The mission had originally been a covert subterranean infiltration carried out by three female agents, codenamed B, R, and J. But when the space collapsed, they felt their bodies torn apart as if atomized. When consciousness finally reconnected to their brains, pain was the first signal to return.
It wasn't pain in any single place.
It was a pervasive, unlocatable burning sensation, as though every nerve had been stretched apart and reassembled.
Rosa didn't open her eyes right away.
She forced herself to maintain a steady breathing rhythm, allowing her awareness to fully settle back into place. It was a habit forged in extreme conditions—first confirm she could still control her body, then figure out what had happened.
The air was unfamiliar.
Dry, mixed with the stench of sweat, rust, and a feral musk unique to beasts. Nearby came the sound of metal clashing—regular, rough—like chains being dragged across wooden boards.
Not a medical facility.
That realization sent her alertness spiking.
She tried moving a finger.
It worked.
But the sensory feedback was wrong—strength transmitted more directly than she remembered, her joints moved through a slightly different range, and her fingertips carried an unfamiliar sense of weight. Rosa frowned faintly and finally opened her eyes.
The first thing her vision caught was the gaps between wooden bars.
Rough and old, yet sturdy enough. Dim yellow light swayed outside the cage, and fragments of conversation in an unfamiliar language drifted in, their tones laced with appraisal and impatience.
She looked down at her hands.
Long fingers—yet covered in a layer of short fur. The nails were sharp and curved, a structure that was unmistakably nonhuman. She instinctively clenched her fist. The speed of her muscles' response made even her pause for a fraction of a second.
Rosa fell silent.
Not in panic. Not in denial.
Just confirming reality.
She lifted her head and swept her gaze across the cage, quickly locking onto two other figures.
The woman sitting against the wall was studying the lock near her feet, movements slow and focused, as if it weren't a restraint but a mechanical problem waiting to be dismantled.
—Bella, codename B.
On the other side, the third person leaned half against the cage, speaking to a guard in slightly awkward phrasing. Her expression was docile, her posture deliberately lowered—yet the instant the guard turned away, her eyes swept the entire space, cataloging every exit and position.
—Jesse, codename J.
All three were here.
And all three were awake.
They didn't exchange looks. They didn't speak. They showed no unnecessary expression at all. Any brief shock had ended the moment they woke; what remained was the calm drilled into them by training.
Rosa adjusted her posture, making herself look more like cargo that had lost the ability to resist.
The surrounding conversation gradually became clearer.
One word repeated again and again, accompanied by numbers and coarse laughter. She didn't understand everything, but the meaning was obvious enough.
They were being priced.
"…So we've become beastfolk."
Rosa reached her second conclusion internally.
This wasn't any scenario she had anticipated, but she didn't waste time asking why.
There was only one real question—
How to survive from here on.
She rapidly assessed her condition:
All equipment lost.
Communications cut.
Body structure altered, but strength and reaction speed significantly enhanced.
A high price—but not unusable.
Rosa's gaze briefly met Bella's in the shadows. Bella gave an almost imperceptible nod. When Jesse turned again, she deliberately moved closer to the cage door and lightly tapped the wooden slats.
Three beats.
Confirmation that they could still act.
Rosa closed her eyes, letting her breathing settle.
Fear was meaningless. Panic only hastened death.
They had completed missions in environments far worse than this.
Only this time—
The mission objective had become the world itself.
"Adapt first. Then act," she ordered silently.
Because a group of underestimated slaves
was the most dangerous thing there was.
The prison wagon jolted forward, the creaking of its wheels masking Rosa's barely audible whisper.
"Environmental report." Her lips hardly moved—this was close-range covert communication under surveillance.
"Light level fifteen percent. High humidity. Mountain terrain," B (Bella) replied, her voice calm as a machine. Her newly grown wolf ears twitched faintly in the darkness, as if capturing every wavelength in the air. "Six breathing signatures outside. Two riflemen—no, magitech guns. Energy profile differs from gunpowder. Convoy is slowing. Fixed checkpoint two hundred meters ahead."
"They mentioned 'auction' and 'purity grade' earlier," J (Jesse) said, tilting her head slightly. Red fox ears flickered through her hair. She offered a servile, strained smile to a passing guard, her eyes cold as ice. "These traffickers plan to sell us at the next stop. Leader, I have a seventy-percent chance of taking this lock in five seconds—but that glowing short staff outside—the magitech wand—is a variable."
Rosa felt the beastly power surging within her.
Her muscles were like compressed springs; the explosive force of a black panther was already running wild simulations in her mind alongside her original combat training.
"Not yet," Rosa said coolly, staring at the oblivious overseers. "We wait until the moment they open the cage. That's when their mental defenses are weakest—and when we're closest to the objective."
She smiled inwardly.
The hunt would begin then.