Chapter 34
Chapter 34
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 34
Chapter Title: Prevention
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“Ho, just in case, that love you’re talking about…”
“It’s so wonderful you feel like you can’t live without them, and just seeing them floods your mind with pure happiness! You know that kind of love, right?!”
“Ugh… that’s…”
Kedi must be a woman in the prime of her life after all, because she visibly flushed with embarrassment.
She hemmed and hawed for a long while, unable to get the words out, but eventually…
“I didn’t want to reveal my true self so soon…”
“Ooh…!”
The good-hearted monster finally decided to give the right answer.
“But before that, would you mind taking a look at this form of mine?”
“Pardon?”
The flock of crows split into two.
One group swirled around Kedi, while the other flew off somewhere.
It wasn’t long before the crows peeled away from Kedi, revealing an elegant woman with long black hair and golden eyes sitting there.
It was Kedi’s human form—you could tell at a glance.
“Clok… no, Siwoo-nim.”
“?!”
She knows my name?
I knew I was being watched, but I had no idea from when. Apparently, it was from the very start.
But that wasn’t the issue right now. It was her expression.
Why is she looking at me like that?
Her face was that of a woman utterly smitten.
Hearts might as well have been floating in her eyes.
Startled, I instinctively pulled back, but she leaned forward, bringing her face close to mine.
Her breathing was ragged—whether from excitement or something else.
“To stand by your side, I worked this hard.”
“This life of mine, saved by you twice, I’ve decided to devote it to you.”
“I even refined my original monstrous monster form, carefully shaping it into something refined and fitting to be at your side.”
“I changed my name to Han Si-woo, and my monster name from Clockian Timea Chronon Watch to Clok, but I alone could still recognize you.”
“My light, my savior…”
By now, it was clear.
Who her “love” was.
“The one I love… is you, Clok…”
Her love was this time-stop monster.
Or more precisely…
The original time-stop monster.
Clockian Timea Chronon Watch.
I’d never operated under the full name Clockian-something after possessing this body. The moment I possessed it, I introduced myself to Comet as Clok.
Which meant the one who saved Kedi wasn’t me—it was the original time-stop monster.
I thought I’d possessed it right as it was on the verge of death and turning into a monster, but apparently, it had been active as a monster for a while before I took over.
What do I do about this?
Kedi being in love with me was actually a good thing, all things considered.
As long as I didn’t die, she wouldn’t go dark, right?
Her redemption was basically guaranteed.
But the problem was…
I’m not Clockian.
I was just a possessor who’d borrowed the body.
It felt a bit guilty keeping it hidden, but telling her the truth might make her explode, demanding to know where the real Clockian went.
As I agonized over this moral dilemma, one of the crows near Kedi suddenly started acting strangely.
-Cawk?! C-c-cawk!
The crow shuddered violently, coughing as if in agony.
I reached out and grabbed it right away.
“Clok-nim?”
“Hold on.”
Sorry about derailing things now, but I needed to check the crow first.
I ruffled through its feathers a few times, spotting a faint greenish glow inside.
Found it.
I pinched it out with my thumb and forefinger.
“This is…”
“A fly. We saw them from that trash monster last time, too.”
Kedi’s face hardened the instant she saw the fly.
Completely different from the way she’d been gazing at me moments ago.
“…Clok-nim, I’m sorry, but could you hand that fly over to me?”
“Of course. Take it and look into it.”
“…You knew even that much. How impressive…”
Kedi lifted the hem of her skirt slightly in a polite curtsy, then vanished in an instant, surrounded by her flock of crows.
“…She’ll handle it herself, right?”
Fly Monster Beelzebub.
The moment he made his real move, this world would enter what they called the “Dark Phase.”
His flies latched onto any creature, endangering their lives and turning them into monsters.
Like a monster contagion plague.
I’d planned to hunt him down myself, but since Kedi had stepped up, he’d be taken care of soon enough.
Crows outmatched flies, after all.
“…Well, at least it got me out of that awkward spot.”
Thanks to his fly popping up out of nowhere, I’d managed to dodge giving Kedi a straight answer to her confession.
I needed to think hard about what to do before she came looking again.
-Woooooong…!
A massive swarm of flies buzzed through the sky.
Their goal was singular: latch onto every living thing, drain their life force, and trigger monsterization.
Of course, non-humans couldn’t become monsters, but that just meant sucking them dry for life force. More life force meant more power for their host, Beelzebub.
“Muahaha! Go forth, my soldiers! Turn the humans into a monster harvest and wipe them out!”
Beelzebub hated Kedi more than anyone in the Union, so he’d noticed she never touched civilians for some reason.
His solution? Those glowing green flies.
Soon, people would turn into monsters via the swarm, and with the life force they gathered, Beelzebub could spawn even more flies—enough to blanket all of South Korea in monsters before long.
The monsters infected with my flies are under my control. If I gather the strong ones to take on that bitch Kedi… my victory’s as good as sealed!
Marveling at how cheat-like his own power was, Beelzebub let out a booming laugh.
“Muahahaha! With that bitch Kedi unable to come after me, I’m invincible!”
In case she showed up before his plan fully succeeded, he’d holed up in the safest spot imaginable.
He sat down, a grin on his face.
Assuming a meditative pose, he shifted his consciousness elsewhere.
-Flash.
His vision flashed green for a moment, then filled with sky and towering apartments.
He’d linked his sight with one of his flies.
Heh heh, let’s see how smoothly things are going.
The fly he’d linked with happened to dive toward a woman’s neck below.
Perfect, let’s check the resu—
And just like that, the link with the fly snapped.
“What?”
Beelzebub hadn’t seen the outcome due to the sudden cutoff.
He panicked for a second but quickly recomposed himself and linked with another nearby fly.
What the hell… huh?
In that instant, Beelzebub witnessed it.
-Caw! Caw!
-Caaaaw!
A horde of crows devouring his flies.
And if crows like that were involved…
-Caw.
“Hiiiieeeek!”
The moment their eyes met, Beelzebub convulsed and severed the link.
It was just a crow, but to him, it might as well have been directly connected to Kedi, just like his flies were to him.
“Huff… huff… huff…”
After catching his breath, Beelzebub sighed deeply and sat back down.
“Fine, whatever. My flies outnumber her crows by far. Plus, I already got to one of her crows, didn’t I?”
Numbers would win regardless. He’d already used most of his life force to deploy the swarm, so there were tons of them.
“No matter how many crows she has, she can’t beat my hundreds, thousands of flies!”
Scoffing loudly at Kedi, Beelzebub linked his consciousness to another fly—and then…
-Snap.
“Ack! What now?!”
The connection cut again.
Assuming it had been eaten by a crow, he tried linking to yet another nearby fly.
“Huh?”
No connection.
The ones around him were the same.
“What is this…”
He kept trying, but aside from the prototype flies he’d seeded earlier, none of his flies would connect.
There was only one thing that could mean.
Total annihilation.
His carefully prepared swarm had been wiped out in the field.
“N-no way! Impossible! Crows couldn’t do that!”
In a panic, he linked to one of his prototypes and rushed to the site.
What happened?! What the hell happened?!
Luckily, one had infiltrated a nearby building, so he got there fast.
The moment he saw the scene, Beelzebub’s jaw dropped.
“Th-this… what…”
The ground was carpeted with fly corpses.
Not a single one intact—they all looked squashed, like someone had swatted or clapped them dead.
And standing at the center was a figure who turned around, locking eyes with him.
!! That guy…!
“Oh, hello there. I was just about to come find you, so thank you for coming to me.”
Clok.
The guy presumed to have time-stop powers stood amid the fly carcasses.
“You bastard! Clok, you dare touch my flies…!”
“You even sent the ones hiding out this way, so I’ll send you off quick. Came just in case, and jackpot.”
Clok’s sharp hand lunged toward him, and moments later, the prototype link severed.
“Gaaahhh! Clok! You fucking bastard!”
Beelzebub shot to his feet in rage.
He bellowed at the small rift beside him.
“Abyss! Get me any living creature you’ve got, as fast as possible!”
“Phew… huff…!”
“Quit that earth-folding paper-folding bullshit and hurry up!”