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Carried away by a muddy and turbulent river, she felt her lungs fill up with water. Her whole body ached, riddled in wounds, and she struggled to breathe even as she desperately tried to resist the waves, but the water seemed unbothered by her attempts, almost like it was mocking her powerlessness.

(This can’t be the end…I can’t die like this…)

Her consciousness began to fade as her body lost all strength, bubbles escaping her mouth as she sank to the dark depths of the river.

The first feeling that girl felt in this world was pain. She was already being beaten when she realized she had reincarnated into a different world, just like she was now.

Her cheek swollen, lip bleeding, and bruised back. While all of those feelings tormented her being, they also kept her consciousness awake.

Sliding down against the wall, she looked down at her own body, once again becoming aware of how small and weak she was.

“Are you listening to me?!”

Above her, the man who had become her father in this world was yelling. His abuse was a daily occurrence by now.

(Oh, this again…)

She was more than fed up with that situation, but she was still a child, still able to count her age on the fingers of her hands. There was no way she would be able to fight back against a grown man, so she just forced herself to smile and waited for his anger to blow over.

“Hmph, clean up already! Stupid child…”

With that last remark, he seemed to get tired of the little girl and turned around, going to sit by the fireplace.

The girl slowly stood up and began collecting the twigs scattered around the dirt floor, before resuming her job of knitting baskets. She needed to finish them before a merchant came to collect them in a few days.

(All of this for being reborn in another world…)

The first indicator that this was another world were the pair of rabbit ears on her head. Her father, and the rest of the villagers there all had some animal features too.

After asking around for a bit, she learned that those whose entire body showed animal features were known as demi-humans, while those who only had minor changes were half-beasts. But the most surprising part was that apparently most of the samurai and nobility of that land were vampires.

(…I really have the worst luck possible.)

Such stories were always really fun in novels and anime, but there was nothing fun about it now that it was happening to her.

Most of her past life experience was essentially useless, and considering the general social and cultural development of this world was rather behind, it made sense that life was not easy or fun. Those born outside of the ruling class were destined to live in poverty, generally lacking food and resources, with people lacking the basic concepts of hygiene, and more importantly, with lives that were worth very little.

(I’d really need a proper environment to really put my knowledge to use, otherwise it’s useless. Or at least I’d like someone who can actually pay attention and understand what I’m trying to say.)

She was currently living in a small village deep in the mountains, with the only outside contact being the merchants who sometimes visited. So the overall living conditions were poor, and their harvest was never bountiful.

Her father was a well-known thug in the village, since before she was born. He refused to work in the farms, and instead claimed to be the village’s defender to extort protection money from the locals. On top of that, sometimes he would claim to go hunting in the mountains, when in reality he was more of an outlaw looking for someone to rob.

The girl had tried to change the quality of life of the villagers, using the knowledge from her past life, but everyone ignored her, or even worse, started to treat her like a freak for gathering twigs and starting to knit baskets and other trinkets without anyone teaching her. On top of that, she was constantly antagonized thanks to her father, so eventually it was not rare for the villagers to push her away and throw stones at her.

Then when she managed to start selling her baskets to the visiting merchants, her father noticed that the household had an income, so he put even less effort into working and instead pressured the girl to work even more.

Her mother had passed away years before, but as far as the girl could remember, she was no different from her father.

In a way, it was a miracle that the girl had managed to survive so many years.

(When I’m older, I’m leaving this place.)

She always repeated that to herself, regardless of the fact that she had no knowledge of the world outside the village, and with no guarantee that she would ever obtain the means to leave.

One night, the village was raided by bandits.

Whether there had been any sort of warning or not, it did not matter for the little girl, as she was ostracized by everyone and she would have never known.

Her father took down the first bandit that approached him, but then was quickly surrounded by the rest and killed. Then again, he had always been more of a big talker in a small village, and was defenseless against actual bandits.

All of the villagers and their belongings were rounded up, and then the bandits began separating the adults from the children.

And then…

“Gyahhhh!”
“Please stoooppp!”

Once they had all the children they could sell as slaves, they started disposing of those who were unfit for that.

All of the adults were tied to tall stakes and mercilessly mangled. Even as their bodies were bathed in blood and their screams grew weaker, the bandits would not stop, and instead seemed to delight more in their slaughter.

The children were horrified, crying and trembling, and some could not contain various bodily fluids from escaping, but they were given no choice but to keep watching.

“Don’t look away. If you refuse to watch then I’ll kill you too.”

The bandits forced them to watch, threatening them with a blade. The children were too young to do anything against that, so they continued crying as they watched their dying parents.

“Just look at their faces. You really outdid yourself with this idea, boss.”
“I heard they did something like this in the Land of Kanon nearby with war prisoners before to destroy their morale. So it’s perfect to get these kids ready to be sold off as slaves.”
“I see, gotta appreciate the guys from the Land of Kanon then.”

Seeing that their attack was successful, some of the bandits started celebrating and getting drunk while watching the villagers suffer. Meanwhile, the villagers felt like they were already in hell.

But there was only one girl who was not trembling or crying. She did not feel any empathy for her father or the other villagers who were being slaughtered.

(It’s only bad thing after bad thing after reincarnating. If I get sold off, I’ll just end up in an even worse place…)

From the moment she was born, she had to face her father’s abuse and discrimination from the villagers, and now she would go even lower, becoming a slave.

(Anything but that!)

Driven by a powerful impulse, she ran and reached for a dagger that had been left on the ground nearby. Then she lunged at a bandit that was near the other children and sliced his stomach open.

“Gh..hah?!”
“Uwhaaahhhh!!”

The bandit looks shocked, and the other children start to cry.

Turning around, the girl starts to dash away in a straight line. She had no intention to kill all of the bandits, or to rescue the children and villagers that were still alive. All she wanted was to save herself.

“One of the kids got away!”
“Catch her! And if she keeps trying to run then kill her!”

The girl ran toward the forest, fully aware that it was dangerous there at night. But that seemed better than being caught again.

Her rabbit ears were far more sensitive than those of a human, letting her hear the footsteps of her pursuers and filling her with fear.

(I’ll get killed!)

“Dammit!”

Some of the bandits had bows and started shooting arrows at her.

She could hear them whistle as they passed by her, but luckily none of the bandits was good enough to hit a target at night.

The bandits, however, knew that if the girl made it out and contacted the guards about what happened, they would send a large group of soldiers to exterminate the bandits. That was why they were so intent on catching the girl, and if that was not possible, then they would kill her to seal her lips.

After running behind some of the village houses trying to lose her pursuers, she managed to slip into the forest. But she could not rest yet, as the bandits had not given up, and she had to continue running.

The trees, shrubs, and even stones constantly lacerated her body, nearly making her trip many times, and even making her fall down a few times, but she never stopped running.

All she wanted was to get away, no matter how out of breath she was, no matter in which direction.

But that reckless drive made her only focus on getting away, and not on where she was stepping.

“Ah!”

It was like the ground suddenly vanished from below her, and her body began to fall down. By the time she understood what was happening, her body was already rolling down a cliffside.

The cliff was rather tall, and the shock had made her throw away the dagger. Thanks to that, she managed to avoid cutting herself as she rolled down, but the fall still injured her small body.

“…ack…”

Her whole body ached, but she sprang on her feet when she heard footsteps approaching above the cliff.

When she looked up, her eyes stopped at an entrance on the cliffside. It was too small to call a cave, and it was pitch black, but to her it seemed like a ray of sunshine.

Forcing her body to move, she jumped and slipped into the hole.

“Hey, are you sure she went this way?”
“I don’t see her. Do you think she fell down?”
“We have to find her or the boss will be mad.”
“If we’re careful we can slide down the cliffside. Let’s go.”

(They’re coming!)

Hearing that, the girl went further into the hole. It was deeper than she had expected, and it became more narrow too. At the entrance, she could move almost freely, but after a while she felt the sides of the hole pressing her shoulders together, and the ceiling forced her to crawl to move forward.

At least that meant the bandits would not be able to follow her inside there, and it had been some time since she last heard their voices and footsteps. But she was so struck by fear that she mindlessly crawled deeper into the hole. Just like how the bandits were afraid of what could happen if she got away, she was also terrified of them. She felt like no matter where she went, she would never be safe, never free from that fear.

After some time of crawling, she noticed a faint blue glow ahead of her. Seeing that light, she began moving faster until she eventually came out to a bigger area. Most of it was covered in water, almost like a subterranean lake. On the center of the lake there was a small island, with a shrine built on it, and within was the source of the blue light, thrust into a rock.

“…A katana?” She muttered. And indeed, it was a katana on the rock. “It’s so pretty…”

The girl stood up and waddled into the lake, almost like a moth lured in by a lamp. One would think that going into a lake like that was asking to drown, but the water was surprisingly shallow, only reaching up to the girl’s waist.

After reaching the small island with little trouble, she approached the rock and held the katana’s handle. Then, she pulled, and it slid out of the rock without any resistance.

She looked at it, and realized that the entire katana was blue. She had no specific knowledge about katanas or weapons in general, but at least she could tell that it was not made of regular steel or iron.

Then she noticed a set of letters on the rock.

“Shi…sui…”

She was not completely sure, but she assumed that was the katana’s name. And even if that assumption was incorrect, she decided she would call it that.

Looking at the soft blue glow of the katana, she felt at ease. It was hard to tell whether that was because she finally had a way to fight back, or because of that katana’s mysterious power.