I wasn’t always a monster; I once lived a normal life as a normal human girl.

The world was very different.

There were no dungeons or large buildings with strange magic, but monsters were very common.

My past life feels fuzzy, and I can’t seem to remember how I got to this other world, but the first thing I remember when coming here was being born out of a monster’s womb.

I thought it was just a wild dream at first, but after my first night in this new world, I realized I was stuck here with no way out.

***

It feels like I broke through an invisible threshold.

I can no longer keep living like a monster.

If I was sent back to the dungeon, the rest of my life would solely be about survival.

If I remained here, as a monster, I would surely be a freak, or someone’s pet.

Things are slowly clicking into place.

These people didn’t rescue me to be their slave or their pet, they were trying to help me.

I think…?

The magical appearance they gave me was so that I could fit in with the peoples of this world.

So then… why the shock collar? Were they afraid I would behave like a monster and start attacking people?

After the last thing I said, I just stood there and sobbed in deep thought.

Silver and Karth exchanged glances, as if trying to discern what the other was thinking.

The lizard man spoke first.

“I have to be certain. I don’t know what you are exactly or even how you learned an unknown language.”

What do I tell them?

If I say I’m from another world, they won’t understand.

“I… wasn’t always a monster.”

“…!”

“I was once a human girl. There wasn’t magic like this when I was still human.”

I point to the light sources, fans, and vents.

“It feels like so long ago, I had a normal family, and… I miss them. The language was very different then, but I can’t seem to remember what it was called. I can’t even remember my old name. As I get older, my memories become… harder to remember.”

“…”

“It’s too bad Dedicantus isn’t here, then he’d be able to tell if you were truthful or lying.”

“You don’t believe me…”

“I believe you.”

“Shut it, Karth.”

Silver lets out an annoyed sigh.

“Fine, I’m going to put you up to a test. If you pass, I’ll trust you. If not, then you’re just a monster that was trained under a demon lord, and a threat to our country.”

“What?!”

“Don’t act so surprised Karth. You may have been helping her out of the kindness of your heart, but this was my whole reason for capturing her in the first place.”

Despite the lizard man’s accusations, my mood improves, and I wipe the tears and snot from my face, into my sleeves.

His test must have something to do with how people think.

That’s easy, I have no involvement with evil demons and nothing to hide.

“Okay, I can pass your test!”

“Great. First question, how is your head feeling?”

What? Oh right, the spell.

Unlike the first time, I feel like I’m able to withstand it a bit longer.

“Okay, I guess. It doesn’t hurt as bad as before.”

“That means you’re still in pain though, right?”

“Quiet Karth, we’re on a short timer.”

“It does hurt, but I can manage.”

Karth looks unhappy with that answer, but Silver pushes on, and withdraws a handful of papers from his pack, bound together by a band of some sort.

He removes the band and pulls out the first page to show me.

“This is a quick morality test that was invented by one of the great heroes. We’ll start with the well-known ‘train problem’.”

***

It took Silver a while to explain it all, but by the end of it…

“You failed.”

“What?”

Karth sounded more surprised than I was.

Silver breathes a sigh before explaining.

“The test is about moral obligation, you chose to not do anything and let the majority die. Even though pulling the lever would have made you responsible for the one person’s death, you would have saved more lives and therefore been in the right.”

“But you said I couldn’t pull the lever and rescue the one person. How is a metal carriage faster than me?”

I shake my head in frustration.

“I don’t want to be the reason anyone dies.”

“Not making a choice is still a conscious decision to make, and you would have still been guilty.”

I wince and hold my head again. The pain is getting worse.

Karth has been watching me and I know he’s worried.

“We should stop for now and pick this up again later.”

“Will there even be a later?”

“Silver Lining.”

“I’m not so sure Alice understands the severity.”

“Silver Lining…!”

Karth sounds serious now.

The lizard man looks offended.

“What?!”

“You already failed the train problem.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Think back. When we stole Alice away from the dungeon, what did you say?”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“I… don’t remember.”

“You said saving Alice was more valuable than saving other adventurers. You valued one life, over many other adventurers she could have continued saving.”

I’m not quite sure what they’re going on about.

I’m no hero, I just don’t want to see peoples die, so I helped lead them somewhere safer, far out of sight.

I’m such a coward.

“That’s not the same thing, Karth. Saving her life will save many more.”

“How? You still haven’t explained your reasoning. Besides, you can’t judge Alice on this one question alone.”

“Fine, we’ll pick this up again next time.”

He deactivates the spell without a second thought, and their words become jumbled again.

“Next time I return, I expect to hear Alice identify ten objects and say their name.”

“What?!”

“You’ll be her teacher. If she can hold a proper conversation without the aid of magic, in the next three months, I’ll reduce your debt greatly.”

Silver looks at me expectantly and I walk away from the small wooden platform.

I make my way towards a corner in the room and sit down, messaging my head.

The pale lizard man packs up his things and leaves the apartment.

Karth follows the man to the exit, closing the door for him.

The human returns and watches me.

What does he want now, there’s nothing more to talk about.

My head hurts, I just want some time alone to process all of this information.

He walks out of the room for a moment, then returns with a sheet of paper and some sort of writing utensil.

The man draws an image on the sheet of paper and a foreign word under it.

I don’t care, I’m not in the mood for this.

“Table. This is a table.”

‘Be quiet, traitor.’

Lies. All lies.

I thought I had someone I could relate to.

Since yesterday, I thought Daedalus was an organization of bad guys. I thought Karth and I were prisoners together.

Turns out, none of that was real.

They were all his friends and he let them hurt me.

This building, these rooms. It was not a prison; it was a home.

I was a fool, I trusted this human…

Even though I was upset, I knew I needed to work together with these peoples in order to have a normal life again.

However…

“Table. Look look.”

This human knows no decency. I can tell he wants me to look at the image, maybe learn something from it, but… I can’t.

“Leave me alone…”

----------------------------------------

Ever since Silver Lining left, Alice has been hiding away in the corner of my room.

I thought she would be curious to learn our language as soon as possible, but I could tell she was not in a good mood.

Her ears press against her head and her tail curls up around her stomach.

She fiddles with her long catilyss fur, absentmindedly, and stares at the ground, lost in thought.

I take a quick glance at the gem on her collar. It’s a greenish yellow.

It’s still pretty full of energy, maybe Alice would like to feel a bit more “normal” during this time.

I let magic flow into the rune that activates her collar and transforms her into a beastborn.

Alice looks up at me momentarily.

I could see a silent “thank you” in her eyes, before she drops them to the floor again.

No noticeable improvement in her mood.

Is there something else I can do to cheer her up?

I really wanted to tell Leina the good news.

‘Alice isn’t just a monster, she used to be a human girl!’

However, I knew she was not in the mood to talk either.

What should I do? I’m stuck in my own home with two unhappy girls.

I know the best thing to do is to give them space, though I can’t help but worry about my debt and the possible chance to erase a good chunk of it.

Anxious, with nothing else to do right now, I chose to check my phone and see if Hendrick or Reyah messaged me.

Maybe they found some information to help teach us a bit about Alice’s past.

Oh, that’s right… I don’t think I told them the number for this phone.

I had to buy a new one after my previous phone broke when I landed on it.

I’ll also have to pay someone to transfer my data to the new phone sometime.

Things are not looking good financially.

Though, that got me wondering: how did Silver Lining find this phone number?

I doubt I’ll get a straight answer if I tried asking him about it later.

I should just call Hendrick and meet him at the Dark Cauldron.

***

A rustic pub comes into view.

The Dark Cauldron got its ominous name for being run by a witch long ago, when Altena was just a small village.

I find a seat in the back and wait for my friends to arrive.

By the time I get our drinks, they come walking through the entrance of the building.

“Hendrick, Reyah. Over here.”

“Karth, I’ve got a story for you.”

“I have some good news too, but I’ll let you go first.”

The dwarves seat themselves on the other side of the table.

There’s a lot of commotion going on near the bartender, but he’s handling it well.

We can speak freely without being too concerned about any eavesdropping.

Hendrick tells his story first.

“It took some digging around. I couldn’t tell who was the first one she saved, since it was years ago and their stories aren’t entirely accurate, but they were among some of the first. There was a woman who was tricked by her party, stripped down of all her gear and left to die alone.

“It was on the 7th floor, when she heard several draulin hunting her. A catilyss came and killed the draulin, then helped guide and protect her until she reached the 5th floor. The catilyss ran away and she was found by other adventurers shortly after.”

He gestures to Reyah, allowing her to tell the story she heard.

“Two brothers, adventurers seeking fortune, were in a hurry to go deep. Thing is, they entered a dungeon in Beck, and somehow came out into Altena.”

I nod my head, remembering the ‘cross-dungeon theory’ that people have talked about among several guild forums.

Many people have experienced crossing over into other dungeons from different parts of the world; no one knows how it works yet, but they speculate it could be used as a new form of travel.

“Yeah, Beck is in the west, in the Corelan region.”

I said, then wait to hear more from Reyah.

She nods in agreement, as we are all aware of the cross-dungeon theory.

“Their rope snapped, and they fell down a hole. After wandering aimlessly for a few days, they ran out of food and water, holing up somewhere relatively safe. They said a catilyss found them, brought them a half-full waterskin to drink, and led them out. They fought monsters together on their way out and even passed by the area they first landed in, when they fell.

“Turns out, they were first traveling down a few floors, uncertain where the way out was. When I asked them what floor they found the catilyss, they guessed around the 9th to the 13th floor. Again, she left the adventurers just before more arrived.”

Hendrick speaks up again.

“There were a few other stories like those. Someone got lost, injured, or trapped somewhere, and Alice found them. Some of the adventurers recall her using tools or other adventurer’s gear, some describe her as just an intelligent animal, but the locations that she’s been in, vary. They range from the 6th floor, all the way up to the 27th.”

“Alice found me on the 23rd floor, right?”

“Right, but… there was one adventurer that said he found Alice on the 44th floor…”

“That… that’s where demons live.”

“The man is known as No Storm.”

Reyah adds,

“He’s a high-leveled adventurer.”

“This was a time before he earned his name, he was only level 29 then. His party went on a rescue mission, like when we went to rescue you. There were thirty members, and only two of them were high-leveled. A threat-level 4 demon appeared, it had already killed the people that they went out to rescue and hunted down the rescue party.

“People were dying left and right, No Storm was badly injured, unable to fight anymore. It was the battle where he lost his left hand. While the demon was busy killing No Storm’s allies, Alice appeared and dragged him through a hidden passageway. He wanted to bring more people with him, but it was already too late.

“They were already dead. Alice practically had to drag him to a hidden location. She patched his wounds, and forced him to eat, drink, and recover. The man spent days in the dark, he was in shock.”

“Did she make him drink something like blood?”

“Blood?”

“Yeah, Alice had some monster blood in a waterskin. It’s a raw potion ingredient.”

“No, he didn’t mention anything like that, he had to heal the normal way. When No Storm finally got back to his senses, he tried to leave. Alice didn’t stop him, but she brought him enough supplies to get moving on his own. When he lit a torch, he finally got a good look at Alice.

“She was in bad shape. One of her ears was missing, an eye was swollen closed, she had a lot of nasty wounds, and she limped everywhere.”

“But… Alice’s ears are both fine and she didn’t look like she was limping when I first met her.”

“I thought it was a different catilyss too, when he said that, but when I asked him what the catilyss looked like, he described her fur and hair just the same. Alice, or maybe a twin of hers, led No Storm through the dungeon, avoiding most combat. She didn’t kill anything, not even the weaker monsters when they reached the lower-level floors.

“No Storm says they slept somewhere safe on the 10th floor, and when he woke up, she was gone.”

“That doesn’t sound at all like the other stories…”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Do you think we should ask her about it?”

“No, now’s not a good time…”

I let out a heavy sigh then explained to the dwarves what happened after they left.

“So… Alice was a human?”

Reyah stares at her empty mug in thought.

Hendrick clears his throat.

“Well, it’s good to finally clear up some misunderstandings. I want nothing more than to help her live a normal life, but we can’t force her to start learning right away. It’s good to give her some time, but when we get back later, we should try to help her learn 10 common items.”

The teal-haired man gives me an excited look as he holds an envelope in hand.

I notice the royal insignia on the front.

“What’s that?”

He chuckles heartily,

“It’s time to pay the king a visit!”