In the caves under Ademhill, a young, confused goblin stopped peeling some ginger. Zerel had been wondering why she was so practiced when she couldn't properly remember having done this before. Her mentor, Ramel, had only just gathered some roots today to use in her alchemy, and Zerel knew it was ginger, but the word Ramel used for it was different.

  Zerel gave it a tentative sniff. Yep. Definitely ginger root. Just like she'd used in probably hundreds of home cooked dishes for herself. No wonder she was so used to peeling it. She took a bit of pride in doing it with a knife like this, too. The witch she was apprenticed to didn't even have that other sort of peeler anyway.

  Hold up.

  There was a growing certainty in Zerel that she had never cooked anything with ginger in her life. At least, in this one. She could practically remember two past lives, though. There was the one before she realized that she was a girl, and then the one where she took the name Lilith, but now she was a goblin and her name was Zerel.

  Right. She had been a trans woman living in Massachusetts.

  Had she been reincarnated? Did Lilith die? Zerel couldn't think of any direct answers to those questions. She hoped she didn’t get hit by a truck, but she was a goblin in a fantasy world at this point, and, luckily, she'd recently become a disciple to the cn witch! Not bad for a goblin, she thought.

  Then, Zerel realized she had been ‘born male’.

  Again.

  She told herself she shouldn't freak out, just stay calm and find a solution.

  This was a magic fantasy world, right? She could just find some magic potion or spell that turns her into a girl in a fsh!

  It wasn't very convincing.

  She tried to keep herself grounded.

  Wasn’t this an isekai? It should be a power fantasy where she gets to do whatever she wants and become a major pyer in the world! Why the fuck was she a boy again?

  Zerel took a deep breath.

  And freaked the fuck out.

  Ramel, who had already noticed her apprentice boy freeze up with a confused look on his face, was understandably quite concerned for him. Particurly as he curled up in a ball on the ground and became delirious and unresponsive. When he eventually calmed down and started breathing regurly Ramel made the mistake of asking, “Are ya okay, boy?” She had no way of knowing that it would set him off again so badly.

  “DON'T CALL ME ‘BOY’!” Zerel screamed before crying again for several minutes while cursing in an unrecognizable nguage.

  This left Ramel at a bit of a loss. She certainly wasn't the most motherly - or sisterly - goblin in the cn, but she was a midwife, at least. How could she help the poor runt? He could hardly even tell her the problem! Eventually she leaned forward, pcing a hand on her young apprentice's shoulder, and softly asked, “Zerel, what's bothering you?”

  The reincarnated goblin girl took the better part of an hour to expin the problem. With Ramel's help, Zerel managed to calm down enough to describe being trans and also expin her past life as a trans woman. The thing that bothered the goblin apprentice most was that she had basically been de-transitioned. Her work to actualize her happiest self was undone. Could she even find a way to do this, now? Here? With the limited resources of a goblin cn?

  Ramel wasn't certain but she assured Zerel that they'd try before sending the poor apprentice to bed. It was an awfully complicated story for the young one to have come up with out of nowhere, even if Ramel wasn’t totally convinced. However, the only repcement expnation she could imagine was that Zerel had some other reason to want gender changing magic. The apprentice had definitely been serious about creating potions to alter the body. Zerel practically begged Ramel for assistance on it and threatened to do it on her own if she had to.

  Ramel had already started to brainstorm the alchemical options, at least. It could conceivably be done with magic, either temporarily or permanently, but Ademhill didn't have access to any great libraries of magic knowledge to learn about such spells. She only had some books that had been stolen by the cn over the years, and Ramel's personal spellbook was handcrafted with knowledge from her deceased predecessor.

  Thankfully, the kid showed up to breakfast in the witches’ workshop the next morning. They were meeting with the chief for a regur update on the apprentice's progress, and Ramel would rather have her junior there to expin the developments of the previous day. The older witch mostly understood Zerel's cims about being a transmigrated transwoman, but Ramel would rather the person in question expin.

  For their chief, Chron, it started as just another day in Ademhill. This was the fourth goblin cn he had ever been part of, and he took to personally overseeing it as much as he could. His previous cns either colpsed in on themselves or invited a purge from one of the “non-monstrous” peoples. Chron wanted to live a long and secure life, and as long as the remote cn didn't get themselves into too much trouble, he might grow to be an ogre someday.

  Unfortunately, managing a cn of goblins was a lot like herding raccoons. Despite Chron's best efforts to delegate or organize, his cnsfolk always manage to get into some trouble. With their steady growth, the cn's location couldn't hide them forever.

  Chron needed more skilled goblins. Which is why he had personally picked Zerel to be the first apprentice to Ademhill's witch. The kid was smart, and despite grumblings from Ramel about witches being women, she still taught at Chron's request. Ramel could hand pick her own girls if she really wanted; Chron recognized a clever goblin when he saw one.

  He might think that it takes one to know one, but he didn't intend to brag about it. His own sharpness was forged in disaster after disaster, and Zerel was hopefully something else. Of course Chron soon found out what that something was. Zerel started the conversation bluntly.

  “I’m a girl.”

  The chief smiled down at the weird runt, used to the antics of young goblins, “oh? What do you mean, Zerel?”

  “Yesterday, I remembered that if I want to be a girl, I can just be a girl. I’m getting help from Ramel to try and make that a physical reality with alchemy,” stated the young witch, “so think of me as a girl, because I am.”

  “...Okay,” Chron replied, regarding Zerel more closely. After a moment’s consideration, he asked, “remembered? Where did you hear that? You’re hardly old enough to be forgetting things, kid.”

  Zerel tittered at the hobgoblin, “In a way, I’m older than you are, chief. I remember a whole other life as a human woman. I was in my te twenties.” Then, in English, she said, “I can even remember another nguage that no one else speaks.”

  Ignoring the gibberish, Chron found the assertion to be fanciful, but there were ways he could see that it might line up. Zerel spoke well, and was proficient in basic mathematics, which was hardly common for goblins. Even the older hobgoblins like Chron weren’t guaranteed to have learned multiplication or division in their couple of decades alive.

  He decided to push towards practical applications, “It hardly matters, but let’s say I believe you. You’re a girl - I don’t care about the alchemy if you get your own supplies and ask before using the cn’s. What do you remember about being a human? And why tell me?”

  “I don’t want to have to expin myself all the time, chief,” said Zerel. “As a result of my memories, I have interests and priorities that I’m going to pursue. Bullshitting you about my reasons isn’t worth it, to me, and I think I might be able to help you manage the cn.”

  “Oh? You think you have more experience than I do?”

  “Not exactly. I have a different experience. The life I lived probably wasn't even from this world, Chron. I used to be an, uh… don't know the common nguage word for it. I helped run things.”

  Chron broke into a pointy grin, “Color me intrigued, girl. We'll see what you can do."

  "Ramel,” he said, turning to the witch.

  Ramel, who had mostly been nibbling at her breakfast and passively listening in, startled at the sudden address, “Yes chief?”

  “How is her progress?”

  “Good. We didn't get much done yesterday cuzza Zerel's revetion or whatevah, but, uh, she's still doin better than I'd expect another of her age.”

  “Excellent. Start focusing on self defense when possible. I don't want her dying on us. I'm taking Sachi, Shamish and a few runts out hunting today. You're in charge while I'm gone.” Chron stood to leave their workshop, ughing, “A human reborn as a goblin! Is it bad luck or good luck? We'll have to find out.”

  Zerel and Ramel shared a confused look as he left.

  The following days and weeks saw a noticeable improvement in Zerel's work. When asked, she said she could remember a bunch of skills that helped with both magic and alchemy. Ramel's magic was limited by ck of knowledge and required strong conceptualization of the effects being performed. Having had a modern human education, Zerel could channel mana into concept fairly easily for basic spells. An understanding of matter and thermodynamics made the use of elemental magics trivial, though some finesse still applied.

  Alchemy was basically the applied intersection between magic and chemistry, which is where Zerel's problems began. She sort of understood chemistry in her past life, but she hardly knew how to synthesize estrogen from scratch. Most of what Zerel had was a vague knowledge about organic sources of the hormone. Her transmigration fell short there, but she could learn things from Ramel. The apprentice was a very motivated student, at least, and learned quickly.

  Unfortunately, alchemy is also a craft that benefits from having good access to knowledge, quality equipment, and many ingredients. They were cking in all three. Ramel's equipment, which was probably all stolen from imperial merchants at some point, was mostly old and the collection was incomplete. They could get plenty of useful ingredients, but their selection was limited to what the cn could steal or gather around Ademhill. And, of course, antipathy against goblins by other peoples limited their access to written research.

  The witches' best bet was extensive experimentation, which would take time, leaving Zerel nervous about further development into her adolescence. Into goblin adolescence, no less. It frustrated her to no end, and she could feel derealization hovering over her. She had to find a few outlets, the best of which turned out to be combat. Knowing some physical mechanics and anatomy gave her certain advantages in body strengthening magic, so she started taking the lead when the pair had to acquire more monstrous ingredients.

  Zerel had really hoped she could manage bodily transformation in a simir way, but changing herself was different from simply channeling magic through her body. Thankfully, she could at least kill off any developing body hair with her best approximation of magic electrolysis.

  Eventually, she started to reach a derealized state, where her emotions were dulled with the exceptions of anger and depression. She took it out on monsters in the surrounding foothills, channeling magic that strengthened her tendons and bones. Hardened skin and selectively applied magical leverage made her into a monster in her own way. Goblin weapons weren't usually very sturdy, so Zerel often broke them mid fight and found herself killing monsters by hand.

  Chron thought it was hirious at first. The witch kid was honestly terrifying, and barely talked to anyone outside of himself and Ramel. The rest of the cn outright feared Zerel, particurly after she buried Shamish up to his neck for purposefully misgendering her. Muscled veteran that he was, Chron couldn't beat her in an arm wrestling match if she used magic. She was notorious in Ademhill like no one else was.

  To Ramel, it didn't seem like a very good coping strategy. She saw the desperation in the kid's eyes, and had to talk Zerel through a few anxious episodes. Ramel got to see each alchemical disappointment chip away at the light of Zerel's gaze. The transmigrator simply wasn't well. Watching her body betray her sense of self again was regurly disabling. When the witch and the chief talked about Ramel's concerns, Chron wasn't really sure what he could do. The chief tried to stay in contact and treat Zerel like he would any other respected member of the cn. He found himself hoping that they would succeed soon, a surprise since he hadn't particurly cared at first. He figured it was just that Zerel would be an asset if she could chill out.

  It was a long wait for their first success.

  ViolentR