You Will [Not] Wake Up!

I suddenly awoke from the suffocating bizarre ink-ocean to the sound of something being chopped.

I found myself atop of some hay-bedding, and around me a large, yet modest room- the walls made of clay with tribalistic adornments displayed proudly affixed.

A few feet away from me, was a woman with two protruding horns atop of her head, chopping away at a strange green vegetable on a wooden table. Next to her chopping was a small open hearth, within it a pot was hanging over a small fire- vegetables similar to the oddity of the one being chopped bobbed from the surface of the pot in boiling water.

The woman was naked, with her bare back and bare *cough* were showing- I noticed that there was a balcony leading to the outside of the room just ahead, from there was a drawn line with strips of cloth drying under the afternoon light.

I damned my luck that she wasn't chopping her vegetables FACING me- but never mind that, my memory is coming back to me.

To my surprise, I didn't die after that forced sleep who knows how long ago- as well, I'm still here, in the same body that I was from that fateful day. I eye at the scar on my chest, and notice that it had slightly enlarged, albeit only slightly.

I wonder what that could mean, but as I place a finger over it to feel it out- I rustle and she hears me, the woman with the horns ahead chopping the strange vegetable.

"Ah, it seems you've at last awoken, Milord." She rises from her kneeling over cutting stance and walks towards the balcony, still not facing me.

Now that I look more closely, she looks a lot like the busty woman I had protected during that fight- but her hair is-

waitwaitwaitwaitwait-

Milord? Milord!?

Have I already unlocked a harem route this early on into this whole reincarnation thing?

This is only supposed to happen in light novels!

If my heart could race it would, but alas, homunculi do not have hearts.

B-Back to reality, as I was saying, her hair is a totally different color than the busty woman's. This woman ahead of me has silvery white hair, and instead of it being tied up into a ponytail like the busty woman, it flowed elegantly from her bare back all the way to her hips.

Additionally, she was how do I say this, "healthy" looking. Her back and her entire silhouette shone of youthful tautness, muscles where muscles usually shouldn't be unless you're some world class athlete. Nothing like the fit, but otherwise scrawny and malnourished busty woman from before.

But one thing that I can notice that retains it's similarity is the uhh, errr, yes those, those mounds- of hills- mounds, mounds, hills- chest, CHEST!

Her breasts (from the back, I can't see the front... sadly) look roughly the same size as the busty woman's- maybe they're related?

Oh, and I can understand her, so there's that; just a little plus, I guess.

"Wait, I can understand you?" I spoke, now finally hearing my voice for the first time. It sounded... manly. Way manlier than my original voice, I felt envy at my new body strangely enough- even though it IS mine now.

The vegetable woman (Yes, that'll be her new name... temporarily) was now dressed in oddly familiar rags (maybe it's a cultural thing), she was facing me now, and I stand corrected.

Hers are bigger.

"Yes, somehow you can. Unlike when we first met that is."

First met?

"Are you... the woman who found me in the steppe, per chance?" I couldn't believe it, but I'm starting to believe that busty woman and vegetable woman are actually the same person.

I refuse to merge their names to busty vegetable, so I'll just revert back to calling her busty woman (told you it was temporary).

"Yes, you are my savior." She began to give a long, long bow. Like, her head was touching her knees long bow, it was some pretty serious stuff.

"If it we're not for you- you and your almighty power, I would've died; and the sacrifices of my brethren would have been for naught." She rose from her bow and gave a downcast look; it managed to make me feel sad, something I've yet to experience yet in this homunculi body.

"Those vile human paladins... Ahriman take them." She spat out, anguish in her words.

Ahriman? Oh yeah, that guy- thing.

"Ahriman, I heard those guys call me Ahriman before they launched their spell at me. What's up with that?" I sat up from my bedding and sat lazily, the sunlight was hitting me just riiight.

Busty woman looked at me as if I had just split her mother in two, her eyes sharpened at the irises revealing cat-like eyes.

"You call yourself a demon, yet you do not know your own creator?"

"I'm from the sticks, spare me." I wave off her anger, I just woke up from a terrible dream- I'm trying to avoid new-found negativity y'know.

"I do not know where this 'sticks' is, but I do know that any Demon worth their birth would know the identity of the Moon God, Ahriman the Healer."

Now that's a title, it almost makes the formless black void thing I had seen just earlier seem almost amicable.

"Ah I see, sorry, I must've bumped my head a little too hard during the fight from before. Well, it's almost as if- *gasp* my memories, oh no!"

Hate me, love me, but I need information on this world- and what better trope to play on the locals to ease over missing information than being an amnesiac?

She looked at me with puzzling eyes, but her anger dissipated.

"I see... I suppose that does happen, especially for a grand battle of such scale that you were thrusted into. Pardon my rudeness, Milord." She gave another long, long bow, and returned to a relaxed stance. The pot full of what I presume to be soup bubbled over a little bit, inciting her to go to the open-hearth to tend to it.

She began to speak as her attention was focused on the pot, she was stirring a small wooden ladle within.

"Ahriman, known as Ahriman the Healer, the Moon God, is the creator of all Demon-kind."

"Long ago, before when the world was a smoldering mass of heat and fire- it was the domain of Nimia, Nimia the Destroyer, the Twin-Suns God."

She stopped stirring the soup and looked back at me- her vivid amber eyes sharpened once again like a cat.

"Humans like to change this story to claim that it was Ahriman who had the world appear like this before the creation of either race- even to the point of switching the titles between the gods, with Nimia being the Healer and Ahriman the Destroyer- yet the the title of Moon and Twin-Suns stay the same."

She turned her attention back to the pot, satisfied with her clarification.

"The world had this fiery exterior for eons, as this destruction fueled Nimia's power."

"But the souls of creatures yet to be created cried out- they cried out from the world of Solaster, in hopes of being heard to stop this endless uninhabitable turmoil that claimed the surface."

"Nimia ignored their pleas, but from their cries of anguish a new god was born, a god known as Ahriman."

"Ahriman was borne from the moon that circles the world today, his arrival sapping away half of Nimia's strength that she had accumulated from the destruction of the planet's surface."

"She was further weakened when Ahriman's grace, that of the Moon, cooled the world, extinguishing the eternal flames that had been burning on the world's surface for eons."

"But to further weaken Nimia's power over Solaster, Ahriman cleaved her in two- splitting her in two halves, of which why there are two Suns."

"Yet the cleaving was not without struggle, as from the bloodshed between the god's- Humanity sprung from Nimia's grace and Demon-kind Ahriman's."

"Nimia even now runs from Ahriman's attempts to further cull her power, with them achieving the cycle of the Suns and Moon over the world- this their eternal chase."

"Nimia tries to reignite the world with her two destructive Suns but is stopped just shy before she can by the rise of Ahriman's healing Moon over the world."

"Hence-" I spoke up, I finally getting the gist.

"Ahriman the Healer, and Nimia the Destroyer."

Busty woman gives me a warm smile of satisfaction as she brings the now done pot of soup to the small wooden table, that of which she was cutting vegetables just beforehand, her gaze beckoning me to come and join her.

I sat opposite to her on the floor as she served the pot's contents into two small clay bowls, one for me and one for her. I eyed at it at first suspiciously, but it looked otherwise normal, minus the strange looking vegetables.

I'm really hoping this body can enjoy food, I'll be really sad if I can't be a foodie here (and I won't let it get so out of hand that I'll get chubby again! I promise!)

I noticed that there we no spoons, and I saw that busty woman was drinking out of the bowl. I followed suit, and to my surprise, I began to enjoy a pleasant taste of mystery vegetable soup.

It tasted kind of like tomato but with a sweet potato like texture, nonetheless, still enjoyable.

But as I enjoyed the soup, a familiar sight sprung out again from within vision.

//Non-Magical energy is being collected. Commencing [Transmutation] skill//

The panel before me was a transparent gray rectangle, and I could tell that whatever it was- it couldn't be seen by vegetable woman, who was still enjoying the soup that she had made without noticing it.

I felt the soup that reached my "gut" suddenly vanish from within, all of its warmth and weight.

I don't know how I feel about losing that kind of satisfaction from a good meal, that kind of afterglow is vital for a foodie- so this was a sour revelation to swallow (pun fully intended).

My lips formed into a tight-lipped smile as I finished my now nothing soup as I further inspected the surroundings while busty woman finished hers.

How long was I out for? Maybe just the night? But how does that explain busty woman's appearance? What if I was out for years? That wouldn't make sense, she's talking about the battle as if it had just happened recently. Gah, questions and questions- I need to probe (heh) her for more info.

But I doubt she'll know what's up with my game-like display thing, that is something that I'll have to figure out on my own, I think.

Ehh scratch that.

"Oi, can you see this?" I point at the display in hovering in front of my face, busty woman looks at me.

"Shee what Milordth" she said, with a mouthful of soupy vegetables (cute).

"Nevermind."

Back to square one.

///