136
Ch.136 Refugees in B-City
The way he read my codename made my ears perk up sharply.
Centum Decum Unus.
A different way of reading compared to Gu Seo-ryong or Sagugu.
The only ones who call my name like this are the bastards from the Romanian lab where I was created.
“Are you an experiment from Romania?”
Hearing my muttering, the guy smiled and moved his lips as if to say, ‘Correct’.
I stepped away from the crowd of citizens and kept my eyes fixed on his neck.
The identification code branded on all experiments—a barcode with a slash—was visible, similar to the one on my own neck.
I don’t know which number he is, but it seems he was indeed made in Romania.
“Did the lab send you?”
I glared at him from a position where I could transform into the Black Cat at any moment, growling low in my core.
In response, the guy shrugged his shoulders and smiled innocently, like a child.
“Hmm, seems like there’s some misunderstanding here.”
“Misunderstanding?”
“Unus, you must have a lot of questions for me too, but now isn’t the best place. How about we talk after I finish my refugee screening?”
“You’re going through refugee screening?”
As if to say he didn’t want to talk further among humans, he pressed a finger to his lips.
If he wasn’t going to attack first, I had no intention of fighting where humans could see.
Keeping my guard up, I quietly slipped away from the workers leading the refugees into the city.
Following the refugee screening process silently, I watched as the guy willingly walked into the area where the heroes were, cooperating fully.
“Even a child like this…”
“What should we do? He’s an illegal refugee.”
“Even if we can’t provide refugee support, we can’t just leave him outside the city. We can’t let him sleep out there.”
After a brief body check to ensure the refugees weren’t bringing anything prohibited into the city, they boarded a bus.
I sent out a cat to stick to the bus and follow it.
The bus stopped at District 0, where the refugees disembarked for additional government facility inspections.
“A precision scanner?”
“W-what? They’re using that on refugees?”
“There was that parasitic monster incident, after all. We’d appreciate your cooperation with the screening, just in case.”
Following the parasitic monster incident, the screening process had changed. One by one, the refugees entered the scanner, which checked even their internal organs.
“Wow, you’re something else. Smuggling drugs even in a situation like this?”
“I-it’s not for sale! It’s for personal use!”
“I don’t know about B-City, but in W-City, possessing drugs without a hospital prescription is illegal.”
“That’s…!”
“No more talking. Arrest him.”
“Grr… Fine! But at least I’ll be in W-City!”
“And take that villain in for a proper investigation too.”
“You’ll investigate in W-City, right? Here, take him away.”
Outside the examination room, I quietly observed the guy through the window.
If he went through the precision scan, wouldn’t his organs—different from a human’s—and his monster core be exposed? What was he thinking?
But contrary to my expectations, he passed through the scanner without any issues.
“Hey, are your mom and dad with you?”
“I came alone.”
“…We can’t just send this kid to an orphanage, can we?”
“Leaving him as a refugee will just turn him into a criminal.”
“Ah, Senior?”
Then, Starlight appeared in the examination area, scanning the refugees.
With a grave expression, Starlight let out a heavy sigh, then pressed a hand to her ear.
“All heroes, except for a minimal standby team, report to the meeting room immediately. Refugees, please wait here for a moment. Someone bring them some snacks in the meantime.”
After Starlight left the refugees in the examination room, they each found a spot to sit down.
“At least they’re treating us decently. Just like the rumors said.”
“Starlight’s love for citizens is well-known.”
“And with the Black Cat here too… Look, the monster alert hasn’t gone off at all.”
Amid the murmuring refugees, the guy sat by the window, hugging his knees like a child, spoke up.
“Now might be a good time to talk a little.”
At his words, the cat I had stationed outside the window stood up.
“Is that ability an ability? You’ve mastered it impressively.”
“Meow.”
“Huh? Wait, can it not speak?”
“Meow.”
That’s right. When I confirmed, the guy made a strange face and placed his hand on the window.
Then, droplets slowly formed on the outside of the glass.
A viscous, mucus-like liquid that gradually took shape.
In an instant, it transformed into the form of a child and walked toward me.
“No helping it, then. Could you guide me to your main body?”
Inside the window, the guy remained seated.
Was this ability like mine? Puzzled, I linked with the cat and used spatial manipulation to create a wormhole.
“Whoa! This is spatial manipulation!”
Excited, the guy poked the wormhole with his finger before jumping in.
While the cat kept an eye on the refugees, I slipped out to a closed-off area outside the city, where I faced the guy in an abandoned ruin.
Standing just slightly taller than my knees, with an appearance even younger than Sagugu’s, the guy bowed his head politely in greeting.
“Let me reintroduce myself properly. Unus.”
I twitched my eyelids as I watched him bow calmly toward me.
I couldn’t figure out what this guy was thinking.
If he were an experiment sent by the lab, I doubt he’d approach me so openly.
Plus, despite being so close to humans, he had full control over his hunger.
He was an experiment capable of suppressing his instincts.
Why would something like that come to W-City?
“What are you?”
“Ah, my code is DCLXVI. You can just call me Ui for short.”
“Ui, huh.”
The guy showed me the code branded on his neck—DCLXVI.
Still wary, I kept myself ready to revert to Black Cat at any moment.
“How did you pass the scanner?”
“Huh? Oh, you mean how I hid my core? Simple. I’m your successor, after all. Of course I’d have countermeasures for that.”
“Hmm.”
Countermeasures to avoid detection by human scanners, huh.
My hands and feet were covered in fur, a form straddling the line between monster and human.
“If you were modified to avoid human scanners, that means you’re an experiment designed to infiltrate humans, right?”
It didn’t seem like a good intention.
With a silent shink, I extended my claws from one hand, causing Ui to suddenly react in panic.
“Ah, no! Unus, I didn’t come here to fight you.”
A core vibration—something I could understand even though I’d never heard it before. A whining sound, like an animal submitting.
I’d seen many monsters and experiments, but this was the first time one had so openly signaled surrender.
“What are you doing?”
“You don’t know? This is total surrender.”
Seeing him raise both hands, I slowly retracted my claws.
“Haha! Just like the rumors, you’re gentle with children. I’m saved.”
“Rumors?”
“The promise to never attack children—wasn’t that a trait of the 50s to 200s experiments? I was really moved when I heard that. ‘Even as a monster, you can keep a human heart’, I thought.”
With sticky, almost euphoric sincerity, the guy clapped his hands softly before shaking them out as if scattering something.
“Well, that didn’t last long, though. Once they started chipping away at the experiments’ minds, that story ended. The researchers back then thought our free will was the reason we wouldn’t obey orders. What a shame such a touching story had to be cut short.”
“If the story was cut short, how do you know about it?”
“Ah, I heard it from a researcher.”
Ui tapped his head as he answered.
All experiments knew what that gesture meant.
“You ate a researcher?”
“Yes, I ate them.”
Ate them, digested them, and extracted their memories.
If that was the case, was he hostile toward the researchers?
“If you didn’t come to fight, why are you here?”
“Hmm, I think you’ve already guessed, but I wasn’t sent here by the lab.”
Wiggling his fingers in denial, Ui’s mannerisms reminded me of an older male researcher from Romania.
“I escaped the lab. After destroying it, of course.”
His words made me recall the melted ruins of the B-City lab.
“You destroyed the B-City lab?”
I pulsed my core, sending a wave crashing into Ui’s body.
A probe to gauge his strength. In response, Ui unleashed a Despair-class, top-tier vibration without hesitation—slightly stronger than Sagugu’s.
Strong, but not enough to have taken down all the Despair-class monsters under the lab’s command alone.
“Oh, of course, I couldn’t have done it alone. I had a lot of help from you, Unus.”
Clapping his hands softly, Ui elaborated on my unspoken doubt.
“What did I do?”
“Didn’t you hastily create the Alphabets in A-City? Coincidentally, B-City had researchers from Romania and the Alphabets who’d evacuated from other labs.”
His fingers tapped together soundlessly, and another researcher’s image overlapped with Ui in my mind.
“As they merged into a single lab, communication issues caused the facility to malfunction. A door was accidentally left open, and the environment outside couldn’t contain my traits. So, I melted everything.”
Ui tapped the ground with his toe, and the floor began to dissolve.
The smell stimulated my monsterized body, allowing me to grasp his ability.
A body with dissolution properties and corrosion abilities.
Watching the ground corrode instantly, I voiced a sudden question.
“Did you eat all the researchers?”
“Yes, I ate them.”
Ui exaggeratedly spread his hands, drawing a large circle in the air.
“The Alphabets’ executives who moved to B-City, the remnants of Romania, and everyone from Romania before that—111 people in total. I ate them all.”
Beaming like a child boasting to a parent, Ui spoke in an excited voice.
“Don’t you think it’s fate? The number of researchers I ate—subtracting the ones you killed in A-City—was exactly 111.”
“You said you ate them all. Everyone from Romania.”
Ignoring his giddy tone, I focused on his earlier words.
He didn’t just eat those who’d moved to B-City—he’d consumed everyone from Romania’s past, too.
A story I’d heard once before came to mind.
“Are you the Ruin?”
The Ruin of Romania.
An experiment said to have devastated the Romanian lab after I was discarded.
Ui’s eyes widened at the word, then his emotions surged upward like an inverted fountain.
“Yes! I am the Ruin. The successor to you, Unus—the first miracle of Romania! Created to replicate you, the successful experiment!”
Successful experiment. The term made me frown as I scrutinized Ui.
Was he calling himself a success?
But Ui was a rogue experiment. He didn’t seem to obey the lab’s orders.
And yet, this weakness.
Despite being weaker than me, there was an odd dissonance.
Like drinking grape-flavored additive juice instead of actual grape juice, his weakness didn’t feel genuine.
Even in his childlike form, my wariness hadn’t faded since the moment I saw him.
A prickling sensation, as if a tiny thorn were lodged in my mind.
“I wanted to see you. Unus! The one everyone talked about, my goal—you!”
“You wanted to see me? Why?”
Unfazed by my sharp tone, Ui’s eyes sparkled with near-manic joy as explosive delight burst forth like fireworks.
“Because! I’m your biggest fan!”