So I'm Rouge, So what?

The Demon Lord, Ariel

Ariel: "Allright." I gave in.

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Every day was spent lying in bed.

I could never get up and leave.

Twenty-four hours a day I was connected to several tubes that provided me with essential nutrients.

I was just a laboratory animal, with no apparent reason for living.

That was all I was, nothing more.
But then...

Sariel: "Hello. My name is Sariel. And what is your name?"

...that person reached out her hand to me.

"...A...riel...?"

Sariel: "Ariel? What a coincidence. Your name sounds just like mine."

I was only trying to repeat her name, but since my voice was raspy, she misunderstood what I had said.

That trivial reason was how I got my name.
But I'm fine with that.

Because it's the name she gave me.

•
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•

Infuriatingly enough, the man called Potimas Harrifenas has played an inextricable part in a large portion of my life.

From the moment of my birth to the present day, I've always been haunted by that man's shadow.

The reason is simple, though I am especially loath to acknowledge it: He is my father, if only by blood.

Certainly he has never once treated me as a daughter.

It doesn't matter now, and I have no way of confirming this anyway, but I suspect he never even recorded my birth in his family register or anything of the sort.

In other words, he refused to acknowledge me.

That goes without saying, since to him I was nothing more than a lab rat for his experiments.

My earliest memory is of lying in a bed in a laboratory, or something of the sort.

Obviously, I don't remember the details at this point, but I know I was lying in that place for a very long time.

Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that I had no other choice but to lie there.

I was bedridden day and night, without the ability to even sit up.

By the time I had any self-awareness, I was already in that condition.

Fortunately, I naturally picked up the ability to understand language, probably because the television was always on in that room.

Since Potimas generally chose educational programs for me to watch, I picked up a decent amount of knowledge without ever leaving my bed, too.

Although I'm sure that was just part of his experiment, to see if I would develop intelligence at a normal human rate.

Yes, it was all an experiment.

That is the reason I was born.

I never knew my mother.

In fact, I don't know if I even had one.

Because I am not just an ordinary human.

I am a chimera, the subject Potimas was studying at the time.

A chimera is made when factors from different creatures are combined to create a new species. I am the result of one such experiment.

When I say Potimas is my father, I don't mean that he impregnated my hypothetical mother, and she later gave birth to me.