61. Unique Ability (2)
61. Unique Ability (2)
There is no time.
The woman whose heart was ripped out will die soon.
I thought about saving her since she's Gwen's acquaintance, but I didn't feel the need to save this woman.
So, before the human woman died, I stuck my hand into the unconscious woman's head.
'Ugh.'
I took out the human brain and put it into the poisoned water before the brain died.
Twitch.
The brain twitched very slightly. Then, the water containing the woman's brain was cleanly purified.
"Ohhhhh!"
Was the Unique Ability engraved in the brain!?
I immediately took the brain out and put it in the next water. But there was no reaction.
It was dead. Both the brain and the woman.
I put my hand on the dead brain and infused a tiny bit of Holy Power.
Twitch.
The brain moved slightly, confirming it had come back to life, but.
"...."
Nothing happened.
Huh?
The brain was definitely alive. But it couldn't manifest the Unique Ability again.
I tried dipping the woman's body, which had no heart or brain, into the water.
Still no reaction.
"Eh..."
I poked the brain.
I infused a little Holy Power again, but there wasn't even a reaction. To revive her more strongly here, I'd need excessive Holy Power, which is impossible in my current state.
I didn't want to use it on a human like this anyway.
'Soul? Was the Unique Ability engraved in the soul? Is the reason the brain used the Unique Ability just now because the soul is in the brain?'
If you don't do a full resurrection after dying once, is there no soul?
Did the brain move just now because only the brain cells recovered?
Even if the brain recovers, is it gone if there's no soul?
Hmm...
My head hurts.
Does simply reviving the brain not mean reviving the human?
The first time, even though the brain was taken out, it was in a state of being alive for a very short moment, so the Unique Ability was triggered, and the next time, only the brain cells were activated for a moment after death, so there was no Unique Ability?
I need the next human to prove this.
==
"Success."
I finally succeeded while experimenting on the third human.
The Unique Ability is an ability engraved in the mind. In a word, it's the soul.
I didn't believe in souls. But why do I call it a soul? Because it doesn't make sense otherwise.
The last human's Unique Ability was the ability to create fire.
I don't know if the firepower was decent, but the performance was about the size of a small lighter, so they said they just lived normally instead of working as an adventurer.
Anyway, my hand is currently inside that human's brain.
To be precise, I've made my fingers thinner than a very fine hair and am touching the brain.
The brain is something I only saw in movies or educational comic books when I lived as a man in the past.
But with the Queen's consciousness, I had knowledge about the brains of living organisms.
As soon as I touched the brain, I intuitively knew what to do.
The body of a Queen is truly excellent.
The third human is currently hanging in the air, with all their limbs gone like before, and their brain exposed at the back of their head.
In that state, I touched a specific part of the human brain.
Paat!
Fire appeared in the air, small but clearly, and then disappeared because there was no fuel.
But I definitely saw it.
I again manipulated the human's focus in the brain as I wanted and stimulated the part that sends signals to the brain to use the Unique Ability.
Paat!
The body of the second human I killed during the experiment caught fire.
'Perfect.'
Actually, it's not that this part doesn't make sense.
Back when I was on Earth, technology had advanced to the point where we could insert microchips into people's brains and allow people in vegetative states to use computers.
In short, on Earth, technology had already advanced to the point of reading human brain signals and extracting them.
There's no law saying Creatures can't do that if humans can.
I succeeded in arbitrarily manifesting another human's Unique Ability.
But the problem was the next step.
Ultimately, if I want to use this fire-creating Unique Ability, it means I have to stick my hand into this human's brain and carry them around.
Furthermore, just because I made a human with a Status Window like this doesn't mean I can see it.
Fire can be intuitively seen by everyone, but considering the human I killed last time, it means other people can't see the Status Window.
It seems like I still have a long way to go, but I've grown one step further.
The human's Unique Ability is engraved in what is called a soul, the soul doesn't disappear unless it dies, and the human psyche that defines the soul moves on brain signals.
Honestly, I wonder if it's okay to call this a soul.
But in a world with mana, Holy Power, Goddesses, and magic, it's strange to say there's no soul.
Is there a soul if there's a Goddess who is a god?
I definitely think there is.
Hearing Amber's story about when she worked as an adventurer last time, she said there are also Spirit Monsters.
This forces me to think that souls exist.
Wait a minute...
I suddenly thought of something huge, like being hit in the head with a hammer.
[ Amber. ]
"Yes."
[ Please come to me. ]
"Understood...?"
Even though I was right next to her, when I called Amber through the Hive Mind, Amber tilted her head and came in front of me.
Amber, who has gradually merged with the Creature as the Creature attached to her brain and spinal cord, has now become a full-fledged Creature.
One eye is already the same slit eye as mine, and the small scars she had from her adventurer days a few months ago, along with her frizzy hair, have vanished without a trace.
Clean skin, flowing blonde hair.
[ Amber. Please speak through the Hive Mind. ]
[ Understood. ]
[ Is there anything uncomfortable about speaking through the Hive Mind? ]
[ Not anymore. ]
Maintaining a mind that can be defined as human within the Hive Mind is quite difficult.
Because the minds of tens of thousands of Creatures are swirling like a storm in the Hive Mind.
Amber also struggled a lot at first. But eventually, as her mind gradually merged with the Creature, she changed a lot.
Even now.
Even now, she is looking at the horrific scenes created while experimenting on humans without any reaction, and she doesn't think of herself as human.
In fact, the current Amber is more of a Creature than I am.
That's how much Amber was imbued with the Hive Mind.
Hive Mind.
One mind containing and dominating multiple minds.
In other words, my Unique Ability, the Hive Mind, means that the minds of all my children are there.
It's called a mind, but if you look closely, it's no different from a soul.
The meaning of soul refers to a psyche independent of the body.
In the first place, in the Hive Mind, the mind is in the Hive Mind wherever the body is.
If this isn't a soul, then what is it?
The Unique Ability is engraved in the soul.
Amber's soul is in the Hive Mind.
The Hive Mind is under my control and is my mind.
Amber's Unique Ability is the ability to identify the target's weak points.
I intentionally found and grabbed Amber's soul in my Hive Mind.
"Ugh!"
I touched Amber's soul with the same sensation as when I touched the human brain.
The back of Amber's neck, who was frowning, glowed red.
It seems like the Creature is located in that part.
"Haa-ugh...!"
Thud.
Amber slumped down in front of me.
I immediately released Amber's soul that I was holding.
"Haa... Haa..."
"Are you okay?"
"Yes... I, I'm okay."
"How did it feel?"
"I don't even know how to explain it. I just felt strong pain. Not physical pain, but spiritual pain..."
"Amber. Amber's Unique Ability is that the target's weak points appear red, right?"
"That's correct."
"Thank you. Thanks to Amber, I learned something good."
Amber is holding her head and complaining of pain.
Is it because I used the Unique Ability instead of her?
If Amber, who is a Creature, is in that much pain, wouldn't a human almost go into shock if they received that pain? Of course, they wouldn't be human anymore once they entered the Hive Mind.
==
Even though I'm right in front of her, Amber is wolfing down the food Narim made.
It seems like her hunger became severe because I forcibly used her Unique Ability earlier.
"Is it delicious?"
"I, I'm sorry."
Amber, who came to her senses at my words, I told her it was okay and to keep eating.
"Thank you."
"Don't you feel any resistance or anything to eating humans?"
"Aren't humans ultimately just ingredients for food?"
Wow...
Seeing Amber say that and go back to eating the food made from human meat deliciously, I thought about it again.
Amber has indeed become more of a Creature than me.
I still have a lot of resistance to eating humans and feel like I'm throwing away the last of my humanity, so I don't eat it, but Amber is eating humans without any issues at all.
Of course, the human dish Narim made is a dish that doesn't look like it was made from humans to anyone's eyes.
Even so, knowing that this is food made from humans, I have no desire to eat it.
Of course, my body has become smaller, but it's not like my hunger has disappeared, so I have the desire to eat, but my remaining humanity is holding on tight.
Rather, right now, I just want to get my hands on a human with a Status Window as soon as possible.