I woke up to a loud ringing in my ears.

  Groggily, I sat up, trying to piece together what was happening. I remembered getting hit by a car, or was it a truck? The details were fuzzy. After that, I had woken up in a strange cell room, then armed people in medieval armor had stormed in, and before I could even begin to understand what was going on—

  “I killed a man…” I murmured, but strangely, the feeling of disgust, guilt or anything like that didn’t resurface. In fact, I felt strange…. too strange.

  “Ye’, ye killed a man.”

  A voice suddenly spoke right beside me.

  I jumped, my hand instinctively throwing a punch toward the voice. I closed my eyes, bracing for the impact, half-expecting to see another body flying through the air.

  Instead—

  “Yo’ moron.”

  Something hooked around my foot.

  Before I could even realize what it was, my body was yanked upward. A hard iron walking stick, shaped like a crane, had caught my ankle. The world flipped, and the next moment, I was slammed into the ground.

  “OUCH!”

  I screamed, only to realize the pain was far duller than I expected.

  “Y’know,” an old voice said lazily, “Quit yer screamin’.”

  I twisted around.

  A bushy bearded man stood behind me without warning, as if he had always been there. He was wearing some kind military uniform that also looked like a dirty coat. His face was covered in so much hair and beard that I couldn’t look at his face, but he looked old. He yawned and scratched his ear, leaning casually on the iron crane.

  “Who the f—”

  Before I could finish, the hook snapped around my leg again. I tried to fight it, but he was far too fast. He lifted me into the air and slammed me down once more, cracks spreading across the stone floor where I hit.

  “Ther’ll be rules ye’ll need ta follow.” he said calmly.

  This time, the crane caught my arm. I was flung aside and crashed into the wall.

  “Rule one.”

  I staggered back, trying to put some distance between us, but he suddenly appeared right in front of me. The iron crane struck my arm. A numb shock spread through it, and I realized I couldn’t move it at all.

  “Y’ill call me Instructor Demo.”

  He grabbed my clothes and threw me across the room again. The wall didn’t break, but my back did. Pain exploded through my body as I slid down, a red spot now on the wall.

  “Rule two.”

  Once again, the bearded man was standing right in front of me, his iron crane raised.

  “W-wait!” I shouted, trying desperately to show that I didn’t mean any harm.

  “Ya won’t speak,” he said flatly, “’less I give ye leave.”

  I raised my arms to block, but he just swept my legs out from under me. As I fell, the hook caught me by the neck and slammed me into the ground. I felt something give, my body refusing to move, as blindness flashed before my eyes.

  Instructor Demo didn’t seem to care.

  “Rule three,” he said calmly. “Always try yer best.”

  He kicked me. My body rolled across the floor so fast that the world blurred around me, until I finally came to a stop against the far wall. I lay there, barely breathing.

  “There’s a lo’ o’ rules ye gotta follow, an’ ye’ll learn ’em soon enough”

  I wanted to shout at the man, ask him if he was out of his mind, but my body refused to move. The fact that I was still alive at this point with all the injuries plus the broken neck felt nothing short of a miracle.

  “They tol’ me ye were a crazy one,” the old man, no, Instructor Demo, said as he leaned on his iron crane, flipping through a stack of papers he had somehow obtained. “Said I oughta show ye who’s boss ’round ’ere. An’ that ye’re special, seein’ as ye got emotions.”

  I didn’t answer. He wasn’t entirely wrong about that. Still, that didn’t stop me from glaring at him with pure disgust and hatred for what he had done.

  “If ye glare at me like that one more time,” he growled, not even lookin’ up, “I’ll knock ye flat again.”

  I shut up after that because I still remembered the pain. Even though it hadn’t hurt as much as it should have, it was still something I didn’t want to experience again.

  “Good.” Instructor Demo stood in front of me, staring down at my face. “Now get up, an’ we’ll start trainin’.”

  “I-I can’t…” I managed to mutter, not sure how my mouth was even working. I didn’t know how my body was getting its feeling back either.

  “Rule two.”

  Instructor Demo kicked me in the stomach. I was sent flying through the air, coughing violently as spit flew from my mouth. I crashed again, losing all feeling in my right arm.

  “Ye’re dead.” Instructor Demo was in front of me again, for the hundredth time. “Enemies ain’t gonna wait fer ye ta heal up. Ye’re a homunculus, fer the love o’ the goddess. Ye don’t feel like we humans do, an’ ye don’t heal like us.”

  “I—cough—I’m a what?—cough, cough” I managed to sputter as another coughing fit took hold of me.

  “Ye’re a homunculus,” Instructor Demo said again. “Got a problem with that, Nine?”

  “Nine?”

  “Ye really don’t understand a damn thing.”

  He raised his crane again.

  This time, I raised my left arm, braced my footing, and guarded my stomach, chest, and legs as best I could. The crane smashed into my stomach, but I blocked it with my left hand, gripping the iron tight. I smiled despite the pain, but—

  “AHHHH!”

  I screamed as he yanked the crane, twisting it hard while my hand was still holding on. My fingers didn’t react fast enough to let go, and my left arm twisted into a wrong, unnatural angle.

  “Ye need ta be beat’ up tha’ my clockwork,” Instructor Demo muttered.

  Grabbing my hair, he smashed my head into the floor. My head spun as he lifted me again and slammed it down once more.

  “I-I’m sorry!” I cried out.

  He didn’t listen. He just kept smashing my head against the floor.

  “I’ll try my best!” I screamed as my teeth began to crack, some falling loose and all of them began to pierce my skin back when my head was slammed to the ground.

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  He kept smashing my head into the floor.

  “I’m sorry! I—” Tears welled up as the pain swelled inside me.

  Instructor Demo didn’t stop. Instead, he hit harder. Warm blood began to spread beneath my head, pooling where it struck the floor again and again.

  I didn’t know what was happening anymore. Even before I was knocked unconscious, I hadn’t understood a single thing. I woke up in a place I didn’t recognize, inside a body that wasn’t mine, a girl’s body. Not just that, but a homunculus, an artificial human. Something that only existed in stories back on Earth.

  Then I was called Number 9.

  Before I could even process that, I was dragged into this dark chamber, where Instructor Demo did nothing but beat me over and over again.

  I didn’t want to fight. I didn’t want to feel pain. I just wanted to know what was going on. Why I was here. What I was supposed to be.

  All I wanted was answers. But he wasn’t listening.

  ‘It hurts so much.’

  The thought surfaced once, then again, then again, looping endlessly as my head was slammed down over and over.

  ‘It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much.’

  Then, finally, something inside me started to call out.

  ‘Kill him.’

  That was all it took for the dam to break.

  A sudden surge of strength flooded my body. The pain vanished as my wounds healed themselves in an instant, as if they had never existed. My vision turned red, narrowing until I could see only one thing.

  Instructor De…Devil? Death? Who was he again?

  Oh, right. The bearded guy. The one who needed to be killed.

  “Took yer long enough,” the bearded man raised an eyebrow. “Now, d’ye rem—”

  He didn’t get to finish as I lunged at him, my fist flying straight toward his face. He didn’t even blink, easily blocking it with his iron crane.

  “Strength’s top-notch, I can tell,” the bearded man muttered. “Ye’d place easy in the first pla—”

  I had already expected him to block it. Twisting my body, I drove my right foot into his leg as hard as I could, aiming to throw him off balance.

  “Reaction speed’s slower’n Number Five,” he continued, “but faster’n Number Four.”

  The bearded man kept muttering observations under his breath, like this was nothing more than a test. I didn’t care. I chased him relentlessly, pressing forward like a predator cornering its prey.

  “That’ll be all ye’ve got?” the bearded man taunted. I pressed forward anyway, something hot and ugly boiling up inside my chest at the sound of his voice.

  “Ye’re bad with emotions, I guess.”

  The bearded man suddenly seized my arms again and hurled me straight toward the far wall.

  “Let’s see how ye do with magic.”

  Magic? I didn’t even know what that meant. Fireballs? Lightning? Chanting spells?

  Before I could think any further, my body moved on its own. I twisted in midair, slammed into the wall hard enough to shatter it, stone exploding outward, yet I didn’t stop.

  Using the broken wall as a foothold, I kicked off it like a spring and launched myself straight back at him.

  “Ye can’t use magic.”

  The bearded man looked… disappointed, somehow. That only made me grin. Seeing that emotion on his face stirred something ugly and pleased inside me. I drew my fist back, aiming straight for his face—

  “Tha’s enough fer now.”

  In the same instant, he reached out again, his left iron crane catching around my left arm. He put strength into it, trying to fling me away, but I reacted faster this time. Instead of flying, I grabbed onto the crane, twisted my body, and landed hard on my feet, forcing his momentum to shift.

  I tried to redirect the strength. I tried to throw him instead.

  “Well, color me surprised.”

  The bearded man grinned as he was lifted into the air, looking down at me. “Ya’ve got a learnin’ phase, unlike the others.”

  Before I could even process what that meant, he moved. In midair, he grabbed my head, something I was completely unprepared for, and clenched down hard.

  Something flowed out of me. No, drained.

  A force I couldn’t resist ripped through my body, leaving me almost empty. My strength vanished in an instant.

  “W-what…” I muttered as my legs gave out beneath me, refusing to obey.

  I collapsed onto the floor.

  The bearded guy… no, Instructor Demo. Why had I forgotten his name? It had been drilled into me over and over, beaten into my body as he tossed me around like a rag doll.

  My eyelids felt impossibly heavy, like they weighed a ton. They kept trying to close, and I fought it with everything I had left. In a last, desperate attempt, I didn’t even know what I was trying to do anymore. Escape? Beg? Apologize?I reached out and grabbed his foot.

  I half-expected him to crush my hand under his heel. Instead, he did something I never expected.

  He laid a blanket over me.

  Then he turned away, his iron crane tapping against the floor as he walked off, clang… clang… clang, each sound growing farther away.

  “Sleep well.”

  I didn’t understand what was happening. Just moments ago, he had been merciless, beating me down as I screamed and begged for him to stop, and yet now, out of nowhere, he showed something that almost resembled kindness.

  It didn’t make sense.

  I tried to crawl away, tried to move even an inch, thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could escape while he wasn’t looking. But my body refused to listen. My eyelids grew impossibly heavy and slid shut before I could even drag myself forward.

  Some instinct deep inside me whispered that this wasn’t the time. That I needed to conserve what little strength I had left for what was coming next.

  Because as long as that monster was still here, I didn’t stand a chance of escaping.

  [(0)]

  Instructor Demo walked out of the room and shut the thick mithril door behind him, the metal sealing with a heavy thud. His iron crane clanked against the cold stone floor as he turned, eyeing the two new Magisets assigned to oversee the homunculus.

  “Yer alrigh’?” Instructor Demo asked, rubbing his ear. He dug out a bit of earwax, sniffed it, then popped it into his mouth. The man nearest him visibly flinched.

  “Magiset Lester,” Mg. Lester said, hesitating as he half-raised his hand for a handshake before awkwardly pulling it back.

  “Magiset Emma,” Mg. Emma followed, her expression tight with barely concealed disgust.

  “Alrigh’,” Instructor Demo grunted. “Make sure al’ the homunculus’re ready fer the next trainin’.”

  With that, he walked off down the corridor, passing a line of reinforced windows. Behind each pane lay a homunculus: bruised, broken, and unconscious, their bodies sprawled where they had finally collapsed.

  He had beaten every last one of them to that state.

  Not out of cruelty alone, but to force them into what the records called Frenzy mode. The moment when death felt close enough that their true power surfaced. However, in Frenzy, they no longer distinguished friend from foe. Reason vanished and control disappeared.

  And that was exactly what he needed to see. As he reached the top of the stairs, Emma suddenly called out behind him.

  “Wait!” She had been holding herself back until now, but she no longer bothered to hide it. Emma glared at him, her hands clenched tight at her sides. “Don’t you feel bad for all the things you’ve done to them?”

  “Bad fer what?” Instructor Demo replied lazily, not even turning around. “They ain’t humans.”

  He glanced back over his shoulder, his single visible eye dull and uncaring.

  “If ye were gonna complain,” he added, “ye should’ve done it before ye decided to make homunculus.”

  Emma’s fists trembled. She couldn’t say anything at first. The image of them, small bodies, broken and bleeding, curled up like trashed dolls, burned in her mind. They looked like children. They sounded like children.

  And then there was Number 9. The way she had begged. The way her voice cracked as she screamed for it to stop. That was the last straw.

  “They’re just—” Her voice caught in her throat.

  “They’re just children,” Emma finally said, her words shaking. “They cry, they panic, they feel fear. One of them begged you to stop. How can you look at that and say they aren’t human?”

  Instructor Demo was silent for a moment. Then he exhaled slowly through his nose.

  “Hmph.”

  He turned fully this time, resting his weight against his iron crane.

  “Listen well, lass,” he said, his voice low and rough. “No matter wha’ happens, they’ll go tae war.”

  He began to walk away, each step heavy.

  “An’ the Imperials?” he continued, his tone edged with dry scorn. “They won’t do nothin’ but aim to kill ’em.”

  He let out a short, humorless breath.

  “Ye ever seen an Imperial fightin’ a real war?” he asked, not waiting for an answer. “D’ye think they’ll hesitate just ’cause ye tell ’em they’re children? Right to yer face?”

  Emma could only tremble, her fists clenched so tight they hurt.

  “No,” Instructor Demo went on coldly. “They won’t.”

  He didn’t slow down.

  “They’ll kill ’em if they can. An’ if they can’t—” He glanced back once, his eyes sharp. “—they’ll capture ’em. Tear ’em apart. Then mass-produce ’em fer themselves.”

  “So,” he said at last, his voice final as he nearly disappeared from sight, “don’t complain. Do yer job.”

  Instructor Demo emerged from the underground facility and stopped, looking up at the night sky. For a moment, he stood there in silence, the wind brushing past his beard.

  Then he murmured, so quietly that no one could hear—

  “An’ nae one bothered tae tell me they were just kids.”