The damp underground air was thick with an eerie silence.
On the third basement floor of a nondescript building in Kanda—a place without even a sign—sat the secret gambling den known as “Abyss.” It was a sanctuary for the elite, where those who moved the gears of politics and finance dissolved immense fortunes night after night.
Ryoko sat before a table draped in crimson felt at the center of the room. In her mid-thirties, she was a woman of peerless beauty, possessing both the ripeness of a mature fruit and an air of intellectual elegance. However, the sparkle in her eyes had vanished, replaced by a manic, desperate thirst for ruin.
“…Just one more time. One more round is all I need.”
Her voice was raspy from extreme tension and exhaustion. The company she inherited from her father had faltered under her watch; she had drowned herself in debts disguised as loans and had fallen deeper into the pit trying to reclaim it all. The amount she had lost tonight was a sum she could not repay in a dozen lifetimes.
“Regrettably, Ryoko-san, your credit has hit rock bottom. Assets, land, pride… you’ve spat it all out already, haven’t you?”
The young man sitting across the table, Shota, wore a cold, ruthless smile. Though only in his early twenties, he was the ruler of this den, feared in the underworld as the “Sorcerer who Toys with Souls.” His slender, white fingers caressed the deck of cards as if fondling a lover.
“The only thing you have left to wager is… yes, your ‘Ownership Rights.'”
“My… ownership?”
“Indeed. If you win, your entire debt is cleared. Every yen of interest, gone. But if you lose—I buy your body, your legal identity, your future, and every second of your life. To put it bluntly, you become my livestock until the day you die. What will it be?”
For a moment, a shudder ran down Ryoko’s spine, as if a shard of ice had been pressed against her marrow. But there was no escape. If she stood up now, she faced a wretched death in a back alley—or a fate far worse.
“…Fine. I accept.”
The dealer distributed the cards. The pounding of her heart echoed loudly in her ears. But the Goddess of Fortune turned her back on Ryoko with a mocking sneer.
“Royal Straight Flush. …Checkmate, Ryoko-san.”
The moment Shota revealed his cards, Ryoko’s vision bleached white. Despair became gravity, pinning her to the chair. Shota stood up, slowly circled the table, and pressed his cold fingertip to her forehead.
“The contract is sealed. Now… deliver your body to me.”
In that instant, a shock like tens of thousands of volts of electricity tore through Ryoko’s entire being. Her organs felt inverted, her bones groaned, and her very consciousness—a liquid essence—was forcibly squeezed into a narrow pipe. It was a pain beyond words. Her throat burned.
“AAAAAAAAHHH!!”
Her scream transformed into a low, muddy voice that wasn’t hers. Her field of vision plummeted while her shoulders seemed to widen. The volume of air in her lungs, the rhythm of her heart—everything was being rewritten into the biological signature of another creature.
===
When the light faded, Ryoko found herself crawling on the floor.
Before her, in the seat she had occupied moments ago, sat a woman who looked exactly like her, smiling elegantly with her legs crossed.
“Marvelous. …Is a woman’s body truly this fragile, yet this exquisite? Ryoko Tanaka’s flesh… I’ll make sure to put it to good use starting today.”
Her own lips were speaking with her own voice. Ryoko stared at her hands—or rather, the body she now occupied. A young, muscular, unfamiliar male physique. Her soul had been locked inside the prison named Shota.
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