1 Beginning After The End

'I… I'm really… getting a second chance?'

Evelyn still found it unbelievable, even as she stared at her tiny body in wonder. Her hands and feet were small and chubby, just like a newborn child, and her dark pink hair was long and slightly wet. She didn't even know if this appearance was considered out of the norm in this world.

Her reflection in the large glass ball blinked along with herself, mirroring her movements perfectly. She had no idea what the purpose of this ball was supposed to be, but she had the feeling that it must be some sort of image recording object, like a camera.

'All these people look exactly like humans, but I came out of this egg? How fascinating…'

"Monmon, look, she's so cute! Ah, ah, why can't I touch her yet?!"

The woman claiming to be her mother looked proud, enthusiastic, and full of energy. Quite contrary to the image of exhaustion and relief that she would normally expect from a woman who had just given birth.

"Calm down, Bella! You have to wait! The image is almost done forming, and she still has to finish consuming her shell."

And she assumed that the man trying to desperately calm her down was her father. Evelyn was slightly surprised to discover that she could understand what they were saying, but didn't ponder on it too deeply yet.

The woman seemed to calm down instantly, her previous enthusiasm seemed to have completely disappeared. "What's going on…? Aren't babies born from spirit eggs supposed to eat their shell the moment they come out? Is there something wrong with the shell? Did someone poison it?!"

Her anxiety made even Evelyn nervous, but the man seemed to be quite calm and grabbed her hand before she could touch one of her shell pieces.

"You shouldn't touch it, dear. This is what she has to do herself, so just wait for now. If she doesn't start soon, we can try to hint it to her somehow. If nothing else works, then we'll have to call father to figure something out."

The man then clapped his hands, and a short but stout lady in a servant's attire entered the room. "Lord Desmond, Lady Isabella."

"Go inform the patriarch that there's been a minor complication that might need his help."

The servant left in a hurry as soon as the words left the man's mouth.

Although she was a bit hesitant, Evelyn understood that if she did not start eating her shell soon, it will just create more needless commotion. Anyway, what could go wrong?

Rolling her tongue in her mouth, she could feel six tiny teeth each on the top and bottom. It was better than being a toothless baby for sure, but one look at the thick and firm looking shell made her doubt if these were enough.

When she finally set her mind on eating the shell pieces, she could feel a kind of natural instinct slowly taking over. Within moments, it became impossible to control the overwhelming urge. It felt strange because she had never felt such a compulsive instinct in her previous life. The temptation was many times greater than that of a glass of cool water after almost dying from thirst.

"Sh-she's doing it!"

"Shush!"

Before she knew it, one of her tiny hands was already stuffing a piece as big as her fist into her mouth. Given that its thickness was similar to a coconut shell, and the texture in her hand was less like an egg and more like ceramic, she was already prepared for a very painful and slow chewing experience.

"She did it!"

"Kyaa!"

But as the shell contacted her tongue, all her doubts vanished in an instant. It melted in her mouth like warm chocolate. Like a soft explosion of the most luxurious strawberry ice cream on her tongue, and for a while she sat there stunned.

'Wow… that… that has got to be one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten, right?! Is this really an egg shell? Suddenly I'm really looking forward to the food in this world!'

Of course, given her past life wasn't the most opulent, she hadn't really eaten any luxurious meals on earth. Maybe this was just a taste of what she had always been missing out on.

She didn't even notice when she had finished the entirety of her shell, the total volume of which should have been many times that of her tiny belly. It was only when her mother picked her up with a squeal that she was shaken from her daze.

The constant chatter of the surrounding adults was like a buzz in the background, and she couldn't make out what they were saying at all.

[ Consumed Natal Spirit Egg Shell ]

[ Spirit Power +5 ]

A wave of drowsiness seemed to hit her all at once as she snuggled into her mother's embrace, and like a dream, the events leading up to her rebirth began to replay in her mind.

----------

It felt like just yesterday when she was still in her home, studying for the upcoming exams. It had not been long since she had gotten back her motivation to turn her life around, her teenage mind full of hopes and dreams. She no longer cared about the identity of the mother who abandoned her at birth.1

One day, she'll shine so brilliantly that her birth mother can only look up to her and regret it, begging for forgiveness that will never be granted.

One day, everyone who looked down on her or made fun of her will only be able to look at her with admiration and envy. What of the scar left when she was abandoned? She still had her two hands! Even if her face was ruined, her head was intact!

I am smart, and I work hard, I will be a winner of life without any help from anyone, just you guys wait, she thought.

That day never came.

The next morning when she woke up from her dreams full of hope and determination, it was not on her small bed but on a conveyor-belt feeding into what looked like a huge meat grinder. Not only was she bound and gagged, even her thoughts were groggy from drugs. She did not even know who did it, and could only try to scream helplessly as her lower body was slowly turned into minced meat as pain unlike anything she had ever felt before wracked through her body. It barely came up to her thighs when everything went dark.

Her last thoughts were filled with both relief and regret. 'It's over, it won't hurt anymore. It's over… It's… over…'

The next time she regained consciousness was in a dark space with four dimly lit yellow orbs allowing her to barely see anything. It took her a minute to realize that the space wasn't completely empty, and the lights weren't lights, but eyes. Humongous, grotesque eyes of what she could only think of as some sort of calamity inducing space creature.

She could only make out the vague silhouette of the ginormous translucent being that seemed to be floating atop a mountain of what looked like a variety of pale white, hairless and naked corpses. The only source of light seemed to be from its eyes, and for a moment she wished it really was completely dark.

Those four dimly lit orbs of pure yellow without any iris or pupil did not provide her with any comfort or security, despite looking almost like light bulbs. What they showed, however, only filled her with fear and anxiety.

The creature seemed to be leisurely chewing on its food, and through the dim lighting she could make out some features that differed quite a bit from a human corpse, with stone grey skin and an elongated neck. It was probably some alien race, she thought.

Evelyn kept trying to see her own body, and after a lot of squinting she finally got some results. It was worse than she expected, a lot worse than missing legs.

"This is not my body… this is not a body at all! I-I'm a doll now? A puppet?!"

Her shock wasn't unjustified, as her current body looked eerily similar to a poorly made wax doll. At this moment she just wanted to run away, but she couldn't even make the wax doll twitch.

"Critter…"

A chillingly cold voice echoed, and she subconsciously felt as if death had come for her once more. She did not even feel this kind of fear when she was certain of her doom on that conveyor belt. She felt that if it was this being who killed her, she would perish in a way that's decidedly more unpleasant. But even through her fear, she could make out the words it spoke clearly. It was as if she was forbidden from ignoring this being.

This was the pressure of facing a higher-level life form.

"Critter… serve me, and I shall grant you a chance…"

"Serve… you…?"

It was not important how she was addressed by this being, that was the least of her concerns right now. More importantly, what could she possibly be capable of that this being isn't? It was absolutely absurd. If she wasn't mistaken, the reason she didn't completely die was because of this creature. That alone was far beyond what she, or any other human, was capable of.

As if aware of her thoughts, the being seemed to chuckle in mirth. She also noticed that it had stopped 'feasting'.

"Do you want it, or not?"

Evelyn felt a tremor deep in her soul, and at this moment she realized that if she did not accept this chance she might be decisively removed, without a second thought. Even though she knew that maybe the corpses that this being had been feasting on were the people who had 'failed' their master, and if she accepted then she might one day join them, even if she 'served' well… Between dying now and dying later, she knew where to place her bet.

She tried to nod hurriedly, before realizing her neck was too stiff and slow, so she could only yell her assent.

"Yes!"

She wasn't sure if it was her illusion, but the space seemed to rumble as the creature moved its tentacles around.

"Hm, a smart critter… Good."

The creature said nothing more, and a vicious momentum struck her. Her mind spun with vertigo as it felt like her doll body was flung away carelessly.

"Stop… stop… help me… help me!"

Her desperate cries for help went unanswered. She didn't even know if she was screaming or if it was just a loud echo in her own mind.

It felt like hours before her doll body painfully crashed into solid ground, wracking her still spinning mind with pain. A painful scream should have torn through her throat at this moment, but all she heard was a muffled grunt.

"This doll body really is trash… I can't move as I like, but I can feel like shit very well!"

Bursts of laughter assaulted her as the words left her mouth, sending chills down her spine as she carefully started observing her surroundings. But the more she looked, the stranger it got.

"This room is completely closed off… not even a gate or a window… just how did I… no, nevermind that… What am I supposed to do now?"

Her question was, of course, directed to the voices who had laughed at her. She was quite sure the abomination who gave her a new life had already stopped caring about her, and she was now under the supervision of its underlings. Since a superior being like that was actively seeking underlings, there's no reason it wouldn't have a process in place for them already.

There were a few chuckles she heard in response, but no one answered her question.

The room wasn't completely empty, of course. She could see what looked like two more people, in the far corner of the room, sprawled on the floor, much like her. The one key difference was that they seemed to have genuine human flesh and hair instead of wax or whatever it was that she had.

She could only helplessly try to drag her doll body to the 'other people', internally cursing at how useless it was. It was only when she got a lot closer that she noticed that they weren't just lying down, they were completely motionless.

"They're… dead?!"

Her reaction this time only brought forth a few chuckles, but the 'spectators' seemed to be bored of her already. Their voices seemed to ring out all at once, and she could barely keep up with their so-called conversation.

"Choose one, you're the last one here. You'll just die soon anyway, so don't waste our time and let the test start."

"You think the newbie will be fun to watch? Ahahaha…"

"I'm hopeful of the first guy, he really lucked out. Heh, too bad for the others in this round, but being lucky is being lucky. What can you do?"

"Tch. It's always pathetic watching these ants kill each other. But it's funny."

"Although it's pathetic, it's a good way to weed out garbage, ahahaha… Lord Chronos is really not picky, this kind of garbage is also given a chance, huh. Thankfully, he has us to make sure only the competent ones get the chance."

"You really have a death wish. What if the Lord heard?"

"Don't be such a tight-ass. The Lord has faith in us, so we have to do our best, ahahaha…"

Choose one… you'll die.

Choose one… you'll die.

The words seemed to echo inside her head endlessly. A mixture of rage and despair cycled through her soul, making her wish to tear these careless underlings apart.

"Even your boss is more courteous than you, morons! Can't you do your jobs properly? What's with this careless attitude?!"

… is what she tried to yell out, but only a mixture of grievance filled grunts came from her broken mouth.

It was only then she realized that in her rage she had unknowingly broken not only her wax fingers, but also her jaw. Her mind was blank as she tried to comprehend just how garbage this doll body was. How could it be able to destroy itself so easily? The worst part was that she could still feel the pain coming from her broken jaw and wrists.

"No… it's not hopeless, I can choose one of those two in front… They said I'm last, meaning these are leftovers, but even if they're no good, they must be better than this trash wax doll."

As she got closer, she finally had a clear view of the two 'people'. But the more she looked, the colder she felt.

The body on the left was that of a scrawny female child. She could already feel the intense waves of hunger assaulting her as she thought of possessing this body. The worst part was that she was going to have to go into a survival test where she would likely have to fight a lot. With a body like this, how could she win?

On the other hand, the body on the right seemed to be of a medieval woman with very heavy-duty build – the kind that looked like she could work twenty hours a day and not get tired. Slightly overweight, but overall a far better choice than the one on the left. There was only one problem… her legs were crushed. They were not even properly amputated, it looked like something heavy had been smashed on them repeatedly until they were ruined.

She could only helplessly crawl over to the scrawny body on the left, and as she got closer, she felt a tearing sensation from deep inside her, and then… hunger.

"Ohhh… uh…"

She could speak normally now, but still made only grunts as she clutched her empty stomach. This body was clearly not used to being hungry, but had been left abandoned and starving for a long time.

A door appeared in front of her at this moment, and she scrambled towards it in a hurry. Anything to take her mind off the pain in her belly.

As the door slammed shut behind her, she felt like the pins and needles from the gazes of the earlier 'spectators' had disappeared. Or at least, she could not feel it anymore because perhaps they were further away.

The corridor she entered was also all black, and just like the last room, mostly empty. Her starving eyes still went through the room meticulously, hopelessly searching for anything she could eat. Although she didn't want to think about it, she would probably even eat rodents or insects at this point.

Her hopeless gaze paused as she noticed that there was a small coin like object on the ground.