1
Ch.1 Abandoned
‘Help them… Help the people… Mom will be fine now, so save that person…’
"...Hey."
A voice in my ear pulled me out of my dream.
A recurring dream—the moment just before I was left alone in this world.
The sounds around me felt unfamiliar.
The wind, sounds of vehicles that brought back distant memories, people talking.
No mechanical hum, no whirring of electric motors, no scanning devices probing beneath my skin.
When I opened my eyes, bright light flooded my vision.
"Hey, you can’t sleep here."
…Did they lock me up this time with a test subject that causes some kind of illusion?
If you want to bite me, go ahead. If you want to hit me, do it. I sighed and curled up.
Then, in the gaps of my senses—something real, not an illusion—I felt a presence.
"Hey~ Listen, you can’t sleep here…?"
Something poked me. The sensation was too real to be fake. I grabbed the stick.
Solid. Not an illusion.
Only then did I look at the person in front of me. He was wearing the same uniforms as the policeman in my memory.
"W-what the…? A hero? Or a villain? Do you have a superpower?"
Superpower. A familiar word. I opened my hand, and a bent telescopic baton fell to the ground.
Was a baton always this flimsy? Curious, I pressed my hand against the cement ground—it felt like wet cardboard.
A light press left a clear handprint.
"W-wait, are you a hero? Or… Uh, show me your face. The scan says… Unregistered…"
Slowly, I got up. The tattered blanket covering me tore apart.
The officer, now on high alert, drew his gun as I stood.
"Freeze! Don’t move! This is District 12, W-City Police! Requesting backup! Unregistered esper spotted—unknown if it's a villain or not!"
His trembling voice, the walkie-talkie chatter—suddenly, a hazy memory surfaced.
The daily injections, the drugs that sapped my strength until my body adapted.
And then, I killed all the researchers in the lab.
The green smoke—no, the sedative gas—that followed.
The sign I saw when I smashed through the lab door, ‘Lab 3, Sector A’.
So… There were other labs. Did they abandon me?
"Guh—"
At that moment, something stabbed into the back of my neck.
I grabbed it and yanked it out—a round, suction-cup-like device came out.
A disgusting sensation surged through my body, my skin prickling as if about to burst.
It felt like the cocktail of stimulants they injected into me before making me fight against other monsters.
But this much…? Pathetic. I’d already adapted to sedatives. Did they really think this would work?
Yet the veins in my arms bulged, throbbing. The officer in front of me panicked, aiming his gun.
"W-what the—?! D-don’t come closer! Freeze! Wait—!"
BANG!
A gunshot echoed through the alley. The bullet flattened against my shoulder and fell to the ground.
I caught the deformed lump of lead midair and crushed it between my fingers.
The texture of a hard-boiled egg… I dropped the crumpled metal. The officer stumbled back in terror.
"H-huh?! The bullet—?!"
"Sigh…"
Suppressing the boiling energy inside me, I left the officer behind and surveyed my surroundings.
This was a dump between buildings. Ignoring the fallen officer, I stepped out of the alley.
Different, but… In the distance, beyond the structures, I saw a familiar sight.
The steel tower symbolizing W-City. The communication spire, rebuilt countless times no matter how many times it fell.
"...So this is W-City."
People nearby, startled by the gunshot, turned to stare.
I caught my reflection in a glass window.
How long has it been since I last saw myself?
I looked nothing like I remembered.
Towering over everyone like a child, a muscular frame, disheveled hair, and… The identification code on my neck.
CXI.
That was my designation.
My name… I couldn’t remember.
"Outside…"
Seeing my reflection made it real.
Outside. Not the lab.
My city. W-City.
With that realization, a place I’d wanted to go surfaced in my mind.
But like this… In this state, I couldn’t.
I turned back to the officer, who was crawling out of the alley and reached out.
"Eek?!"
"Can I borrow some money?"
***
The cash the officer had was pitifully insufficient.
Left with no choice, I rummaged through a nearby used-clothing bin and threw something on.
Getting dressed was surprisingly difficult.
Like trying to wear tissue paper—the slightest tug tore it apart.
Since nothing fit properly, I ended up looking like some exhibitionist who’d just finished working out in scandalously revealing clothes.
But it didn’t matter. Better than being naked.
My destination, reached on foot, was crowded.
A massive gravestone, with countless names engraved on its surface.
Among them, I found one. Standing far from the tombstone, I closed my eyes quietly.
That day, it had rained.
A world before the spread of monster spores, when everyone looks as large as telephone poles.
Even as a child, I knew something was wrong.
I don't see him every night, but whenever my father came home he was always exhausted.
Sometimes, before bed, he’d drink, muttering about how hard it was to sleep.
If I woke up and went to the living room, he’d laugh, rubbing his rough beard against me, smelling of smoke.
"When you grow up, we’ll drink together."
I liked him.
His photo, framed in black, was held in my mother’s hands.
"When is Dad coming home?"
Men I’d seen a few times before cried at my innocent question.
But Mom stood firm, like a telephone pole.
"Dad is… Tired. He’s resting for a while."
Dad was always tired when he came home.
So he was sleeping again. I’d ask him to play when he woke up.
But I never got to play with him again.
My father was a firefighter.
He died saving others.
And my mother said she was proud of how he lived.
That it wasn’t a wrong death.
Even when she was crushed under a building toppled by a monster, her last words were—
"Help people."
To the very end.
This was the public cemetery where she was buried alongside other victims.
After paying my respects, I suddenly remembered where her belongings were stored.
Careful not to touch anyone—people avoided me anyway because of my outfit—I headed to the keepsake storage.
I tried entering the passcode I remembered, but ended up breaking the lock.
With no choice, I slowly pushed my fingers in, and the metal safe crumpled like dough.
Inside: a family photo, my mother’s necklace, and my father’s firefighter gear.
I put on his fire-resistant pants.
What had seemed so large in my childhood now fit me perfectly.
The material was sturdy—nothing like the tissue-thin rags I’d worn before.
Finally, I carefully picked up the necklace.
Surprisingly durable.
Dad had once said he’d melted broken firefighting tools into it as a memento.
Must’ve been a special alloy—even now, it felt solid in my grip.
Relieved I could carry it, I wrapped it around my wrist.
The family photo… I tucked it into my pocket.
Leaving the storage room, I sat by a nearby tree, lost in thought.
Now… What should I do?
Even though the lab abandoned me—no, released me—I felt empty. No drive, no desire.
Nothing I wanted to do.
Take revenge on the researchers who experimented on me?
Killing those inhuman bastards was tempting, but to get to them, I’d have to fight their obedient test subjects.
Unlike me, they followed orders.
I wasn’t keen on that.
Unless the opportunity came to me, I might never find them anyway.
I had no idea where they’d kept me, or where the other labs were.
The one thing that did stir something in me was impossible.
As a human—no, as nothing—this world felt unbearably hollow.
Even the researchers knew I was drowning in emptiness.
That’s why they ordered me to destroy. Kill humans. Devour everything.
Why? I didn’t want to.
Even now, the urges boiling inside me—the aggression toward humans—none of it appealed to me.
That’s why they called me a failure.
If I had no desires in the lab, how could I have any now, after reaching the one place I’d wanted to go?
Now… I just don’t want anything.
Absolutely nothing.
Then—I felt it.
"...Hm."
Even in my numbness, a sharp sensation pricked at me.
Killing intent, seeping through the cracks of my hollow mind.
Direction: left. Distance: moderate.
A horde of monsters, emerging from underground.
The cemetery was packed with visitors.
Humans were prey. Monsters loved crowded places.
So of course they’d come here.
Sirens blared as people scrambled.
"Monsters!"
"R-run! To the shelters!"
I watched them flee, still sitting by the tree.
The perimeter sensors detected the monster cores, triggering emergency protocols.
People rushed into capsule shelters—temporary safe zones.
Just as the subterranean monsters burst from the ground, heroes with powers swooped in.
Earth dragons mutated into monsters—Terror-class.
Strong enough to kill humans easily.
"Earth dragons! Watch out for their acidic slime!"
"Got it!"
"Form a barrier! Don’t let them near the civilians!"
Probationary heroes and full-fledged ones charged at the emerging monsters.
Fire, swords, electricity—they’d wipe them out soon.
The fleeing people knew that.
But monster attacks always had casualties—one, two, sometimes ten.
Until the heroes finished the job, people hid.
To avoid becoming unfortunate prey.
"Suhee!"
"Waaaah! Mommy!"
I’d been idly watching the heroes fight when the crying reached my ears.
A child tripped over a rock at the edge of the hero’s barrier.
The ground trembled.
A weaker monster, lagging behind the horde, zeroed in on easy prey.
An earth dragon surged from the ground, its circular maw dripping with slime, lunging for the child.
The mother screamed, running.
The heroes were too far.
The unlucky prey—
Before I knew it, my body moved.
The lab’s experiments, the power they forced into me—the massive monster core embedded near my heart.
Violence surged, overriding my thoughts with a beast’s instincts.
What I needed now—speed, overwhelming firepower to vaporize even toxic slime—
No, the ability to devour it whole.
My body twisted. Fur sprouted, bones reshaped.
A beast’s form—a wolf-like head, raptor-like torso, tiger’s lower body.
In the gap between screams, I crossed the distance in an instant, slamming my paw down on the monster’s maw.
"Grrrr…"
"Screeee!"
Lightning crackled from my claws, incinerating the earth dragon in a single blast.
I unleashed the power of a tiger that swallows lightning.
I looked down at the mother and child.
"Eek?!"
"Waaaah!"
Trembling in terror before something far worse than an earth dragon.
And then—a siren louder than before blared.
Through the monster’s senses, I tasted fear—delicious and intoxicating.
I turned.
Among the fleeing earth dragons, a pale-faced hero stared at me.
"D-despair-class! A Despair-class has appeared! Requesting immediate backup!!"
The lead hero, likely an instructor, shouted into his comm.
I adjusted my stance, lowering my body, ready to pounce.
Despair-class.
That was their assessment of me now, with my monster core fully active.
Monster ranks: Terror-class, Crush-class, Disaster-class, Despair-class, and finally, Annihilation-class.
For superpower humans, Despair-class was like an S-rank.
If no heroes of equal strength were present, cities were abandoned to avoid futile battles.
Annihilation-class? That required sacrificing entire nations.
As the sensors blared, the heroes tensed.
I watched them—then leaped over their heads in a single bound.
"Huh?! I-it’s running?!"
I never intended to fight.
I never wanted to turn into a monster.
Behind me, frantic backup requests echoed.
Before things got troublesome, I left the cemetery behind.