I was found by a strange young man when I was crying alone.
I replied, “It’s fine,” to the man who gave me his only bed.
“I’m good with the floor. Ah, and I… perhaps?”
I ended up saying “I” myself. Would he suspect me? But then again, there are also tomboyish girls, so I thought that might be it.
“Hey, are you a bit of a guy? No, sorry for saying something weird.”
The man chuckled as he lay down on the sofa. What did he mean by that? Did he mean I was manly?
“What do you mean by that? Is it my mind, or my body?”
“Hmm, that’s difficult. I guess both. I feel like you’re somehow in the middle.”
“Huh? You understand?”
I blurted it out again without thinking. But why did he understand? Was it something he learned from being a prostitute?
“Yeah, we’re sort of a complex race. We don’t have a fixed gender, and each of us is slightly different.”
So, it was a different race from Sharin? But visually, he looked like a cat demi-human.
“By the way, I’m more on the yang side. My body is male, but I have a bit of female in me too.”
What… what does that mean? Is it the opposite of my current situation?
“I was drawn to you because you gave off a similar aura. But you seem different from me; I sense strong magic power from you. Though, I’m not good with magic at all.”
“That’s right. My magic turned my gender into the opposite. My companions are the same, and things are getting stranger and stranger. I can’t even control myself anymore.”
Thinking he might know a solution, I told him everything that had happened.
“Hmm, so that can happen, huh?”
“Yes. Do you have any good ideas?”
“We’re born this way, so we don’t have any problems, but you’re different. Changing gender must be incredibly difficult. It’s amazing you didn’t die. Your hormone balance must have been severely disrupted, and your personality would surely change too.”
So it really was a terrible thing after all. It wasn’t just about being able to enter the women’s bath or freely grope breasts after feminization.
“Some of our companions also change gender, but…”
“Excuse me, what is your race called?”
“We’re called Treasure Beastmen. Treasure Beasts. Just like our name suggests, we’re different from other demi-humans. It’s said that long ago, humans and beasts released by the gods interbred.”
Oh, so they really might be a treasure. In other words, they’re half-god-beasts.
“But that’s just a facade. In reality, they’re said to be lustful and depraved beings, a mix of outcasts, humans, and beasts. And humans might not even exist, really. We’re like incubi who seduce people.”
Humans do exist, though. Then he also told me about the gender of the Treasure Beastmen. Not having a fixed gender probably meant they couldn’t be definitively identified as male or female. It was quite complex, but where was their homeland?
“Did you find me repulsive? If so, I apologize.”
“No, thank you for talking to me. Um, where are your other companions?”
“Hmm? You mean of my race? I… I don’t know either. I only learned I was this race after I turned ten. I don’t even know my parents’ faces.”
So that’s how it was. It’s no wonder she wasn’t doing prostitution by choice. She must have had no other option.
“I learned about it from other Treasure Beastmen. Seniors, I guess? But there’s a rumor that somewhere in this world, far, far away, there’s a paradise where our kin live.”
He gazed into the distance with a half-resigned look. He probably thought it was just a convenient fairy tale. Not knowing his parents and having to work since he could remember, he must have become accustomed to loneliness.
Then he took off his shirt. A soft cloth slid off his arm and fell to the floor. Revealed was beautiful fur that connected from his hair down his back. Invisible from the front, it was the finest fur, reflecting the room’s light and shimmering.
“See? I’m different from other demi-humans, aren’t I? We generally don’t tell people our race. Hehe, you understand, right? Because there are many greedy people in this town.”
“I’m sure it exists, that paradise. I’m aiming for a place myself that I don’t even know if it exists.”
That’s all I could say to him. As he said, there are many greedy people in this world. Surely, there will be those who try to obtain this treasure.
“The road to hell is the road to heaven; greet the King of Spirits on a moonlit night. Offer your passion to the Water Goddess at the bottom where gold sleeps, and pass through the gate via the back road. If welcomed by the beasts of paradise, you will reach the White Rose. There’s a poem like this, and see, it even mentions the beasts of paradise. I think this probably refers to our companions. Though it’s likely a lie.”
Wait a minute, what is that poem? It’s new text that I don’t know, no, that nobody knows. Why didn’t the great mages leave behind this poem? If this poem is the counterpart to the one I know, then perhaps hell and heaven are two sides of the same coin.
