The Shell (3)
The next morning, before heading to work, Lars reported the strange man he'd seen yesterday to the police.
Now that the report was filed, there was nothing more he could do. The rest was the police's problem to handle.
And so, having wiped yesterday's events clean from his mind, he spent the day buried in work at his job.
He threw himself into his tasks so completely that quitting time crept up on him before he knew it. He was snatching up his bag to escape this hellhole when the team leader snagged him.
"Lars, you little shit. You're not going anywhere today."
One look at the team leader's face told Lars that if he walked out anyway, he'd be fed to a Mountaincrawler by morning. In the end, he was forced into unwanted overtime alongside the rest of his team.
...That psycho bitch of a team leader.
Only when midnight had come and gone was he finally released from his duties.
Ordinarily he would have headed straight to a pleasure house to blow off steam, but it was already far too late. If he wanted to make it to work tomorrow, he had no choice but to go home.
As always, Lars bought his bottle of synthetic liquor and walked out of the Residential District subway station.
The streetlight that had been shattered yesterday had been repaired and was casting its bright glow once more. Under its illumination, the street held not a single suspicious figure.
On the way home, his eyes caught sight of the manhole once again.
Unlike yesterday, the cover was sealed shut.
At the sight of it, yesterday's terror came flooding back. Lars swallowed hard and hurried past.
Fortunately, nothing he dreaded happened all the way to the apartment complex.
"Phew."
Passing through the complex entrance, Lars let out a sigh of relief.
Convinced he was safe now that he'd made it this far, he looked up at the third-floor corridor where his apartment stood.
And there, his heart nearly stopped.
Something pitch black was standing in the apartment corridor.
The thing — with its long tail and four arms — moved with a grotesque, unnatural gait, opened the door to his home, and slipped inside.
......
Without a word, he pulled out his communicator.
Cramped.
As expected, the cyborg's home wasn't particularly large. The layout — a bathroom, a living area, and a balcony — was closer to a studio apartment than anything else.
After deciding to target the cyborg, I had checked exactly who lived in every unit of this building.
Most people leave for work during the day or sleep through it, which made scouting convenient.
Over the daylight hours, I prowled the rooftop and corridors, gathering every piece of information I needed: who to target first, when to change my appearance, and so on. When a unit was empty, I slipped inside to examine the traces of its owner; when someone was home, I observed the interior from outside using my auxiliary organs.
That diligent survey revealed something surprising: besides humans and cyborgs, quite a few other species called this place home. The Cold Blood — reptilian humans covered in scales — the Wolf, a race of half-beast beastfolk, and more. A rich variety of prey, all in plentiful supply.
Good timing, too. The requirements for reaching Young Adult stage get much pickier about what I eat.
From Young Adult onward, the evolution conditions became far more complicated than before.
Twenty individuals from shapeshifting races, twenty from humanoid races, twenty from races that wield psychic power. And then...
In total, I would need to devour sixty members of playable intelligent races — plus clear one additional, exceptionally difficult condition on top of that.
Acquiring four Types. That's the condition.
Space Survival was a game built around PK — player killing. Devouring members of other races had never been a serious challenge for an Amorph.
The problem was that four-Type requirement.
Right now, I had already obtained the Physical Enhancement Type and stood at the threshold of the Psionic Enhancement Type. On paper that looked like halfway there, but factoring in the Type Penalty, I was barely past the starting line.
A lot of players gave up right about here.
Types didn't unlock just from stacking up enough traits. You needed specific traits that acted as keys to unlock the Type's conditions in the first place, and you had to focus on gathering related traits above all else — it was hard by design. On top of that, the Predation Effect didn't even trigger on every kill.
That was why most Amorph players quit at this stage and leveled a different race instead. In a way, maybe it was the wise choice. The evolution requirements after Young Adult only got exponentially harder.
But this Special Trade Hub draws in alien species from all over, which makes gathering genetic essence far more efficient.
Trekking from planet to planet to collect Genetic Essence from the races I needed was hopelessly inefficient. Hitting a place where they all converged like this was the express lane to rapid evolution.
Better still, MegaCorp maintained diplomatic relations with the Cult, so a fair number of Cultists had emigrated here to this Special Trade Hub.
Once I get into the Central Administrative District, I can find them there.
If I devoured the Cultists too, clearing the sixty-alien requirement would be a breeze.
All right. I'll be staying here for a while, so let's get a proper look at the place.
I examined the entire apartment thoroughly. No. 26, apparently taken with the cramped, filthy space, toddled from corner to corner, sniffing at everything.
Soundproofing is terrible.
That was my first thought after the once-over. The blare of TVs from the units next door and upstairs carried all the way in here.
Nobody lives downstairs, though.
There might be a new tenant eventually, but for now the unit sat empty. Once I evolved into a Sub-adult, my weight would increase dramatically — anyone living directly below would notice something wrong with the ceiling almost immediately.
I factored that in too, but... hm?
My auxiliary organs sent me a warning signal. Someone was approaching down the corridor.
[Zzzzt(Come here)]
｢Baby, what's wrong?｣
[Zzzzt(Someone's coming)]
Having called No. 26 over, I analyzed the footsteps moving along the corridor. Three visitors in total. The cyborg, plus two others I didn't recognize.
Police.
I had no intention of squaring off against law enforcement this early. I decided to hide inside the apartment.
"You reported that a monster entered your home?"
"Yes."
"The door looks fine to me."
"I told you, it picked the lock and went in!"
"Ahh. If you say so."
The cops' breezy indifference made Lars want to scream. He'd explicitly requested a full support dispatch when he filed the report, and the fact that exactly two officers had shown up was infuriating enough on its own.
"Is that alcohol in your hand, by any chance?"
"Excuse me?"
"Our records show you filed a false report about seeing a strange man before. Wondering if maybe you'd been drinking."
......
He nearly unleashed a torrent of profanity, but barely held it in.
Lars was Low Capital. Had he been Middle Capital, these officers would never have dared speak to him with such disrespect.
The police were Low Capital too, but unlike him, they were civil servants. Same class, higher standing — that was why they carried themselves this way.
Of course, Lars treated the Non-Capitals below him like dogs as well, but wasn't that just how people were? Nobody ever remembered what they'd done themselves — only what had been done to them, and how much it stung.
"A report came in, so we'll do a quick check. Open the door."
...Grind. "Yes."
Gritting his teeth, Lars punched in his passcode. The door slid open and the officers stepped into his home.
One look at Lars's apartment — impossible to call clean even as a figure of speech — and the cops clicked their tongues.
"Good grief. What is this, a pigsty?"
"Mm. Maybe tidy up once in a while."
When Lars shot them a look that said just check already, they shook their heads. One officer inspected the bathroom while the other swept the balcony.
"Nothing out of the ordinary here."
"There has to be!"
"See for yourself. No one in the bathroom, obviously."
The officer flung the bathroom door wide open in demonstration, and just as he said — it was empty. Only a stained bathtub and a toilet of questionable cleanliness greeted its owner.
T-that's impossible...
Whether the monster had ascended to heaven or burrowed into the earth, it was nowhere to be seen. When Lars yanked the balcony curtain fully open, all that greeted him was the darkness draped over the entire complex.
"Shall we check the refrigerator too?"
At the officer's mocking question, Lars gave a stiff nod. The cop smirked and opened the fridge.
Inside, apart from a half-eaten sandwich, it was packed wall to wall with bottles of synthetic liquor.
"Tsk. Maybe go easy on the booze."
"N-no, this doesn't make sense! I saw it with my own two eyes!"
"Tsk tsk. If you're going to be a cyborg, at least get your eyes replaced first."
Even at the officer's over-the-line insult, Lars had no room to care. He wasn't the type to believe in ghost stories or the supernatural, but the situation he was in now was uncanny beyond belief.
I never took my eyes off that thing until the police showed up...
He wondered if it had escaped through the window, but there were no signs of it being opened or tampered with. And there was no way a monster crawling brazenly along the outside of the building would go unnoticed by the other units.
"Did anyone in the other apartments report—"
"Look, pal. You're the only one who called it in. Get a grip."
The moment Lars raised his voice, the neighbor pounded furiously on the wall.
The thudding noise made the officers frown. Their faces made it abundantly clear they wanted nothing more than to be anywhere else.
"Ahem. We've confirmed there's no one inside. Anything else?"
"We only stopped by because we were on patrol. If you have another problem, feel free to file a new report."
With that, the officers were gone.
Left alone, Lars slumped onto his bed.
If he reported it again, they'd technically accept it — and then the exact same farce would play out all over again. That much was obvious.
Fuck. Did I just imagine it? Or did it really slip out while I wasn't looking?
The officers' attitude had been anything but considerate, but the fact remained: they'd checked everywhere a check was possible. The bathroom, the balcony — even the refrigerator. There wasn't a single space left in this apartment where a monster could be.
S-still, just to be sure, one more look...
Trembling, Lars crept toward the bathroom. The door he opened every single morning felt strangely alien today. He swallowed hard and flung it open.
Exactly as it had been before. A single cockroach, startled by the sight of Lars, scuttled down the drain in a panic.
......
His premonition remained just that — a premonition. Only after he'd inspected the balcony as well did Lars finally allow himself to relax.
"Whew. Goddamn. I'm seeing things."
There was no funnier sentence in existence than "the cyborg is hallucinating," but he meant every word of it.
Fishing a fresh bottle of synthetic liquor from the fridge, he sat down on his bed and turned on the virtual TV. Gulping down liquor while holograms of half-naked women fawned over the camera, he felt his nerves genuinely settle.
Having drained one full bottle, Lars paused to think. In a few hours he'd have to get up and drag himself back to work, and if he overdid it, a splitting headache would torment him all day — that much was certain.
...Ah, screw it. Since when do I ever care about that?
Partly it was the craving, but he also had the sinking feeling he wouldn't be able to sleep unless he was drunk. That tipped the scales as much as anything.
Having emptied a second bottle, he collapsed onto the bed. His home was a doghouse, but he wanted to sleep like an upper-class citizen at least, so he'd splurged on a relatively large bed.
Feels good.
The wide, plush mattress wrapped around him like a warm embrace. The booze and the comfort were slowly dissolving his mind.
After work tomorrow, I'll pick one that looks like the team leader.
He was resolving to purge every ounce of overtime-related stress on a woman with her face when a sound reached his ears.
Something heavy was being dragged across the floor in the apartment below.
Scrrraape. Scrrraape. Scraaape.
Retard. It's the middle of the night. Do that in the daytime.
Cursing under his breath, he tried to drift off again. And in the moment before sleep took him, he remembered something crucial.
Nobody lived in the apartment below his.
Scrrraape. Scrrraape. Scraaape.
......
As if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his entire body, Lars snapped wide awake. He wanted desperately to believe the sound came from some other unit, but the grating noise drilling into his ears was unbearably, unmistakably close.
As if it were coming from directly beneath his own wide, spacious bed.
The monster he'd seen. At first he'd thought it enormous, but thinking back on it now — it wasn't.
Tail aside, it was about two-thirds the size of an adult man. Or, to put it precisely: just barely small enough to hide underneath a bed.
Scrrraape. Scrrraape. Scraaape.
The instant the thought completed itself, Lars's body began to shake like a leaf. Praying with everything he had that this too was nothing but paranoia, he forced his eyes open.
He turned his gaze from the familiar ceiling down toward his own feet.
And there was the thing — with only its head poking out, baring its teeth in a smile.
Gary couldn't get a wink of sleep thanks to the neighbor screaming his head off in the dead of night.
"You little bastard. This time I'm really not letting it slide."
He stormed out of his apartment and pounded hard on the door next door.
"Hey, asshole! Open up right n— *sniff sniff*? What the hell is that smell?"
Mid-knock, his nose wrinkled at some unidentifiable odor. It was a strange stench, something like the metallic tang of a hardware store mingled with an inexplicable sort of pheromone.
Why does it smell like metal in the middle of the night?
He was still puzzling over the sudden stench when the door swung open.
"It's the middle of the damn night. Why do you keep making all this noise? I pay rent here too, you know?"
"I'm sorry."
To Gary's fury, the man from next door — Lars — simply apologized. Gary opened his mouth to unload a mountain of abuse, but the words wouldn't come.
Something about Lars, staring at him, was off. They'd crossed paths a few times before, so Gary had a rough sense of what the man usually looked like.
The Lars standing before him now was unmistakably not normal.
W-why is he so creepy?
He wasn't blinking at all. He just stared at Gary with a completely blank face, and the sheer wrongness of it left Gary tongue-tied.
"A-hem. It's late, is all I'm saying. Just... keep it down, yeah?"
"I'm sorry."
"Good enough. Be careful from now on."
Watching the man repeat I'm sorry over and over like a broken machine, Gary wanted nothing more than to get away from him immediately. He tossed out a hasty warning and retreated into his own apartment.
Which was why he never heard what Lars said next.
"Next target is decided."
After seeing the neighbor off and returning inside, I found No. 26 rummaging through the refrigerator. One by one, the sandwiches inside were disappearing into its body.
｢Hungry. Want to eat.｣
[Zzzzt zzz(Eat as much as you want)]
Leaving No. 26 to its foraging, I picked up the severed arm lying on the blood-soaked floor.
Tastes awful.
Astonishingly, Lars ranked as the second-worst meal I'd had since arriving in this world. His flesh reeked of alcohol and of the rot you'd expect from meat gone old. Setting aside the Calorie Bar — which didn't taste like anything at all — he was a strong contender for the worst flavor yet.
Does health affect the taste?
One look at the man and you could tell his diet was a disaster, but I hadn't expected the flavor to suffer for it. With a whole building of similarly wretched intelligences to devour ahead of me, the prospect was genuinely worrying.
Tsk. Force it down, then.
Evolution demanded that I finish this cyborg entirely, at minimum. I forced the remains down piece by piece, and when the last of it was gone, the text window fired off a congratulatory message.
Evolution conditions for Juvenile → Sub-adult have been fulfilled. Do you wish to evolve?
I'd originally planned to complete this stage aboard the MegaCorp research vessel. What a long, strange road it had been to get here.
[Zzzzzt zzzzz(I'm going to be an egg for a little while)]
｢Egg? But Baby is a baby. Why egg?｣
[Zzzzt zzz(To get bigger)]
｢Baby becoming Big Baby?｣
[Zz zzzzt ggg(Yeah. Don't worry)]
In case it startled No. 26, I gave the warning first — then accepted.
The majesty of the Sub-adult form I'd tasted only briefly under the Psionium's influence. Now was the time to enjoy it properly.