I'm surrounded by a sphere of flesh. Not bare skin, not cold stone—flesh. Alive, soft, warm, yet somehow alien to me. I feel it from the inside, like it's both the shell that traps me and the body I've become. It's covered in a fine white fur, thin as mist, smooth to the touch, though I can barely even touch myself. I don't know if it's mine or if I've been swallowed by something else, but either way, I'm stuck inside it, forced to live with this shape.
Where my hands should be—I can still half-remember them, fingers, joints, the strength to clench a fist—there's only a pair of small, limp, white fins. When I bring them to my mouth and bite down, I realize just how useless they are. My teeth don't cut, don't tear. They only leave shallow marks, like a blunt knife dragging across wax. I've got no edge. Not even enough to hurt myself.
My vision's barely there. I don't know if it's my eyes, my body, or the place itself, but the world looks like a blurry dream where the edges flicker and darkness rules. Still, there are signs. The damp smell hanging in the air, the slimy moss under me, the echo of water dripping steadily against stone. All of it tells me the same thing: I'm in a cave. Closed, deep, wet, unfamiliar.
There's no real light. The place isn't pitch-black, but what little breaks the gloom is too faint to hold onto. A pale green glow, strange, alive, seeps up from the underground lake stretching through most of the cavern. Not fire, not torchlight, not sunlight—it's algae. Breathing quietly in the depths, giving off a ghostly shimmer. It doesn't guide me, but at least it proves I'm not completely blind.
"Ghrrr~…"
The sound shakes through me. A growl. For a second I freeze, sure something's hiding in the dark, fangs bared between the wet rocks. But no. The growl's not outside. It's from me. My stomach, empty, demanding.
Hunger comes. First like a gentle reminder, then like an invisible weight pressing in from the inside. It's not deadly yet, but I know—I know with a certainty that hurts—that if I don't find something to eat here, it'll turn unbearable, and fast. Here, with no tools, no teeth, no hands, nothing… the need to eat might be the start of my end.
And what's here? Moss. Dull green, spreading across the ground, damp and rough. A pathetic excuse for food, unworthy, but the only thing on offer.
I take a deep breath—if this body even breathes—and lean forward. I press my lips over the leaves and bite down with what teeth I've got against the roots. The pull is sharp; the little stem comes free, dirt and all, and with it I lose my balance. I'm too light, too round, my weight spread all wrong. The effort throws me backward, and I tumble clumsily a few meters, thudding against the ground with my own body until I manage to stop.
I stay still for a moment, startled, gasping awkwardly. And I'm thankful—absurd as it is—that I didn't roll down a slope. With this shape, a single incline would be my death, a helpless fall until I smashed against a rocky wall.
Still, I've got what I tore out. Moss, roots, and dirt. I shove it into my mouth and chew it all together, no way to separate one thing from another. No hands, no fingers to pick what's edible from what's not. Everything goes in: wet leaves, clay-heavy soil, coarse roots. The taste is vile. Muddy earth, bitter roots scraping, and an acidity that burns my tongue. The gagging is instant, violent, and I can't force it down.
I spit it out with a sharp "Bleh!" that echoes through the cave. The mess sprays out, but some of it stays: dust clinging to my useless teeth, to my soft gums, a nasty trace that makes me wince.
The tears catch me off guard. They fall from my eyes without warning, but they're not like the tears I remember. They're not clear water, not liquid relief. They're heavy, thicker than water, with an oily shimmer that makes them slide down slowly, burning as they touch my skin. Every drop feels wrong, like it doesn't belong to me, like this body doesn't even know how to cry right.
And there, while I shake off that sticky feeling, something happens.
A pain. A sudden scratch I can't place. Sharp, piercing, like an invisible blade has slipped straight through me, meeting no resistance, like my body's as soft as an overripe berry.
The scream doesn't come. It chokes in my throat. I twist, trying to pull away from whatever's striking me. My cloudy vision searches for something—anything—but the darkness gives me nothing.
And then—
The world changes.
Gravity leaves me, along with the certainty that I'm grounded to the floor. My body tightens, or maybe I'm just shrinking—I can't tell. Everything dissolves in an instant, and before I realize it, I'm falling. My body plunges into the lake, dragged down into its depths.
And the strange thing is—it doesn't feel strange.
The water receives me like it's my real home. No cold, no suffocation. I can feel the liquid seeping into every part of me, stroking the white fur that covers me, holding me in a stillness that doesn't feel unfamiliar.
And then I hear it.
A voice.
It doesn't come from outside. It doesn't echo through the cavern, doesn't vibrate on the water's surface. It rises from inside me, from the very place where my thoughts are born. A voice like my own, but warped, a distorted echo of my consciousness, carrying a weight I can't ignore.
"[Marine Traits] have been acquired."
The message isn't a warning or advice—it's a sentence. And the moment I hear it, I feel it: something inside me shifts. Like an unseen mechanism has turned, rearranging the pieces of what I am.
"Trait ability: [Adaptation to Oxygen Deprivation Lv1] has been acquired."
"Trait ability: [Polar Resistance Lv1] has been acquired."
I understand what they mean without explanation. It isn't learned knowledge—it's imposed, dropped into me like a brand-new instinct. Now I know I can endure this lake, this cold, this depth, without oxygen or temperature standing in my way.
I float for a moment, dazed, spinning slowly on my own axis. The water holds me with ease, and in that clumsy drift, my eyes finally lock onto a glow: the algae.
The same ones that barely lit the cave from the shore now shine in full force. Long green strands sway with the current, each one casting a radiance that dyes the water emerald. They're like living columns, tiny beacons breathing, swaying gently, painting the darkness in strokes of light.
Hypnotized, I let myself drift toward them. And another voice cuts through me.
"Trait ability: [Aqua Impulse Lv1] has been acquired."
I don't have time to wonder what it means. The water behind me suddenly compresses, then bursts outward with force. The pressure launches me forward, my body shooting ahead at a speed I never thought possible—like I've just discovered a hidden muscle I didn't know I had.
The feeling overwhelms me. I'm clumsy, round, strange… but for the first time, I feel like I can move with purpose.
Thousands of green lights shimmer through the water, spiraling around me like liquid crystals. And there, among them, I see them.
Fish.
Small, silver, slippery. They dart through the algae with ease, slipping between glowing stalks, moving in groups that scatter and reform as if they were one creature. Their bodies are simple, but to me they mean only one thing: food.
The hunger I'd held back roars inside me again. My eyes lock on them and, without thinking, I hurl myself forward, carried by that aquatic thrust that already feels like it's mine.
The fish notice me. And they flee.
The school breaks apart in a hundred directions, a chaotic swarm that scrambles my senses. I turn, chase one, then another, and lose them in an instant. Hunger mixes with frustration, and I feel myself spinning in the dance of flickering lights, glowing and vanishing all around me.
But there's one.
One that strays too far, lagging behind, vulnerable. Whether by clumsiness or chance, it doesn't rejoin the group. I see it, and I know—it's mine.
I surge after it. The water bends to me, compressing behind my body and hurling me forward in sharper, steadier bursts. The gap closes.
"Trait ability: [Aqua Impulse] has reached Lv2."
The voice echoes in my mind again, and instantly I feel it—I'm faster. My body slices through the water with ease, every burst stronger, steadier. And yet, the fish stays just ahead, resisting capture.
The hunger eats at me. I wish I had arms, fingers, nails to grab it, squeeze it, kill it, and shove it into my mouth the way a human would. But all I've got are these useless fins.
"Gah—!"
The pain cuts me off. Sharp, searing, this time in my stomach. Like something ripping open from the inside. I can't stop now—if I give in, the fish will get away, and I'll stay empty.
The pain grows. My belly tears open with a wet sound, like fabric being ripped apart.
"Uh…?"
What spills out isn't blood. It's darkness.
Thick, viscous darkness that seeps from the wound and wraps around me. Inside it, something changes. My perspective splits in two. I'm no longer seeing through that white-furred sphere. I'm looking out from a human face. And there—my arms. Black hands pushing out from the shadow, reaching forward as if they'd been waiting for this moment.
"[Virtual Traits] have been acquired."
"Trait ability: [Dimensional Pocket Lv1] has been acquired."
The voice goes on, relentless, like a narrator of a fate I don't understand.
The fish is still there, thrashing through the water, but I can feel it close. I stretch my arm toward it, and my fingers—black just a moment ago—turn to flesh right before they brush against it.
"Trait ability: [Extracorporeal Manifestation Lv1] has been acquired."
I half-catch it, tugging awkwardly, dragging it toward me, into the darkness that claims me.
I return.
The shadow pulls back, my hands vanish into the torn cavity of my belly, and my eyes snap back to those of the small white sphere. But now, between my lips, the fish thrashes—alive, desperate.
I bite down. No edge, no teeth sharp enough, only barely managing to hold it. It writhes, its scales scraping down my throat, but I don't stop. I swallow it whole, alive, feeling it sink deep inside me.
"You've gained 43 experience points."
"[Selkie: unnamed] has reached Lv2."
The words echo, strange, yet they soothe me. Maybe it's a trick, an illusion, but something in me really does change. I feel less weak, less hollow.
The hunger eases.
And with it, the fear.
I turn. Darkness swallows everything again, except for one distant point of light: the glow of the algae, now a lone beacon far away. I've drifted farther than I thought. Still, I'm grateful for it—it's always good to have a path back to where I began.
I start swimming toward the place where I woke, moving with a strange, almost tender calm. I'm not big, not fast—I can feel it with every clumsy thrust that barely pushes me forward. But even so, inside that limitation, I find comfort. Knowing I can hunt fish, that I can ease my hunger, gives me a sense of safety I didn't expect. Relief. Even as the gloom wraps around me and the cavern seems to close in, the simple fact that I don't have to give in to hunger's despair anchors me against madness.
It's not much. But it's enough.
And there's one more detail, small but strangely comforting: my eyes. They're not set on the sides of my head like a fish's. They're in front, where they've always been. I can focus, stare, fix on a point without the clumsiness of a perpetual side-view. It may seem insignificant, but it isn't. If I want to keep seeing myself as human—if I want to keep thinking of myself as me—I need those reminders. And the shape of my eyes is enough, for now.
Silence follows me on the way back, heavy and absolute. I'm no stranger to it. Since I opened my eyes here—how long has it been? Just minutes? Or an eternity compressed into moments?—silence has been my only company. Only my stomach, growling and rumbling, had dared to break it before. The fish, small as they were, never made a sound. Even the water, all around me, has no voice. And now that my hunger's quieted, the cave breathes in a stillness so deep it feels unnatural.
Fear is born from that silence. I don't say it out loud, but I know. I don't fear what I hear—I fear what I don't. What could be there, hidden, waiting in this endless dark. Because even if I don't know what kind of world this is, instinct doesn't change: there's always fear of the unknown. Irrational, yes—but human. And I need to cling to that, even if it's only a spark. Holding onto fear, in some way, means holding onto my humanity.
But there's something stronger than fear now: curiosity. That too is human. And inevitable. I can't just let go of what happened before.
The abilities.
The moment I think of them, the instant I let my mind circle around the question, something happens. A screen—bright, alien—overlays itself before me, projected over reality as if it were part of it. A window slicing through the water and the darkness, existing not in real space, but in my perception.
And there it is:
[Selkie: unnamed | Lvl: 2/25]
Fatigue: 12% / 100%
HP: 1335 / 1335 MP: 1289 / 1328
Magic Affinity: 461 Piercing: 224
Endurance: 353 Speed: 1249
[Basic Traits]
HP Auto-Recovery: Lv1
MP Auto-Recovery: Lv1
Aurora Inflexion: Lv1
Art of Human Transfiguration: Lv1
[Marine Traits]
Polar Resistance: Lv1
Oxygen Deprivation Adaptation: Lv1
Aqua Impulse: Lv2
[Virtual Traits]
Dimensional Pocket: Lv1
Extracorporeal Manifestation: Lv1
The words don't just appear—they weigh on me. Heavy, like each one isn't just written but carries physical weight inside me. This isn't some external record, not a scroll or a codex found in ruins: it's my body, translated into symbols, into numbers, into concepts. My limits and my possibilities, ordered in a language I've never seen but understand effortlessly.
I feel it instantly: this screen is me. Every digit, every line, is my reflection in an unknown mirror.
A shiver runs over my skin—if it can still be called skin. I don't know if I should feel fear or fascination. But deep down, where the essence of what I am beats, an impossible certainty overwhelms me:
This isn't a dream. Not that I ever thought it was.
The attributes aren't what I'm used to. Some I grasp right away—endurance, speed… classic concepts, easy to guess. But others, like piercing or magic affinity, are total mysteries. Their numbers stand before me, cold and unchanging, but their meaning slips past me. I know they matter, that they'll measure my effectiveness or power, but for now I can only accept them as strange signs, symbols of a language I don't yet command.
No use overthinking. Not now. The urgency to understand them isn't greater than the urgency to survive in this strange lake.
Without realizing it, lost in thought with the screen floating before my eyes, I drift straight into the algae. The water turns green around me, strands curling once more on all sides, moving gently in the current. I can't tell where the floor begins or the ceiling ends, or which way should even be called up or down. But it doesn't matter. I feel oddly relaxed. The touch of the algae cradles me, holds me; I can close my eyes for a moment and just stop moving. I don't fall. I'm contained, wrapped in a vegetal embrace that soothes me.
«"What if…?"»
The thought pricks at me, small and sharp. One mistake could strip away the light I've come to value, the glow that guides me through this liquid dark. But curiosity, always human, is stronger than fear. Carefully, slowly, I descend toward the lakebed.
To my surprise, it's not that far. The floor rises to meet me, carpeted in algae and tiny sparks, like a green tapestry stretched over a dark canvas.
I tear a few strands of algae from the roots, as carefully as I can. Any sudden pull could break the harmony around me. Each strand feels alive, flexible and soft, yet strong, like it's used to holding out against the weight of this lake.
I focus.
I try to force what happened before. To bring back that—the thing that came out of me when the skill triggered. That black, hollow form peeling away from the fluffy, white ball of fur.
It doesn't take long. Almost instant. Once a skill is unlocked, it's weirdly easy to use, like my body knows what to do. It hits me clear now: this fluffy body, soft and white, is just a costume. That isn't me. It's just the cover. The shell that hides what's really moving when I use [Out-of-body Manifestation].
That black form—the one that shows up when I trigger the skill—it isn't just a shadow. It's the release of something caged inside the fluff. And when I come back, when I slip back into this body, I'm just using that form's eyes. A way to see the world from outside myself. It all lines up. Makes sense. It's practical, not just some creepy trick.
But it's not all good.
Worry creeps in when I notice how the MP ticks down, slow but steady. Tiny drops at first, but enough to remind me this power isn't infinite.
MP: 1287 / 1328
Doesn't look bad.
MP: 1274 / 1328
But the pattern's clear. Every second outside eats away at it. My time's limited.
MP: 1268 / 1328
I can't risk burning it dry. Don't know what happens when it hits zero. Will I just snap back into the fluff? Or does something worse happen? The thought hangs over me, heavy, like the cave itself.
Still… knowing I can split away from this shell, move out and look at things from another angle—it's a rush. A mix of power and fragility all at once.
It's a hell of a discovery.
With algae still clamped in my mouth, I float up to the cave's surface. Their glow doesn't fade; it stays steady, soft, like a thread of hope in this drowning dark. My idea is simple: press the roots against the rocky ground, just enough to let them soak in nutrients, just enough to stay alive.
I break through the water and touch the cold stone again. And now I see it—the cave was never as wide as I thought back when I was lost in confusion. I can trace the contours, the cracks. And more: openings to other chambers, other tunnels. Too high for me to reach, for now. But it's a sign. Proof this place isn't just a hole in the ground, but part of a maze hiding more secrets.
And then… the pain hits.
Not the sharp bite of the manifestation skill. Different. More like the one that knocked me into the water the first time. A deep stab that lashes out from inside, cutting through me like an invisible whip.
Last time, I fell by accident. This time, I hold still, trying to reason it out, keep calm, ignore the surge of pain.
But my thoughts snap in half.
The ground vanishes under me—not from a stumble, not from a current. I'm lifted, slow, held by something I can't process at first. A cold, firm grip. Fingers. Five of them.
Human fingers.
A shiver claws down my spine.
"GRHHHAAAAA—!"
The scream tears the cave apart. Not mine. The thing holding me.
I see it clear. And I wish I didn't.
Not an animal. Not even a primate. Something worse. A corpse.
Mold and rot eat through it, flesh wet and sagging, eyes hollow but fixed in the cave's dark. Its arms clamp down on me with a strength that doesn't belong to the dead. The mix of lifeless weight and a grip too alive churns panic through every part of me.
The stench slams into me—thick, wet rot flooding my senses. I thrash, caught between disbelief and horror, but those rigid fingers dig into me, iron-strong.
My small, strange body dangles, helpless, while the corpse holds me up like prey. Instinct screams at me, but the cave walls and water choke out any escape.
The silence that had been my only companion is gone. Now there's only the squelch of rotted flesh, the slap of water, and the chill crawling through my fur.
And through it all, one thought won't let go:
What the hell is this?