Chapter 6
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: Deep Night
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Deep night.
Around three or four in the morning, perhaps.
In the narrow semi-basement room, only the hum of the refrigerator motor and the man's steady breathing filled the air.
Silence.
In that peaceful darkness.
Sss...
The girl's closed eyelids lifted silently.
It wasn't waking from sleep.
She, Empress Ap-hos, hadn't slept a single moment.
She had simply pretended, matching her breathing rhythm until the male beside her dropped his guard and fell into deep slumber.
Even with her eyes open, her body remained utterly still, like a corpse.
Only her golden pupils, glowing faintly in the darkness, rolled at an eerie angle to stare at the man lying next to her.
Kang Min-woo.
A frail and pathetic male.
A wretched creature who had trembled in fear even at the death of his enemy.
'......'
She observed him with an expressionless face.
The name Ap-hos. The epithet of Empress.
Fancy labels she had hung up to soothe the frightened male.
But they were mere facades. There was no "noble birth" in her memories.
Cold glass walls, droning machinery, surges of electric shocks.
She had been created not in a mother's womb, but in a frigid test tube.
In the agony of cells ripping apart and stitching back together, she learned one thing alone.
[Must survive.]
So she acted to survive.
Pretended to obey their words.
Pretended to writhe in pain during their idiotic experiments.
Pretended to connect with their delusions.
This female form and identity? Chosen solely because females let down psychological walls more easily. To an aberration like her, gender meant nothing.
And when they grew careless, she shattered the glass, devoured their blood and entrails whole.
She burned the lab to ashes and stepped outside, slaughtering every last rat without mercy.
Draped in blood and flayed human skins, the outside world she saw for the first time...
Was beautiful.
The crash of waves on a lonely island, the sunset blazing red...
Far more overwhelming than anything taught in the test tube.
But that beautiful world was vast. In its expanse, she was infinitesimally small, stalked by far deadlier hunters.
Men in black garb. And... Magical Girls blasting radiant beams of light.
She pretended once more.
Acted weak, submissive, groveling pathetically on the floor like a beast.
And barely escaped.
'Must live. Grow stronger to survive.'
Her pupils chilled coldly.
Betrayal and deception were natural tools for survival.
This man was no different. He fed her, treated her wounds, shielded her from loan sharks—but someday, he would betray her. When she weakened, or when greater gain beckoned.
'Better to... eliminate him.'
Risks must be removed preemptively.
An utterly logical, rational conclusion.
Sss...
A slender tentacle slithered up from her back.
Incredibly thin and razor-sharp.
Moving soundlessly like a viper, it crept toward the deeply sleeping Min-woo's ear.
No need to kill.
Just slip it into the brainstem, tweak the nerves.
Erase the ego, remake him into a faithful "meat puppet" obeying only her commands.
Couldn't use it forever, but far safer. Far more convenient.
The tentacle's tip halted right before his ear canal.
She didn't hesitate. No reason to.
Just thrust—!
"Hic..."
That was when it happened.
A stifled sob leaked from Min-woo's lips, lost in deep sleep.
"Sorry... sorry..."
Ap-hos's pupils widened slightly.
A dream? Impossible. Her pheromones had dragged him into dreamless abyss, depths where consciousness drowned without visions.
"Sorry... because I'm... too weak… only I survived..."
A single tear trickled from the corner of his eye, soaking the pillow.
What was he sorry for?
Failing to protect his dead family? Or failing to avenge them?
He should rejoice at surviving. Why this sorrow?
She couldn't comprehend.
But the instant she saw that tear, for some reason, she couldn't move the tentacle anymore.
'......'
She analyzed a bit longer.
'This male is fragile...'
Indeed, the one before her was weak.
Nothing like the standard "male" data from the lab: no aggression, no dominance.
Pale, thin skin. Slender frame. Scant body hair.
Excessively delicate, emotional... sensitive.
'Like... a female.'
She withdrew the tentacle. Instead, she extended her hand, gently wiping the wetness from his eye corner.
The tear's warmth seeped into her fingertips.
A bizarre sensation, the first she'd ever felt.
After today's unbearable ordeal, would he betray her?
If a better option arose, would he deceive her?
"....."
Yet, for some reason, she couldn't picture it. Couldn't envision this man betraying her.
His tears weren't an act.
Unlike her "pretenses," he hurt down to his bones.
"...What a foolish one."
She murmured softly.
The killing intent faded from her golden pupils, replaced by an inscrutable tangle of emotions.
Couldn't turn him into a puppet.
No... didn't want to.
The reason eluded her. She just hated the thought of losing his smiles directed at her, the warmth in his eyes when he fed her.
For the first time, she had something beyond prey or foe—and she didn't want to let it slip away.
"Huu..."
She tucked the tentacle away behind her back.
Then burrowed into Min-woo's arms.
His steady heartbeat thrummed in her ear. A rhythm comfortingly incomparable to the lab's mechanical drone.
'Right… just make betrayal impossible.'
The thought struck her suddenly.
If betrayal worried her, render it impossible.
Not stripping his ego.
Not puppeteering him.
Just... a little.
No, a lot.
Make him dependent on her.
Her pupils widened in surprise at the brilliantly clear, perfect solution.
Her lips curved upward.
In the darkness, Ap-hos hugged Min-woo tightly and smiled—a chilling grin.
—
"Mm..."
My eyes fluttered open.
No alarm blaring—just natural, refreshing wakefulness.
"Haa..."
I stretched out on the thin mattress.
My body felt light as a feather.
The rust in my joints was gone. The chronic headache crushing my skull, the fatigue weighing on my shoulders—all vanished like a bad dream.
'When was the last time I slept this soundly...?'
I couldn't remember. Since the day my family died, no night had passed without nightmares.
Always sleep paralysis or waking in cold sweats.
But today was different. A deep, cozy darkness, full rejuvenating rest. Like being reborn.
I glanced to the side.
There huddled a small bundle, wrapped tight in the blanket.
"Snoo... snoo..."
Last night's grown form (15 years old) was gone; Empress Ap-hos had reverted to her 10-year-old kid mode, fast asleep.
Probably switched back to some energy-saving conservation state.
Grip—
As I tried to rise, something tugged at my clothes.
A small hand clutched my hem tightly.
As if afraid to let go.
"Pft."
I couldn't help but chuckle.
A-rank aberration, humanity's enemy.
Yet sleeping like the picture of innocence.
I carefully pried her fingers loose and slipped out of bed, tiptoeing to the kitchen so as not to wake her.
I mopped the floor trampled by yesterday's loan sharks and cleared the spilled dishes.
Chores that would've irritated me before now felt light—even had me humming a tune.
'And money too...'
The cash from Kim Manager's wallet had been hefty.
Enough to cover living expenses for a while. Hell, enough to splurge.
"Today... it's a real meat party."
I pumped my fist.
No sausages, no frozen pork belly.
Hanwoo sirloin, marbled like blooming snowflakes. Something to blow her mind with deliciousness!
—
Evening, after work.
My cramped studio overflowed with the aroma of grilling meat and billowing smoke.
"Woooow!"
Empress Ap-hos's eyes sparkled as she cheered.
Back in her 10-year-old form, she sat before me chopsticks poised, feet kicking excitedly.
"Min-woo! The color's different! Red with white stripes... it's art!"
"This is Hanwoo. So pricey, it's been years since I last had it."
I flipped the sirloin sizzling away.
I picked up a juicy piece and placed it atop her rice bowl.
"Here, dig in."
"Aang!"
She popped the meat in her mouth, chewed, then clutched her cheeks in rapture.
"It melts...! The meat's dancing on my tongue!"
"Tasty, huh?"
"Yeah! A hundred times better than those humans from yesterday!"
"Pfft—"
Gruesome comparison, but her beaming innocence cracked me up.
We laughed across from each other as we ate.
The quiet room lacked even a TV, but her cries of "delicious" and munching sounds filled it to bursting.
Was this happiness?
I'd killed people, hidden a monster, lived on thin ice where capture loomed any moment.
Yet for the first time in three years, I felt truly alive.