Chapter 22
Chapter 22
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 22
Chapter Title: Decided to Raise It Secretly
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Once we figured out the route using the map, the complex sewers actually worked in our favor.
If we'd gone aboveground, we would've been chased all the way, but being underground made it hard for them to follow.
Whenever the hunters checked which path we'd taken, we'd already passed through that sewer pipe.
And just like that, we safely escaped Yeongdeungpo and finally arrived in front of the house.
"Hoo..."
Yeah, everything had gone well up to this point.
We'd both escaped unscathed, and the hunters we'd run into had only sustained minor(?) injuries.
Just avoiding capture was a victory in itself.
But the real problem started now.
"Grrr..."
'Is everyone out...?'
Uncle Seok-gyu, Aunt Rolling, and Sophia were thankfully not home.
If they had been, things would've gotten ugly.
Taking advantage of the moment, I hurried upstairs to my room on the second floor with the baby monster I'd set down from my back.
So, problem solved?
Not even close.
'I need to undo the monsterization...'
I was still in my monsterized state.
The baby monster seemed to be following me only because I was a much stronger monster.
In other words, if I reverted to my human form, Han Shin-woo, in this superior-subordinate dynamic, the worst-case scenario was that it might attack me again.
"Hoo..."
"...?"
I stared down at the baby monster quietly.
After taking a deep breath to prepare, I exhaled black smoke from my entire body.
"...! You, changed?"
I returned to my original form.
As expected, the baby monster looked shocked that I was human.
Alright, now how would it react?
I stayed ready to let out a roar and remonsterize if needed, watching it intently.
At that moment, it rushed toward me and buried its face near my navel.
'Is it trying to rip out my guts?!'
As I thought...
Monsters were just monsters, after all.
For a fleeting moment, I'd grown attached, and that was my mistake.
I immediately tried to monsterize again to kill it.
But then.
"Do,n't... go..."
"?!"
"Hu,man or mon,ster, does,n't mat,ter. Plea,se don't, a,ban,don me."
Its speech was clumsy from having just been born, but I heard it clearly.
The baby monster, pressed against my abs and face, cautiously lifted its head. With teary ruby-red eyes, it looked up at me and pleaded in a begging voice.
Please don't abandon me.
It didn't care about species—just stay with me.
"...Hey, you. I'm human. Doesn't that make you feel anything?"
"Feel, any,thing?"
"Yeah. Like wanting to kill me or eat me or something."
It shook its head vigorously.
At my words, the baby monster wrapped its arms tightly around my waist.
"No, such, thing."
"...Really?"
"Yeah. If eat,ing hu,man is bad, I, won't, eat."
Just saying it wouldn't do it didn't mean the instinct would vanish.
The setting manual clearly stated that monsters attacking humans was a natural instinct.
But the baby monster right in front of me...
Did it even have that instinct?
'Maybe it hasn't developed instincts yet since it was just born? Or is there another reason?'
For now, I sensed no hostility. If anything, the more I looked, the more a strange pity welled up.
Even I, a veteran of this world's lore, couldn't say for sure.
But one thing was certain.
"...Fine. Don't attack humans and be good. Then I won't abandon you. Got it?"
"...! Yes!"
I couldn't bring myself to kill something acting this human-like.
The Jamsil Monster.
Whether ten years ago or now, whenever it appeared, the Hunter Association and military were always swamped.
They say even a celebrity's crap gets applause, but was it because it was a national disaster-class monster that everything it did got meaning assigned to it?
Lee Seok-gyu, Army Chief of Staff, and Rolling, Vice Branch Chief of the Korean Hunter Association branch, had been summoned to the Monster Countermeasures Committee.
The two had spent the late evening debating the utterly pointless topic of "Why did the Jamsil Monster appear from the second stall on the right in the bathroom on the fifth floor of the Hunter Association Korean Branch?"
"Who cares what kind of crap a monster takes..."
"Tell me about it..."
They arrived home utterly exhausted.
There, in front of the fingerprint-locked door, stood their daughter Sophia, who looked just as worn out from rolling around on-site, unlike her parents.
"Sophia, you're back...?"
"Mom... Dad..."
"You look beat..."
"Yeah... The baby that escaped from the research building, and the Jamsil Monster that showed up with it... We couldn't find either."
"Alright, good work... Let's eat together."
"Okay..."
The three half-dead family members trudged inside.
Their bodies ached all over, and they were so tired they felt like they'd pass out the moment they hit the bed.
But they held on.
Because this was just about the only time their always-busy family—including weekends—could gather.
Right around dinnertime.
In a house with two Beast Hunters, this was especially rare... no, practically nonexistent.
But the couple, who shook off their disgust with genuine love. And their daughter and adopted son, who felt no disgust at all.
The three were happiest when gathered for a meal.
For Seok-gyu Uncle and Sophia, who drained energy just stepping outside as Beast Hunters, this was their ultimate rest time.
Sophia, in particular, was finding peace of mind watching Shin-woo's face as he ate...
Then, from Sophia's perspective, the national disaster struck this evening.
"Shin-woo?"
"What's keeping you from sitting?"
Normally, Shin-woo would help set the table while Mom cooked.
And he'd handle everything from rice bowls to ladling soup—same as always up to that point.
But now it was time for the family to sit and eat.
Shin-woo stood awkwardly at a distance from the table, fidgeting.
When the family asked what was wrong,
"Um... Aunt, Uncle. I'll eat in my room today."
"...?"
"Huh?"
"?!?!?!?!?!??"
I'd heard Korea wasn't a drug-free zone anymore—who slipped him something?
This had never happened before.
Sophia was stunned, following her parents' lead.
"Wh, why all of a sudden...?"
She figured she'd hear the reason first.
But.
"Uh... just 'cause?"
What the hell.
He was clearly avoiding eye contact, so something was up, but he wouldn't spill.
It only made her more anxious.
"Alright. I'll scoop some rice for you to eat in your room."
"D-Dad?"
Sophia shot her dad a look like she didn't know who to blame as he surprisingly approved right away.
"Thank you, Uncle."
And then Shin-woo actually...?
'Did he always eat that much?'
He heaped up a mountain of rice and headed straight upstairs.
Once the adopted son vanished, cozy family dinner? Yeah, right.
"Dad?! Why'd you let him go?!"
The moment she confirmed his footsteps fading, Sophia immediately chewed out her dad.
What was going on? Why was he acting like that? Even if he wanted to, she was ready to join him in his room for a cozy twosome meal!
Thanks to Dad sending him off just like that, Sophia was fuming with axe-glare eyes.
But even as his daughter raged, Lee Seok-gyu backed his adopted son, sweating bullets.
Because as a man, everyone goes through that phase!
'When they're like that, as long as it's not illegal, you let them do what they want.'
He'd been through it himself, so he empathized as a father.
Back in his day, kids were protesting, throwing Molotovs, fighting hunters and soldiers with powers till death—Shin-woo's level was tame.
Of course, it stung a bit that his usually quiet son, even through puberty, was now entering this lone wolf phase. Still...
"All boys go through that~."
"Exactly."
With his wife backing him, Lee Seok-gyu nodded along naturally.
Thanks to that, Sophia—whether convinced or not—ate quietly, but inside?
'I don't know anything about that!'
After dinner, she headed straight to her second-floor room.
She'd vowed since childhood not to do this out of respect for privacy.
But since Shin-woo(?) had started it first, she called it self-defense.
Smoothly—
She pressed her ear against the wall connecting to Shin-woo's room and started eavesdropping.
'There's definitely something! There has to be!'
Just this morning, they'd been eating on a monster corpse together.
Now evening hits, and he's suddenly awkward, dodging family dinner?
Something was definitely up.
Whatever it was, she was ready to accept any change in Shin-woo.
So what was it...
What had come between them!
She pressed her ear so hard the wall dented slightly.
"Tay... sty?"
"Yesh...! Tay... sty!"
The standalone house was solidly built—no shoddy construction—so perfect eavesdropping was impossible structurally.
But faintly, she caught Shin-woo's voice... and another one. A girl's voice?!
'No way... Is there really someone else in Shin-woo's room right now?!'
A boy and girl eating cozily alone in a room.
What kind of vulgar nonsense was this?
No, before that—Han Shin-woo, ditching me to secretly eat with another girl?
"I was gonna wait for you to confess first, but..."
A chill she'd never felt even facing monsters shook her body.
Realizing something she'd assumed was hers was being taken—it felt worse than mingling in crowds. Disgust surged stronger.
Anger boiled to the top of her head.
She flung open her door, ready to storm in and carve her claim deep into him tonight, forgetting patience.
"...Wait, but did he really bring a girl?"
Regaining pro-hunter cool, Sophia slipped back inside and pressed her ear to the wall again.
Voices like a conversation continued, but it could be some trendy online hookup.
Of course, even that was unacceptable.
But any contact—'Shin-woo' meeting a 'girl' was confirmed.
'Tomorrow morning, soon as he wakes, I'll search his room.'
Bursting in now would expose her eavesdropping.
She didn't want to leave that impression with him because of some girl.
Crunch.
While Shin-woo fed the baby monster in his room,
Sophia resolved to pull an all-nighter, eyes wide, in case they tried anything at dawn.