‘I’m going to die’ was the first thought Alira had once she was able to think again.

  It wasn’t a ‘oh, no. I’m going to die’, but a ‘yeah, no. I’m going to die.’

  Among the bunch of nonsense the Goddess had shoved down her throat, Alira underscored and highlighted the part where Lady Goddess promised that death would send her back home. And death was the only thing on her plan.

  She woke to cold and aching bones. Every part of her body was in slow agony as if it had been rotting away. She blinked her stinging eyes into focus, but the space around her didn’t become clearer. Everything remained shrouded in shadows even after her eyes had adjusted.

  An unwelcomed dampness seeped through her clothes from the floor. She felt the ground which had a texture like grimy, jagged flagstones with moss filling the cracks in them. The place reeked of rust and decay. Every breath she inhaled was a lungful of dust that tickled the back of her nose.

  Alira tried to stand, but she was yanked back down with a crisp clang of metal. She moved her legs, and chains sang against stone. She felt around to find heavy, rust-bitten manacles clamped around her ankles. From the way they had sunk deep into her flesh, the manacles had been there for some time.

  No wonder her feet were in agony. Had the Goddess just dropped her into a pre-existing, already-imprisoned body or a new one made for her? How long had this body been here?

  Alira couldn’t help her curiosity, but the answers really didn’t matter. She couldn’t care less about the pain either.

  Something was different: a faint hum in the air, a strange sensation in her body, and even the hushed noises of her own movements sounded different to her ears. Alira knew she was no longer on Earth. This was Staywes.

  There was one more thing. Somehow, it felt as if she’d grown an extra limb. Something moved behind her, brushing the dust off the floor. With a premonition, she snatched that wagging thing and tugged at it.

  Pain shot through her spine.

  “Ouch... No wonder cats and dogs are so protective of their tail,” Alira whined, rubbing at the base of her newly obtained tail. Only after the pain had subsided, she moved her hand up to her head where two fluffy ears twitched.

  She had a profound suspicion that Lady Goddess might have some special taste.

  Brushing aside whatever weird things a Goddess figure might be into, Alira tugged at the cold chains that bound her legs. They were long enough. For a moment, she considered wrapping them around her neck on her merry way back home, but she decided against it.

  “Only death by the hand of Staywes will let me escape, she said... But how would she know? And why won’t it count otherwise?”

  She planned to see for herself, but maybe not like this. As much as she wanted to go back home, she didn’t think her resolve was strong enough to actually strangle herself. The moment she felt pain, Alira knew she wouldn’t be able to force herself to continue.

  It wasn’t like she wanted to hurt or kill herself. She was doing this to save herself from the inevitable pain and struggle in this godforsaken place.

  “I mean, unless they’re some righteous fool, no one else would want to stay here either,” Alira grumbled, in her own defense.

  The details of the novel this world was inside, Dual Point of View, flashed through her mind. As expected from its title, the story followed two protagonists who liked to wreak havoc on their side of the world and leave bloody trails behind them. The two were connected by their tragic backstories, homicidal ideations, and a magical artifact.

  Staywes was a world where everyone seemingly wanted to kill everyone else, and anyone could be killed at any time, and apparently even the protagonists weren’t exceptions. No one was immune to the threats of the tragedy tag. This was proven at the end of book three, where one of the protagonists, Xia, was implied to have been killed off-screen when Raine’s half of the artifact went silent.

  “Leave my happy life to save this damned world?” Alira clicked her tongue in disapproval of that thought. “No thanks a thousand times!”

  She wondered what had happened after she blacked out. Normally, in an isekai novel, only the character’s soul would be moved to another world. What about her body? Did she just drop dead into a coma on the street? Alira winced at the image.

  Now Jian was going to think it was because of yesterday’s event. She wanted to hurry up and leave so she could go tell Jian about being bullied by some random god. It was ridiculous, but if it were Jian, she could believe her. She always had a way to tell whenever Alira was straight-up lying.

  Alira finally put the chains down after considering the ‘hefty price’ Lady Goddess had promised her if she were to try to kill herself out of this mess. She wasn’t daring enough to challenge divine mercy and didn’t want to make this more difficult for herself than it already was.

  Surely, there was someone out there who was willing to help a cute girl out, even if it'd take some convincing. The place she landed in didn't look like a happy place either so that should make things easier for her.

  Just then, footsteps sounded. A rectangular peephole was slid open, and blinding red light peered inside the space, spotlighting her like a criminal to be judged in hell. The space was lit up just long enough for Alira to confirm that it was a cramped dungeon before a pair of glaring eyes blocked the peephole.

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  It was slammed shut again before she could even process, followed by the clicking of heavy locks. The door scraped against the floor, hanging low with its rusty hinges.

  She had a brief look at the outside and noted a similar metal door opposite that likely opened to another cell that contained someone else like herself. This place was most likely a hybrid market.

  For someone who wanted her to play hero and savior of the world, the Goddess surely didn’t give her a character backstory suitable for one. A hero should be a virtuous character with an honorable background with the privilege to have all the training and resources that would take to save the world. Turning her into a hybrid slave must be a petty debuff.

  A wall of muscle blocked the opened path and stared down at her. The man’s squarish face was flushed almost as red as the light from outside. Bluntly speaking, with a smooth bald head that reflected light, he had the rough build of a generic bad guy whose only purpose was to torment a cute female character so that the protagonist could come to rescue.

  As far as Alira had read, there wasn’t any scene in the novel that involved the protagonists saving a cat-girl, dog-girl, or whatever kind of hybrid she was.

  “It was you, right? Where is it?” Square-head said, a vein popping at his temple as if her presence alone raised his blood pressure.

  An angry man was likely to destroy things. She didn’t have to look any further for her ‘hero’. Alira considered admitting to stealing whatever it was, but since he was still willing to question her first, she thought it wouldn’t be that easy. The man didn’t look angry enough to give her what she wanted—Death.

  Alira thought about what she could use against him and remembered the totally-not logical Role she had apparently been given.

  “Where’s what?” Alira asked, looking him right in his bulging eyes. She sat as comfortably as she could on the floor, head turned up, and a knee raised. She even swung her tail lazily behind her.

  Alira didn’t inherit the memories of her current body, so she genuinely didn’t know. But the haughty tone of her voice and her casual stance worked like magic to make a few more pulsing veins comically pop up on Square-head’s face and neck.

  Given that they were at a slave market that could have hundreds of other hybrids like herself, the fact that he came to her in particular meant something.

  “Do you have proof that it was me? It could have been that shifty fox guy.” Alira raised a brow.

  She internally apologized to fox hybrids for her words. That was not a very good thing to say, but she was trying to test something out.

  “No. I asked him already. He said you fucking took it,” Square-head said. For a moment, his face wrinkled up as he lurched a step forward with his burly arm raised, but he held himself back at the last moment, much to her disappointment. He exhaled sharply and said through gritted teeth, “Give it back to me.”

  Oh, shit. That worked? She was totally making it up. Alira wanted to straight up say something along the line of ‘you really want to kill me’ to Square-head, but that might not qualify as a lie. He did look like he wanted to kill her.

  Wearing a simple frock and tattered pants, Alira couldn’t imagine where she could hide something stolen. She scanned the man up and down instead. His clothes were too cheap to be the owner of the hybrid slave market; he was more likely to be a guard who wasn’t doing quite a good job if a slave stole something despite him.

  “I don’t have it,” Alira said, shaking her head. She crossed her legs and opened her palms to him. “As you can see, there’s nothing on me.”

  “Stop wasting my fucking time, and give me the stupid book you stole while I’m still being nice,” Square-head barked. “Do you think someone with ‘dirty animal blood’ could ever become an alchemist, even with all the books in the world? Stop daydreaming and behave if you don’t want to be kicked around.”

  Alira took in every word he said with careful attention. They were the only tools she had right now since she didn’t know for sure yet how her Role worked. So she didn’t miss the particular bitterness when his tongue rolled at the word ‘alchemist’. It was something personal.

  From the novel, she knew that he was talking shit. Hybrids were products of misused alchemy, humans fused with an animal. Ironically, they had more potential to become an alchemist than an average person.

  She also knew that on Staywes—which was set in the Victorian-adjacent era—alchemy books, or rather any books at all, would cost an arm and a leg for a peasant like Square-head.

  It wasn’t his.

  “Then what makes you think a ‘lowly animal-blooded’ like me could steal your master’s books?” Alira shrugged.

  The man moved before Alira finished speaking, his rough hand hovering just above her head. He curled his fingers, shaking like he was fighting back demons.

  “Are you going to hit me?” Alira tilted her head, a smirk ghosting across her pale lips. “That wouldn’t be very smart. Your master will be even more disappointed in you if you damage his goods, on top of losing his precious book. Then again, I suppose brains weren’t part of the job description, were they?”

  She clenched her teeth the moment the words left her mouth.

  The man raised a firm hand. White-hot pain struck her face with a tight slap. The blow sent her sprawling, her head slamming onto the rough stone floor.

  Something cracked. Throbbing heat exploded from her cheek, radiating down her neck. Alira reached her hand toward her head and touched warm wetness. Hot liquid streamed from her nose—blood or watery snot, she couldn’t tell with her head spinning.

  Waves of pain flooded over her, claiming her from head to toe. This was a breed of agony she’d never experienced. As much as Alira had worked for this, she couldn’t help getting angry at Square-head. No one had ever laid a hand on her like this. Ever. It hurt like a bitch.

  Fucking Minecraft square-headed, knockoff Steve.

  This sure wasn’t an efficient way to go. She sure hoped this was enough with her body already being on the verge of collapse.

  Alira gritted her teeth to bear the pain, a few of them slightly wobbly. Hot blood trickled down her neck, the collar of her frock soaking it up. She was bleeding quite heavily. Good. She just had to wait until she’d lost enough blood.

  She could see the man flapping his mouth through her blurry vision as he fumbled around her in a fluster. Not being able to control your emotions, especially your anger, was a weakness. The man served as a good reminder. He would likely be killed by his master right after her.

  You only have yourself to blame.

  Even with the sharp ringing in her ears, Alira didn’t miss a movement that was neither hers nor Square-head’s. She had a bad feeling when a shadow emerged outside at the corner of the door. Square-head didn’t notice at all, still fussing over her even when a man strode right into the cell.

  Frosty blue eyes swept leisurely across the room before landing to meet hers. Even when she was bleeding out to death, Alira still briefly admired the handsome silhouette of the man. Shiny gems on his uniform glistened in a way that caught her eyes.

  They looked expensive. He looked expensive.

  Alira groaned, and Square-head finally noticed the newcomer. He took a look at the man and didn’t get to take one step before the newcomer took out a coin and bent it in half with two fingers.

  Square-head managed one pained grunt, followed by a heavy thud. When she turned to look at him, he was lying on the floor, back pressed unnaturally backward, flat on his legs, folded in half. He’d left Staywes before her.

  She caught one last glimpse of those frosty blue eyes before darkness claimed her once again.

  Just let me go already...