I Got Reincarnated as a Zombie Girl

Morning sunlight slipped shyly through the gaps in the thick velvet curtains of the lodging room, painting golden lines of light across the softly creaking wooden floor. Sylvia slowly opened her eyes, blinking several times to adjust to the light. She stretched her body on the large, soft bed, letting the thin silk pajama clinging to her body brush gently against her skin. The nearly transparent pajama fabric felt cool and comfortable, wrapping the perfect curves of her body with undeniable elegance.

While giving a small yawn, Sylvia threw off the blanket and stepped her bare feet onto the floor. The cool morning air greeted her, yet for an entity as powerful as herself, temperature was merely an illusion that no longer carried any meaningful impact. She walked sluggishly toward the bathroom, opened the carved wooden door, and stepped into the elegant marble-lined room.

Sylvia turned on the faucet, letting cold water flow freely before cupping both hands and washing her face. The freshness of the water seemed to sweep away the remnants of drowsiness still lingering in the corners of her mind. Slowly, she lifted her wet face, allowing water droplets to trail down her jaw, and gazed at her reflection in the large mirror mounted on the wall.

Behind that mirror, a pair of beautiful and enigmatic eyes stared back at her. That face was a masterpiece; the carving of a goddess with porcelain-white skin that was smooth and flawless, an elegant high nose, and alluring rosy-red lips. Her long hair, slightly damp, hung in a messy cascade yet still looked captivating.

Sylvia let out a long breath; a thin, ironic smile formed on her lips. Sometimes, in quiet moments like this, her mind still liked to play tricks. She almost forgot or at least, the distance of that memory felt increasingly faded and surreal that far in the past, in a life that felt as if it belonged to someone else, she had been a man.

Yes, an ordinary man living an ordinary life. Until fate toyed with him in the most brutal way. His transfer to this world had not been a beautiful heroic reincarnation like those in cheap fantasy novels. There was no goddess welcoming him with a smile and granting him a sacred sword. He had transmigrated precisely on the day the apocalypse, the zombie catastrophe erupted and destroyed civilization.

He arrived in this world amid streets filled with blood and screams, and before he even had the chance to understand what was happening or simply dodge, a fatal bite pierced his flesh. He died as a human and rose again in the body he had just occupied, the body of a young girl who had already been infected. He became a zombie. A mindless creature driven by an endless hunger for flesh.

Yet fate apparently had not finished writing his story. Unlike the other living dead that rotted and crumbled with the passage of time, Sylvia began to evolve. The primitive hunger was gradually replaced by sharp consciousness. The decaying flesh regenerated, mutated, and transformed into something that transcended the limits of both human and monster. From a lowly zombie crawling across blood-soaked asphalt, she evolved across stages too numerous to count. She absorbed cores, consumed mutations, survived hunts, and continued climbing the food chain until at last she stood there as an absolute figure. The Queen. An extremely powerful entity.

From the ashes of that apocalypse, Sylvia not only survived, she conquered the world. She founded her own kingdom, a vast, magnificent, and impregnable city that she named Nocture. Nocture was not merely a shelter; it was a utopia of the night, a capital where evolved races lived side by side beneath the shadow of her rule. That city was the symbol of all the blood and tears she had endured.

And when she thought of Nocture, Sylvia’s mind immediately turned to one name that made her chest feel warm.

Sofia.

Remembering that name made Sylvia’s smile widen. What a romantic yet absurd irony of fate. Back then, in her early days as an evolving zombie, Sofia had been her nightmare. That woman had been a Hunter, a pursuer of supernatural beings who was determined to sever Sylvia’s head. How many times had they fought with their lives on the line atop collapsed buildings and cratered streets? Too many to count. Sword clashed with claw, magic collided with survival instinct.

Yet hatred and the desire to kill gradually changed form. Closeness in battle gave rise to understanding. Understanding gave birth to attraction, and that attraction blossomed into a possessive and profound love. The hunter who had once always pursued her with a drawn sword was now her most loyal lover, the consort who accompanied her in leading Nocture.

"She’s probably busy cursing the pile of Nocture documents right now while calling out my name," Sylvia murmured, imagining Sofia grumbling in her office because Sylvia had left her for matters outside the territory. A sudden wave of longing surged in her chest. She missed Sofia’s warm embrace, the scent of her body, and her attentive scolding.

Sylvia’s thoughts then shifted to another matter no less miraculous in this new life of hers. The identity of this body. The body she occupied at the beginning had not been an empty vessel. There had been the original soul of its owner inside it. A paradox that had once made her head spin. Yet now everything had been resolved in the most miraculous way, thanks to the intervention of their adoptive mother, the Goddess Persephone.

The Goddess of the Underworld had granted an unimaginable blessing. She had separated the overlapping souls. The original soul of this body now possessed its own body formed from sacred and divine elements, and it acknowledged Sylvia as its sister. Her name was Alicia, a kind-hearted elder sister filled with maternal aura.

Not only Alicia apparently there had once been another soul dwelling within the karmic vortex of that body, namely Stacia. Stacia too had received her own physical body thanks to Persephone. Now the three of them were siblings. All three had grown, evolved, and developed along completely different paths. Alicia with her spirit magic and debuffs, Stacia with her spatial magic and explosive buffs, and Sylvia with the absolute evolutionary power of the ruler of Nocture. They were a family born from an anomaly of fate.

Sylvia’s gaze returned to the mirror, then slowly lowered to look at her own body. The thin pajama could not hide the extraordinary curves of her figure. Her large, firm breasts stood out beautifully, her waist was extremely slender, and her legs were long and smooth. This was a body for which any nation could go to war merely to claim it. A physical manifestation of a seductive goddess.

If she still possessed the mentality of a man as she had in her first years in this world, perhaps seeing the reflection of her own naked body in the mirror would have been enough to make her nosebleed every day. Back then she had felt awkward, strange, and sometimes frustrated by the sudden hormonal and physical changes. Taking care of long hair, the strange cycles of a female body, down to the hungry stares from many creatures.

But now? A light sigh escaped her nose. After years of living in this form, after enduring battles in which this body had been destroyed and regenerated repeatedly, she had become numb to the sensuality of her own body. She no longer viewed these curves with lust or excessive admiration. To her, this extremely beautiful body was now merely an evolutionary weapon, a shell that housed her mighty soul. She cared more about how quickly she could cut through space and time with this body than about how beautiful her appearance looked in the eyes of others.

"Besides, only Sofia is allowed to enjoy this body," she thought with a small, mischievous grin.

She took a small towel, dried her face and neck, then briefly tidied her hair. Feeling sufficiently refreshed, Sylvia turned the bathroom doorknob and stepped back out into the bedroom area.

The room was still silent, yet on the thick carpet near the already-extinguished fireplace lay two mounds of fur still sleeping soundly.

They were Sol and Noir.

To outsiders who saw them, they were merely two pet cats. Yet Sylvia knew precisely the true forms of these two adorable creatures. Sol, who disguised itself as a golden-furred cat that glowed softly, was actually a Golden Dragon, one of the purest and most powerful dragon races. It was curled in an awkward position, one hind leg hanging in the air.

Beside it was Noir. The creature that had once been a rotting and terrifying Zombie Dragon had now fully evolved and transformed into a true Black Dragon. Noir, now using the form of a pitch-black cat as dark as night, slept on its back with its belly exposed, completely ignoring its dignity as a dragon race when near Sylvia.

Seeing the helpless antics of those two city-destroying dragons, Sylvia’s mood which had previously been filled with reflections on the past instantly brightened.

Sylvia walked closer with grace, barefoot across the carpet. She stood before the two still softly snoring dragon cats, then planted her hands on her hips, regarding them with a teasing smile.

"Hey, you lazybones. The sun is already high outside," Sylvia said in a deliberately slightly louder tone. "Get up. Didn’t you keep complaining about being hungry last night? If you don’t get up now, I’ll eat this morning’s breakfast alone and you’ll only get fish bones."

Hearing the magic words "breakfast" and the threat of "fish bones," Sol’s cat ears immediately twitched hard. Its golden eyes snapped open wide in an instant. Beside it, Noir immediately rolled over and leapt to its feet, its sharp purple eyes radiating enthusiasm.

Both of them instantly charged forward. Sol leapt lightly and immediately rubbed its head against Sylvia’s smooth calf. Meooong~ Sol let out a spoiled sound that somehow carried a soft bass resonance like a small dragon’s growl. Its golden tail wagged rapidly, sweeping the carpet.

Not to be outdone, Noir butted its pitch-black furry head against Sylvia’s outstretched palm. It let out a low dragon-like growl that it disguised as a hard purring. Noir circled around Sylvia’s legs as though claiming that its master belonged entirely to it this morning.

Sylvia laughed freely, her melodious laughter echoing through the room. She bent down, using both hands to scratch under Sol’s chin and behind Noir’s ears at the same time. The two dragons immediately melted, closing their eyes tightly as they enjoyed the touch of the Queen of Death.

"Yes, yes, I know you’re starving. You greedy dragons," Sylvia teased while continuing to stroke them, feeling the warm flow of dragon energy from both of their bodies. "All right, let’s go out. We’ll order the largest high-class monster meat this place has, then see what we can find on the capital’s streets today."

Sol and Noir responded with joy, jumping around Sylvia like ordinary kittens. Sylvia smiled faintly, walking toward the wardrobe to change from her silk pajama into her casual gown.

In her heart, as she began to prepare, Sylvia knew that her past life as a human man was merely a prologue. She was now Sylvia. The ruler of Nocture. Sofia’s lover. The elder sister of Alicia and Stacia. And with two mighty dragons behaving like kittens trailing behind her, she was ready to welcome a new page of the day.