I'm the Only One With a Different Genre - Chapter 182

Chapter 182
A New Body!

***

After somehow pacifying the Demon King, Lian skillfully slipped through a small crack and began wandering around the Demon King’s castle.

“Hmm… That one won’t work… and that one’s too big…”

Lian frequently visited the slave prison. Humans were a rapidly consumed resource in the Demon King’s castle, used for meals, experiments, and more. Because of this, dozens, even hundreds, of slaves were sold to the Demon King’s castle every day.

With so many slaves, Lian’s anticipation grew.

“I’ve already found an escape route. Now, I just need a body. Just a body…!”

Lian’s eyes, which resembled chocolate balls, sparkled as he kept his gaze fixed on the slaves.

For several days, he diligently scanned the newly arrived slaves, but none of the bodies seemed suitable for his soul to settle into stably.

“Is there really nothing this time either…?”

With a dejected expression, Lian crawled along the beam that firmly supported the roof and headed toward a small hole. Just as he was about to squeeze his body through the narrow gap—

“They say there’s a slave who was assigned to Zone 0 as soon as he arrived.”

“What? Zone 0!?”

A strange voice grabbed Lian by the ankle. He pulled himself halfway out of the hole and looked down. Below, a highly intelligent orc and a fallen knight clad in black armor were having a conversation.

“Yes. They’re transferring him this afternoon, so you’d better stay sharp. If you keep yawning like that, your head might end up on the floor.”

“Ugh… Don’t scare me like that!”

Lian could no longer hear the rest of their conversation. The only thing that echoed clearly in his mind was the word “Zone 0.”

“Zone 0, Zero Zone.”

Just by the name alone, it sounded like a place where something extraordinary might be.

“Maybe I can find a body that perfectly matches my soul there!”

His body trembled with excitement. With a clear goal in mind, his soft, squishy form moved swiftly.

Lian began scurrying around the castle, searching for information about ‘Zone 0.’

“I heard a new slave is going into Zone 0.”

“That would be perfect for my next experiment… Should I submit a request?”

The fact that a new slave was entering Zone 0 seemed to be quite a surprising event, and many were talking about it.

Lian soon learned that Zone 0 was a place where only slaves with the power of a high-ranking officer or equivalent ability were imprisoned. He also discovered that one of the slaves from Zone 0 had once escaped and wreaked havoc on the castle, which was why the security there was extremely tight.

After wandering around for a while, Lian finally gathered the information he needed.

“So it’s deep underground? Let’s go!”

As soon as he learned the location of Zone 0, he moved quickly.

***

Reaching Zone 0 wasn’t particularly difficult. Thanks to his soft, slime-like body, he could slip through small cracks and even pass through locks.

“Ugh…”

Getting there was the easy part, but a small problem arose.

“It’s too dark.”

The corridor in front of the prison was shrouded in pitch-black darkness, as if layers of blackout curtains had been drawn tightly.

It wasn’t easy to blindly grope his way through the darkness, especially since the floor was littered with terrifying magic circles.

“Ugh… It’s like a ruin…”

The reason Lian could sense traps that normally wouldn’t be visible was that the corridor of Zone 0 was structured similarly to a ruin filled with traps.

In ruins, massive stones could fall from behind, or the ground could suddenly give way, causing one to fall into a pit filled with sharp spears. These were common traps in such places, and many found themselves caught up in these traps for various reasons.

When trapped in ruins, people often found themselves helplessly caught by unexpected traps or fleeing in panic with their hands raised. But not all situations were like that.

There were also times when all the traps were clearly visible, just like now.

“This means there are a ton of traps…”

The overwhelming number of traps could either crush the spirit of a gag resident, making them flee, or foreshadow the gruesome future of a villain.

Though survival usually required running without looking back, Lian couldn’t turn around. He wanted to check on the slaves imprisoned in the cells.

“In times like this…”

Lian stretched a part of his body and erased part of the magic circle with a swift swipe. As if wiped clean with a magic sponge, the section of the magic circle vanished.

Whoosh…

The magic circle quickly lost its power.

“It works!”

Excited, Lian eagerly began erasing the magic circles one by one.

…The security magic of Zone 0 started to become paralyzed.

“Phew… I guess I overdid it since it’s been a while since I last cleaned.”

Lian pretended to wipe sweat from his brow as he stood in the now sparkling corridor. The once pitch-black space had become bright and clear.

“Oh, there are more cells than I thought. Are they all solitary?”

Lian tilted his head as he looked at the doors spaced evenly along the corridor. He then approached the nearest door and squeezed his body through the gap at the bottom.

“Ugh…”

Creeeak!

The gap was so narrow that Lian had to flatten himself like a slice of cheese before he could finally slip inside.

“It’s brighter than I expected.”

The interior was surprisingly cozy for a prison. Lanterns hanging from the ceiling illuminated the cell brightly, and there was a soft bed in each corner of the room. Next to each bed was a spacious desk and chair.

There was even a table for four where simple meals could be enjoyed. On top of the table were a pretty teapot and teacups.

It felt more like a guesthouse or a dormitory than a prison.

“But more importantly, where’s the slave…?”

Lian’s body wobbled as he twisted around, and his eyes landed on one of the beds. The blanket was slightly puffed up, indicating that someone was under it. Lian immediately climbed up the wall and crawled along the ceiling.

“If I suddenly appear in front of them, they’ll be startled. Let’s check from above first.”

With that thought, he wriggled along the ceiling and arrived above the stranger’s head. When Lian saw who was lying there, he almost fell from shock.

“I found it!”

It wasn’t a perfect match for his original body, but instinctively, Lian knew that this body was usable. Without hesitation, he crawled down toward the sleeping slave.

“…Huh?”

As he got closer, he could see things that weren’t visible from a distance. Sunken cheeks, dark circles hanging low under the eyes, hair as dull as coal, and lips so dry they were cracked.

The slave lying in bed looked like he could die at any moment. But that wasn’t what surprised Lian the most.

“…There’s no soul?”

Even though the body was breathing, it was completely empty, devoid of a soul. It was so baffling that Lian was momentarily speechless.

“Well, who cares! I needed an empty body anyway, so this is perfect!”

Not one to dwell on complicated thoughts, Lian brushed aside his confusion and slipped out of his slime form, diving straight into the slave’s body.

His vision alternated between white and black before it finally cleared.

“Hah…”

A low, raspy voice came from deep within his throat. It was a voice that, if described kindly, was full of charisma, but if put bluntly, sounded eerie.

Lian forced his weak body to sit up.

“Finally… Ugh, cough, cough!”

He tried to celebrate getting a new body, but a sharp pain shot through his throat, and he had to bow his head, coughing dryly.

“W-Water…”

Lian rolled off the bed and crawled toward the table. He grabbed the teapot and poured its contents into his mouth.

Gulp, gulp.

Like a man dying of thirst in the desert who had just found a pristine oasis, he gulped down the water desperately. As he drank, his sunken cheeks filled out, and his lifeless hair regained some vitality.

The skeletal body, which had been so thin it could have been mistaken for a skeleton’s, began to fill out nicely. Even the dark circles that had reached down to his chin shrank considerably. The dull pain that had been pounding all over his body vanished in an instant.

Once his body had mostly returned to normal, Lian pulled the teapot away from his lips and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Ahh!”

If he had done this in his original body, he would have looked like the model for an energy drink commercial. However, with his new body—dark hair and faint dark circles still remaining—his decadent appearance made him look more like someone who had just taken a dangerous substance.

Unaware of this, Lian casually inspected his new body.

“Ah… Five fingers! That’s how it should be!”

He marveled at regaining a human body, repeatedly opening and closing his hand, before finally regaining his composure.

“Getting a body is good and all, but… am I the only one here?”

Judging by the unused desk and bed, it seemed this room was only being used by the man with the black hair.

“I wasn’t confident I could pretend to be the owner of this body… but this is a relief.”

Feeling relieved, Lian looked around the room. He skimmed through the books on the desk and checked the wardrobe. There were ten identical outfits hanging inside.

Just as he was finishing his tour of the room—

Clank!

“…?”

The tightly closed door of the prison rattled violently before it slowly began to open. Caught off guard, Lian froze and stared blankly at the door.

Creeeak.

Through the crack in the door, a familiar head of hair came into view.

End of Chapter