When my hand gently touched the starving old man before me, I knew my cheat had finally arrived.
This was the first time since my birth that I exercised my innate ability. When I gently touch a human, I can freely alter their soul. And by altering the soul, I can indirectly manipulate the human flesh. In just a few short seconds, this old man, delirious from starvation, suddenly opened his eyes. His gaze was as bright as a young man's. This was because I had manipulated his soul to force the latent nutrients within his body to take effect. At least for this exact moment, he felt full.
Was this a miracle? No, quite the opposite. This was a curse.
I cursed him, granting him a sense of satiety. From this moment onward, he would never feel hunger again, but his body's potential had been utterly squandered. In other words, he would simply maintain this feeling of fullness until the day he died. It was like a leaking oil tank; I didn't miraculously refill it with oil, I just shrank the tank and sealed it shut.
His potential had been completely consumed by me.
But, he survived. He lived, technically speaking.
I felt no joy in saving a life. Quite the opposite, I felt incredibly suffocated and irritated. I subconsciously wanted to reverse this state, to drag this old man I had 'saved' back into the abyss of death. It was a very bizarre sensation. Before I crossed over into this world, I couldn't be called a saint, but I certainly wasn't a monster who despised humanity. If a dying man collapsed in front of me and I had the power, I'd gladly call an ambulance. If I had the powers I possess now, I wouldn't stingy with them; I would save him.
But now, it was the exact opposite. I had saved someone, and the result was overwhelming revulsion. My intuition told me that this act violated my very instincts, like forcing a tiger to graze on grass. Sure, a tiger can eat grass, but it can never become an herbivore. Its biological structure dictates otherwise; a diet of purely vegetation would only lead to a tiger's death.
Saving a life didn't threaten my survival, but it left me irritated, maladjusted, and viscerally disgusted. It just didn't hinder my existence.
But after that incident, I stopped saving people. I started harming them.
Of course, I didn't intentionally set out to harm people at first. I was merely exercising my innate abilities while observing others. I discovered that as I walked down the street, absolutely no one could see me. I deliberately reached out and touched people; they reacted to my physical touch, meaning I definitively existed, but I remained imperceptible to their senses. I briefly suspected I was a ghost, but quickly dismissed the idea since I didn't melt in the sunlight. Granted, depending on the fictional universe, daytime ghosts exist, but compared to a ghost, I felt like a completely different class of entity.
A God. I felt very much like a God.
Calling oneself a God is deeply embarrassing, but through continuous feedback and testing, I became increasingly convinced that I might actually be one.
Before detailing my reasoning, I must first introduce the world I transmigrated into so you can understand my mindset. Let's do a brief overview.
This world is nearly identical to the one I originally inhabited. It's filled with modern civilization: towering office buildings, pedestrians walking with their heads buried in smartphones, contemporary fashion. Cars, planes, and trains are everywhere. Supermarkets, ramen carts, and various snack shops line the streets.
Naturally, entertainment facilities are abundant—parks, arcades, and toy stores.
I'm no historian, so I can't pinpoint the exact divergences from my previous world. In my past life, I was a bit of an otaku. I even saw massive anime posters plastered on the sides of commercial buildings—Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach were immediately recognizable, alongside Dragon Ball and Pokémon.
And, naturally, the language spoken here is Japanese, which feels intimately familiar. Now, let's look at my specific situation.
I crossed over into this world. In my past life, my Japanese comprehension was limited to a handful of basic phrases. Yet now, I can fluently speak, read, and write Japanese without any prior study. The language barrier is non-existent. Although I have no one to talk to, I assume conversational communication would be flawless.
When I mutter to myself, the Japanese flows smoothly. That much is certain.
I cannot be seen by other humans, yet I can physically interfere with them. I can touch them, alter them, destroy them, or save them—all at a single thought.
I can look directly into the human soul and alter it. I can make a starving man feel eternally full until he dies, and naturally, I can make a healthy man feel eternally starved. By freely altering the human soul, I achieve a twisted form of human domination.
I have a feeling that if I mastered my abilities, granting someone centuries of life, or even immortality, might be entirely possible.
Innate, unlearned language comprehension; the ability to perceive and manipulate souls; and the racial trait of unilateral interference with humanity.
From these facts, I easily concluded: I am a God.
Especially regarding the domination of humans—I wasn't just theorizing. I actually tested it.
At the time, I was simply pondering how to train my abilities while observing crowds. I suddenly recalled a sci-fi concept from my past life: the "Thought Imprint." As the name suggests, a Thought Imprint locks a person's mind, ensuring that no matter how much they think or reason, their thoughts remain anchored to a specific absolute belief. In a way, it's the ultimate echo chamber. Normal echo chambers can be broken through debate, exposure to new ideas, and broadening one's horizons. But once a Thought Imprint is carved into the brain, there is no escape. It's fanaticism beyond fanaticism.
Since I could alter human flesh through the soul, I could naturally alter human thought through the soul as well.
Initially, I felt a psychological burden regarding this kind of human experimentation. I chose my targets carefully. Luckily, I quickly locked onto a suitable candidate: a degenerate gambler who doubled as a drug dealer. The kind of scum whose death would be a net positive.
I openly experimented on him, refining my technique. Surprisingly, altering him was simple. I made him utterly despise gambling and drugs, to the point where any contact with them induced violent vomiting. He didn't just "quit" his addictions; his body violently rejected them, forcing him to stay away.
The underlying principle was unexpectedly straightforward. Anyone who truly understands psychiatric patients knows that mental illness isn't purely psychological; it's physiological. The brains of severely depressed patients in my past life had genuine functional impairments that required medication to treat.
Some mental illnesses cannot be cured by therapy alone; pharmacological intervention is mandatory.
From this perspective, by simply adjusting the functional structure of the brain, creating a person with specific mental conditioning is incredibly easy. Just like that gambling, drug-addicted scum—by slightly tweaking his brain structure, I induced an intense, sickening repulsion toward his vices.
Once the body physically rejects something, psychological cravings are overwhelmed by the agonizing physical response. Humans are creatures of habit. Once this physical rejection became his new normal, no matter how much his mind craved the high, he was forced to stop.
Just like that, I spent my days leisurely experimenting with Thought Imprints. And today, I found my newest lab rat.
He was a high school bully. Wearing a uniform, flanked by lackeys—the absolute stereotype. In a narrow alley, he and his goons were kicking a boy in the same uniform. The bully wore a vicious, leisurely smile, utterly enjoying his violence.
I didn't hesitate. I selected him as my target and gently stroked the top of his head.
Immediately, his expression morphed from vicious cruelty to utter bewilderment, and then from bewilderment to profound shame. Mid-beatdown, he violently shoved his two lackeys away, dropped to his knees in front of his victim, and began frantically kowtowing.
I felt a deep sense of satisfaction.
It wasn't just the satisfaction of punishing a bully. It was a visceral, soul-deep euphoria. My entire being felt weightless.
I realized then: this wasn't the moral compass of my past life making me feel good. I felt weightless because I had used my hands to harm someone. My instincts were screaming at me that I was born to do this. Whether the target was good or evil, a saint or a scumbag, or just a painfully ordinary person—they were all within my "hunting grounds."
This was why I had been so active lately. Even without a tangible increase in power, the sheer act of experimenting brought me physical and mental bliss. Targeting absolute scum just meant I didn't betray my past-life morals, allowing me to indulge in these experiments obsessively.
As I was analyzing my own predatory instincts, the bullied boy I had just saved suddenly spoke to me.
He said, "It was you, wasn't it? I saw it. You gently touched his head, and then he turned into that."
Having finished my experiment, I naturally intended to leave. But I never expected someone to actually see me. I had been in this world for over a month. For the first week, out of sheer paranoia, I hadn't even left the sewer I spawned in. But as I grew bolder, I pushed open the manhole cover and ventured out. Since then, I had wandered through dense crowds, and no one had ever laid eyes on me, even as I freely touched them.
The conclusion that I was a God was born during this period.
Because my abilities genuinely held divine potential. I believed it without a shadow of a doubt.
Moreover, influenced by the anime and novels of my past life, even though rationality told me I wasn't invincible yet and still had much to learn, I didn't want to cower in fear like a certain skeletal overlord.
I genuinely believed I had transmigrated as the protagonist of some 'Tokyo God' urban fantasy novel. That was why I used my powers so brazenly on the streets. It's why I immediately developed the Thought Imprint. I was even planning to recruit a shrine maiden.
I figured once I perfected the Thought Imprint, I'd try emitting it through eye contact—like a Sharingan-style visual jutsu. I was confident I could pull it off.
Following standard light novel tropes, I assumed the first person to perceive me would inevitably be a beautiful girl. I never imagined it would be a weak, bullied teenage boy. But fine. Even though he looked pathetic, he at least knew how to show gratitude. Not completely useless.
"Excuse me, who are you?" the boy asked cautiously.
I looked at him. He had black hair, with long bangs covering the right side of his face. Thanks to the beating, his face was bruised and swollen. He looked pitiful, weak, and slightly ridiculous. His uniform was covered in dirt. A classic, tragic victim. A total loser.
I thought for a moment, then suddenly smiled. "I am God," I declared.
The boy was stunned, entirely at a loss for words.
He piqued my interest. My eyes, capable of peering directly into the soul, focused on him. For the past month, I had used these soul-piercing eyes to observe humanity. My vision could cut straight through to their internal organs. To me, the flesh is merely the outer skin of the soul; every physical reaction is naturally reflected by the soul.
I easily noticed that the flow of his soul was distinct from others. But I couldn't articulate exactly *how* it was different. The drawback of not conducting unrestrained, lethal human soul experiments was showing—my proficiency with human souls wasn't as high as I thought.
I should have grabbed more scumbags to experiment on. Over the past month, I had conducted nearly a hundred experiments. Early on, I carefully tweaked the nuances of the Thought Imprint, doing only one or two a day. As I got better, five or six a day was a breeze.
I had a gut feeling that if I kept at it, a simple brush of my hand would permanently carve a Thought Imprint of absolute loyalty into a human brain, impossible to erase. It wouldn't just be an ideological shift; it would be a physical alteration. Their brains would be permanently rewired by me.
"It's quite unusual that you can see me. You have potential," I said.
The boy blanked again. "Me? Potential?"
"Haven't you noticed? Very few people in this world can perceive me. You are one of them."
It wasn't a lie. I had waded through crowds for a month, and he was the first and only person to look back at me.
While the fact that he was a boy and not a girl caused a twinge of annoyance, I also breathed a sigh of relief. Up until now, I thought I was a light novel protagonist. Being an overpowered protagonist in an urban fantasy wasn't a bad life, but freedom from generic plot tropes was preferable.
The reason I was relieved he was a boy was simple: if this *were* a standard light novel, the readers would riot if the first companion wasn't a cute shrine maiden!
Honestly, if I read a novel like that in my past life, I would have dropped it immediately.
The boy's expression strained. "A-Am I special?"
"You look like you're forcing it," I noted.
"Because... what kind of 'special' is this?" The boy looked down at himself. Covered in dust, beaten black and blue, weak and easily bullied. If he were gender-swapped into a girl, you could call it 'moe' or 'soft.' But as a boy? Pathetic.
I suddenly asked, "Are you interested in becoming a girl?"
The boy jolted in terror. "Huh?"
"If you were a girl, you could be my shrine maiden. A soft, cute girl crying after being bullied... that type of shrine maiden has its charm," I mused.
Yes, I hadn't forgotten the shrine maiden plan. I couldn't! I was a God; I needed a shrine maiden to serve me! What kind of God doesn't have a shrine maiden?! It was a mandatory requirement!
And my abilities allowed me to effortlessly twist a man's biology into a woman's. It was significantly easier than rewiring a brain to manufacture a Thought Imprint. I hadn't tested it yet, but I knew with absolute certainty that it was so simple it didn't even require a trial run.
The boy's composure shattered. "No, no, no! I'll pass on being a girl!"
"Really?" I said, genuinely disappointed.
The boy turned green. "Y-You look completely serious."
"Because I am," I said earnestly. "Trust me, you'd make a much better girl than a boy. And I genuinely have the power to transform you into a girl with zero side effects. You'd even be able to have kids in the future..."
"Don't! Seriously, don't!" The boy's pale face turned sheet white as he shook his head frantically. If a girl made that motion, it would be quite adorable.
"Oh, won't you reconsider? I'm being very serious," I pressed.
"It's exactly because you're serious that I'm aggressively refusing!" The boy's face contorted, his timid voice escalating into a near-shout. "Why did the topic suddenly shift to me turning into a girl?! This is completely messed up!"
"Well, I'm a God," I said leisurely. "It's only natural for a God to have a shrine maiden by his side. But as you can see, I currently lack one. Unfortunately, to serve me, you at least need to be able to see me. Right now, you're the only one I've found who can. But you're a boy, so you can't be a 'shrine maiden.' So I figured, I'll just turn you into a girl. See? A perfect solution."
"It's not perfect at all!" the boy shouted, looking utterly wronged.
I couldn't help but smile. It might sound twisted, but I genuinely derived a deep, resonant pleasure from this sadistic teasing (and it might not have been just teasing; if he had agreed, I absolutely would have transfigured his flesh). It was strange. Was I this sadistic in my past life? Or was deriving pleasure from malicious acts simply another instinct of mine, just like my visceral rejection of saving lives?
The boy took several deep breaths, finally calming down.
He bowed to me deeply and formally. "Thank you so much, Lord God."
I waved a hand dismissively. "It was nothing."
"My name is Junpei Yoshino, I—"
"Wait. What did you say your name was?" I abruptly cut him off.
The boy—Junpei Yoshino—flinched again, looking completely bewildered. "Junpei Yoshino. My name is Junpei Yoshino. Is there a problem with my name?"
A problem? That was the understatement of the century.
I scrutinized him closely. Long bangs covering the right side of his face. A timid, withdrawn demeanor. A standard Japanese school uniform. If he hadn't spoken his name, the visual cues wouldn't have clicked. But the moment those syllables left his mouth, a massive wave of déjà vu slammed into me, making my head spin.
After a month in this world, I finally knew exactly where I had transmigrated. I finally understood what this power to perceive and mutate souls truly was.
No wonder my instincts screamed at me to reject salvation and embrace slaughter.
No wonder no one in this world could see me, tricking me into believing I was a divine being.
I finally knew whose body I had hijacked.
Fuck. I had reincarnated as Mahito!