Chapter 1: Overcome with Grief... Transmigrated into a Book?

Sev Steele felt a sharp gust of wind sweeping up from behind. Instinctively, she curled into a ball and rolled several paces away.

The deafening roar of a wild beast exploded in her ears, sending an uncontrollable shudder down her spine. A moment later, a bloodcurdling scream pierced the air—"AHHH!"—a cry of absolute agony and sheer terror.

Sev snapped her eyes open just in time to see a ferocious beast with its gaping maw clamped tightly around a human’s waist. The CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH of chewing, accompanied by screams that grew weaker by the second, flooded her eardrums. Blood splattered everywhere. It was a gruesome scene straight out of a slasher film!

Watching a living, breathing person being torn apart and devoured alive by a wild beast left Sev completely paralyzed with fear.

"This is a dream! A nightmare! Grandpa! Come save me!" she screamed inwardly. Yet, a split second later, tears welled up in her eyes.

Grandpa was already dead. She had buried him with her own hands just yesterday. Abandoned by her parents at a young age, it was her grandfather who had taken her in and raised her. He was her only family in this world. Was it because she was so consumed by grief that she was having such a horrific nightmare?

Perhaps the beast before her had eaten its fill. Or perhaps it was because she had conveniently rolled into a patch of leaves as massive as palm fans, which covered her body and hid her from its sight. Whatever the reason, after letting out a loud BURP, the beast turned and lumbered away.

Staring at the ferocious creature’s retreating back, it suddenly dawned on her that it looked like... an oversized Pine Marten? Just a couple of days ago, she had seen a Pine Marten on a nature documentary. They were super adorable little critters that made people just want to reach out and pet them.

However, the Pine Marten she had just seen was completely devoid of anything resembling "cute." It was the size of a fully grown hound, and its originally tiny incisors had morphed into half-foot-long, razor-sharp weapons. Recalling how it had just devoured a person, those teeth were basically comparable to an industrial buzzsaw.

Triggered by the bloody memory, Sev finally reacted. She began to dry heave, retching so violently that the world spun around her. She felt as though she were puking up her own bile. The intense physical discomfort suddenly sparked a thought in her mind. "Isn’t this nightmare... a little too realistic?"

Sev clutched her chest, feeling the THUMP THUMP THUMP of her heart beating like a war drum. Trembling all over, it took her a long while to regain her bearings. Once she finally steadied her breathing, she began to take in her surroundings.

Everywhere she looked, there was towering, dense vegetation. Even a random leaf was as large as a fan, yet the species of trees were completely foreign to her. It was... more like a primeval forest than an actual primeval forest!

Out of the corner of her eye, she even caught a glimpse of... a giant, half-foot-long ant!

Sev was instantly dumbfounded. Was this... really a dream?

After pinching the soft flesh of her arms until they bruised, the genuine, intense jolt of pain forced her to admit the truth: this was no dream! So, had she inexplicably transmigrated into a land of giants? No, that couldn’t be it. The human who was eaten earlier was clearly the size of a normal person. Did that mean only the flora and fauna had mutated? Just what kind of terrifying world was this?

Unable to help herself, she hammered her fist hard against her forehead. Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced her temples as countless memories flooded her mind.

Half an hour later, combining the original body’s memories with her own, she figured out the gist of her current situation.

She had transmigrated. She had crossed over into a post-apocalyptic wasteland novel she had once read, becoming the story’s vicious adoptive mother.

The world the original owner inhabited was a wasteland left behind by a global human nuclear war. This world-ending conflict had wiped out over ninety percent of humanity. The survivors had huddled in basements and air raid shelters, hiding from the extreme cold and lethal levels of radiation.

After a nuclear winter that lasted a full decade, humanity finally saw the sun again. However, this did not mark the beginning of a better life. The flora and fauna left on the surface had undergone varying degrees of mutation due to long-term exposure to nuclear radiation. The residual nuclear contamination in the soil was impossible to eradicate in the short term, leaving agriculture nearly extinct. The survivors could only rely on scavenging to stay alive.

The entire planet was divided into nine safe zones, and the original owner lived in the most remote of them all: the Ninth Security Zone.

The original owner was an orphan left behind by the nuclear war. As the seventeenth child taken in by the orphanage, she was designated Subject 17, and naturally, her name became Seventeen.

Seventeen grew up in the wasteland orphanage until she was ten. Later, as the staff members fell ill or died one after another, the orphanage was forced to close. The higher-ups of the security zone decided to have the remaining survivors adopt these helpless orphans, providing a fixed monthly supply of materials as child support.

Upon reaching adulthood, Seventeen—having grown up as a post-war orphan herself—was granted priority in adopting other wasteland orphans. The authorities believed that, as orphans themselves, they would empathize with the children and treat their adoptees kindly.

Unfortunately, it was a gross miscalculation. After the orphanage closed, Seventeen was taken in by a pair of malicious adoptive parents and suffered immense abuse. While they gladly hoarded the official child support supplies, behind closed doors, they subjected her to constant beatings and verbal abuse. She was forced to work day and night. Freezing and starving became her daily routine.

Back then, she had tried filing a complaint with the authorities, but her adoptive parents were related to the relevant officials, so her pleas fell on deaf ears. It was only when she finally reached adulthood that she managed to completely escape their control and abuse.

However, the prolonged abuse had severely warped her mind. After adopting four orphans of her own, she became even worse than her predecessors, mercilessly wringing the blood and sweat from the children. Because they were so young, the kids were utterly powerless to fight back and had no choice but to suffer in silence.

Fortunately, the four children were very united, leaning on one another for support. The oldest and second oldest would look after their younger brother and sister, taking the initiative to shoulder most of the chores. Whenever their adoptive mother flew into a rage and wanted to beat them, the older two would intentionally step forward to draw her fire, sparing the youngest ones from her cruelty.

In the original novel, as the children grew up, they all unlocked terrifying Combat Power. Having endured years of torture, they eventually murdered their adoptive mother in the most gruesome way possible before embarking on a spree of antisocial atrocities. In the end, they were consecutively and brutally killed by the male and female leads.

Recalling how Seventeen had died in the novel, Sev couldn’t help but shudder. She had been thrown into a dense forest by the children. Her body was slashed with exactly ninety-nine cuts using their Abilities. Wild honey was then poured over her wounds, and finally, she was eaten alive—bite by agonizing bite—by mutated ants, until not even bone fragments remained.

Good heavens! She absolutely refused to die like that! If only a bolt of lightning would strike her dead right now and send her back to her original world!

After howling in despair for fifteen minutes, the sky above remained perfectly cloudless. Sev was forced to accept reality. She couldn’t go back to her original world—at least, there was zero hope of it happening anytime soon.

Sev had never been the type to curse the heavens and wallow in self-pity. Since she was already here, she might as well make the best of it. She decided to face this bleak new life head-on and be a valiant transmigrator!