Taboo Journal Novel The Prologue (also called The Exposition)

"That makes one Famiu silver coin."

"Nn? But the man in front of

only paid in copper?"

"That's only for citizens and not for dirty brats."

Excuse ? I washed myself at the river yesterday. I'm not that dirty! And I'm not a brat either!

"Ehh? Can't you let

in just once? Pretty please?"

Take this! The smile of a cute young girl.

"..."

"..."

"The silver coin please."

It was worth a try.

Maybe the guard didn't like young girls. Perhaps I should try again another day with a different guard.

I just want to enter the city, is that too much to ask for?

In this past week, I, unfortunately, learnt that other worlds are vastly different from fiction.

Not that I really expected it to be like fiction but it wouldn't hurt to be at least a bit friendlier, no?

Yes, another world. One week ago, I, a young man in the first half of his twenties, was on a trip sowhere on modern Earth, when I got involved in an accident. I didn't die, mind you, but I was pretty close to it.

And with one foot in the grave, I made a wish.

"Ahhh... Please let

reincarnate as a cute girl."

Thinking back on it, that was a stupid wish, but normally you wouldn't expect anyone to even hear the wish in the first place.

Fortunately or unfortunately, soone heard it. I did not know who or what, but they did sothing.

While I didn't reincarnate since I didn't exactly die, I did beco a cute girl.

Just not a human one.

If you asked

what kind of creature I am, I'd be at a loss for words frankly, but the closest would be so kind of monster.

A monster, the kind you often saw in various fantasy novels, not the horror ones. I would probably fit into the horror category as well though.

Outwardly, I looked similar to a human girl. Straight waist-long hair, the cute face of a girl that took her first steps towards adulthood, and a slender build. Small, maybe 140cm at most. And while I was not completely flat, I was close.

But that's where the similarities ended. My eye and hair colour was soft pink. Honestly, I liked it, but it stood out like a sore thumb.

I also had slitted pupils.

And this was a problem. Humans didn't have these, usually. But in this world monsters and dangerous animals often did.

Also apparently so of the demonkin as well, but I never t one so I couldn't say for sure.

At the very least it's a trait that generally only occurred in just about anything hostile to humans.

If we turn this around it ant that humans are hostile to those with slitted pupils.

In summary, most humans would try to kill

the mont they found out.

Why did the guard not attack

then? Well, that part was coming now. I learnt to hide it!

While I looked like a human girl, I wasn't one, and while it did co with a whole lot of problems, there were a few convenient things I could do.

The most notable was that I could transform parts of my body.

Yes, I could temporarily change the look of my eyes. The pupils only. Now I was just a girl with a weird eye and hair colour. But only for a few hours at most, since it tired

out. Incidentally, I couldn't change the colour. I tried.

Another thing I could transform would be my limbs. I could transform them into a bunch of tentacles to be exact. The ones that looked perfectly fine in just about any erotic dia. I haven't found any actual use for them yet outside of being grotesque. They extended slightly further than my arms normally would and that's about it. Nothing else.

They were, in fact, less useful since you couldn't even properly grab anything.

Of course, I haven't used them in any kind of erotic situation yet, but that was currently the least of my concerns.

Outside of transforming I couldn't really do anything fancy. I was able to sense the mana in my surroundings, most likely instinctively because I was a monster. I also had a mana crystal like most monsters in this world. I was able to sense sothing solid constantly absorbing mana from my surroundings, so that's how I knew. Mana was also coursing through any living body so it was possible to inspect your own body to a degree and sothing big and solid stood out after all. Especially in a small body.

I didn't know why the crystal collected mana though, maybe I could evolve into sothing stronger when it collected enough? Or it was just another form of energy for

like food. Currently, that seed more likely the case.

On that note, yes, magic existed here. But it was not sothing you generally learnt from a wandering magician or so. Or even less likely, from self-study.

Only those with money could either enter a magic school or hire a personal tutor to learn the basics of magic. It ca with a lot of prestige so many rchants apparently sent their children to a school to learn magic. Being a magician ca with countless benefits I heard. Too bad I wasn't one.

I'd love to enter one of those schools or preferably hire a tutor one day.

But for now, I was still trying to survive. In the one week I was here I managed to secure a base of operations and so food. I called it that but it was just a severely damaged hut in the slums outside the city walls. The slums were a dangerous place, where rape and murder were a common occurrence, but at least it offered you a roof. The outside nature only offered murderous monsters and animals, but no roof. Between a roof and no roof I obviously chose the roof.

The slums were also the only place where people did not attack

the mont they saw my eyes. Probably because they attacked

before they saw them.

So far I managed to avoid any unfortunate captures by dangerous n, but I didn't want to bet that this would continue for long. That's why I wanted to get into the city. I couldn't really judge from the state of the slums and I haven't talked with many people in the first place, but from the looks of it, the current level of civilization seed to be pretty far. It didn't seem to have reached industrialization yet, but they were most likely close. Or they just flat-out replaced it with magic technology? Whatever the case, public order seed to be good inside the walls, as opposed to the slums.

Oh, how I wish for a warm bed and a hot bath.

Incidentally, my change to a monster occurred while I was still on Earth. People were freaked out by

and within a few minutes, I got the police chasing after . At the ti I didn't understand what was happening and why I'd beco a humanoid tentacle monster.

In the end, I was caught by so suspicious-looking cultists who sohow managed to send

to this world in the na of 'exorcising' .

They must have ssed up really bad though because my mories beca muddled. I couldn't recall most personal information about , like my family, my birthplace, not even my own na. It's not like I could even continue using my old na anyway though.

It took

a while but I thought of a good one.

So yeah, nice to et you.

My na is Yumi and yours?