My family raised me for seventeen years.
Not out of love, but to fatten me up.
In this world, humans are not the rulers. We are livestock raised for food by the Ancients.
At eighteen, when our meat and vitality reach their peak, it’s time for us to be sent to market: captured, slaughtered, and served at monsters’ tables.
My parents are Shadow Sickle beings disguised as humans. My school is a livestock farm for sorting the herd. Behind every smiling face around me may lurk a hunter waiting to harvest us.
One night, I stumbled upon the truth, and awakened.
I have no heaven-defying power, only a heart determined to survive at any cost.
To avoid being eaten, I pretend to be docile while secretly gathering allies:
a cool, detached girl with a keen sense for danger, an escapee skilled in combat, and a disguise prodigy with extraordinary talent.
We slip between surveillance cameras and sickle-shaped shadows, fleeing from our cage of a city into the untamed wilderness.
We cross ruins, industrial zones, swamps, and canyons, making our way toward the underground base where the Ancients are said to sleep.
My eighteenth birthday, the day I’m meant to die, is drawing closer.
This time, we won’t be livestock waiting for the slaughter.
On the day we’re sent to market, we’ll overturn the entire food chain.
It must be very beautiful.