Episode 2. Relton

by Outsider · 2026-11-01

The night air of the Bellatrix Archipelago always smelled of rotten meat.

The acrid chemical stench wafting from the outer genetic waste disposal plant, the breath of vagrants steeped in cheap synthetic alcohol, and a dreary acid rain fell upon it all. Old neon signs hanging from the walls of the closely packed gray buildings cast blood-like light onto the rain-soaked alleyways.

Five hundred years after the AI War ended, the world crumbled as quickly as a sandcastle. The human species stubbornly survived, but the brilliant mechanical civilization they had built did not. As automated factories controlled by artificial intelligence uniformly shut down, precision manufactured goods became priceless relics, and the vast systems of borders and nations also shattered, unable to endure for long.

The surviving humans gathered around cities protected by massive walls, and each city transformed into a self-contained nation and an "archipelago." Bellatrix was one such giant archipelago born in this way.

And the only law governing this damp city of genes was power.

Splash, splash.

Reltan walked through the muddy back alleys, his old leather hat pulled down low over his eyebrows. Each time his heavy military boots kicked up mud, the hem of his wet black coat wrapped around his shins.

Lately, this coat had become uncomfortably loose. Just a month ago, it had fit snugly over his sturdy shoulders and back. But now, the sleeves covered more than half of his hands, and the shoulder seams sagged enough to fit two fingers. Even with the leather belt pulled tight to its innermost hole, his body still felt separate from the coat as he walked.

It wasn't that the leather had stretched. It was his own body inside that had shrunk.

Reltan stopped and took his right hand out of his coat pocket, examining it under the streetlight.

It was long and slender. The rough calluses that had formed over a lifetime of gripping a sword hilt, and the thick veins that used to ripple across the back of his hand, had faded as if by magic. Even the prominent wrist bones, which had symbolized his powerful grip, were now strangely smooth and whittled down.

‘Damn it.’

Every time he looked, his stomach churned. He had been roaming the wilderness outside the empire, hunting the monster Moros with a long sword since before he turned eighteen. The muscles and bones he had forged like steel, enduring countless near-death experiences just to survive, were melting away like snow in just one month.

It wasn't just his physique that had changed. A few days ago, he looked into the broken mirror in his lodging and almost drew his sword, momentarily thinking someone else was standing there. His messy blond hair and cool blue eyes were the same, but his rugged, angular jawline and nose bridge had been strangely smoothed and refined. In a dim light, it was hard to tell at a glance whether he was a man or a woman.

Still, he was a man. At least for now.

Thug: Hey, miss walking over there. Let me see you for a moment.

A sticky voice from behind him cut through the sound of the rain. Relton didn't answer and kept walking.

Thug: Hey, look at that back. Her walk is really awkward, isn't it?

Thug: I haven't seen that face in this district's slum. Isn't she a new clone smuggled in for noble tribute?

A cackling laugh followed closely behind. At the words "for noble tribute," Relton's boot-clad feet slowly stopped in the mud.

Muddy raindrops dripped from the brim of his hat. As Relton slowly turned his head, four men sauntering out of a dark alley entrance came into view.

They were third-rate thugs commonly found in the back alleys of the lower district. The one in front was tapping his palm with a rusty iron pipe, and the one next to him had an illegally modified stun baton strapped to his waist. The two behind them also had their hands in their pockets, scanning Relton up and down with menacing eyes.

Just as Relton knew their faces, they must have known Relton's name. A month ago, if it had been the old Relton, these scumbags would have plastered themselves to the wall and crawled away if they'd merely seen his shadow from across the alley.

'It's come to this, after all.'

More unbearable than his body changing was the humiliation that he had begun to look like an easy prey even in the eyes of such vermin.

The man with the iron pipe grinned, approached right in front of him, and reached out his hand.

Thug Leader: Don't hide it with your hat, let's see your face.

Relton silently pushed up the brim of his hat slightly with his fingertips. Two sharp, icy blue eyes were revealed beneath his damp, wet blonde hair.

The man's hand hesitated in mid-air.

Thug Leader: ...Huh?

He seemed to flinch instinctively at the familiar look in Relton's eyes, but then he alternated glances between Relton's narrowed shoulders and smoothed jawline, before bursting into uproarious laughter as if in disbelief.

Thug Leader: Hey, isn't this Relton, the Moros Hunter?

The men standing behind him also widened their eyes, then clutched their stomachs and cackled.

Thug: Damn, the rumors were true! They said he took the wrong medicine and was turning into a girl!

Thug: Shit, why did he shrink so much? He's half the size he used to be!

As Raelten stood silently with his mouth shut, the thugs seemed to mistake his quietness for being completely intimidated. The leading man licked his lips vilely and took another step closer, placing a dirty hand on Raelten's shoulder.

Thug Boss: Looking closely, your face has become quite handsome, hasn't it? Why don't you quit being a mercenary and work for us...

Raelten gazed down at the man's hand pressing on his shoulder.

Raelten: Me, that is.

When he opened his mouth, instead of his former deep baritone, a voice a tone higher and chillingly cracked flowed out. That voice scraped at his nerves fiercely once again.

The moment the man retorted, Raelten's left hand shot up like lightning and snatched the wrist on his shoulder.

He twisted and broke it violently outwards.

Crack!

Thug Boss: Aargh!

Simultaneously with the crunch of bones dislocating, Raelten's right elbow struck the man's jaw squarely from below.

Thwack!

The man's head snapped back, and two broken molars flew out into the rain with blood. The smiles instantly vanished from the faces of the remaining three thugs who had lost their comrade in an instant.

Thug: This crazy bastard!

The guy next to him swung a steel pipe and charged. Relton reflexively ducked his upper body to avoid the trajectory. A cold steel wind brushed past his hair. He immediately spun his body using his stepping foot as an axis and plunged his right foot into the opponent's solar plexus.

Thwack!

Thug: Ugh!

As the man gasped for air and bent at the waist, Relton grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and slammed him into the muddy ground.

Splosh!

Up to this point, it was a smooth flow, no different from usual. The problem was what came next.

The guy who should have been knocked out and buried in the mud, instead, staggered back to his feet, only a nosebleed.

‘…What is this?’

Relton's brows furrowed. With his former strength, that kick would have easily broken three or four ribs.

No, even before that, his own posture after finishing the move was strange. The moment he extended and retracted the kick, his body spun half a step further off the expected axis. His internal perception of his own body weight didn't match the actual weight of his physical body at all.

‘Light. Damn it, my body is too light.’

Before he could even be surprised, the third guy's punch flew in. Relton lightly tilted his head to dodge, then countered by planting a straight punch into the guy's cheekbone.

Thwack!

It was a direct hit, perfectly timed. But the man's head merely snapped to the side, and he stumbled back a couple of steps, not falling, but wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and grinning.

Thug: Huh, look at this?

The guy who had gotten up from the mud also re-gripped his steel pipe and tightened the encirclement.

Thug: There's no strength in your punch at all, Relton.

Thug: As the rumors say, your days as a hunter are over. Now your punch is really like a girl's?

At the word "girl," Relton's movements stopped abruptly. Only the sound of rain filling the alley echoed loudly in her ears.

After a moment, Relton's lips twisted into a chilling sneer.

Relton kicked up the iron pipe dropped by the first man who fell and gripped it in her hand. She spun the metal bar once in her hand, gauging its weight.

Her weight had decreased, and her muscle strength had diminished. However, the killing techniques etched into her bones from hundreds of life-or-death struggles in this underworld had not evaporated.

Relton: Alright. Then today, you'll get a proper taste of a girl.

Relton pushed off the ground.

Whoosh!

This time, she didn't foolishly aim for the torso or face. Using her lighter weight to her advantage, she plunged low to the ground and precisely struck the side of the man's knee joint with the end of the iron pipe.

The man, whose kneecap was shattered, let out a scream and collapsed. Relton didn't stop; with the same momentum, she spun in place and consecutively struck the shinbone of the second man who followed and the wrist of the third man who was drawing a knife.

Thud! Crunch! Clang!

If brute force is insufficient, one can use the principle of leverage and speed. If one cannot defeat them in a single blow, then one can simply break their joints one by one to prevent them from moving. For a mercenary who had spent a lifetime rolling through blood-soaked battlefields, diminished physical strength was no excuse.

Less than a minute later, all four thugs were writhing in the mud, groaning, clutching their broken limbs.

Relton gasped for breath, the blood-stained iron pipe casually slung over his shoulder. A fight that would have been a mere warm-up in the past left him breathless, and his wrist, gripping the pipe, throbbed. Despite winning, he felt utterly disgusted.

Relton: Listen carefully.

Relton poked the head of the man whose face was buried in the mud with the end of the pipe. There was no trace of warmth left in his blue eyes.

Relton: If you run your mouth in front of me again, next time it won't just be your kneecaps.

Clang!

He threw the iron pipe onto the ground right next to the man's ear.

The thugs, pale with fear, couldn't even respond. They dragged their broken legs and crawled out of the alley.

Left alone in the suddenly silent alley, Relton looked down at his right hand. His fingertips were trembling slightly. It wasn't fear, but surging anger. It was the first day he physically confirmed that he had indeed grown weaker.

Relton: Fuck...

He had to find the cause before it was too late. No, in fact, he already had more than a guess as to what the cause was.

It was the night he barely returned alive from the horrific 26th expedition a month ago. In a bar in the lower district, where he was trying to suppress the venom of losing his comrades with alcohol and drugs, there was a woman who approached him first, smiling.

'This is just a feel-good drug.'

The languid voice that whispered in his ear and the transparent vial she offered.

Relton gasped roughly and looked across the alley. In the darkening gloom where the rain was thinning, a dilapidated neon sign, half-lit, flickered precariously.

Dr. Ed's Genetic Clinic.

Relton buttoned his wet coat and strode towards the iron gate. As he pushed the door open, instead of the alley's foul odor, a pungent smell of disinfectant and old medicines assailed his nostrils.

Relton: Ed.

Relton took off his hat and shook it, calling into the inner examination room. His wet blonde hair streamed down beside his pale cheeks.

Relton: This time, don't just glance over it; inspect it properly.

The white-haired old doctor, Ed, buried under a pile of charts, lifted his head from behind his magnifying glass. His experienced gaze, honed over decades of treating all sorts of genetically modified individuals in the underbelly of Bellatrix, slowly slid from Relton's slender jawline to his narrowed shoulders, then to his thin wrists.

After a moment, Dr. Ed's expression hardened coldly.

Dr. Ed: ...Take off your shirt.

Relton: What?

Dr. Ed: Take it off now, for the examination.

Relton frowned but silently took off his wet coat and shirt, tossing them onto a chair. Beneath the loose clothing, his upper body, whose muscles had wasted away and whose skeletal lines had strangely altered in just one month, was starkly revealed.

Dr. Ed said nothing, staring at his body for a long time. The silence filling the examination room was unusually long and heavy.

Relton: What's wrong, Ed? Say something.

Relton, unable to bear the frustration, urged him on, but Ed, instead of answering, turned on the old precision analyzer. He attached several biosensors to Relton's chest and neck, then drew blood with a syringe and pushed it into a cartridge.

Whirring.

With the sound of an old cooling fan spinning, green DNA sequence graphs and numbers poured chaotically onto the monitor screen. Ed's brow furrowed ever deeper as he looked down at the screen.

Relton: Ed, what's the problem?

After scrolling for a long time, Ed finally took his hands off the keyboard.

Dr. Ed: Relton.

It wasn't the usual gruff voice of the old man.

Dr. Ed: What kind of medicine did you take a month ago?

Relton's blue eyes narrowed sharply.

Relton: Why? Is it drug addiction?

Ed magnified the red-highlighted gene waveform with his finger, without taking his eyes off the monitor.

Dr. Ed: No, this isn't a simple drug side effect or natural mutation. Someone directly tampered with your DNA sequence. And with terrifying precision.

Ed slowly turned his chair to face Relton directly.

Rain outside the window beat dully against the glass.

Relton said nothing. In his mind, only the face of that woman, who had smiled down at him from the bed a month ago, burned vividly.

Relton's slender fingers clenched into a fist, as if to crush it.

Relton: ...That bitch.