder and take a look. The beast-woman is lying on the floor and her head is twisted at an unnatural angle. The human is standing over her corpse, still expressionless. Without a word, he tosses me a necklace with a green stone on it. He motions for me to put it on.

Again, I do as I'm told. This guy snapped that beast-lady's neck so hard that it became deformed, and without me noticing either. This guy is dangerous.

(Heeeey! You put on the necklace like I told you!!! Look, we have matching necklaces now~!)

An exceedingly annoying voice is echoing through my head. It seems this necklace enables telepathy or something.

(Also, this guy is super annoying in his mind, huh...)

(That's mean, you know!!)

Oops. I need to get used to using it. For now, let's just ask this guy what he wants with me. I hope he doesn't brutally murder me like he did to that beast-lady. Or like I did to this beast-man, for that matter.

(Uhm... what do you want with me, exactly?)

(I want to be friends with you, silly~!)

Creepy! So freaking creepy in various ways. This guy still has no expression. What the hell?! Is there someone else on the other end of this telepath-phone pranking me? Again, my survival instinct tells me this isn’t someone I can refuse.

(H-haha. Sure, I'll be friends with you...)

I stand up and extend my hand to him, and he shakes it for a short moment before retracting his hand. Still no emotion, at least not on the outside.

(Yay!!! But, to tell you the truth, there's another reason I came here. All of my previous friends in the Slave Liberation Army died, so I infiltrated this mine to recruit more!)

Somehow, I feel like his definition of friend and my definition of friend are different. I'm starting to regret becoming 'friends' with this person.

(Then, why did you kill that beast-lady there?)

(Isn't that obvious? She didn't want to be my friend~.)

For the first time since I've seen this guy, he breaks into a smile. That was when I knew, I was fucked. C-calm down. Just act natural. Natural.

(HAHA. Ok, friend, how are we going to get out of here friend of mine? Are we going to escape using that teleportation circle, my friend?)

(No, I'm a human, so I can't use magic you silly. Unless you think that friendship is magic~!) 

(...)

(We're just going to wait by the circle for that guy to come back, dispose of him, then make our way back to the surface manually. It'll give us some time for bonding too!)

(A most wise plan my friend!)

(Right~?)

We made our way over to the spire, and both of us were silent the entire time. I think I like it better when he's silent. It's somewhat comforting, and most importantly not super creepy.

The elf showed up a few hours later, and the creep immediately jumped him. The elf seems to have some moves, so the creep can't snap his neck like he did before with that beast-lady. He does succeed in pinning the elf down though. The elf starts to chant something, so the creep stomps on his throat. I guess it didn't have that much power to it, because the elf starts letting out a blood curdling scream. The creep starts repeatedly kicking him in the ribs, but the screams won't stop, so he starts strangling him instead. I feel a bit bad for him, but it's his prey, so I don't intervene. Eventually, the strangling does the trick.

Both of us are wearing rags, so only one of us can take his clothes. The creep offered them to me, but they were covered in blood, so I declined. He ended up taking them instead, and I must say, bloodstained clothes really suit the creepy bastard.

(Now that that's out of the way, let's take this opportunity to become better friends! My name is Nyros, and my favorite hobby is strangling people!)

What the hell?! If that’s your favorite, why didn’t you just start with that instead! Ugh, whatever. It’s not good to get too arrogant. I can sense that this guy is better than me anyways, he’s probably just having a bad day.

(My name is Sayane. My favorite hobby is...)

Huh? Did I ever do anything besides chores? Damn, my previous life was pretty lame... I guess if I’m just going by the thing I did the most it would be cooking.

(...cooking?)

(What a worthless hobby! It's too bad, but we might not be able to be friends anymore...)

N-no!!! My life is in danger! What does he consider a 'useful' hobby? Things related to combat? He seems to be using 'friend' as 'comrade' or something, so I need to prove I'm useful to him! What did I do before I started living with Hise...?

(Stealing! My favorite hobby is actually stealing!)

(Oh, how wonderful! Why didn't you say so earlier? If it's like that, then we'll be able to become great friends!) 

Haaaa, I can live for a bit longer now...