Lisa hadn't picked any fights since the trouble with the male tiger that day. On the surface, she seemed quiet and submissive, as if frightened by everything that had happened. But inside, she was anything but calm. Her mind was in turmoil.
If she was right, Lisa had somehow ended up inside the last book she read. It was impossible, made no sense at all, but somehow it was real. She felt pain, and no matter how many times she tried to sleep and wake back home, she couldn't.
What had happened to her? Had she landed in some alternate reality? Were all stories real somewhere in the world? Lisa had no idea and might never understand what happened. That, along with the pain in her tongue, caused her the most suffering.
After all, what had happened to her? Her last memory was leaving on her motorcycle; after that, a vast nothingness surrounded her memory, no matter how many times she tried to recall.
And what about her parents and friends? What had happened to them?
Although all these questions and many more kept her awake all night in this strange world, the truth was that she didn't have time to dwell on them.
That's because her immediate reality was far more urgent.
If Lisa was right and this was really the world of the books she'd read, and all signs pointed to it, then she was in a terrible situation.
Of course, no book was necessary for her to figure that out. She was in a cage, tongue-less, and in pain. She couldn't bathe, and the times she ate or drank water were controlled. Nobody spoke to her, and even if they did, she couldn't respond, mutilated as she was.
Combining her current reality with what she knew of the story, Lisa knew her situation was at least three times worse than it seemed, if that was even possible. Perhaps because she'd recently read the book, she still remembered the plot.
The villain, whose name was also Lisa, had caused a war between the fox clan, where she had built her influence for years, and the tiger clan, where the female protagonist Eleanor lived. During this war, many lives were lost, and in the end, to no one's surprise, the villain lost.
Served her right.
But now that Lisa had taken the villain's place, things didn't seem as satisfying anymore.
From what she knew, she had entered the villain Lisa's body right after the end of the story. If that was true, then she was facing punishment for all the evil the former Lisa had caused. It wasn't fair. Why should others commit crimes and she pay for them? She couldn't help but think.
According to the plot, Lisa had her tongue cut out and was banished from any minimally organized city. This meant she was headed to a lawless land, where women, a minority in this world, had to fight with fervor, intelligence, and cunning to survive.
Places like these allowed women, a rarity in the world of beasts, to be sold for a high price. That was Lisa's fate. And since she was without her greatest weapon, her voice, it was unlikely she'd have any chance of a good life wherever she ended up.
How could she talk to anyone? Maybe this punishment had been chosen for Lisa because she was famous for her smooth-talking. Hadn't she climbed to the top of the fox clan's food chain precisely because of her manipulative abilities?
Without a voice, she couldn't do any of that, but perhaps the tigers' clan hatred of her and the protagonist was so great that even without a tongue, the males taking her away to be sold all seemed to belong to the tiger clan. They would never listen to her or pity her. Her last attempt proved that. And as if the excessive security wasn't enough, all the males seemed to be mated, each bore a red ink spiral around their forearm, from wrist to elbow, marking them as claimed. It seemed they wanted to make sure she wouldn't attract any of her guards.
It was bad enough to have transmigrated into a universe where monsters and magic existed, men turned into animals, and women were fragile and had to rely on massive harems to survive. But ending up as the villain after her defeat made everything worse.
The antagonist had been defeated and was destined for a terrible life of misery and exploitation.
Since she was in her body, Lisa couldn't let that happen.
She tried to gather what she knew about the main antagonist while being transported by the tiger males, the wooden cage swaying on a primitive kind of wheel, which, along with the pain in her tongue, made concentration difficult. But she knew that if she didn't ignore these sensations that made her want to curl up and cry, they would become the least of her problems.
The Lisa from the books was petty, ambitious, and envious. She was the kind of friend who always wanted to feel superior. Back on Earth, she was rich and spoiled, the daughter of a major company CEO. Eleanor, her best friend, was the daughter of a maid in her house. Their relationship was well-established. Lisa commanded, Eleanor obeyed. When they took a trip to some famous caves and got lost, everything changed. They ended up in the beast world. There, both Lisa and Eleanor were equals, starting with nothing and clueless about what was happening.
Over time, however, they reached a city governed by the tiger clan, and there, they began to understand the world they'd entered. Eleanor, kind and gentle, attracted increasingly powerful males, rose to a high position in the tiger clan, and became famous for improving everyone's lives with her modern knowledge. Lisa, on the other hand, hadn't done badly, but everything she achieved wasn't as good as what Eleanor had. Her males weren't as powerful, her ideas didn't work, and even when both had children, Lisa ended up with several male cubs and only one female after much effort. Eleanor, on the other hand, achieved something nearly impossible in the beast world: she had many female cubs.
How could Lisa, accustomed to being the best and looking down on everyone, adapt to being the one at the bottom? Worse, below Eleanor, the maid's daughter she'd always considered inferior? Her ego wouldn't allow it.
She became ruder and harsher with her friend, bitter and wanting more. No one accepted this. Eleanor didn't even have to do anything, everyone rushed to defend her, and after a series of bad plans to take down her ex-friend, Lisa was expelled from the tiger city.
Everyone thought the problems left with her, but who would've thought she'd manage to provoke a war between two of the most powerful cities in the beast world? Thanks to Lisa, the tiger and fox clans fought, and in the end, she was defeated and sold, while Eleanor won over the tiger king with her bravery and became queen.
That was the end of the story.
At least, that's how the book she read ended. Lisa had transmigrated into the book Lisa's body just as she was about to pay for her crimes.
She tried to assess her situation. During the war, Lisa lost all her males except two. Rhalen, the fox male responsible for her downfall, and Asher, a snake male she despised but accepted in the end because of his tempting magic.
She searched her body for their marks.
A long tattoo of a white snake coiled around her shoulder to her collarbone, that was the first one she found. Asher, the snake male, was the oldest of Lisa's many companions. Since snake men had a bad reputation, she hadn't initially wanted him as a mate, but he convinced her that white snakes brought good luck. And Lisa believed it.
This was Asher's extraordinary ability: he apparently had absurd luck. At over 200 years old, he shouldn't have survived without it. As a male without a clan, unaffiliated with any village or city, Asher was considered by many to be feral, a despicable, rotten creature who stole females and killed other males indiscriminately. Yet he survived despite it all, even thriving.
In a world where a beast man's strength, magic, and power were manifested through stripes on his body, he stood out as Lisa's most powerful male, boasting five stripes. In a book where the most powerful character had six, that was quite an achievement.
But despite mating with him, Lisa never fully trusted him. When the weather cooled, Asher, like many other cold-blooded animals, went into brumation, and by the time he awoke, Lisa had already started the war.
It was foolish. Who went into battle without their most powerful weapon? But the past and the antagonist's foolish acts weren't important now. The question that needed answering was: where was Asher? Perhaps he was still in brumation, unaware of everything his mate had done. How would he react when he woke up? Lisa remembered that he was very protective of Lisa, whether because she was his mate or because he truly loved her she had no idea. For now, it was good to keep him in mind.
Would he notice that she wasn't the Lisa he'd mated with? That she was in a body that wasn't hers?
Lisa looked at the tattoo. They were truly magical. After mating, the males would have red spirals on their forearms, while the females received a sort of totem in the form of their mate's animal. For Asher, she received a well-drawn white snake that almost seemed alive.
Lisa knew they were magical and that some women could remove a male's mark and end the bond, but such cases were rare, and the female had to be skilled to do so.
There were also other abilities associated with the totem. Depending on the strength of the bond between her and the male, some females could sense their partner's thoughts or emotions, or even their location.
Lisa felt nothing, neither from Asher, her snake mate, nor from the totem of her fox mate, Rhalen. She wrung her hands, considering how she felt about having a magical union stronger than marriage with two unknown men (males).
She wanted to live; that was her strongest thought. Women in the beast world didn't have many special powers, and their greatest strength seemed to lie in the influence they had over their partners.
But Lisa was used to living in a harsh world for women.
The question was how to be strong in this world. Without extraordinary abilities, women depended on their harems to wield power. Wasn't that how both the protagonist and the villain of the books became strong? Lisa didn't think her desire for a monogamous relationship was strong enough to risk her life.
She had lived in a three-way relationship before, though she hadn't known at the time, and when she found out... well, let's just say betrayal hurt.
She should prioritize her own survival above all else. Her desires and happiness would come later. Would she return home? Neither the protagonist nor the antagonist managed it. What happened to her to end up in this world and what happened to her family and friends, as well as whether she hated having a polyamorous relationship, would be questions for later when she was safe.
She looked at the totem of her fox mate, Rhalen, with complicated emotions. He loved the female protagonist, Eleanor, and had revealed all of Lisa's plans to her. There was no word to describe him except one: traitor.
But she couldn't blame him. He loved Eleanor and would've joined her if Lisa hadn't drugged him with a powerful aphrodisiac and forced a union between them.
That was equivalent to rape. No one could blame him for holding a grudge.
But that didn't change the fact that he was cunning and shrewd. It wasn't safe to deal with him; it was safer to keep him away.
The antagonist herself had never discovered he was an enemy until it was too late.
He was also intelligent and the father of Lisa's only female cub. While all her other companions and cubs had been executed, one of the book's most traumatic scenes, he managed to keep his own daughter alive.
It wouldn't be good to provoke him.
As for the death of everyone connected to the antagonist, and this daughter she had... well, it wasn't a question she intended or had the time to think about now.
It seemed her only weapon was to get strong males. Without that, she would be used and trampled by everyone.
Before she could think further, the cage she was in shook, causing Lisa to hit her face against one of the wooden bars, cutting herself in the process.
She grimaced. What had happened?
But she discovered the answer to her question a moment later.
They had reached their destination. Surrounded by her guards and locked in a cage, Lisa had arrived at the village where she would be sold.