Alfir retreated to a desolate cave he prepared as his base to wait for the next 4 months until the enrollment for Heromaker Academy.

Thankfully he made preparations past month, his vacation days, in which he successfully advanced his mutation and distributed his assets. The Soul Method left quite the sequelae to Alfir. It's thanks to his mutation having affinity to the mind, he hears voices every once in a while. He almost forgot them during the duration of the mission. Looks like these voices can be overwhelmed by external stimuli.

'You look badly wounded... I pity you kid..'

It is the voice of a wizened old man.

"Shut up."

Alfir's internal injuries are not just bad. It's horrendous. The pain is nerve-wracking.

Even the smallest movement can inflict severe pain.

'Do not rush, darling~'

Then this time, it's a feminine seductive voice.

"Shut up."

Alfir has consistently said SHUT UP to these voices. Outrightly ignoring them causes these voices to be angry, so he can't do the silent treatment to them.

These voices are a result of undergoing the Soul Method. Through peeling the skin of your soul and laying it bare, Alfir is able to awaken his mutation at the cost of his sanity. Alfir knows this trade-off, but he still continued. Physical harm weighs more than mental harm after all.

In this world, where death is actively seeking its victim, power is necessary.

...

(FLASHBACK AS TO ALFIR'S SOUL METHOD.)

Alfir sat cross-legged as he tries to cultiva— no, that is inappropriate.

Alfir lies in his bed as he prepares himself for the Soul Method.

How is the Soul Method done?

It's very simple— by breaking the mind!

This world's physics works very differently, in this world the soul has weight. It's just so minuscule, it can't be seen. Smaller than light particles, they say.

This soul can be stimulated by breaking the mind. In Zentury, they use electric shocks, torture, shaming, and so on.

Alfir had severe depression issues and a factitious disorder he scarcely recovered from when he was in middle school. After a lot of therapy and opportunities to socialize, it was almost gone.

Now, he is going to seek it and own it, actively and without hesitations.

Factitious disorder is a serious mental health disorder in which a person appears sick or produces physical or mental illness. People with factitious disorder deliberately produce symptoms of an illness for the purpose of receiving care and attention in a medical setting. The symptoms aren’t intended to get the practical benefits— the gain is believed to be mainly psychological.

Factitious disorder is considered a mental illness. It’s associated with severe emotional difficulties and patients’ likelihood of harming themselves by continuing to produce more symptoms, resulting in getting themselves unnecessary procedures and surgeries.

Alfir is amazing in so many wrong ways. Who in the right mind can return to being mentally ill with a simple change of mindset.

'Hey kid, how is your transmigration lifestyle going?'

Wow, voices in the head... Now, that's new~

...

(PRESENT DAY.)

'Aw! It hurts!'

'Big bwudar, can I go out?'

'Fuck, let me have your body!"

"Shut up."

After hours of excruciating journey, Alfir finally made it to his hideout, a cave he personally searched in the duration of his vacation.

He directly fainted because of exhaustion.

When he woke up, he felt so much better now. He moved his limbs with comfort.

Alfir discovered his healing factor in his rest saving him from consuming money-hungry potions.

That's some luck.

'Hey babe, wanna get fucked?'

'How are you gonna do that? The two of you share one body!?'

No matter how much Alfir racks his brain, he can't remember the Soul Method imposing this kind of mental illness. In his writings, the mental illnesses revolve around obsession, heightened emotions, or the lack of it.

There are some mutants that also hear voices, but this is due to their abilities' side effects.

The closest he can derive this from is the multi-personality disorder that one of the main villains is suffering from. Alfir can confidently say, these voices are not because of multiple personalities, but purely auditory hallucinations.

How?

Well, that's what the voices said. Not that Alfir can take their honesty for granted.

'Wha~t!? You don't believe us!?'

'He must be crazy to believe us lol.'

'Why don't I try to prove it?'

'NOOO! STAY HERE, OLD MAN!'

"SHUT UP!!"

These guys are getting noisy—

"But what if I don't want to..."

Alfir felt someone tap his shoulder. He looked back only to see a wizened old man carrying a staff. He wears a blue cloak that speaks of his affluent status.

"Why is this happening to me?"

"Dissociation among personalities. You need to perfectly assimilate your original self to this body."

"Personalities? So I am truly suffering from multi—"

"I will stop you right there. Like we told you, you are not."

"But you said my personalities are—"

"Nah, your personality is yours and yours alone. But our presence tells something else. I believe that these voices(we) are remnants of the old personality that resides in that body."

"Shit."

Now, that makes sense. You can't truly transmigrate without consequences. In some LNs, transmigrators tend to end up in a body with mysterious backgrounds, some penalties, or catches.

"Why are you helping me? If I successfully assimilate with this body, do you not fear vanishing?"

"Oh, this? Well, you can choose not to vanish us, right? Anyway, I want to earn goodwill. Your memories aren't really safe from our prying. Right? Fallen god..."

Alfir's heart rose. These specters came to a conclusion they thought reasonable, but in fact, it's just misunderstandings. Alfir is quick to catch on thanks to his overactive imagination.

'I am a fucking transmigrator, not a fallen god! Wait, there is something wrong with his statement...'

"Sure, you can pry my memories, but not my thoughts. For example, you don't know what I am thinking now." (I am not a fallen god.)

"As expected—"

"You keep on interrupting my words. It's now my turn to interrupt yours." (I am not anything grand, just a mere mortal.)

"Forgive me if I have shown you dis—"

"What do you want?" (Fuck, he can't read my mind.)

Alfir interrupted the old man's words not out of spite but to confirm the truth. This specter can't really read his thoughts. In Mutagenic Medieval, there is no perfect mind-reading, only different variations that act on unique mutant mechanisms. Since Alfir sees himself as a transmigrator, and this old man sees him as a fallen god, Alfir can safely deduce that his identity is relatively safe for now.

"The old MINION #12913 awakened his Curse in the midst of confronting Flamecore— it's the power to delete emotions. It's a scary ability alright even to your standards I presume... We are the results of it, after his ego shattered in his death. Like a dying star, it gave birth."

"It's a scary ability alright..."

To delete emotions. That's the scariest brainwashing ability out there. It can even be used on oneself to increase the winning probability. Imagine an emotionless machine with inhuman ultimate precision. It's highly likely for one not to commit mistakes if their emotions cannot be moved.

So to surmise. After the original 12913 died, Alfir came, with his soul and memories intact... This is reasonable...

"So, what do you want?"

"Coexistence."

"No can do."

"What!? Am I not sincere enough?"

"I can't accept your lot as my equals. Become my subordinates. I will give you flesh, blood, bones, and will."

"..."

"You are in disbelief. You can't read my memories, do you? You saw it, but you can't read it... That's just so sad..."

Alfir smirked at the old man's predicament. There is a way to turn these egos into something like artificial intelligence. It will be a waste if Alfir doesn't make use of them.

"We accept."

"Is this the will of the hive?"

"Yes..."

"Brilliant... The terms are—"

The negotiations were easily made. In exchange for the egos maintaining silence and subservience, Alfir will give them bodies. The deadline is a decade, so Alfir isn't in a hurry. If Alfir wasn't able to make ends meet, the numerous egos inside him will shatter his nerve endings— it's not like Alfir doesn't have a countermeasure for it.

...

"Oldie, I told you not to go. Now look, we are busted. He now knows of our presence."

"Stop with your complaints. It's good I adapted on the spot. He referred to us as the Hive, he already knew that we are one ego. Do you know what does that means?"

"Hmmm... That we are only one ego, and if he puts his mind to it, he can kill us? Doesn't that mean you just made it worse? If you oldie stayed, he would've remained ignorant!"

"You have to look more into it! He said he will give us flesh, blood, bones, and will— WILL, I TELL YOU! Do you know what that means!?"

"What!? Spit it out!"

"That we can choose not to stay as one ego. We are the multiple personalities born from the old 12913. No matter how much we gloss over it, we are a single entity, but with this fallen god's knowledge, we can be reborn as something more. All he asks is our loyalty."

And this is how this world's most frightening fanatics came to be.

...

Alfir trained every day and forced himself to devise a satisfactory disguise using his mutation. Every day, Alfir peels the skin from his face enduring the pain and the horrors of inflicting self-harm. He recited "Mind over body." repeatedly as Alfir wished for the best.

The mind hive in his head is satisfactorily behaving like what is demanded from their agreement. Since Alfir awakened his mutation, he already knew that there is something wrong with this body. But he can't pinpoint it. With the egos' cooperation, his plans for world domination continue to advance forward.

But first, Alfir needs to shed his identity as 12913. He peeled the skin from his face with experience. He's not even flinching from the pain now that he discovered a trick to it. He just has to suppress the pain through his mutant abilities. It works wonders.

Finally, looking in the mirror, he found success. A familiar face greeted Alfir. It was his original face back in his old world. MINION #12913 is originally white pale, has bubbly cheeks and a rounder chin. Now, he has a more vibrant color, has flatter cheeks, has a mole under his right eye, and a sharper chin— looks that he once possessed are now embedded in his soul.

The dissociation of personalities is no more, and if he wills it, he can kill the egos residing in his head with a thought. But it's not yet time for that. There are uses for these egos.

To Zentury's eyes, 12913 is already dead. Alfir's defection is a complete success. Now, it's time for him to build an independent force. And he knows just the right place for it.

"Hmmm... I'm gonna enroll now... It's time to have that academy life..."

...

TRIVIA!

Zentury— A terrorist organization that existed as long as the dark ages. Their presence got stronger when the Hero Society was created. They possess very advanced technologies diverted from their fronts, corporations that seem clean on the outside but have an intimate relationship with them.

Zentury has many supporters across the whole world. They also have secret bases outside the known world.