Chapter 173
Translator: penny
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: You Are Not Human
The severed head of the eldest sister flops onto the floor with a wet splat.
"Eh."
The lower jaw, still attached to the neck, lets out a dazed sound. It seems she never once imagined she'd meet such an end.
"No, this is fucking cowardly. What the hell?"
The eldest's hand gropes at the hollow upper part of her head. With everything above the nose sliced clean off, she shouldn't be able to move at all...
"Is this that bastard's doing? That crazy son of a bitch who goes around devouring everything in sight?"
"U, u, yeah... That's him..."
The third sister stammers as she presses close to her sibling. Whether playing servant or not, she carefully lifts the upper portion of the eldest's head—stuck fast to the floor—and slots it back into place.
"This is absurd. That son of a bitch..."
True to her nature as a monster born of the moon, the eldest refuses to die even with her head cleaved in half. She displays a vitality so stubborn that even Jenny cocks her head in puzzlement.
"What? We're the same? Shameless little sister. Baby, do you even know how many years older we are than you?"
But Jenny doesn't so much as lend an ear to her words. Instead, her eyes lock onto the Three Sisters of the Deep Sea like those of a predator sighting intriguing quarry.
"Y, yeah... W, we... are your big sisters... Don't fool around with that male anymore. You need to start listening to Dad again, quick..."
The comparatively docile third sister exhausts herself trying to persuade Jenny, but all she gets in return are the lunges of a beast.
Without even giving the second and third a chance to intervene, Jenny charges straight at the eldest. Her teeth and claws rip the supposedly unkillable offspring of the moon to shreds.
"Blasphemous! This one's off!"
"No—w, we don't die from stuff like this... Quit the tantrum already and go back to Dad..."
The sisters start off unfazed, but by the time Jenny is chewing and swallowing the eldest's limbs, their faces begin to stiffen.
That's when they sense something's wrong. Jenny, however, has zero intention of hearing them out.
When she's with me, that clever mind of hers weighs her own pros and cons, even reins in her desires and expectations...
Crunch!
"Uh—eugh—"
No human ever pits their brains against the grains of rice they're about to eat. It's much the same situation here.
To Jenny, the Three Sisters of the Deep Sea are nothing more than tiresome prey that won't shut up.
"Eh...?"
A whirlwind of emotions flickers across the third sister's face in an instant. Bewilderment, fear, denial.
"Wha, what is..."
Her eldest sister is being devoured alive. By now, even her vocal organs have slid into Jenny's gut—she can't even scream properly anymore.
Not dying.
Not being digested.
There's a clear difference between the two.
Not dying doesn't mean her shredded remains can endure forever inside Jenny's stomach.
Immortality, far from a boon,
merely dooms one to feel every shred of agony right up until consciousness snuffs out.
"...S, sis?"
Realizing the situation's gone south, the second and third lock eyes for a split second and contemplate fleeing—but...
Kwak—!
Jenny's tail won't even permit escape.
The second is skewered on that tail,
while the third crumples to the floor, legs giving out as she grasps that fleeing simply isn't allowed.
"Li, lis, listen... W, we have hostages, you know...? Don't you get it...?"
The third's final gamble is her last-ditch plea—or perhaps prayer—aimed at me and the other women.
"Stop her! Somebody stop her...! What the hell is that thing... gonna kill us all...? She really gonna kill us...?"
I snap out of my trance, having stared mesmerized at Jenny's ravenous feast, and finally mull over our current predicament.
From a negotiation standpoint, it's a total clusterfuck. Still, I can't bring myself to resent Jenny for it. It's like watching a haughty cop flat-out refuse to bargain with terrorists.
"Jenny, don't eat those two yet."
It's fine.
I'll handle the fallout.
"We'll send one of them back."
The second—with a hole punched through her gut—and the third—slumped on the floor—both turn to stare at me simultaneously.
"But one stays behind. If even one of my friends dies, or so much as gets a scratch, the one left here becomes Jenny's chow."
An eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth...
Was that the saying?
Spot on.
If they've taken hostages, we take hostages right back.
"Sob, hic..."
The third remains in our territory.
The youngest,
the maknaes, tend to instinctively draw pity from their older siblings or parents.
"You'll face divine retribution! You filthy scum!"
The second stamps her feet in a fury right up until she departs fully, but in truth, she never had many options to choose from.
If this were a battle of good versus evil,
the righteous side would reject taking hostages or torturing others, no matter how dire their straits.
But we're not like that.
This isn't some clash between good and evil.
It's a territorial scrap and power struggle between two forces backed into corners.
No good, no evil.
Only the justice I carry exists here.
Nothing to hesitate over.
In a way, my values might have shifted after meeting Rophuk in the desert. Have I started resembling him?
"Go tell your kin. Exactly one week from now, we meet back here. You'll bring your hostages, we'll bring ours, and we swap."
I can kill. As much as I please.
I could kill them a hundred times, a thousand, over and over.
My hands are already caked in blood that no amount of washing can cleanse. The ones I've personally slaughtered sometimes flicker before my eyes.
"Got it? Now scram."
"I'm going! Don't order me around, you grotesque, filthy, repulsive human scum..."
But when fighting villains, you have to be even more resolute.
If you can slit a throat, you sever it on the spot.
Justice without power is mere hypocrisy,
and justice without action is pointless.
I'll rescue the hostages,
and rejoin the survivor group where Nicole is.
Then everything slots perfectly into place.
Isaac and Nicole will reunite,
the survivors will gather in one spot and savor their reunion,
and I can linger by their side, if only briefly.
"No, you are not human!"
Yet the second's parting barbs linger oddly deep within me.
"You're no different from us! You're the monster. I thought humans could be reasoned with...! What are you?! Some mutant?!"
A misguided notion of humans peeks through.
This explains why they came harassing us in the dead of night.
"If I'd known it'd turn out like this, I'd have wiped out those hostage bastards before even showing up!! You filthy bastard!"
From their perspective, was that a fairly "gentle" [negotiation]? On top of dragging in monsters, they even brought Kate's head clean severed...
The second snorts and fumes all the way back to the sea. She probably won't dare touch the hostages easily for a while now. At least a week.
But this mutual hostage standoff we've kicked off won't lead to any proper exchange.
With all our cards already laid bare, we'll need a fresh way to retrieve the hostages.
"Dr., pushing forward with a hostage swap like you just suggested is too risky. We need another approach."
"I agree. Before the week's out, we strike them first and secure the hostages safely."
"...An excellent choice."
In the human tongue alone, we share our new objective. Only I, Isaac, Amy, and Jenny can understand it.
"First, I'll wring every last bit of info out of her. Can't plan without that."
"I'll help too."
"Can Dad handle it solo?"
Amy and Jenny circle around me,
but there's one question I can't entrust to them. This, I have to ask myself.
"From here on, it'd be best if you're honest."
Switching back to the planetary language, I question the third. Above all else, the doubt filling my head is that [misconception of humans] the second spat on her way out.
"Tell me everything you know about humans. When you first encountered them, and what went down with the ones on that opposite coastline. All of it."
If these creatures know about humans,
it has to stem from incidents tied to the survivor group.
"U, u, uh...? Hic..."
Terrified, the third sister wiggles her toes as she speaks.
"Nooo... They... when we came to them like this... they obeyed without a peep..."
That doesn't match the Nicole etched in my memory.
A complete opposite from the fierce image of her jamming a rifle barrel in their faces.