Development [1]

'You IDIOT!! Warping?! Seriously?! You missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!'

My inner voice was nagging me.

'You could've gone for a far more superior ability!'

Look, if I chose a more superior ability, who knows what would've happened? Aphrodite herself said they couldn't give people powers that could potentially threaten them.

Any suggestions?

'You could've gone for stuff like space-time manipulation, concept manipulation, logic manipulation, probability manipulation or whatnot!'

Yeah, those are some nice abilities. But we need to think big here. Do you think Gods would be affected by those? No. Look at Aphrodite. She was able to teleport a human to her garden, and I bet that wasn't her true and original ability.

Besides, stuff like logic don't apply to Gods anyway. Concepts? Heh. Gods are beyond human comprehension, so don't think our puny concepts would affect them. The same goes for probabilities; they're useless before them.

'T-Then what about etherius warping?!'

...Seriously? You just included the word "warping" in it.

'O-Ohh!'

See? If I outright said etherius warping, Aphrodite would've instantly denied it. Besides, it's always better to take one step at a time. It's not like I'm immediately going to go against Gods, and I don't know which mysterious energy is harnessed in the world I'm going to. Maybe mana?

'Perhaps you should've gone for plunder? You know, steal other's abilities...?'

Hmm... A great idea. But if I do manage to get countless abilities, it would be an overload on my brain. And there should be a limitation like I can't steal abilities that are beyond my reach.

But you're clearly underestimating the ability to contort and manipulate forces and matter at atomic levels. Highly depended on my imagination, knowledge and sheer will, which are by no means small. That, is warping. With it, I will achieve any desire I want, until I reach its ultimate form...

Ahhh... I'm truly an amazing person...

'So?'

What's wrong? I thought I shut you up.

My inner voice returned.

'The Goddess! Aphrodite! Why didn't you kiss her?!'

Boy oh boy. This inner voice of mine was truly dramatic.

'Oh, before you come up with a good excuse, don't forget you died a virgin!'

Ugh! That last remark wound me.

Well, I didn't particularly want to lose my virginity, hence why it was not a regret. Besides, I could've easily done that via Linda; she wouldn't mind.

'You despicable piece of TRASH.'

Emotions are a human's worst enemy. It causes them to make wrong decisions and later regret it, which I find laughable. I could've chosen to take advantage of Linda's feelings and easily did whatever I wanted with her. But why do that when there's a thrilling thing like reincarnating to another world?

'Just shut up and tell me why you didn't kiss the Goddess! You never even got to first base!'

Oh, that. She was fairly beautiful.

'D-Don't tell me YOU fell in love?!'

Why not?

'I-I thought you weren't capable of feeling love...'

That's a Goddess of Beauty for you. I left her hanging on purpose to increase her desire for me. That feeling she never saw from anyone else but I will linger in her heart and long for it.

'So you're taking advantage of her constitution?'

Precisely. A Goddess might know others' experiences but doesn't have experience herself. From her emotion-sensing thing, she saw an unfathomable amount of affection and love from me, the kind she had never seen before...

'Tell the truth. Did you actually fall in love? 'Cause, you can't do that to the person you love.'

Did you actually think so? A Goddess is not a person, but a deity. I thought it would be fun to play with one.

'You really are a despicable piece of trash... Don't you know, emotion is something delicate...'

That's why I take advantage of it. I can't fall in love, and I don't want to. It's more fun to pretend and go with the flow, playing with others' emotions.

'Are you even human? You're more dangerous than Mr Verschmitzt.'

You think so? Well, as long as everyone is fine and happy, then all's well. I'm not one to plunge people into despair and misery unless they aren't my enemies that is. I'd do everything to get what I want on a whim without hurting anyone.

So what do I want? What's my ultimate goal in venturing into this fantasy world? I want to make the Gods my slaves. Why? Because it will be fun. I have the ability to do it. Those who get in my way will only meet their end.

I want to reunite Aphrodite with her 'sister'—I'd actually be doing a good thing here—and make the Goddesses my women and do whatever I want with them. But first, I need to conquer and dominate my universe... I'm not overstepping my bounds and I don't plan to. I know my capabilities.

Anyway, a Goddess having a sister... Sounds strange.

'The name 'Aphrodite' also sounds familiar.'

Oh yeah, a hydrated silicate of magnesia, soft and white, found at Swe—

'Not that, you hypocrite!'

Okay, okay, I know. Jeez, I'm basically talking to myself...

Aphrodite, huh... A Greek God, I know. Back on earth, she's the Goddess of beauty and love. Born from when Cronus castrated his father Uranus, I think. Yeah, and she doesn't have a sister, not that I know of.

'Don't forget she said she was a Goddess of Beauty.'

Yeah... And didn't mention anything about 'love'... Then her sister must be the Goddess of Love. Yep, I figured it out.

'Can you guess her name though?'

Hey, don't make things hard for me.

'But you can, can't you?'

Argh, geez.

Aphrodite... a Greek God of beauty but without love... love... Venus? Yeah, a Roman counterpart, I think.

'Venus? Is that your final answer?'

I ignored my inner voice.

But why would Venus turn into a Demon? If I think about it like that, I can't get why her heart would be tainted. So Venus isn't her name. A Goddess of Love gets her heart tainted by evil and becomes the Demon Queen... of hatred? You know, the opposite of love is hate.

'Is it hard for you?' I taunted myself.

You also know what incites hate? War. I have several options as to what Aphrodite's sister's name is, well not several, but three.

'Let's hear it.'

With pleasure. Ishtar, Inanna, Astarte. But I bet my chances on the former.

'Why?'

Because in the Babylonian pantheon, Ishtar was the personification of planet Venus. And guess what? Venus is the Roman counterpart of the Greek God Aphrodite. So yeah, the chances are pretty high.

'...'

Hee-Hee... I'm a genius.

'We will see.'

Yep.

Enough about my weird talking to myself.

---------

Back to situational awareness.

It had been a while (while talking to myself) and despite being conscious, I was shrouded in black. I had lost all my five senses and could only use my thoughts.

Aphrodite said that my soul had already gone to its designated body while I was conversing with her. When I thought about this, a body gains a soul at the moment of conception/fertilization and not birth.

So yeah, I was currently a zygote. Damn.

All I could do was sum up the time it took at Aphrodite's garden and here... around 56 minutes or so. I had a long way to go until I was born...

3 weeks in.

I began having weird thoughts.

'Huuh...!! I swear if this is a novel...! If I'm in a book...! That would be some sadistic author. Sup, readers. Having a good time, while I suffer so much hardship? Gosh... What am I even thinking right now? There's no way I'm in a story written by some sadistic dude...'

I didn't have a brain, so my consciousness was solely in my soul as my cells were still developing into tissues...

Seriously though, to think I would experience being a millimetre of meat...

I took my patience and kept track of time until I reached my cardiovascular system development...

5 weeks in.

Finally! Something to cure my boredom!

BEAT. BEAT. BEAT. PUMP. PUMP. PUMP.

You know what that means; I finally got heartbeats! Around 153 beats per minute give or take.

'Keep going body! You can make it!' I cheered.

Imagine it dying. But at times like these, I need to be optimistic!

Anyway, getting a heartbeat made things easier to keep track of time. Now I aimed toward 18 weeks in.

My nervous system had already somewhat developed as I could feel a slimy substance around my body from time to time. This also meant I now had a brain, formed from the neural tube along my back.

Seriously, you know those rather nasty photos of embryos in the water sac? That was what I felt like—a body with an irregular shape... Ugh...

Around 27,760,320 heartbeats in 181 440 minutes. Converting that into weeks and I was in the eighteenth week (4 months) of pregnancy, or rather, development. It was my mother who was pregnant, not me. I was in development.

I encountered a problem. Because I could now hear my mother's insides, it meant I could hear her heartbeat. It wasn't in sync with mine, so it posed difficult to keep track of time as the two heartbeats would sometimes confuse me. But that was a small matter as I could do estimations and approximations.

Aside from my mother's heartbeat, I could hear the sounds of gurgling water, the amniotic fluid. From time to time, I heard the impact of her footsteps and the friction between her palm and skin when stroking her stomach. There were different rhythms so I guessed it must've been my father.

'It must be a nice family...'

The fact that they didn't have sex on their own proved much...

About a few weeks after that, I had weird thoughts again.

'...Wait! W-What if I turn out to be a girl...?'

The thought actually terrified me.

While I've been curious to know what a girl's body felt like, I didn't actually want to be a girl. The possibility couldn't be dismissed. It was clear that being optimistic was going to last for long.

If it really came to that, it would serve as motivation to improve my ability, warping. I would mangle my female genitalia and replace them with male ones, including the hormones.

After that, I would make sure Aphrodite gets her punishment because to live as a girl...! I would have to worry about a lot, right? It would be a fate worse than death, though I reincarnated.

'Aphrodite... You better pray to your creator I don't become a girl.'

Courting her wouldn't just cut it. If I turn out to be a boy, I'm going to ravage her sister right before her eyes just for making my heart uneasy. Mark my words...

28 weeks (6 months) in, I think, and my range of hearing went outside my mother's body.

"Gnilrad, dluoc uoy teg em a puc fo retaw." (Darling, could you get me a cup of water.)

This sucks... Although I'm quite pleased to hear my mother's soothing voice, why do I have to learn a new language?!

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Author Note: While it might be easy for us readers to decipher the language, it is not so for our characters.