118
Ch.118 Some Crazy Guy
Almost simultaneously with my dissatisfaction at the scene before me, the landscape changed.
The scenery swayed and transformed—this time, a river flowing with alcohol and meat.
I frowned at the smell of alcohol, and it changed again.
Cola and meat—not bad.
Sparkling water and cake—are you kidding me?
The endlessly shifting land and river, whose purpose I couldn’t discern, crumpled like a child playing with clay before taking on a form from my memory.
"This is…"
The sound of ingredients being chopped on a cutting board, the bubbling of cooking food.
"Yeah, yeah… You’ve worked hard. Is there anything you want to eat? Huh… Again?"
At the voice that only existed in my blurred memories, my eyelids twitched.
The house I lived in as a child, before monsters appeared.
The one cooking in the kitchen right now—
"Okay, be careful on your way home."
—is Mom.
I looked down at my hands and saw that, in that brief moment, my body had turned into that of a child.
After hanging up the phone, Mom walked over to me and crouched in front of the drawing I was working on.
"Oh? What’s this? A cat?"
"It’s not a cat."
What I was drawing was my favorite animal.
A big…
"Will you stay here and quietly draw and play?"
Mom patted my head and returned to the kitchen.
As I moved closer to the sound of sizzling oil, Mom looked down at me and flicked my forehead.
"…Ah, didn’t I tell you not to come close when I’m frying?"
Fried food.
Fried food was something Dad loved.
On the days Dad was deployed or the day after, Mom would always wait until his mission was over and make the food he wanted.
Pork cutlet, fried chicken, shrimp tempura, croquettes.
All the fried food was always placed here, next to the sink.
"This kid again."
I reached out to grab a croquette resting beside the cutting board, but Mom stopped my hand and placed a properly cooled croquette on a small plate, handing it to me.
"If you want something to eat, don’t sneak it. Tell me."
My hands smell like Mom.
As I took the plate and waited, Mom quietly looked down at me and said,
"Why aren’t you eating?"
"…Ketchup."
She didn’t give me ketchup.
I always ate croquettes with ketchup.
Mom knew that and would always squeeze some onto the plate when she gave it to me.
"Ketchup?"
This Mom doesn’t know about ketchup.
At that moment, the image of Mom I knew flashed through my mind.
"You."
Simultaneously, Mom grew shorter.
No—my body had returned to its original form.
I grabbed the neck of the thing masquerading as my Mom with my large hand.
"Why, why…! Mom, Mom…!"
Crunch, crunch, crunch—the vivid sound of vertebrae shattering echoed as blood poured from Mom’s eyes and nose.
"My Mom is dead."
"Guh, ugh, Aaaaah!"
After bursting the thing that is disguising as Mom before my eyes, I realized the true nature of this place.
This was the pure white dream I often had after undergoing the surgery to become a monster—the place where the monster’s instincts within me whispered to me.
My consciousness, which had nearly blurred from the long-unexperienced illusion, slowly returned.
"You’re such an annoying bastard."
After doing this to the point of disgust in the lab, you pull this shit again?
No, it’s worse than before.
Color, scent, form, temperature, even texture.
It must have been learned by peeking at what I see inside my body.
Probably, as it began transforming into an Annihilation-class core, it grew stronger and is now trying to consume me again.
The emotions and corpses filling this once pure white room are the power of the monster built from the things I’ve devoured.
The corpses imitating the floor and furniture rise and take shape.
"Mom."
"Mom, Mom, Mom."
"Mom!"
"Phew…"
I looked at the Moms dressed in clean clothes and snapped their necks.
The chain tied around my left hand rattled, conveying its weight.
'Mom will be fine… So save that person.'
I still can’t forget it.
The sight of Mom dying before my eyes.
"I’m pretty sure I told you to stop imitating Mom."
I sneered at the monster rooted within me and clenched my fist.
Here, I can’t use my abilities.
The same goes for the monster’s instincts.
All it can do is numb my body with sweet temptations to tear me apart.
As I burst and killed the corpses shaped like Mom one by one, it changed forms.
"…Ah!"
"Dad!"
"Ha."
Dad unnecessarily opened the lone front door standing in the black space and entered.
With a raised smirk, I rushed at Dad like I did as a child—then bisected the thing shaped like him.
"Can’t you even do this right? There’s no way my Dad would be this weak."
No way he’d collapse from a single charge from a monster like me.
But, of course.
There’s no way the monster inside me could recreate my Dad properly.
I still remember Dad. And Mom.
Monsters digest human memories and make them their own.
Conversely, they don’t know memories they haven’t fully digested yet.
It doesn’t fully know my Dad or Mom yet.
Likewise, neither do I.
Not anymore.
"…Ah! Dad!"
"…Ah! Mom, Mom!"
Sweet moments that make you mistake monsters for nightmares.
But there’s a slight sense of discomfort mixed in.
Dad wasn’t someone who could play with me this often.
Mom—it’s weird enough that a dead person is moving.
"Ahahaha! …Ah! Here!"
"…Brother!"
"…Ah!"
"…What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"Shut up."
The girl I played with almost daily as a child, that younger sister, my school teacher, friends.
Places I wanted to go, things I wanted to eat together with my family, people I wanted to meet.
As I burst and killed each one, the space began to tremble.
[Uu, uuuuu…!]
Increased strength—this time, it must have been determined.
Nothing works, so now it’s crying.
I was anxious, thinking something would change if it reached Annihilation-class, but is this all?
Like a bug eating its way out of a cocoon, it’s gradually gaining strength and gnawing at me.
Someday, the monster will devour me completely.
But not yet.
"My body isn’t yours yet."
Crack—I slammed my fist into the corpse-covered ground.
[Uooooooh!]
The monster’s cry shook the entire space, and the solid world trembled. Thud, thud—corpses bounced around.
At the lab, after rejecting the Mom it created, I ignored it.
I hated it imitating Mom, but there was no reason to kill it.
Now, it’s different.
I want to eat something tastier than this crap the monster made.
Quaaang! The monster’s instincts, torn apart by my fist, melted and spread like dropped ice cream.
"You stay quiet and hand over what I ask for."
The monster’s unestablished instincts are like a vending machine.
Hit it, and something comes out.
Thinking that, I suppressed its instincts—then.
[Oooh!]
A fragment of the exploding mud.
The monster inside me met my eyes.
***
Thud.
"No more… Ugh, blegh…!"
"Gah, heh… Ugh…"
"Pant, pant…"
Kage’s ability—a relentless barrage of energy fired at the monster trapped in the containment area.
Among those who melted the body of the Despair-class monster with all their might, Baskerville turned a cannon shell into a Magic Bullet and spun it before their eyes.
Finally, the core was exposed—Quaaang! The spinning Magic Bullet struck.
"Did we… Get it?!"
"Baskerville! You bastard! Stop saying that!"
Quaaang! After the explosion, the shattered shell of the monster’s core revealed the nucleus inside, regenerating rapidly.
Then, the black-haired girl’s spatial slash tore through the nucleus.
"Did we get it?!"
"Is it dead?"
"Uu, waaaah…"
"Guh, I can’t even shout."
Rumble—the remaining monster flesh collapsed. Even after barely defeating one Despair-class monster, everyone held their breath.
Gu Seo-ryong, who had already taken down another monster with Sagugu, picked up the monster’s core.
"Wait…! What are you planning to do with that, Gu Seo-ryong?!"
"I don’t know why you helped us, but we can’t just let you go!"
"Thanks for the help, but you’re under arrest. Gu Seo-ryong!"
"Hmm… Well, I figured some of you would act like this."
"Guh, ugh…!"
"Agh!"
Baskerville, barely managing to float a single Magic Bullet, and the exhausted heroes of A-City blocked Gu Seo-ryong, who held the core.
Gu Seo-ryong swung her hand at them.
Swish—deep, festering wounds appeared, and the heroes collapsed.
"Poi… Poison…!"
"I’m too tired to use abilities. If you resist with all your might, you won’t die."
After completely incapacitating the heroes, Gu Seo-ryong disappeared.
Sagugu clung to Gu Seo-ryong’s tail as she vanished into the wreckage of a destroyed building, crawling up.
"Kage, these guys… I saved them, but heroes are hard to understand."
"Sagugu is sleepy and hungry."
"Me too. I’d love to kill a few to fill my stomach… byut that’s not easy either."
Then, boom—a sound similar to an ability’s explosion echoed throughout the city.
"If an Annihilation-class loses control and dies, wouldn’t that be unfair?"
Gu Seo-ryong bit into the core like an apple—but bit empty air.
In that brief moment, Sagugu, who had stolen the core with spatial manipulation, stuffed it into her mouth.
"You…! That’s for Mom! You ate the last one too!"
"Auuu aeooua."
"Ugh, seriously!"
Meanwhile, at the center of the most devastated part of the city—where the government’s high-ranking officials resided, an area with few residents.
"Pant… Pant…"
"Guhhh…"
Yoo Anna, with one arm completely crushed, raised her remaining hand and stared at the monster before her.
Anticipating the monster might relocate its core, she unleashed flames covering its entire body with maximum firepower.
Large movements were easier to dodge, but with Kage’s ability supporting her, she succeeded in landing the hit.
Unfortunately, the monster blocked the attack by shielding its core with both hands, but its regeneration slowed visibly.
Now, one more attack like before would do it.
As Yoo Anna glanced at the wreckage around her from the battle—
"Gasp, gasp…"
Kage clutched his chest where his heart should be, his face pale.
Irregular wavelengths—something inexplicable was happening to Kage’s heart.
Because of that, the moment Yoo Anna hesitated—
"Don’t hesitate, Starlight… If necessary, you must be willing to order your subordinates to their deaths."
Reading his gaze, Kage amplified his ability’s wavelength.
"One more time is possible. The timing is up to you… Hah!"
"Jung Ho-young!"
Kage could no longer hold on and collapsed, vomiting blood.
Though worried about Kage, Yoo Anna remained wary of the monster, expecting it to attack her exposed weakness.
But the monster didn’t charge.
Boom—a resonance spread through the night sky.
A heavy infrasound carried by circular ripples dispersing the clouds made the monster’s fur bristle.
Fear reflected in the monster’s large eyes.
"Kuh, heheh… A monster, huh."
"Squeaaaaak!"
"Wait!"
Kage, foaming at the mouth, let out a laugh as the monster, crouching low, spread its wings.
Whoosh—the monster shot into the sky with its ability, accelerating rapidly.
Yoo Anna flew after it, but—
"…Huh?"
Thud! A massive darkness descended from above.
The flying monster was struck midair and slammed into the ground.
Shock manipulation…? What hit it? Darkness? Shadows…?
Questions raced through her mind before she remembered the Black Cat.
This must be the Black Cat is now an Annihilation-class.
But where is the Black Cat?
Then, something strange caught her eye.
Two round moons floating in the dark night sky.
Those aren’t moons.
"Black… Cat?"
The colossal Black Cat placed its paw on the monster trying to flee.
Beneath its foot, the monster struggled with all its might—boom, boom—waves of force reverberated.
The Black Cat’s paw crumbled with a crack, then regenerated.
After enduring all the attacks silently, the Black Cat lifted its bleeding paw and slammed the other one down.
"Kyaaaaah! Aaaah!"
Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash! With each strike, the monster’s body collapsed like minced meat.
No technique, ability, or trick worked against this overwhelming difference in scale.
Even after wearing it down in battle, the gap was this vast?
This is an Annihilation-class.
A monster that brings ruin to the world.
The monster, now a lump of blood and flesh, mimicked Yoo Won-jae and begged for its life.
"Yoo… Anna! Save… Me!"
The Black Cat lowered its head and slurped the monster into its mouth.
Crunch, squelch—the horrific sounds of Yoo Won-jae being crushed.
The monster that had given everyone so much trouble was now like an insect.
As Yoo Anna felt something beyond emptiness and terror at the surreal sight, the Black Cat swallowed the monster.
In the ruins of A-City, where all monsters except the Black Cat had vanished, the giant Black Cat stared quietly at the exhausted Yoo Anna.
"Meowwoooooo…"
"Eh…?"
Was the Black Cat trying to say something?
In the Black Cat’s eyes—two moons—thin lines formed, splitting and filling into perfect circles.
"No, Ji…?"
It killed the monster, so it’s still the Black Cat, right?
Yoo Anna’s heart pounded louder under the weight of anxiety.