8
Ch.8 It's dangerous.
"Bongbap, why do you only lend money to that guy? What about me?"
"You gamble it away. No."
There was an illegal betting ring where people wagered on monster attack locations. Since I knew this man was always involved in that, I never lent him money.
I’d rather waste money on something completely baffling—like ordering six servings of suran (no idea why it’s so expensive) to dump into my ramen—than fund that nonsense.
Just thinking about ramen made my stomach growl. I swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth.
Come to think of it, couldn’t I make easy money betting on monster attacks?
If I focused my senses, I could detect monsters over a wider range than the city’s alert system.
But gambling is bad… I shouldn’t. I remember being scolded endlessly about it as a kid.
Then, through my sharpened senses, I felt something approaching.
"...Hmm."
About thirty entities. They were still far enough that no alert would sound here.
Lately, my detection ability has been improving. Probably due to my monster survival instincts—ever since that flaming-haired hero nearly killed me, I’d been refining my senses to avoid being hunted again.
Her name… Yoo Anna, was it?
I hadn’t expected a hero that strong to exist.
Unlike monsters, whose overwhelming presence naturally radiates at low frequencies, a hero’s true power is hard to gauge until you face them head-on.
It’s like… the core of a human, the pulse of their heart, is faint.
This is why monsters often underestimate strong heroes and end up hunted instead. It’s also why I got wrecked by that woman.
I never imagined a mere human could chase me at such speeds and unleash such relentless attacks.
As if she didn’t even need time to gather her power…
That woman is dangerous.
Being chased by Yoo Anna is exhausting.
And when I’m exhausted, I need to eat more, which means I need more money.
I don’t have money.
Occasionally, when things get desperate, I visit Black Cat Park to accept offerings, but… That’s risky.
If a kid slips up and spreads rumors about me being a monster, heroes lurking in the park might attack.
Also, I recently realized something else—when my core is inactive, it emits a faint signal, giving off the presence of a very weak monster.
When I’m in human form during a monster attack, the monsters seem to ignore me at first, only to try attacking me later. It’s because they can’t tell if I'm a monster or a human.
This isn’t good.
At the Crush-class or higher, I probably register as a monster not worth eating. But at the Terror-class, I smell like easy prey.
Worse, my true strength as a monster is Despair-class, so the range of my presence is enormous.
A shallow but widespread signal—like the scent of a weak monster blanketing all of W-City—keeps attracting Terror-class monsters.
Because of this, I keep running into monsters between Terror-class and Crush-class.
These bastards start coming for me, then change course if they spot a crowd of humans.
The monster I sensed now was probably the same—hiding in the sky before catching my scent and approaching.
Lately, I’ve been trying to suppress this subtle signal, but it’s even harder than controlling my strength.
It’s like trying to cut all your hair evenly in a straight line without stopping.
It feels deeply unnatural for a monster.
A monster’s instinct isn’t to hide power—it’s to display it. So of course, it’s difficult.
Now that I’m practicing presence concealment, I’m hiding more thoroughly than ever.
From monsters and heroes alike.
Though I’ve been chased a few times after transforming, I’ve recently learned how to disappear before they catch me.
If I’m forced to transform, I finish my business within the time it takes for heroes to arrive—about a minute and thirty seconds.
As long as I revert within that window, I won’t run into any heroes.
And in most cases, that’s more than enough time.
Like right now.
"Shhhhaaa…"
"Ugh… W-wha… Ah…"
The monster I detected earlier was a Terror-class phantom-type—a Black Demon Moth.
While it lacks destructive power beyond killing humans, its evasion is so high that I can’t catch it without transforming.
Among Terror-class, it’s one of the most troublesome.
Its blade-like wings can slice through anything at a molecular level—another reason it’s a threat unless I transform.
Since it flies high before swooping down, the alert system is slow to detect it, and Terror-class alerts mean delayed hero response.
So I had no choice but to deal with it myself.
My current form was a stealth-enhanced version of the one I used in the apartment—a human-sized black panther with multiple tails, resembling a giant cat yokai.
In the darkness, I pounced on the moth mid-attack, clamping my jaws around it before vanishing into the blaring sirens.
With the Black Demon Moth handled, I needed to escape before the Despair-class siren went off.
If that sounds right, Yoo Anna will be here in under ninety seconds, no matter where in W-City I am.
I might be able to win if I fought seriously, but I’d rather not tangle with that monster.
Honestly, I don’t even like fighting humans to begin with.
"D-did you… Help me? Are you… The Black Cat?"
I was about to disappear into the shadows when the woman I saved held something out to me.
Ham.
Lately, for some reason, people keep offering me ham after I help them.
From my perspective, it’s like payment, so I don’t refuse. But if this keeps up, I wonder if some kind of rumor is spreading.
"H-here…"
"Meow."
"KYAAAAH! Oh my god, so cute! AHH!"
I padded forward, took the ham in my mouth, then grimaced at the sound of frantic camera clicks before melting back into the dark.
Once I was far enough away, I quietly returned to human form and savored the ham.
Mmm. Free ham. Delicious.
That aside, I’ve never once turned into a cat, so why do people keep calling me one?
Shouldn’t they at least say black panther? Maybe I should switch to a wolf form instead?
I like tigers, though… And none of the wolf-related monsters are particularly stealthy.
For now, a feline form is the most convenient for staying hidden.
"Fast."
Above the silenced sirens, a small sun-like light rose into the night sky.
That was the superpower I’d been avoiding—Yoo Anna.
She scanned the area, radiating superpower, before letting out a frustrated scream and clutching her head midair.
"AAAAH! It got away again! That damn cat bastard!"
"I’m not even a cat…"
Still better than being called a house cat.
I picked at the leftover meat on the wrapper as I slipped away, but then a strange sensation gripped me.
Every hair on my body stood on end. The direction—toward the moon.
Something… Incredibly powerful was approaching W-City.
Not one.
Three of them.
***
#W-CityBlackCat♡ #HelpsPeople #MonstersAreFriends!
Finally, the thing I’d been dreading had begun.
Yoo Anna hurled her smartphone, embedding it into the couch.
Even though the furniture was custom-made to withstand a superpower, and even though she’d unconsciously held back, she couldn’t contain her fury.
"That damn cat bastard…!"
This cowardly monster—what the hell was it thinking, saving people?
To Yoo Anna and the other heroes, who had seen the fate of people-saving monsters time and time again, this was nothing short of infuriating.
Humans, despite constantly falling for the same tricks, always convinced themselves they were different.
"Monsters attack people? But this one’s so nice! Maybe just to me?"
"I’m special! Maybe I’m secretly a superpower! A monster tamer!"
And then they died.
More annoying than a dangerous monster were the humans who fell for its schemes.
Some monsters seemed to understand cameras and the internet, deliberately disrupting human communications.
And that made them even more dangerous.
Just because a monster took the form of an animal, humans would arrogantly assume intellectual superiority.
Stupid humans, dumber than the monsters they feared.
#W-CityBlackCat♡—the tag, complete with a heart, spread like wildfire, portraying the monster not as a threat but as something adorable.
The monster, resembling Code α but able to alter its size (not unusual), had shifted from a fierce beast to a sleek black panther.
The problem? It looked cool.
Photos flooded social media—the panther purring like a house cat, a chunk of ham in its mouth, letting out a soft meow.
"Damn it…"
It was kind of cute.
Yoo Anna, without thinking, almost hit the like button before snatching her thumb back.
Did this monster have some kind of charm ability? Some monsters had that trait.
If so, this was worse than she thought.
Cats had always been dangerously charismatic. Even before monsterization, they’d been excessively favored, with cat moms defending them despite ecological damage.
‘Cats don’t hurt anyone!’ they’d say, even as the problems piled up.
This was the same.
Disgusting monster moms. If they died, they’d blame the heroes.
Honestly, she’d prefer if the monster just attacked outright. At least then, these humans might reflect on their naivety before claiming victimhood.
"We were tricked!"
It was sickening. But still better than humans protecting a monster.
Heroes were supposed to protect humans—so why did humans have to be so stressful?
She’d keep doing her job, but the irritation was unavoidable.
"...Yoo Anna. Any traces left by Code α?"
"None. It’s getting stealthier."
"And Code 0?"
"Still no sign."
"Hmm…"
The one small relief was that Code 0 hadn’t appeared at all.
This supported Yoo Anna’s theory—that the two monsters might be one.
If not, then Code α might have already fought and devoured Code 0. But that was unlikely.
A battle between Despair-class monsters wouldn’t end quietly.
The damage would only escalate.
The fact that both monsters had been sighted feeding on lesser monsters but hadn’t touched humans meant they were starving.
A starved monster is strong—but the longer it fights, the weaker it becomes.
If Code 0 was a separate entity, it would’ve either ceded territory to Code α or fled.
No matter how she looked at it, only one Despair-class monster remained in W-City.
"At least there’s only one left…"
A troublesome, stealthy one—but as long as it wasn’t attacking humans, its behavior was still manageable.
If she could just face it once, she wouldn’t let it escape this time.
With minimal casualties, she’d eliminate W-City’s Despair-class threat.
But Yoo Anna’s hopeful assumption didn’t last.
Just days later, Despair-class monster alerts sounded in two locations simultaneously.
Two Despair-class monsters.
And two Disaster-class monsters as well.