Inside a small, pitch-black world of darkness, my consciousness rested.
I couldn’t think of anything at all.


Then, suddenly, a crack appeared in that darkness.
Light leaked in through a fracture in the ceiling.

Drawn toward that light, a part of my body stretched out.

Maybe I was sprouting.
With that thought, my consciousness began to return, little by little.

My body grew at a rapid pace.
I realized this was the effect of recovery magic when I felt the sensation of being wrapped inside something thin and soft.

This feeling felt familiar.
I knew what came next. I was blooming as a flower.


My body rose as if standing up.
The petals that had been enclosing me slowly spread open.
The bud was opening.

I was blooming.


The first of my five senses to return was smell.
The scent of charred wood and ash filled the air.

Light poured into my vision. It was dazzling.
Gradually, my eyes adjusted to my surroundings.

When I came to my senses, I was standing on top of black ash—no, growing out of it.


My upper body was human.
From my waist bloomed a red flower crown, and my lower body was a bulb with the mouth of a carnivorous plant.

Roots stretched from that bulb deep into the ground. I could feel them desperately seeking underground moisture.

Yes.
My body was the familiar form of an Alraune.


So… I survived.


Yes, it’s me!

Me, the former saint, whose previous life was that of a Japanese high school girl!

Thank goodness. My consciousness was still intact.
It looks like my hypothesis was correct after all.

Fortunately, my awareness had successfully transferred into the seed.
And from that seed, an Alraune sprouted, allowing me to dwell within it once more.

Yaaaay!
I did it!

I’m unbelievably happy right now!

I mean, I actually managed to make it back alive from that utterly hopeless, desperate situation.


Just look at it.

I slowly scanned my surroundings.
There were no signs of any living creatures.

Not a single tree from the forest remains—everything had burned down completely.
The fire was gone.
In its place, an endless expanse of blackened charcoal and ash blanketed the vast land.

And there I was, standing there alone in the middle of it all.
I really want to praise myself for surviving that disaster.


The forest fire that covered everything, and the Flame Dragon’s blue fire, were both gone now.
In exchange, a blackened lump lay nearby. Probably what remained of my former body.

With a heart full of gratitude for this past year, I offered up a prayer.
Thank you for burning in my place, my former body. I’m sorry.
From now on, I’ll live a healthy life in this new body of mine.


I know it’s unfair for the other plants of the forest, but I’ll keep living.
I’ll do my best as a plant for everyone’s sake.


That was when I noticed something was off.


The ground felt… closer than it should.


Before, I was quite large.
My bulb was enormous, after all. Even though my human part only went from the waist up, I was probably two to three meters tall.

But now, I wasn’t even a full meter high.

I mean, my hands were really tiny.
They looked just like a child’s hands.

Sadly, it wasn’t only my hands that had become childlike.

Th-there’s nothing there!
My chest… it’s gone!

The chest I had grown after becoming an Alraune was completely flat.

No matter how you look at it, my body was completely like that of a toddler.
Not just the shape. Everything about me was that of a small child.

It seems I’ve turned into a little girl.

I tried touching my face, and sure enough, it was small too.
The flowers blooming from my waist were also smaller.

And seriously, look at this.

My lower bulb looks like a watermelon now.
The once-intimidating bulb was only about the size of a watermelon.
It’s shrunk drastically.

At this size, I could probably only catch something like a hamster.
Or insects, I guess.

That said, the bulb may be smaller, but it was glossy and shiny. Just like a new sprout.

Ah, I see.
I’m a new sprout, huh.

Since I just germinated from a seed, I’ve become a newborn Alraune.

I pollinated myself, became a seed, and obtained a new body.
Which means this body has never been pollinated before. It’s still pure.

Even though I had already been pollinated once before, that part is a bit reassuring.
After all, as a former saint, it’s something that would naturally bother me a little. Yes, I suppose it’s fine.

Becoming a sprout means my body has been completely reborn.
That makes sense. I’m brand new, fresh off the press.

Now I understand why I turned into a little girl.
Surely, if I grow again, I should be able to return to my original size.

And when that happens, my chest will grow properly too.
Even now, I refused to lose to that backstabbing apprentice saint who betrayed me.
If only my chest had been just a little bigger, maybe my engagement to my fiance, the Hero, wouldn’t have been broken.
The Hero must have been tempted by that junior’s chest after all. Unforgivable, junior!


Fueled by anger, I decided to run a few experiments.

It looks like I can do everything I could in my previous body.
Vines, thorns, poisonous pollen, even nectar, I could produce them all.


Nothing about me has changed at all. Only now that I’ve reverted to being a little girl again.


Once again, I found myself thinking about it.

As an Alraune, I had successfully created my own seed.
I even carried over my memories and rebuilt myself into a new body.
Could it be…  I had done something monstrous.

If I did the same thing again, I could probably be reborn once more.
I might be able to keep replacing my plant body and continue living on.

My hands began to tremble.
Once again, I realized that I was no longer human.

Pollinating myself, becoming a seed, then sprouting and gaining a new body—all things no human could ever do.

I’m an Alraune, a plant monster.
Yes, more strongly than ever before, I became acutely aware of it.


But this trembling wasn’t only from fear.

I had made a small mistake. This was not the time to be spamming Plant Generation experiments.
Right now, I was severely lacking in nutrients.


After all, I was basically a newborn, freshly sprouted from a seed.
I must have burned through a massive amount of energy just to germinate and grow.

I wanted some easy prey to replenish my nutrients, but on this charred wasteland, there was not a single living creature in sight.


It wasn’t just nutrients I was lacking either.

I needed water.

Because of the fire, the moisture in the soil had been drastically reduced.
On top of that, my freshly sprouted body was still in a growing phase.

So yeah, I desperately needed water right now.

Even though I was just born, I’m already so desperate for water that I’m tempted to apply for a job as a rain‑praying shrine maiden.


I’m completely exhausted.
Even though I had just sprouted, I felt like I was already about to wither.


S-someone, please help me…


Normally, there would be no one who could save me in this situation.
Unless a miraculous rain happened to fall, but the sky was perfectly clear.

After a fire, updrafts tend to form, so the chances of rain should be higher.
Still, it did not look like it would rain anytime soon.


My only hope was White Bird-san.

White Bird-san was my savior, the one who had dumped water on me and put out the fire.

As they were leaving, White Bird-san had said, “Somehow survive, okay? Then I’ll come and water you.”


If White Bird-san could freely fly through the sky, then surely they had survived the fire as well.
And if so, they might return as promised to water me.

White Bird-san.
They were my only hope in this hopeless, waterless situation.



Ahh…
Bird-san, you’re late…
I wonder if you’ll come soon.

I sat there, spending several hours spacing out while soaking up sunlight.

Then it hit me.


What if White Bird-san had already come and gone?

Just a little while ago, I had been lying on the ground as a seed.
Then I rapidly grew, sprouted, and became an Alraune.

If White Bird-san had come here before I sprouted, they would have seen my burned remains and assumed I was dead.
No one would ever imagine that the tiny seed nearby was actually me.

What should I do?
If White Bird-san had already left, then no one would water me anymore.


Ugh…
After all that trouble to pollinate myself and become a seed, was I still destined to wither and die in the end?


As I hung my head in despair, a small shadow fell over my body.

Maybe a rain cloud had appeared overhead?
Thinking that, I looked up at the sky, but what I saw was completely unexpected.


There was… a person flying in the sky.

Against the blue sky, a figure in a black robe floated in midair.

They were just floating there, not doing anything.
From up in the sky, that person was looking down at me.


There was no way a human could just float in the sky like that.
Even if someone used wind magic to fly,they would require some kind of support or tool.
Besides, hardly anyone could even use wind magic to fly in the first place.

If anyone could do it, it would be the Great Sage, said to be the greatest mage on the continent.
But even the Great Sage couldn’t hover in place like that.


So who was that person?

They wore a black robe, their face hidden beneath a hood.
Their build was small.
…Could it be a child?


Suddenly, a single gust of wind blew through.

The hood of the mysterious floating figure was swept away by the wind, revealing their hidden face.

From beneath the hood, long white hair spilled out, fluttering in the breeze.

The figure floating in the sky—it was a white-haired girl.


The white-haired girl gently held down her flowing hair with one hand.
Just like that, she quietly met my gaze.

The moment I saw her, everything clicked like a puzzle piece snapping in place.

That strange drawing held by the minotaur of the Demon King’s army.
I had always assumed it was a picture of an old woman.

Back then, the drawing of the minotaur was so badly done that, based on the few bits of information I could glean from it, I concluded it was actually a drawing of an old woman.

From that drawing, all I could make out was that it showed a human, small in stature, wearing a woman’s black robe, with white hair. Given that, I assumed the person must have been an old woman.

But I was wrong.

Because right now, the person floating above me matched that drawing perfectly.

That wasn’t a drawing of an old woman.


The truth behind that drawing was standing in the sky above me.

It was that white-haired girl.

***

Author’s Note:

Thank you very much for reading.
This story reached 20th place in the daily rankings for isekai reincarnation and transfer. Thank you all so much!

Next Time: The White-Haired Girl