Most creatures shy away from harming those that resemble them.
If someone were to offer me a hefty sum of money and a dagger to kill the animal in front of me, I could do it.
It wasn’t that I had no aversion to taking life, but it was worth the risk.
I might hesitate a little, but it’s doable. If I close my eyes and endure just once, I could live lavishly for the rest of my life, right?
I could stab the knife into the animal’s body.
“······.”
Then, what if that someone offered me ten times more money and asked me to kill a human this time? Could I do that?
Gripping the dagger as before, I now stand in front of a human.
Unlike with the animal, my hands began to tremble. Our eyes met.
The human, bound and tearful, shook their head vigorously as if pleading for mercy.
It would hurt if I stabbed them, right? There would probably be blood. It would be a nightmare, and I might live my whole life burdened by guilt.
I dropped the dagger from my hand.
To put it simply, I couldn’t kill a human. More precisely, it seemed I hesitated to kill a being that resembled me.
And then.
After some time, now that I was no longer human, I could kill humans.
I felt no aversion to murder like I once did, nor did I feel great guilt.
I didn’t ignore the weight of the lives I had taken, but fundamentally, I thought I had to survive first.
When I thought of it as a matter of my survival, I hesitated less.
It was strange. Just the other day, hadn’t I been trembling at the thought of killing one person?
Comparing the me then to the me now, not much about my personality had changed.
What’s different between the me then and the me now? I sank into deep thought. Not long after, I found the answer.
For some time now, I hadn’t recognized humans as my kin.
At some point, I stopped thinking of humans as resembling me.
Then, as a monster, could I kill a monster resembling me?
It’s an old question.
*
Exterminating monsters was quite difficult for Iria.
Whenever she tried to swing her sword, her hands stiffened, and whenever she attempted to use magic, the incantation would stop right before completion.
She was hesitating. Even though they didn’t resemble her, they were kin with magical energy flowing in their bodies.
Seeing Iria hesitate, Lucia spoke up, seemingly surprised.
“I didn’t see that coming. Are you a pacifist? Can’t even kill an ant?”
“······.”
“I’m not trying to say anything; I’m just curious. If you don’t want to say, then don’t.”
Her question wasn’t malicious. It was simply in contrast to the violent image of Iria she had witnessed so far.
But even that simple question seemed to plunge Iria into deep thought. Having observed Iria during the practice period, Lucia felt she had a rough idea of what kind of person she was.
Iria remained silent, but she wasn’t ignoring the question. Given her cautious nature, she was just taking her time to think through her response.
Then she turned the question back on Lucia.
“Is there a reason to kill?”
“A reason to kill?”
“Yes.”
Lucia pondered for a moment before soon providing an answer.
“No. We kill because we have to. But there’s no reason not to kill. If we leave them be, they’re dangerous, you know? We kill them before they can attack humans.”
“······.”
Monsters attack humans. It’s a matter of instinct.
So, humans kill monsters before that happens. It’s a rational reason.
But hearing this, Iria felt an unpleasant sensation. Was it because she was a monster?
Are monsters evil beings for killing humans? If so, are humans righteous for killing monsters without reason?
In truth, perhaps there was never any concept of good and evil between the two races.
Aren’t they just fighting to survive? In the end, only the stronger beings remain.
It’s a natural law, after all.
Iria thought as she gazed at the corpses of her fallen kin.
They died because they were weak. She looked down with an eye tinged with a bit of pity.
“Well, if you have little experience, it’s understandable. I was like that at first, too.”
Lucia patted Iria on the shoulder, as if to say that it was normal.
After all, she was a noble’s child who had received early training from a young age.
In fact, it was more common for ordinary students to hesitate like Iria. However, it just didn’t align with the image she usually showed.
“If you really can’t do it, just support me from the back. I’ll handle it.”
“······.”
In front of the rapidly approaching horde of monsters, Lucia readied her sword, and Iria gripped a low-grade magic stone.
Somehow, they had fewer combatants now, but the practice went smoothly. They hadn’t attacked, but Iria was fulfilling her role efficiently by the side.
When she bound the movements of monsters with wind, Lucia would slice them down.
Swish.
Thus, the monsters within the cave were dispatched. The sound of slicing echoed through the enclosed space.
Watching the monsters being ruthlessly slaughtered, Iria felt an emotion she couldn’t quite name. She had no time to be surprised by the fact that such emotions still existed within her.
It was simply an unadulterated feeling of discomfort.
*
Having fallen into this world, I saw my kin for the first time.
Their appearance was somewhat different than I had imagined. They didn’t resemble me and were closer to monsters.
There were wolf-like shapes and others that looked like gelatinous blobs.
Though their appearances were vastly different from mine, I understood—they were indeed my kin.
Magic flowed within their bodies, and they moved with characteristics like my own. Most importantly, my body recognized them as kin.
Upon realizing this, I became unable to harm them. Most creatures cannot attack those that resemble them.
And it seemed the same was true for them.
The monsters did not attack me. Perhaps it was because they recognized me as kin.
Since coming here, I hadn’t received any attack.
“Now that I think about it, it seems that monsters don’t come near Iria strangely enough, right? They swarm me like crazy; maybe it’s a difference in our dispositions?”
Rena voiced her doubts.
Lucia also felt something was off, but she didn’t seem to know why.
But I knew. I understood their behavioral patterns because I was also a monster.
Whether she was aware of it or not, Rena had a disposition that was loved by monsters. She smelled better than other humans.
Rena had good blood. If I were one of them, I would have approached Rena before Lucia.
To be honest, the sweet scent wafting from her was hard for me to resist. From now on, I decided not to go near her while I was hungry.
“More importantly, this cave is incredibly deep. Are caves always this long?”
Rena spoke while recording the cave’s ecology on paper. It had already been hours since they entered the cave.
They had delayed their time a bit while catching monsters, but was it supposed to take this long?
It seemed I wasn’t the only one feeling strange; this time, Lucia spoke up.
“Rather than a cave, it seems more like a tunnel someone intentionally dug.”
“A tunnel?”
“I’m not certain, but judging by the traces on the walls, it seems like it was made artificially.”
“Hmm.”
Listening to Lucia, I began examining the cave walls closely.
At first glance, I couldn’t tell what it was. I wished I could read the memories of the wall. Unfortunately, I could not read the memories of inanimate objects.
There were no eyes to meet.
If this really was an artificially made area as Lucia said, I wanted to know what kind of place it was.
“······!”
Wait a minute.
Eyes?
I momentarily knelt and touched the head of the dead monster.
“Iria?”
Then I slowly locked eyes with it.
Though the dead monster was already cold, I could read memories if it had once been alive.
In the cold, dark cave, what kind of memories did the monsters have?
Where did they come from and why were they here? I focused on the consciousness of the dead monster.
And then.
“······.”
I realized this place was not a safe haven as Eve had said. The underground here housed something dangerous.
In fact, I had had a strange feeling since halfway through. The deeper I went, the stronger the concentration of magical energy became, and it wasn’t a concentration one would expect from low-level monsters.
There was no time to explain in words. It was simply too complicated.
I tugged at Lucia’s sleeve.
“We need to get out of here now.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“······Quickly.”
This place felt like the lair of some being.
And based on the memories I just read from the monster, that being was dangerously close.
Boom.
Just as I was pulling Lucia and Rena towards the exit, the ground shook.
Perhaps the entire cave was shaking.
I turned my head to face something I really didn’t want to see. A gigantic shadow emerged from the deep darkness.
It was the source of the magical energy that enveloped the cave.
