Chapter 721

Chapter 721

721: Side - Sibylla, Part 1

I don't mean to boast about my misfortune, but I think there are not so many people who lead a life as full of oddities as mine.
Wait, can I even be considered a "person" in the first place?
I was born, it seems, several decades ago. Not that it means much to me considering how I don't remember living that long myself.
My birthplace was an island floating in the sky, the site of a former secret experimental facility in the Kingdom of Raydoss.
There, all kinds of inhumane experiments were conducted on a daily basis, and I was one of them.
There exists artificially-made monsters known as chimeras. They were the product of a brainless plan to synthesize several magical beasts together and create the most powerful one. In the end, they ran amok and destroyed several countries, but they continued their research in secret on the floating island with an unfounded confidence that they could control it.
After various experiments, they reached a certain conclusion: The reason why they go berserk is because they are mostly composed of monsters! If we make a human the main body, they will surely be controllable!
The Superhuman Creation Project. Should we laugh at the sense of those who named it, or worry about the craziness of those who actually put it into action?
Anyway, after hundreds, no, thousands of failed experiments in human-monster synthesis, I was created.
It seems that before me, they tried many foolish tricks. Injecting monster blood or magic stones into humans and whatnot.
Their stupidity was proven by the fact that I was the one and only success they had. And yet, I too was viewed as a failure at first.
In my case, they did not fuse a monster into a full-grown human being. They used the method of mixing in the cells of a dragon and a slime at the fetal development stage, before I took form in my mother's womb.
They probably expected great things from the power of dragons and the regenerative ability of slimes.
Moreover, a special kind of undead was chosen as a mother so that she could withstand giving birth to these superhumans. She was the product of a crazy experiment to create intelligent and powerful undead by pouring grudges and spite into a living human being.
From the womb of that undead who just barely maintained their sanity, came a newborn carrying the cells of humans, dragons, and slimes.
Is that really a "person"?
Moreover, the child did not even possess the desired power. Although she was born with a ability to regenerate minor wounds, she was not different than a normal human except that she grew a little faster.
After several years of human experimentation, I was judged to be a failure and sent to different branch of research. That was the cryosleep experiment. They attempted to freeze people so that they could continue to sleep for a long period of time without aging.
They had never succeeded in this experiment either, but it seems that they took note of my regenerative ability. I guess they thought that my regeneration, no matter how small, would make it possible to revive me from the frozen state.
I faintly remember the time when I was put in a coffin and a strange sludgy water was poured in.
Well, I don't remember much from back then. Only a few bits of pieces of the terrifying researchers, and a few more of my kind fellow brothers and sisters that lived with me in that hellhole.
I don't know what happened to the floating islands after that. However, according to the information I gathered, more than ten years after I was frozen, the floating island had somehow turned into a dungeon.
But before that, I was among the few research materials that the researchers on the floating island transferred to a lab on the ground, shortly before their deaths.
But then the country fell into chaos, and I was forgotten for a long time. It was only ten years ago that they realized I was a sample for cryosleep experiments rather than just a corpse, and an attempt was made to thaw me out.
And even still, I was treated as a failure. I was in a state of living death due to the insufficient thawing on the inside of my body.
As a result, I was discarded. Apparently, the researchers who thawed me out had taken me secretly in order to take all credit for the achievement, and later decided that it was too dangerous to keep a failure like me around.
Normally, I would have been killed and buried, but these young researchers hesitated. After cutting me open so many times, they suddenly felt it was against their conscience to give me a proper end. Were they mentally retarded?
After much deliberation, they decided to throw me away. But, they didn't throw me away just anywhere.
The location was a former A-rank monster den called the "Insect Feast". 'Former' only because it was no longer under the control of the Adventurers' Guild. The level of danger was even greater than before.
Simply put, it is a deep fissure in the earth about 100 meters deep. 30 meters wide and 2 kilometers long. Countless different kinds of bug-type monsters inhabit the crack, swarming around and devouring anything that enters.
I was abandoned there. Or rather, I was thrown in. But at that time, I was still a corpse. I had no memory of it, and only found out later when I searched out the researchers and made them spit it out.
In fact, it was only after this event that my memory became clear.
I felt a tremendous, intense pain that tortured my whole body.
That was what woke me up.
I saw hundreds of tiny bugs clinging to my body, eating my flesh.
Why? I was in a small space somewhere. The last thing I remember was being put in a coffin.
But the pain prevents me from thinking of anything else.
I wonder how much time has passed since I was in pain. Maybe a few days.
Somehow I did not die. Every time I was eaten, my flesh regenerates. Why?
In the meantime, I've grown accustomed to the pain. The bugs are still swarming to me as usual. To them, I suppose, I'm like food that multiplies endlessly.
But why? I don't think my regenerative abilities are enough to heal this fast…… Blood is pouring out of me unceasingly, soaking my whole body. It doesn't make sense that I'm still alive.
I finally have enough composure to think about it and I finally understand my situation.
It seems that I am inside a deep crack in a rock wall. And the liquid I thought was my blood was actually a water spring.
Water……? Immediately after I realized that, a terrible thirst came over me. Come to think of it, I haven't had anything to eat or drink for days.
I desperately reach for water and lick it off my hand. Ah, water. The slightest wetting of my mouth gives me a tremendous surge of energy. To think water was this important to life……
Well, as it turns out, it was not just water. It was a magical water, with similar composition to a mana potion, containing an abundance of mana due to certain circumstances.
The reason why my regeneration was activated indefinitely was probably because I was able to keep replenishing my magical power by immersing myself in that water.
But at that time, I was grateful for the water and just kept licking it.
Once the thirst was quenched, the next thing was hunger. But there was nothing for me to eat. Scratch that, there was something.
I picked up a bug, fat and round from eating my own flesh and blood, and threw it straight into my mouth. I chewed desperately on the disgusting and bitter bug. Oh, it's so nasty.
Moreover, I had a sudden stomachache. I knew I shouldn't have eaten it. And yet, I did not die. Thank god for my regeneration.
If I don't die, I can keep eating. In the first place, it doesn't matter if I die. Whether its death from poison… death from being consumed by bugs… death from starvation. There is no big difference either way.
And so I continued to eat the bugs. Munching on them. Devouring them with all my heart.