30 Years After Reincarnating, It Turns Out This World Was A Rofan?! novel Chapter 1

I Was a Slave.

When I was born, before I even turned three, my parents sold me to a slave trader.

I don’t hold any grudges.

...No, to be more precise, I don’t even remember their faces.

I was sold when I had just begun to speak, so how could I possibly remember them?

The only clear memory I have is of sucking on my fingers while following the slave trader around.

Young slaves sold quite well.

They were popular among sorcerers—something about selling well for human experiments?

Or was it that the greedy pigs at the temples had a preference for children?

Anyway, we sold pretty well.

I was sold to one of the sorcerers.

The slave trader muttered something about me being unlucky, but when I think about it, being sold to a sorcerer seemed better than ending up as a tool for some old men’s disgusting desires.

It’s been ten years since I became a sorcerer's slave.

Out of a hundred slaves, I was one of the three survivors—or should I say, one of the three remaining test subjects.

The sorcerer's experiments involved extracting cells from monsters and transplanting them into human bodies, aiming to enhance the human physique.

The children who couldn’t adapt or endure would either explode or turn into something neither human nor monster, only to be thrown into the incinerator.

I was physically weak at the time, but I had a strong will.

A will to survive.

That was my advantage.

Even though I was too young to truly understand what death was, I desperately wanted to live. I endured the experiments and began to produce the results the sorcerer wanted.

I showed adaptability to the genes of two monsters—a dog-man (In-Gyeon) and an ogre—and the sorcerer was delighted.

...And then, the sorcerer tried to dissect me.

Whack!

"...Huh?"

Crack!

Could a person’s head really burst that easily?

That was my first kill.

Slaves aren’t supposed to be able to kill their masters, but I realized then that the slave mark doesn’t activate if there’s no intent to attack. The sorcerer died simply because I reflexively flailed in self-defense and hit him without any real intent to harm.

It was a miracle—a combination of coincidence and luck.

...Or maybe it was the sorcerer's mistake as well?

After all, I had the genes of an ogre—a troll, to be precise.

It wasn’t the strength of a child that I possessed but the strength of a monster. What sorcerer in their right mind tries to dissect a child with monster genes, starting with a knife to their chest?

It’s no wonder sorcerers are often looked down upon as fools.

Anyway, with the sorcerer dead, I was automatically freed and prepared to escape the laboratory.

"Well, well, what do we have here? Something interesting?"

"...Ah."

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to escape.

I should’ve been quicker, but it was the day a certain organization that funded the sorcerer’s research came to visit, and they caught me.

"Kid, you’ve got two choices: come with us or die right here."

"...I’ll come with you."

"Smart choice."

The organization that had been supporting the sorcerer?

They were none other than an assassination group called The Black Moon.

At the age of thirteen, I became an assassin.

_________________________________

The assassination group wanted powerful soldiers.

Soldiers who possessed monster abilities and exceptional assassination skills.

Apparently, it was all part of a plan to overthrow a kingdom.

Now that I think about it, it seems absurd that a bunch of assassins thought they could topple a kingdom.

Still, I was useful, so I survived. I was trained as an assassin and, for the first time, lived like a human.

Even though I endured inhuman things like being forced to ingest poison every day to build resistance and being tortured to increase my tolerance to pain,

having real meals and a proper place to sleep for the first time made me understand what it meant to live like a human being.

Because of that, I held no resentment toward the assassination group.

Five years—those were the years they invested in raising me into a professional assassin.

"Prepare for the mission."

"Understood."

"Numbers 9 and 10 will move with you. Number 8, you take care of them."

"...Got it."

At the time, my name was Number 8.

That meant there were seven others ranked above me, which made sense.

The assassination group wasn’t foolish enough to rely solely on one sorcerer to overthrow a kingdom, right?

There were quite a few people with strange physical or mystical abilities like mine in the organization.

For reference, Numbers 9 and 10 were survivors of the same experiments as me.

We didn’t get along at all.

Partly because the structure of the group didn’t allow for friendly relationships, but also because they resented the fact that someone younger than them held a higher rank.

...Such childish brats.

But maybe because they were so childish...

"Die, Number 8!"

"If only you weren’t here...!"

Numbers 9 and 10 attacked me, and I fought back to survive.

It was a fierce battle, but I gained the upper hand.

They should have realized...

"If you wanted a higher rank, you should have worked harder than me."

Thud!

"Urgh!"

"H-how could you...?"

"Why do you think I have a higher number than you? Let’s hope you get smarter in your next life."

Of course, the reason my number was higher was because I was clearly stronger than them.

They were fools for not understanding that.

"Phew, now what should I do about this?"

I had successfully killed them, but I didn’t feel any joy.

If anything, killing left me feeling empty and bitter. If I had felt joy, that would have been proof that I’d lost my mind.

But beyond the bitterness, I began to feel worried.

Those two were valuable assets raised by the organization, and now that I had killed them...

I was deeply concerned that the organization would try to kill me in return.

But fortunately...

Two years later.