#14. Unnecessary Sleep
#14. Unnecessary Sleep
"——♪"
"Well, someone's in a good mood for once."
"Get back to work."
"Hmph. Why are you only hard on me? You're the one who went off to play hooky."
"......."
"No! I was just saying. So, where'd you go?"
"I went to see Hope."
"Hope? What kind of Hope? The Hope that ends Disease?"
"No. The Hope of the lost."
"The lost? I swear, I never know what you're talking about... Hey! Wait for me!"
***
[Evil Devouring (D) Lv.1 proficiency reached maximum. Evil Devouring (D) Lv.1 → Evil Devouring (D) Lv.2]
[Empty Stomach (E) Lv.7 proficiency reached maximum. Empty Stomach (E) Lv.7 → Empty Stomach (E) Lv.8]
Everything else had climbed too. Swimming and Diving reached Level 6. Dark Vision rose to Level 3.
[Tyrant of the Mountain (Warg{Amorphous} Lv.17] [EXP 6411 / 28454]
[Length 1.45m] [Height 70.4cm] [Weight 42.1kg]
[STR 118] [AGI 133] [VIT 201] [MP 52]
The title hadn't changed. I had eliminated both the Master of the Sewers and the Sewer Monster, and yet I was still stuck with Tyrant of the Mountain. Did that title rank higher than the other two? Or was there some other reason I hadn't acquired them?
Not that it mattered much. I doubted I'd be returning to the sewers anyway.
I had also reached Level 17, and my growth showed. My build had always been lean, but at my old size it didn't register. Now eight out of ten people who saw me pass by would say Wolf. The other two might suspect Monster. My color was black, after all.
Were black wolves even real?
I'd seen them in movies often enough, but never once in a zoo. And my VIT had broken past 200, not that I'd ever felt exhaustion before and could tell the difference. Actually, why did a VIT stat even exist?
[VIT: Influences stamina, vitality, and toughness.]
The description from Spying read like that. Stamina and vitality I understood, but toughness? Wasn't that a game term? The stat that made crowd control wear off faster...
[Tough: firm and resilient.]
Not crowd control, then. It sounded like defense. VIT appeared to represent stamina, vitality, and defense all at once. It was starting to seem like a far more important stat than I'd realized. That must have been why the Monster Wolf had taken practically no damage from my attacks.
And it wasn't just VIT. Leveling up had boosted all of my stats. MP went up by two per level—it had been 49 and now stood at 52, which suggested the extra point had come from the mild mental exhaustion I'd suffered. The thought of Lee Eun-ha's 316 MP swam up unbidden, and I felt my spirits plummet.
Fine, Lee Eun-ha at 300 I could accept. But that man who had reached the 400s? Just how much mana had he been throwing around? Mana—the sweet seduction of omnipotence, luring you into a coma. The level-up had steadied me for now, but if every use of mana carried that kind of impulse...
Anyway, what mattered was that one Calamity had been overcome. All that remained was to comb through the rooms I hadn't yet searched.
.......
I already knew, but some of the flesh inside the room had once been human. Before I could search, there was something else I had to do first.
I had no way to start a fire in the sewers, and no one I could call. So I clawed up the stone floor to make a pit, gathered them together, and buried them.
No tomb, no grave, no grieving families who would ever come. Even so, it was better than shoving them into the filth-channel for a water burial in polluted runoff. I laid them to rest and then swept the room. What I found was mostly flasks—poisons, acids, and suspicious chemicals—but the bastard's research journal was there too.
[November 15, 2066...]
I shut the book. The contents were exactly what I expected, and I was done reading filth. I cursed the Rat Man inwardly and kept scouring the room. Eventually I found an egg.
[Dragon Bug (Undergoing Metamorphosis)]
There had been several dragon bugs, but only this one had survived inside its egg. The rest were dried out like mummies. I hadn't had the chance to eat one last time... I considered it, then stopped myself.
The dragon bugs that had lingered above the power lines couldn't get into the sewers. They must have waited endlessly for their dying comrade. Besides, eating one wouldn't have made a difference to anyone.
It didn't look like there was anything else to find. I sprang back across the filth-channel and crawled up the slope again. A bright light appeared ahead, and I reflexively triggered Weak Stealth.
"Huff... huff..."
Gas mask, hazmat suit, rubber boots. Full protection, wherever he'd gotten it. I let out a dry laugh at the sight. Had he raided a fire station? Wasn't he cooking in that outfit?
His breathing was ragged. The blood smeared on the suit told me he'd already fought at least one battle. Probably rats I'd missed.
Rats, but monsters all the same. If he'd taken them down, he was unquestionably a Hunter. And there was only one way out of this tunnel. Spending Skill Points grated on me a little, but I opened the [Acquirable Skills List] anyway.
[Stealth (D) Lv.1 skill acquired.]
[Weak Stealth (E) Lv.8 merged into Stealth (D) Lv.1.]
[Stealth (D) Lv.1 proficiency reached maximum. Stealth (D) Lv.1 → Stealth (D) Lv.4]
[Remaining Skill Points: 6]
I hadn't spent a single Skill Point since Level 7, when I'd fought the Monster Wolf. I bought Stealth now. A belated ripple of mana churned through my body, but the Armored Monstrous Figure only swept his flashlight around. He didn't spot me.
Still, he must have sensed something off. Even a D-rank Level 4 skill couldn't erase me entirely. I considered using Spying on him, then decided against it—no point scratching at an old scab.
But the real question was how this had happened. In the novel, no one ever noticed the Sewer Calamity. At least, no one discovered the sewers before the Calamity broke out. Or perhaps they had—and never lived to tell about it. Though the question of whether a Hunter could even die in a place like this did hover in my mind.
The rats had been weak. The piranhas hadn't posed much threat either. But that was measured by my own standards. If the rats had swarmed him? Unlike me, he had vitals they could target. I couldn't be sure. With no interest in making unnecessary trouble, I slipped out of the sewers as fast as I could.
***
The deputy team leader narrowed his eyes and swept the obviously suspicious location. He'd cleared a channel over ten meters across in a single leap.
"Ah, fuck."
It was so damn humid. The gas mask's curse—unavoidable. Irritation got the better of him. He lifted the mask, regretted it instantly, and pulled it back down in under a second.
He carved the character for Endurance into his heart and took a deep breath. The inside of the mask fogged up. A quick survey: a desk, a chair, and a door that looked like it led deeper in.
Ha. They'd really put effort into this. If they had that much dedication, why not just live out in the open? No—the secrecy was exactly why they'd never been caught.
Of course no one ever found this place. Who'd build something this deep underground? Mana Detection wouldn't pick it up easily, either. What were they, fucking rats?
If he hadn't sensed the sounds of combat, even if he'd picked up a presence, he'd have written it off as a sanitation worker or maintenance personnel and moved on.
...So why was no one here now?
He had definitely detected presences before descending. But aside from a few rats skulking around, the place was eerily clean. As if someone had already cleaned house. Bloodstains, but no bodies. Could the presence he'd sensed earlier have been the one who did this? While he thought it over, he spotted a journal on the desk.
[November 15, 2066: Years of research, still no results. To create ——, suitable materials must be found.]
'He left out the subjects.'
Writing that omitted the key nouns in case anyone ever read the journal. But with this kind of writing, you could usually infer the contents from context. Unless he'd written it in actual code.
Then again, he'd probably never imagined anyone would ever come down here. That would explain the sloppy security. The deputy team leader read on through moisture-blurred eyes.
[December 17, 2066: At last, I have found them. The fitting materials were ——.]
[April 6, 2067: Synthesis successful! But a failure. —— survived only five hours before dying of rejection.]
[June 25, 2067: More —— are needed. I was struggling with the method. Then they came. They said they would supply me with ——.]
[June 27, 2067: They kept their word. In just two days, they provided a sufficient quantity of ——. Good. The experiments can continue.]
[September 8, 2067: Second successful synthesis of ——. Yet still not the result I desire. I need something stronger, more tenacious.]
String after string of incomprehensible words.
[January 6, 2068: At last, success. I confined —— inside the cage. They were satisfied with my results and pledged to supply even more ——.]
[June 9, 2068: The creature rampaged. But it was quickly subdued. I had thought there was no rejection, but there was. It seems more —— are needed.]
[November 6, 2068: After implanting more eyeballs from ——, the rejection subsided. Why did this produce such a result? More experimentation is required.]
Eyeballs? Rejection? Had he been creating life? A homunculus? A chimera? The deputy team leader's knowledge of alchemy was too sparse to spark any solid guesses. Then he noticed a mound of raised earth. The stone floor was broken, and only that spot bulged with soil—as if something had been buried there. He dug into it and ground his teeth.
"Chimera, then."
The omitted subjects were Chimera and Human. These insane bastards had been turning humans into materials for chimeras. But what the man still couldn't understand was the journal itself.
The alchemist had written that he confined the chimera inside a cage. Yet the cage standing there was too badly damaged to confine anything, and nothing remained inside it.
The journal mentioned a rampage. Had the chimera broken loose and devoured the alchemist? Had the sounds of battle been alchemist versus chimera? Nothing but questions. Was there a secret passage? The deputy team leader scoured the room and searched every corner but found nothing.
"Hey. It's me..."
He called the team leader. It never crossed his mind that a single Wolf might have devoured both the alchemist and his chimera.
***
The power of Stealth was immense. Back when I only had Weak Stealth, people occasionally caught on. Now I could walk down a main street and no one noticed. It wasn't just Stealth anymore—it was near-invisibility. Though I still stuck to the outskirts rather than the main roads, just in case I ran into a Hunter.
This looked far enough. I released the dragon bug I'd carried up from the sewers. The others that had been warily following closed in at once, swarming around it. Though they'd been scared I might eat them.
"Krrng!"
I jerked my head: take it and go. The dragon bugs stole glances at me and crept closer. When I backed off to a comfortable distance, a few of them picked up the egg and lifted into the air.
Spying had called it Metamorphosis, hadn't it? And they'd been larvae before, right? Larvae of a fairy dragon?
The word dragon pricked me with a faint regret. Maybe I should've just eaten it and pretended I never saw. No, forget it. Another opportunity would come along. I'd done a good deed—let's call it that.
"......."
The dragon bugs receded into the distance. Two of them traced a figure-eight flight pattern, almost like a greeting. It was a little cute, a little ridiculous.
I watched them go for a moment, then turned my thoughts back to the sewers. I had meant to leave no trace of the Rat Man, but after picking up someone's presence on Detection, I'd decided to leave the journal behind. The chemicals and poisons I'd dumped into the channel—those could be misused—but the rest I left for whoever that Hunter was.
He'd handle the cleanup. The bodies. The sewer restoration. And above all, the biggest result of killing the Rat Man:
'Baek So-yul.'
By eliminating the Rat Man, no "incident" would ever happen to her. Which meant the "Witch's Calamity" destined to occur in the future would never happen either.
[Destruction Probability 100% → 99.98%]
0.02%. The System announced the revised probability. A bitter smile crossed my face.
'Only 0.02%?'
Or was I supposed to call that as much as 0.02%? Stopping a Calamity that would have struck an entire city, and all it added up to was 0.02%. The realization drove home just how precariously this world balanced on the edge. But what was clear was that by preventing the Sewer Calamity, I had bought this world a 0.02% reprieve from its guaranteed 100% destruction.
A faint probability that this world might avoid annihilation now existed. Wasn't that enough?
[Karma acquired by 0.02%.]
[Evolution routes revealed.]
Karma. An element the original novel never mentioned.
[Evolution Routes]
[Path of the Demon Wolf (魔狼)] — Conditions not met
[Path of Human (人化)] — Conditions not met
So ingestion-based evolution like I'd done as an Amorphous Mucus Body was impossible now. The way I'd consumed the Warg and evolved into one. That stung. Two paths now stood revealed, but they only pointed in directions. No clear species name or classification. I used Spying to dig deeper.
[Path of the Demon Wolf: Evolve into a higher species of Warg.]
A higher species of Warg. Warg meant wolf... so it meant evolving while remaining a wolf. Higher species of Warg? The Monster Wolf's species name had been High Warg, if I remembered right...
No, it couldn't be. An anxious suspicion prickled at me. I dismissed the Demon Wolf message and checked the Path of Human.
[Path of Human: Evolve into a Wolf Human (狼人).]
One path was wolf, the other was wolf-human. Had evolving into a Warg been a mistake? If I had to choose, the Path of Human would obviously be better... but neither path pulled at me.
Honestly, I could already take a human shape if I wanted to. Changing my appearance wasn't hard. If I used Change to craft vocal cords, I could pass as human easily enough—as long as no one Appraised me.
I'd need to think about it more. Neither path was available right now anyway. I didn't know what the conditions were, and when I tried to check with Spying, the words wouldn't resolve. As if the System itself refused to let me read them.
I was still turning over which evolution would be better when I reached Gwangalli. Time had slipped by while I traveled; the sun was already setting. Couples were squealing and laughing. Groups of friends had staked out their spots.
Gwangalli Waterfront Park. People drinking, raw fish as their drinking food. People walking past with skewers between their teeth. Monsters had appeared and the world was a madhouse, but people's lives didn't seem to have changed much. Everyone laughing and chattering looked happy.
"......."
Would the day ever come when I could sit face-to-face with people again? A day when I could sit across from them without a care, laughing and talking without worry?
'Idiot.'
Wasn't that the whole reason I was doing all this?
Just wait a little longer. That's what I told myself.
So these people could enjoy their time just a little longer.
I took a nap I didn't need, waiting until they had all gone.