Chapter 721

I don't mean to brag about my misfortunes. But I doubt there are that many people whose lives are filled with as many oddities as mine.

Well, I'm also not sure if I can call myself a "people" in the first place.

I was born several decades ago, it seems. I myself don't remember living that long though, so I don't really think much about it.

I was told that I was born in a floating island in the sky. It seems to be a former secret experiment site of the Kingdom of Raidos.

There, all kinds of inhumane experiments were being conducted on a daily basis, and I was one of those experiments' subjects.

They even had a man-made monster called Chimera there. It was a product of a brainless plan to create the strongest magic beast by merging several magic beasts into one. In the end, it went out of control and destroyed a number of countries, but they continued their research in secret on the floating island with an unfounded confidence that they would be able to handle it.

After all the research they've done, they came to a conclusion and think that: "It went out of control was because it's main body was that of a magic beast!", "If humans were the main body, it would surely not run out of control!"

The Superhuman Production Project. I wondered if should I laugh at the naivete of those who named it, or worry about the craziness of those who actually put it into practice.

Anyway, a human-magic beast experiment with such a name was conducted, and after hundreds of failed attempts, I was created.

It seems that even before I was created, they had repeatedly synthesized blood, implanted magic stones, and did all sorts of stupid things to their subjects.

A foolish act that makes me wonder if I am really the only success case. Because even from that me, they treated me as a failure in the end.

In my case, their method was not to mix the power of a magic beast into a grown human being. It seems that their method of mixing dragon and slime genes was used at the stage before I took my human form in my mother's womb.

They were probably expecting I would have the power of a dragon and the regenerative power of a slime.

Moreover, they chosen a special undead that could withstand the birth of a special individual as my mother. That special undead was apparently a result of their crazy experiment of creating an intelligent and powerful undead by pouring grudges into living humans.

A baby then born with human, dragon, and slime characteristics from an undead person that had just barely retained its rationality.

I don't really think it can be called a person anymore though.

Well, to their disappointment, the child born did not possess the desired power. Although I was born with a strong regenerative ability, other than growing a little faster, I'm not much different from any human being.

Then after several years of experimentation, I was deemed a failure and was sent to a different experiment, the cryo-sleep experiment. It was an experiment to freeze people so that they could continue to sleep for a long period of time without aging.

They had no success stories here either, but they seemed to have taken note of my regenerative ability. I guess they thought that if I had even a small amount of regenerative ability, it would be possible to revive me from the frozen state.

I faintly remember when they put me in a coffin and poured a strange, slimy water over me.

Well, I don't remember much from that time I spent with those horrible researchers and my fellow experiment subjects, I can only recall those in tiny fragments now.

I do not know what happened to the floating island after that. However, according to the information I gathered, more than a decade after I was frozen, the floating island seemed to have turned into a dungeon.

At that time, I was among the few research materials that the researchers on the floating island transferred to a laboratory on the ground shortly before their deaths.

However, amidst the chaos within the country, I was left for a long time. It was only ten years ago that they realized that I was not just a corpse, but a sample from a cryo-sleep experiment, and attempts then made to defrost me.

But even there I was deemed as a failure again because there was insufficient internal freezing within me. They then treated me as a mere living corpse.

As a result, I was discarded. Apparently, the researchers who performed the defrosting took me out in secret to monopolize the merit, and decided that it was dangerous to keep me, a failure, on their hand.

Normally, they would have just killed and buried me, but these young researchers hesitated. After all those dissection and experimentation on their subjects, they felt conscience-stricken to kill me? Are they idiots?

After much thought, they decided to throw me away. Well, they didn't just simply throw me away there though.

They discarded me in a former grade A magical area, the Insect Madness Banquet. The reason it got the nickname "former" was because it was no longer under the control of the Adventurers' Guild. Its level of danger was even greater than it was at the time.

To describe it simply, it was a 30 meters wide, 100 meters deep, and 2 kilometers long chasm. Dozens of different kinds of insects and magic beasts inhabit the chasm, swarming around and devouring anything that enters.

I was thrown, or should I say, dumped there.

At that time, I was still just a living corpse, so I had no memory of it. I later found those researchers whereabout and made them told me everything they know.

It was only shortly after that that my memory became clear.

~~~

I began to feel a terrible, intense pain that tortured my entire body.

That pain was what awakened my consciousness.

I opened my eyes and looked around. There I saw hundreds of little insects clinging onto my entire body, feeding on my flesh.

Why? I wondered. At the same time, I also found out that I'm in some kind of narrow crate. It was as if I'm inside a coffin――

But the pain made it impossible for me to think of anything else.

How long I've been in this place? From looking at my surrounding, several days must have passed since I was here.

I wondered why I haven't died yet. From the edge where I was eaten, my flesh keeps regenerating and my bloods keep pouring out endlessly, soaking my entire body. How? I wondered.

Gradually, as I keep wondering to myself, I became accustomed to the pain. The insects are still swarming around me. To them, I must be like an infinite food source that can keep regenerating.

But how? I don't think my regenerative ability would allow me to regenerate this fast... I found it's strange for me to be still alive after all that.

As I could afford to think about such things. I was finally able to understand my situation.

It seemed I was in some kind of deep chasm. The liquid that I previously thought was my blood was apparently spring water.

Water, huh... Immediately after I thought that, a tremendous thirst hit me. Come to think of it, I haven't put anything in my mouth for days.

I then desperately reached for the water and lick it off my hands. Ah, water. The slightest moisture in my mouth gives me tremendous vitality. I just realized that water is such an important thing.

Well, as it turns out, it was not just any water. It seems to be a magical water, similar to a mana potion, that contained an abundance of magic power due to special circumstances.

The reason for my regeneration to continue to be activated indefinitely was probably because I was able to keep replenishing my magical power by being immersed in that water.

I was grateful for that water and just kept licking it.

Once my thirst is quenched, next comes hunger. But I don't have anything to eat. No, there was something that I could eat.

I picked up some insect, which had feasted on my own flesh and blood and had grown fat, and threw it straight into my mouth. I chewed the stinky and tasteless insect desperately. It tastes really bad.

Moreover, it caused me a sudden abdominal pain. I knew I shouldn't have eaten it. Still, I did not die. Thanks to my regeneration.

So as long as I didn't die, I can eat it. Though in the first place, it doesn't matter if I die. Whether I die of poison, eaten by the insects, or starved to death, it doesn't make much difference.

And so, I continued to eat those insects. Keep on munching on them without a care in the world.