Chapter 1

I’d crossed into the beastfolk world a year ago.

I hadn’t noticed anything wrong at first. I was mildly face-blind anyway and never paid much attention to people’s faces. After getting off the plane, I’d headed straight to headquarters to report on my progress.

Until someone listening to me furrowed his brow, and two bright red fox ears sprang from his head in fury.

“What on earth are you reporting on?”

My laptop screen was nothing but static. My phone had no signal, either.

I looked up in confusion and nearly died of fright. I couldn’t let them know I was different.

My brain had never worked so fast.

In a flash of inspiration, I slapped my thigh as though I’d just remembered something.

“Wait. I already quit that job. Why am I still traveling for progress reports?”

Before any of them could work out what was happening, I grabbed my things and strode out as if I had every right to.

And that was how I came to hide my human identity in this world.

Until a quiet afternoon two weeks ago.

I felt an itch down below and gave it a scratch.

And then…

I went blank. I looked down, pulled open my waistband, and stared into my underwear in disbelief.

My brain crashed for at least five seconds. Then I squeezed my eyes shut and reached down with a trembling hand.

A strange sensation came from between my legs. My lower belly clenched.

A nameless heat shot through me.

At that moment, an innocent girl’s entire worldview quietly shattered.

I let out a piercing scream.

I practically crawled to the hospital, sobbing, “Doctor, help! Something weird is growing on me!”

I was crying so hard I could barely breathe. I closed my eyes in despair.

“I’m a girl, body and soul! I cannot cope with six extra instruments of temptation. Cut them off!”

This was bizarre. Utterly bizarre.

I was sure that even in this beastfolk world, there were only two sexes, male and female. Nothing like this had ever happened before!

But I really had grown an extra part. That knowledge was enough to break me.

After examining me, the doctor gave me a hesitant look and chose her words carefully.

“You’re feeling very uncomfortable right now, aren’t you?”

I covered my face and grudgingly admitted it.

“That’s normal,” she said.

“Why don’t you take care of that first? It’ll make the rest of the examination easier.”

Then she left me alone in the room.

I looked down, stared for two seconds, and silently drew the curtain…

A minute later, all the distress and discomfort had drained away.

What remained was a growing sense of detachment, remorse, and faint exhaustion.

I felt I ought to become a devout monk.

That night, an article titled “Female Human Grows Extra Parts After Failing to Adjust to Beastfolk World”

shot to the top of the interstellar beastfolk trending list. The photo showed me clinging to the doctor’s trouser leg and sobbing in despair at the hospital.

I was dumbfounded when I saw it.

Just as humans back home loved nuzzling cats and dogs, beastfolk loved nuzzling humans.

I’d been afraid to reveal that I was human partly because there were so few of us here, but also because beastfolk thought we were adorable creatures with neither fluffy fur nor hard scales.

They absolutely loved petting us.

But what did that have to do with my extra part?

Surely they didn’t think that headline was funny.

My expression grew grim.

The surgery was scheduled much sooner than I’d expected.

I closed my eyes peacefully.

And then…

A crowd of doctors gathered around me. They stared at the holy light shining from between my legs and drew a collective breath.

“Wow…”

Someone said, “Perhaps we could preserve the removed part in formalin and put it on display in a museum.”

Humiliation turned to rage. My eyes flew open.

A little octopus beside me was crying its eyes out.

It held up a suckerless tentacle with a piece missing and wailed,

“That’s my arm! It ran off to cuddle you. It doesn’t want me anymore!”

Hang on. Who had taught it to cuddle like that?

Then I looked down and found that one was becoming two, two becoming three, and three becoming a whole universe…

After a brief silence, my terrified scream split the sky.