Everywhere the eye could see in the forest, there were layers upon layers of green.
The dark-green canopies, the emerald tangles of shrubs and vines, and the vivid green moss that carpeted the stone walls and rock faces...
The wind brushed past the leaves with a soft, rustling susurrus. Now and then a few crisp birdcalls rang out, making the forest’s silence all the more pronounced.
In such a primeval forest, an ancient stone house abruptly intruded into the depths between the trees.
A pitch-black crow slipped through the thicket and finally alighted on the wooden rack before the house.
"Caw—caw—caw!!"
A dry, shriveled, chilling cry rasped from its beak.
Before long, the stone house’s front door opened.
A "person" swaddled from head to toe in strips of cloth stepped out of the house.
Silently, it came to the rack and picked up the envelope the crow had carried in its beak.
In passing, it laid a few small chunks of still-bleeding meat beside the crow.
Then it turned, shut the door, and went back inside.
"Thud!"
The heavy door closed.
The spacious entry hall was piled high with all manner of clutter.
The odd figure moved through the jumble with long-practiced ease, finally arriving before the door that led down to the cellar.
"Heh, heh, heh!"
Instead of going into the cellar, it stood before the passage and let out a voice like air tearing through a broken throat.
"Come down."
At the order, the strange figure stiffly descended the stairs toward the cellar.
The stairs were very dark; only at the far end of the passage, in the cellar, did a wan blue candlelight glimmer.
It was clearly light, yet because of that ghostly blue hue it could not give anyone a sense of warmth or reassurance; instead it exuded an indescribable chill and eeriness, as though one had stepped into a meat locker.
In contrast to the chaotic hall above, the cellar space was much more orderly.
In the very center stood a large bed, and pressed right up against it was a workbench; a closer look showed all sorts of implements laid out upon it—small knives, bottles and jars, hand saws, pincers...
On the other side of the workbench, several transparent glass jars were arrayed in neat ranks, their bodies filled to the brim with dark-green, murky liquid, within which vaguely visible tissue and organs twisted and writhed in suspension.
A few thick tomes bound in some kind of coarse parchment lay scattered to one side.
Dozens of finely rendered yet unsettling anatomical diagrams and arrays of runes were nailed to the walls, their ink gone dull, like dried, blackened blood.
The air was saturated with the pungent reek of embalming fluid.
The strange figure walked up to the workbench and reverently laid the letter upon its surface.
"Go back out and keep watch."
"Heh, heh."
The woman who spoke was shrouded entirely in a leaden-gray robe, yet if one looked closely at how the cloth clung to her, one could tell that the body beneath was lush and full. The dissonant thing was that such a youthful, shapely figure was crowned with a face blotched with age spots and etched with wrinkles.
She tore open the envelope and let her gaze skim swiftly over its contents.
Then she held the letter to the nearby candle flame and burned it to ash.
"That fellow Chloe is looking for me again. But I’m at a critical juncture right now—how would I have time to go out? Don’t you agree, my little Abby..."
She turned her head toward the cage in the corner of the cellar.
Inside the cage, a girl was sitting on the icy floor.
When she realized the woman was speaking to her, her pupils shrank in sudden terror.
"Tap—tap tap—"
The prematurely aged woman walked over to the cage.
She bent down to peer at the blonde girl, unable to resist licking her lips again, an expression of avid anticipation spreading over her face.
Once she exchanged her way into that healthy, beautiful, vibrant body before her, she would finally be free of this withered shell.
And the body in front of her showed an even better adaptability to Magic Power than she had imagined.
Perhaps, compared to an ordinary body, it would endure far longer.
"It should be just about time."
She calculated the timing in her mind.
If not for the period of cultivation this flesh had to undergo before the formal surgery could begin, she would have long since been unable to bear staying in this decrepit body a moment more.
"You’ll like this body of mine, won’t you, little Abby?" The woman let out a hoarse laugh.
As she spoke, she let the gray robe slip from her shoulders, revealing the body beneath.
Her figure, all curves and contours, was mottled everywhere with dark-brown pigment spots, as if she had contracted some unknown disease.
"This body is getting more and more useless."
The woman sighed.
For this current body of hers, it had been less than a mere ten-odd years since the last surgery.
Normally, the original owner of this body had not yet reached twenty at the time; now it should still have been far from any age of senescence. Yet its functions had already decayed to the level of a near-centenarian.
She had never bothered to keep a precise count of how many brain-replacement surgeries she had undergone.
But in her memory, after the very first operation there had been no such side effect of premature aging; on the contrary, she had lived nearly to seventy or eighty before any obvious signs of decline appeared.
With each subsequent surgery, the onset of aging had come faster and faster.
She had tried many means to preserve her youth and vitality, but she had never been able to find a way to improve things. The creeping decay seemed like a Curse born of the surgery itself, already burrowed deep into her soul, doggedly pursuing her through body after exchanged body.
"It seems that once this surgery is over, I’ll have to keep looking for a way to deal with its side effects."
"Still, I expect the compatibility between us mother and daughter will be very high."
At this thought, the woman’s face finally curved into a smile.
It really was a stroke of coincidence she herself hadn’t foreseen.
Half a month ago, when she went to that village that shared her bloodline to select her next body, she happened by chance to discover the treasure before her now, a girl with an excellent affinity for Magic.
And, in an almost absurd coincidence, that girl turned out to be the offspring born of the very body she was currently inhabiting.