The memories kept flooding in, each one hitting Ingrid like a ton of bricks had been dropped right on top of her head. The original Ingrid hadn’t just been weak, she had been the garbage bag of the entire Denver family.
After her adoptive parents realized her illness had permanently ruined her body, they stripped her of everything. They moved her from her comfortable bedroom down into a damp, windowless basement room. When the apocalypse hit and the world collapsed, things only got worse.
While her adoptive siblings awakened grand beast traits, her adoptive brother becoming a revered Silver-back Gorilla beastman and her sister turning into a deadly Snow Leopard, Ingrid remained completely human on the surface, just heavier, slower, and weaker.
To her family, she was merely a walking disgrace. A useless mouth to feed in a world where food was fought over with fangs and claws. They kept her alive for one reason only: to be their personal servant.
Every single day for the past three years, Ingrid had washed their blood-stained clothes, scavenged through filthy, monster-infested ruins for scrap metal, and eaten whatever rotten scraps they left on their plates.
Then came Falcon, the eagle-man currently standing in front of Ingrid with his feathery arms crossed and an expression of supreme disgust.
Falcon was a mid-tier warrior of the settlement. The Denver family had struck a deal to marry Ingrid off to him in exchange for five bags of dried meat and a case of clean water. To the Denvers, it was a profitable trade for a worthless fat pig.
And for the original Ingrid? She had actually been delusional enough to hope. After Falcon had brought her to this tribe, she had spent the last three weeks believing that marrying Falcon would finally free her from her family’s abuse. If she pleased him enough and waited on him like a servant, he wouldn’t take her back and she would actually have a place to stay. She thought maybe, just maybe, he would treat her like a human being unlike the way her family had been treating her.
She had saved the meager rations she was given by the chief for a month, using some of the materials to mend his torn leather clothes and hand-crafting a luck charm out of monster bones to give him before his hunting trips. She had fallen hopelessly, pitifully in love with the idea of being saved.
And how had Falcon responded today? When she came to bring him his meal, he had taken her handmade bone charm, laughed in her face, and tossed it straight into the settlement’s waste pit, a foul, contaminated pool where the tribe dumped the toxic, acidic bile and rotting organs of slaughtered monsters. When the desperate girl reached out to grab her charm from the edge, Falcon’s buddy, the wolf-man, had given her a hard shove, sending her splashing right into the toxic sludge.
She had choked, panicked, and drowned right there while everyone who had gathered watched and laughed. The original Ingrid’s heart had literally given out from sheer despair and terror before her lungs even filled with water.
She had died in that sludge believing she was completely unlovable. She died thinking her existence was nothing more than a burden to others. The feelings of the original Ingrid kept burning in Ingrid’s chest, making it ache.
Ingrid snapped out of the memory flash, her hands trembling violently against the cold stone floor. A deep, burning sensation flared in the center of her chest, not from her own dead Core, but from the residual grief and humiliation left behind by the former Ingrid.
’You poor, foolish girl. You starved yourself for monsters in human skin, just like I did.’
Ingrid looked down at her thick, trembling hands, then lifted her head to stare at Falcon.
He was still looking at Ingrid like she was a piece of stepped-on mud. "Are you done rolling around in your own blood, Ingrid?" Falcon sneered, spitting onto the floor right next to my knee.
"Get up and clear out. Your adoptive parents already took the dried meat. You aren’t my problem anymore, and I sure as hell am not bringing a brain-damaged pig back to my nest."
The crowd chuckled again. The wolf-man smirked, cracking his knuckles.
Ingrid slowly stood up. Her knees wobbled under the sheer weight of her body, and every joint screamed in protest, but she forced herself to stand tall. She wiped the dark blood from her nose with the back of her hand, smearing it across her soot-stained cheek.
Ingrid’s eyes locked onto Falcon’s bird eyes and a cold gaze settled deep between her pupils. Falcon’s arrogant smile faltered slightly. He took half a step back, his wings twitching uncomfortably under the sudden, chilling weight of my stare.
{DING! The host has fully processed Vessel Memories!}
{Detecting massive overlap in Host’s and Vessel’s emotional trauma...}
{Special Trait Unlocked: Absolute Spite.}
{ New Emergency Mission: Make Falcon regret the day he started treating Ingrid wrongly. Reward: 500 Revenge Points.}
Ingrid didn’t answer the system. Instead, a slow, cold, deeply terrifying smile spread across her bloody face.
’Hey, Lorna123,’ Ingrid communicated in her head, her voice dripping with poison.
{Yes, Host?}
’You said I need 100,000 points to awaken my Beast Core and stand at the top of this hellhole, right?’
{Correct.}
’Good. Tell me... how many points do I get if I tear this bird’s wings off one by one? You’re a revenge system so there must be some kind of reward for that right?’
{Correct. If host is able to make him regret and beg you for mercy thrice, the system will reward you with an extra 500 points. Will you take the mission?’
"Will I take the mission?" Ingrid’s voice rang out in the clearing as she raised her thick arms and cracked her knuckles, the sound echoing. She suddenly raised her head and fixed her gaze right in front of the falcon beast man, hatred glinting in her pupils, "Of course I will."