AN: For those who have read my other works, welcome, and yes, this is going to be vastly different than like anything I have written before. It is mostly for me to practice a new area of writing and more adult themes. Plus, we all know, we love snu-snu. There are auxiliary chapters there for everyone to read to get the basis of what I plan to do; feedback is welcome.
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I died. That's the only thing I remember clearly.
The rest of it? Just a hazy blur. The cold of the hospital bed, the beep of machines slowing down, and the muffled voices of nurses in plastic suits. Then, nothing. No light at the end of the tunnel. No grand farewell. Just the void. Then I woke up.
Not in my bed. Not even in a hospital. I woke up in a cradle, with wooden bars and silk blankets, in a room that smelled like herbs and smoke. I couldn't move my neck much, but I could see flickering candlelight on stone walls, a woman with fox ears humming gently as she leaned over me, and another beast-like figure, this one with a long tail and fur-covered arms, rocking a chair in the corner.
"What should we name him?" the fox-eared woman asked. Her voice was soft, warm. It didn't sound like English, but somehow, I understood it.
"Derek," the other replied. "It was written on that strange tag around his wrist when we found him. Derek… Warren."
So they kept the name. My name.
Everything that happened after that felt like a strange dream. But no matter how many days passed, I didn't wake up back in my old life. I was stuck in this new one, born, or rather reborn, into a world that was not my own.
I later learned I was dropped off at the doorstep of a small-town orphanage tucked into a sleepy valley. They say it used to be a human stronghold before the last purge. Whatever that means. I was found wrapped in what looked like an old hospital gown, with a faded ID band on my wrist. The head matron, a gentle goat-like woman named Yana, always said I was a "miracle baby," whatever that meant. She had thick curled horns, soft brown fur on her forearms, and eyes like polished amber.
"Little strange one, you've got the eyes of a dying star," she said the first time I looked up at her. I didn't know what that meant either, but I remember it sticking with me.
The orphanage wasn't terrible. Cold in the winter, sure, but warm food, clean beds, and plenty of other kids who, like me, had no place to go. Most of them weren't fully human though. Most had tails or claws or ears that twitched when they got nervous. I was the only one with no fur, no scales, no glowing eyes or weird teeth. Just… me. They didn't treat me badly. But I wasn't quite one of them either. Not really.
My earliest clear memory was the first snow I saw in this world. I was maybe four? Five? Old enough to walk and talk, at least. I remember pressing my face to the frost-covered window and staring as white flakes drifted down from the sky like ash. I remember thinking snow didn't look this real before.
Back on Earth, the snow was gray. Dirty. Cold in a depressing way. But here? It glittered like tiny shards of glass in the morning light. Like something magical.
I was bundled up in a hand-knit cloak, too big for me, dragging in the slush as I stomped outside. The twins, Ruka and Tani, were already rolling balls of snow to make a snow beast. Tani had tiny bear ears and a mean right hook. Ruka loved to read.
They waved me over, smiling. "Wanna help?" Tani asked. "We're making a Snow Fang." I had no idea what that was, but I nodded anyway.
The years passed slowly. I learned to read the runes carved into the stones by the village square. I learned that fire magic could be dangerous if you didn't concentrate. I learned that mana was something you felt, like a shiver under your skin. I didn't have much of it, not like the others, but I could still feel it.
Every child in the village had a status screen appear when they turned five. It shimmered into the air the moment you looked into the village's soul mirror, an old relic from before the "Collapse." I was nervous when it was my turn.
The mirror didn't show much. No race abilities. No class potential yet. Just my name.
Name: Derek Warren
Race: Human
Age: 5
Class: —
Mana: 2
Traits: —
Title: Orphan
The room had gone quiet when the head priest read it aloud. Not because it was impressive. Because it was empty. Too empty. No traits. No magic affinity. Not even a hint of beast-kin lineage. Just Human, a word you didn't see often anymore. The priest, an old crow-faced man with feathers for hair, clicked his tongue.
"An echo," he muttered.
Yana smacked him on the back of the head with her cane. "He's a child, not a ghost."
Still, word spread. The other kids didn't treat me any different to my face. But they looked at me a little longer now. Whispered a little more when I passed by. And I felt it, deep down, I wasn't supposed to be here. Not in their world. Not in this body. But I was.
There wasn't much to do in the orphanage besides chores, playing with the others, or listening to stories the older beastfolk told us at night. Yana always told the best ones. She used to sit by the fire, her cane across her lap, and tell tales about the Great Beasts, the Hunters, and the ranks that shaped the world.
F-rank monsters were pests. Wolves, goblins, little flying imps that chewed on laundry. D-rank monsters could kill you if you weren't careful, like bonecats or whispering vines. C-rank and up? That was where it got interesting. Monsters that could use magic. Monsters with names. Monsters that remembered your face.
And then there were the SS-ranks. The ones that made the earth shake when they walked. The ones who had kingdoms hidden in forgotten mountains or deep jungles. The ones who could speak, lie, love, or curse you into a thousand lives of pain.
"Some monsters," Yana said once, her eyes flickering in the firelight, "look just like us. Sound like us. But you'll know them by the hunger in their eyes." I didn't know why that made me shiver.
When I turned six, I began to have dreams. Not nightmares. Not exactly. But visions. A woman with long silver hair and no face. A hand stretched out across a field of red sky and black grass. A name I could never remember upon waking.
One night, I woke up sweating, the sheets tangled around my legs, heart pounding like I'd run a mile. I looked at my hands in the moonlight and, for a second, I didn't recognize them. Too small. Too soft. Then it faded.
One afternoon, when I was about seven, a merchant caravan came through the village. They brought fabrics, spices, and monsters in iron cages. I remember pushing through the crowd to see them. One was a snake woman, scales shimmering green and gold, eyes slitted and sad. Another was a harpy, wings bound in glowing rope, glaring at everyone who passed.
I stared too long. The harpy locked eyes with me. She blinked. Once. And said in perfect, fluent English, "You don't belong here either."
Then the merchant whipped her cage and she screeched, curling into herself. I didn't tell anyone what she said. I couldn't. Because no one else would have understood it. By the time I was eight, I'd made up my mind.
I wasn't going to be a tailor or a rune scribe like Yana wanted. I wasn't going to join the temple like old crow-face suggested. I was going to be a Monster Hunter. Not just any hunter. The best. The kind they told stories about long after the bones turned to dust.
I'd find answers. I'd find power. And maybe, just maybe, I'd find a way to belong.