//////// < WARNING > ///////

< The Queen of Sweet and Bitter Thorns’ Poison Has Taken Effect >

These words appeared before the eyes of a nameless monster.

Ragged breaths were taken through pierced lungs. A horrible croak left her bleeding lips as she desperately gasped for air. No words could leave her lips.

There was so little she knew to begin with aside from the hatred she bared.

“… live… wake up… and die now…?”

Her broken words were accompanied by the pain that spread through her body.

A living root grew from the side of her, reaching for the moonlit skies like a hand. Tendrils spread across her body like poisoned veins, hardening as they gorged on her flesh.

< Your Body Corrodes >

< The Bitter Thorns Are Envious >

For the first time she experienced pain. Her memories of hunting creatures like herself reminded her that this fate was inevitable. Her red-hooded cloak became saturated with blood as she stared at the moon with fading eyes.

“… I… have to kill the White Wolf… who ate grandma…”

Only nonsensical words could leave her lips.

“… the monsters… that hurt people… that make them sleep forever…”

The girl’s aspirations had hit a dead end.

And she aspirated on them in her last moments, hearing a phantom howl and the sound of distant explosions. The dead trees of the woodlands shivered. The leaves never sat still to mourn her.

Once again, she’d be sent into the darkness of the void.

All alone to be left suspended in a sea of emotional torment for no reason of her own.

“I… was born as a monster… but I helped people… I thought good people… don’t die… is it because I’m a monster…?”

Soon, the growing thorn blocked the light of the moon as it bared a purple fruit. An apple hung at the top, made from the fluids it had stolen from her.

Death’s call neared; their scythe held against her throat.

The end was near.

But even so, her heart had not yet been vanquished. Vengeance: a blazing wrath replaced all fleeting sensation as she marked the Corrupted entity – the Queen of Sweet and Bitter Thorns – for elimination.

Before she was plunged into that sea of darkness, a message suddenly appeared:

//////// < CAUTION > ////////

< You Have Accumulated 1 Nemesis Token Against the Queen of Sweet and Bitter Thorns >

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

* * *

Black.

An eternal darkness entombed the sleeping beast. The tangible blackness compressed against their formless body as they desperately tried to fight their way out.

Like a bird trapped within a shell, the monster struggled and fought against the tangible darkness, wriggling until suddenly, a crack formed. It split the world in half. Cracks branched from it as the light of the world beyond bled into their purgatory.

Finally, a hand broke free as their shell rolled along the ground, shattering all at once. The beast’s body rolled around along blue, smooth stones until they laid flat on their back, blinking away the remnants of sleep.

Their senses came alive. An unfamiliar world held them captive. Water dripped from the ceiling, landing into a pool just behind them as they struggled to understand where they were.

“Plonk?” The beast spoke with a rather delicate voice, mimicking the sound of the dripping water from the narrow cave they had found themselves in.

Memories, once vivid, were now enshrouded in a mysterious fog.

And they laid there for an unknown amount of time, savoring the sensation of the cold, stone ground. The otherworldly silence of the cave, and the strange, blue, glowing worms that clung to the ceiling.

“… blue…” They at least understood that color, raising a 5-digit hand into the air.

It was a tiny hand, one belonging to that of a young human.

Seeing their hand roused confusion as they quickly rose to their feet, patting their red, oversized coat in search for something. Halfway through the search, their eyes suddenly fell into the glowing pool.

And there, they saw a girl with crimson eyes and red hair staring back.

“Red…” She spoke as if having never spoken before, brushing a finger along her fair skin, wincing unexpectedly as she threw her hands out. “… gloves gone? Where?”

She knew exactly what she was looking for. A precious pair of gloves. But a listener would have questioned if she even knew what she wanted. Her speech was broken, although, Corrupted like herself were not supposed to be able to speak so freely to begin with.

Indeed.

What confused her the most was that she could think for herself.

Somehow, she had gained consciousness.

And when she tried to make sense of her existence, something suddenly appeared before her.

< LEVEL : 1 > AFFINITY : Amalgamation

???

< Hatchling Red >

ATTRIBUTE : Identity

< CORRUPTED > NAME : ??? HP : 350

MP : 600

AGI : 25 RESIST : 40 AGE : 0 ATT : 25

MAG ATT : 5

O : 1 D : 0 ORIGIN : Original ATT DEF : 30

MAG DEF : 15

S : 0 E : 0

It was a transparent window carrying information. She could sense the knowledge it contained, and it felt like someone was speaking directly to her. For some reason, she questioned the legitimacy of the information.

Like it was… wrong. Or rather, like it stated that she was weak.

In the past, she was an esteemed Corrupted. One who hunted manifested trauma that paraded themselves as fairytales. Corrupted in the first place were monsters…

… and that was all she really knew. Her existence as one came flooding back as she stood still for a moment, once again, savoring her consciousness. Corrupted possessed no such thing, so it took her a minute to try to understand why she could think.

Why she could control her breathing.

And why she could stop and question the world.

It took her aback, because she had once lived a life driven by no other purpose than to bare her vengeance against the White Wolf who ate her grandmother, and the fairytales that worked alongside it.

Just thinking about it caused her to run up to a wall and throw a punch.

Expecting the wall to break, she bared a fang and eyes lathered with bloodlust.

However, it was her fists that were soon lathered with blood.

“O-Ouch?” She didn’t jolt or shriek.

She was genuinely taken aback that the wall didn’t just crumble.

Baffled, she tried again.

And again.

“Oww.”

“Ouch…”

“Hurt…”

“Wall bad…”

And again, and again.

Hatchling Red | HP: 340

Eventually, she arrived at the only logical conclusion.

“Wall too strong… hmm. Ah! Maybe containment units are made from this stone!”

Precisely. This had to be true. In the past she was contained within the confines of a facility that experimented on the Corrupted. Her containment cell was indestructible, although, there was something that allowed her to breach through its doors.

After all, there was no possible way that she, the Vengeful Red-Hooded Assassin, had become so weak that a measly wall could withstand her punches. There was no way that she was, in a sense, reborn as a weakling.

And so, she reached for her back and clasped at the air.

Her brows furrowed.

“Oh no… my weapon is –!”

What used to be an otherworldly weapon capable of shooing projectiles faster than the speed of sound was no longer with her.

The only thing she had on her were her clothes and, luckily, a hunting knife.

*Grrrrr*

“Huh. My tummy made a sound…?”

And a strange sensation she’d soon come to understand as ‘hunger’.