The Monument Security Team (1)
The conference room of the Monument.
Today marked the fifth day since the Board of Directors Meeting had opened.
Every team leader gathered in that room sat with their heads bowed, mouths sealed shut.
They had convened here several times since the Board began, but never once had the atmosphere been as grim as it was today.
The reason sat in the seat of honor at the head of the table: Lyla, mistress of the city.
Frost seemed to run beneath her skin as she finally spoke.
"The Board of Directors has been a complete failure for the past five days."
"……"
"I trust I don't need to explain whose fault that is."
At her declaration, someone swallowed audibly.
Two people had played the role of reef in this session's waters. The first was Akira Yujin. The king of the Yujin family and ruler of Mega Corp had been prowling outside the conference hall, aggressively lobbying the delegates.
The filthy wretch. The unspoken rule is that a sitting CEO doesn't show his face at a Board meeting.
Under Mega Corp law, open campaigning by a CEO or a CEO candidate was expressly illegal. Of course, in the world of human affairs, a law on the books meant little; every family had always engaged in quiet lobbying before, and even during, an election. Everyone did it, which was precisely why nobody talked about it.
Akira, however, had crossed every line.
He met with the elders of rival houses in broad daylight and openly bargained with them—what he would give them in exchange for their vote.
It was flagrantly illegal, and Lyla had filed a formal protest, but Wei Zhao and the rest of the pro-Akira faction had smothered it before it went anywhere.
That alone would have been trial enough, but the graver problem was a different one entirely.
Those damned Thompson zealots!
Of the two noble houses that made up T&C, the Thompson executives were actively sabotaging her.
They welcomed the idea of a CEO coming out of T&C—but opposed Saddam Chamberlain being that CEO. As things stood, the balance of power between the two houses sat at roughly six to four in the Chamberlains' favor. If Saddam took the top seat, the gap would inevitably widen into a chasm.
And so the Thompson faction had been running rampant, throwing their weight around with every Prime Capital delegate who arrived in the city.
T&C had been forged from the merger of the Thompson and Chamberlain houses. The Chamberlain side might insist they were different from the Thompsons now, but to the outside world the two were one and the same. Which meant every time the Thompsons pulled some thuggish stunt, the reputation of the entire Chamberlain house—Saddam included—had no choice but to sink.
The Thompson problem was an intractable one, an ordeal even her father—the man they called the Snake of T&C—had never managed to solve.
And so, naturally, it was beyond her.
"If things continue like this, I will be stripped of my post as General Manager, and when my replacement arrives, all of you whom I personally appointed will be purged as well."
That was exactly how it would play out. Regardless of her personal circumstances, T&C expelled anyone it judged incompetent without a second thought. If Lyla fell, the people she had placed would all be banished to some remote posting—or forced to find entirely new careers.
"I trust none of you are hoping for such a future."
"Of—of course not, General Manager!"
Every team leader shot to their feet and shouted in unison.
Lyla gave a silent nod. It was precisely because these were hard times that she kept discipline tight. The moment she showed weakness, the people in this room would surely begin scheming.
But the fundamental problem remains unsolved.
She needed a breakthrough. Her gaze drifted to the one man attending the meeting for the first time—the Dissection Team Leader.
"Team Leader of Dissection."
"Y-yes, ma'am!"
His face had been drained white long before he ever reached the conference room, and at her summons he snapped his spine ramrod straight.
"Have you registered the genetic data harvested from the monster?"
"Ah—not yet, ma'am."
By protocol, the discovery of a new lifeform required its genetic data to be registered in the Mega Corp data archive. In practice, however, the families who lived and died by genetic information—the Yujins, the Edgertons—routinely treated such data as a trade secret and skipped the registration altogether.
Lyla considered for a moment, then spoke.
"Hold off on the registration and continue the research. I will take full responsibility."
"U-understood, ma'am."
"And your current findings—can you present them immediately?"
"Excuse me? Um, well, if given time to prepare, it wouldn't be difficult, but…"
"Then have it finished by tomorrow afternoon and report to me. If the results satisfy me, we will unveil it during the Board session when the new business divisions are introduced."
Every team leader in the room jolted at the bombshell. The city's administrator was famously deliberate; every venture under her watch went through rigorous review before it moved an inch. For someone like her to greenlight a brand-new project this suddenly—it was no wonder they were all stunned.
"It will only be a broad introduction, so there's no need to overburden yourselves. There's plenty to sort through—budget, staffing, and the rest. We'll work through all of that carefully once the presentation is done."
"Y-yes, ma'am!"
Lyla's decision was nothing short of radical, and the other team leaders stared at the Dissection Team Leader with naked envy. If the results were good, his meteoric promotion was as good as guaranteed.
"Congratulations."
"Th-thank you."
The Biological Management Team Leader beside him offered his congratulations with a look that said he was dying of jealousy. But beneath the Dissection Team Leader's outward composure, he was dying in a very different way.
Goddamn it all. What sin did I commit to deserve this torment…
He cursed silently. Even now, a hideous worm was lodged inside his head. But he could not say a word—because he had watched his subordinate researchers be devoured alive by the monster.
His one dream was to live a long, healthy life. Money and power meant nothing once you were dead.
"Then I leave it to you."
"Yes, ma'am…"
Mistaking his stiff expression for mere nerves, Lyla picked up the tablet pad resting on the mahogany table.
"Now then, let us—cough, ahem—begin the meeting."
Perhaps the Board had worn her down. Lyla coughed once, and the meeting began.
No Predation Effect this time.
I picked at my teeth with a long claw, feeling a pang of disappointment.
Today was my fifth day inside this building. So far, I had devoured a total of seven Cultists. On the first day I hunted a single Cultist from the 3rd Central Monitoring Room; on the second, the aftereffects of the Hunter's Avatar forced me to sleep the whole day away. From the third day onward I resumed hunting, taking two a day through today.
Every target had been a Cultist assigned to the monitoring rooms. Rooms 3 through 6 were hardly formidable—the 3rd, exceptionally, staffed only two Cultists, while the 4th through 6th each kept three. I ate everyone in each room except one.
One reason, and one reason only: to make new servants.
After all, I need someone to process the "resignations."
At any other time, HR would surely have grown suspicious—but not this time.
The Board actually worked in my favor.
The Board's arrival had swollen workloads so severely that Cultists were now voluntarily resigning in droves. Thanks to that, HR saw nothing strange in so many departures from the monitoring rooms. They did come by last night to inspect the working conditions—but by then, everything was already finished. Every Cultist remaining in the 3rd through 5th Central Monitoring Rooms had become my slave.
And today, I had devoured two Cultists from the 6th Central Monitoring Room and enslaved the third.
"…Are you finished?"
Anna, who had been waiting while I ate, asked the question. Beside her stood the newly infected Cultist of the 6th Monitoring Room, wearing a miserable expression. Passing his colleague to the monster clearly sat poorly with him.
It was a shame for me, too.
From day four onward I had hunted Cultists without using the Hunter's Avatar—the aftermath had ended, and my food stores had run dry. I had emptied the Cold Storage entirely on day three, after all.
Because of that, I'd triggered far fewer Predation Effects than I'd hoped.
No, it was plenty profitable. I gained a new fusion trait and unlocked a Type.
Counting the remaining samples, the researchers, and the Cultists, I had collected a considerable number of traits. Of those, two were usable: the psychic fusion trait Ghost Claws, and Pain Mitigation, the trait tied to my new Type.
First, Ghost Claws—a fusion of Beast Claws, which I already possessed, and Psychic Whip, taken from a Cultist I'd killed. The claws at the ends of my combat arms had transformed. The once-massive hooks had slimmed into scythe-like blades, their surfaces shimmering a vivid violet.
Ghost Claws can pass clean through even solid walls.
I picked up the MasterCard belonging to the Cultist I'd just eaten. The moment I flexed my will, the card slipped through my hand and clattered to the floor. It would be perfect if the phasing covered my whole body, but regrettably it didn't—the penetration worked only up to my hands.
Even so, it was a clear advantage: against an enemy in heavy armor, I could strike through the plating itself. In other words, it would shine against the thickly armored—the Edgerton knights, the Hulk Mutants.
Then there's Pain Mitigation.
That one had come surprisingly early—a trait gained on the first day, from eating a researcher while I was still reeling from the Avatar's aftereffects.
Wasn't he the one who told me never to get married?
I had no idea what his married life had been like, but it clearly hadn't been a peaceful one. Pain Mitigation worked passively, like Perfect Organism, and its effect was simple: pain dampening. In the game, players who took critical wounds had a chance of suffering debuffs—panic, seizures, the like—and this trait mitigated them. Which meant it kept my mind intact even at the edge of death.
A trait I absolutely needed.
During my last fight with the knight, I had screamed when the Blade Claw tore into me. It was only because I'd held the advantage at the time that it didn't matter—otherwise, I might have been in serious danger. That is human nature: when the body screams in agony, terror takes hold, and a mortal wound makes you want to run.
My body was Amorph's, but my mind was human's. One wrong step, and that human nature could lose me a fight.
With Pain Mitigation, the odds of making a pointless choice mid-battle just dropped.
And the gains from the new trait didn't stop there. Because Pain Mitigation was a special form of defense, it belonged to neither the Physical nor the Psychic branch—it belonged to an entirely different one. The Special Defense branch.
Thanks to that, I currently had four Types open to me.
Physical Enhancement and Psychic Enhancement are already secured. Infection and Special Defense are unlocked at the information level only.
If I unlocked the information for one more Type and then acquired a fusion trait tied to it, I could step into Transcendence Stage 2.
Come to think of it, the evolution requirement called for four Types too.
Advancing to Young Adult demanded, beyond eating certain species, the full acquisition of four Types. And there lay the problem. Going to Transcendence Stage 2 first granted me entirely new Type information along with the traits of that Type—but the process consumed my fusion traits as raw material, pushing the Young Adult evolution further out of reach. Conversely, if I evolved into a Young Adult first, I would still carry the restrictions imposed back at Transcendence Stage 1.
If I never break through Stage 2, the restrictions from each new Unique Trait will just keep piling up.
Maybe not now, but sooner or later, the day would absolutely come when I had to break through Transcendence Stage 2.
Stage 2, or Young Adult?
I turned it over in my mind, then shook my head.
Worrying about it now is pointless.
Neither condition was remotely fulfilled. Both were goals to attempt only once I had prepared thoroughly.
In the game, this was a one-way street.
Situations unfolding so differently from the game didn't frighten me—if anything, my interest was surging. I was almost curious what would be waiting after the Young Adult stage.
Feeling a faint thrill, I raised myself up.
So, what's next?
Whether Transcendence Stage 2 or Young Adult evolution, I needed Genetic Essence either way. And the whole reason I had come here was to eat Cultists. I fiddled with the MasterCard as I weighed my options.
There are two kinds of departments where Cultists chiefly work.
The largest concentration of Cultists was in the Central Monitoring Rooms. The two I had yet to crack were the 1st Central Monitoring Room, which managed the Monument's central AI computer, and the 2nd, which managed the guest suites. The 1st held only three watchers, but all three were immensely powerful; the 2nd housed twenty-four Cultists. The former excelled in quality, the latter in quantity.
And if I killed every Cultist in the 2nd Central Monitoring Room, my condition of twenty psychically gifted beings would complete itself automatically.
The problem is that it won't be easy.
Among the Cultists of the 1st and 2nd rooms, some carried a Soul Link. If anyone on a shift went down, the rest of the team would know within moments.
The upper monitoring rooms need full preparation before I strike.
Beyond the monitoring rooms, my other option was the Security Team. The Monument's security force was built from numerous Wolf agents led by a handful of Cultist commanders—an ingeniously balanced structure: sharp-eared Cultists sniffing out trouble, steering the environment-sensitive Wolves.
I haven't finished the Wolf and Cultist conditions yet.
My original plan had been to hunt Wolves by sweeping the apartment complexes of the Residential District. But the plan had gone off the rails, leaving only the twenty humanoid-kill condition fulfilled. If I struck the Security Team first, I could satisfy two conditions at once—shapeshifting species and psychic species.
Of course, the Security Team held nowhere near as many Cultists as the monitoring rooms. Five at most. Targeting the security force alone wouldn't fill my Cultist quota, Wolves or not.
But the Security Team can get me out of the Monument.
Besides guarding the building's interior, the security force monitored the movement of people and goods in and out. Seize the Security Team, and I could slip into the Administrative District and hunt at my leisure. Which meant I could wait for the Cultists of the 1st and 2nd Central Monitoring Rooms to clock out and head home.
They'll be vigilant at the office, sure.
But would they be in their own homes? However sharp a Cultist's instincts, no one imagined being ambushed in the most comfortable place in their life.
My gaze drifted to the wall of screens filling the monitoring room. Wolves and Cultists of the Monument's security force were patrolling a corridor laced with cameras, chatting idly as they walked— utterly unaware of the danger they were in.
My next target is the Security Team.
Those smug, fluffy-coated bastards were my new prey.