An Unexpected Turn of Events
…Hmm. Did I go a little too far?
While I was thrashing him, the dopamine had been surging so wildly I barely noticed. Now that the deed was done, though, I couldn't shake the feeling that I might have overdone it.
Beating someone senseless in what was supposed to be a playful fight, then tossing them aside like a broken toy the moment I'd had my fun… yeah. Even I had to admit that was a bit much.
If someone did that to me, I'd be furious enough to lose sleep over it.
He was the protagonist, after all. Maybe I should have let him land at least one hit. Feeling guilty after pulverizing him was a strange thing, but I did feel a little sorry.
Still, I'd had my reasons.
Allowing a vastly weaker opponent even a single clean blow was a matter of pride. Protagonist or not, the gap in rank was simply too wide.
And if I had taken a hit on purpose, it only would have spoiled him. He'd have strutted around even more, insisting that guns worked after all, waving those ridiculous toys around like they meant something.
That was exactly why I'd gone out of my way not to take a single bullet. Those pieces of trash don't work. Drop them. Now.
Guns? Against monsters? Seriously?
Not shadow-forged rounds. Not blades sheathed in darkness. Not fists wreathed in Starlight. Just… bullets.
It was like bringing a BB gun to a real firefight.
Sure, they'd hurt if they connected. Against something truly weak, they might even do the job.
But against anything halfway competent, they were worthless. Against someone at my special-grade level? Not even worth mentioning.
Even if those things hit my bare skin, they probably wouldn't leave so much as a bruise, let alone a scratch.
This body could shrug off rounds that barely made it through multiple layers of thick steel plating. A few pathetic pellets weren't going to leave a mark.
And this was our first meeting as monster and hero. I needed to make a strong impression. There was a didactic angle to it, sure — but honestly, that was secondary.
First impressions matter. We were going to be seeing a lot of each other, and the last thing I wanted was to hear him say, years from now, Who was that again?
…Looked at that way, I suppose it was a success. I felt a little bad about Su-hyeok, but it was all for his own good. Not guilty.
If you've got a problem with it, just get stronger.
I agreed with the voice in my head and finished rationalizing it. If you're bitter, get strong enough to take revenge.
So — hang in there, Su-hyeok. I believe in you. You've got talent. Work hard. That way, my personal intervention will have been worth it.
Alright then. Su-hyeok could go do his thing. I had my own work to do.
I'd originally come out just to stretch my legs a little, but now that I knew this body burned through blood endlessly even in human form…
I needed to stockpile. Enough that even if I lived as a human for a while, I wouldn't go hungry later. I intended to gorge myself until I was ready to burst.
…Was "suck" the better word? Drinking blood with my mouth still felt a little off, though.
I couldn't pin down why exactly. It just… repulsed me.
It wasn't as if I'd never done it. The moment I woke up, I'd drained a woman dry and sent her packing.
Back then the situation had been so desperate I hadn't felt anything resembling pleasure — just a raw, desperate finally, I can live — but still…
Well, it was probably fine either way. Mouth or Hematokinesis — same difference, right?
If I was really that curious, I could always try drinking with my mouth later and figure out what bothered me about it. For now, I decided to leave it alone.
Fortunately, this place was crawling with trash, so finding prey and restocking on blood was easy enough.
Now and then I ran into things that couldn't control their own power and were running wild. Those, I put through a light round of Selection before deciding their fate.
"How are ordinary people supposed to feel safe when monsters like you are just walking around out in the open!?"
The ones who had some real strength and had come here with decent intentions got a light scolding and were sent on their way.
The rest — the ones drunk on power and swinging it around for no reason other than that they could — I killed the same as the trash, and took their blood.
Those who possess power without the qualifications to match it are no different from those who have none and still refuse to be humble.
The voice in my head was making more sense than usual today. Was I imagining it? Normally more than half of what it said was noise I had to filter out.
Eh. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I shrugged it off and kept draining blood from the trash, continuing my Selection — when something unexpected happened.
"To think I would find, in a place like this, a comrade who vanished after rising from death. I have lived a long life, yet life remains full of surprises and bewilderment."
…The ringleader of the rabbit-footed crew Su-hyeok was hunting — the monster who held the seat of Rabbit among the Zodiacs — appeared before me out of nowhere.
He held the Rabbit's seat, but the only rabbit-like thing about him was the tall top hat with ornaments that looked like rabbit ears. That was it.
Judging purely by appearance, "cyborg gentleman" or "robot in a suit" would have been far more accurate…
You've got to be kidding me. Why are you out here? Sure, their base was somewhere nearby, but I hadn't made that much noise, had I?
Staring at the Rabbit who'd just materialized in front of me, the first thing I felt was pure bewilderment. It was way too early for him to show up.
Yes, I'd sent Su-hyeok to poke at them a little — but only up to a line I was sure wouldn't spiral out of control.
Worst-case scenario, I figured they'd send a few footsoldier monsters later with a warning not to come back. That was the extent of it.
So what was I supposed to do when the boss himself just casually strolled out? Su-hyeok hadn't even done anything yet.
A piece of trash with a big mouth, swaggering around without a shred of the qualification to match his power.
I shaped a spear of blood, packed it with rage and irritation, and was about to charge in and skewer the thing where it stood — when everything went wrong.
The ground suddenly gave way under my feet. My stance buckled. The spear slammed into the floor and shattered, and a shard of it punched clean through my shoulder — just as a bolt of lightning dropped out of a clear sky and struck me square on.
The lightning forced my Time Acceleration to drop. Rabbit, for his part, barely seemed surprised by my sudden change in appearance. He spoke with perfect composure.
"Oh dear, oh dear. You seem far more violent than you ever were in life. Calm yourself, calm yourself. I merely came out to see what you looked like now. And are we not comrades? We ought to get along."
A cascade of absurd misfortunes, each one with a probability that should have been vanishingly close to zero.
That was his power. Probability manipulation. Strictly speaking, luck manipulation — but same difference.
It was the only reason a monster with a body so frail it could trip on the floor or cut itself on a corner could stand against the main cast at all.
He had weaknesses, sure — but knowing them didn't give you any useful options. An ability that was, in short, an absolute nightmare to fight.
…So pure speed alone really wasn't enough to break through.
I reabsorbed every fragment of the lance back into blood, healed the wound with a light touch, and snarled with pure hatred.
Charging him again would only invite even more impossible nonsense. This was the only way to play it.
"How dare a lowly thing like you call me comrade."
I was special-grade, after all. A little of this wasn't going to rattle me.
More importantly — so he'd come out to see me. That was a relief. Su-hyeok wasn't going to die tonight.
"Ah, yes. Quite right. A grave breach of etiquette on my part. Age must be catching up with me — I had clean forgotten. You said you had no intention of becoming our comrade."
Rabbit murmured that, then put on a kindly face and said it was good to see me looking healthy.
"But tell me — do you still remember our promise?"
"You've finally started inventing things that never happened. As if I would ever make a pact with the likes of you."
"Dear me. It seems your memories have been entirely wiped clean. How unfortunate. Still… one can hardly demand that someone keep a promise they know nothing about."
…I was uncomfortably aware that the way this bastard talked was a little too much like my own. That didn't stop the fury from boiling over.
Even so, some part of me was already filing the line away for later use on Su-hyeok.
It was going to be hilarious.
"All the same, you would do well to recall, and quickly, what Principle you chose for yourself. That is, if you have no wish to transform into a beast. Well then — I shall look forward to our next meeting."
The moment the sentence ended, Rabbit was simply gone, as if he had never been there at all.
…Probably the Rat's ability. No way to track him after that. Annoyance flared for a second, but this was a time for being smart.
I'd taken a thorough beating from Rabbit, but the information he'd handed me was something I could never have gotten anywhere else.
Information about Shining White, for instance — the original owner of this body.
He hadn't exactly explained anything. He'd only implied that certain things had happened. Even so, the value of what I could deduce from that alone was incomparable.
It was a past of Shining White's that even I didn't know — a past that never appeared in the original work at all.
According to Rabbit, Shining White had clearly had some kind of dealings with the Zodiacs.
I didn't know from when, but a transaction had taken place. And on top of that, some sort of promise had been made.
In other words, there was a hidden side to her that even Radiant White didn't know about.
Maybe Shining White hadn't been as purely good and perfect as Radiant White remembered. No — she definitely had flaws.
The Shining White in Radiant White's memories was… skewed too far toward the ideal, for one thing.
But dealing with the Zodiacs? Of all things. An earth-shattering truth that never made it into the original, and my head was spinning.
Honestly, even I hadn't expected Shining White to be carrying a secret like that.
The Shining White that came through Radiant White's words had been something close to flawless. I'd figured she might have a few human failings at most…
…This was not a "human failing" level of problem.
Of course, Rabbit could have been lying. But I didn't think he would lie while calling me "comrade" and putting on that whole friendly act.
For a monster, that one had an absurd amount of camaraderie. If he truly saw me as a fellow, I doubted he'd lie to my face.
…Which meant Shining White had probably become a monster of her own free will.
I'd only come out to loosen up a little. How had things gotten this complicated?
"Haaah."
A sigh escaped on its own.
Alright. Let's organize what I've learned and what I need to do. My head felt like it was about to explode.
First: Su-hyeok was weak.
That one I could handle by beating him up regularly as training.
Second: this body's past was more complicated than I'd imagined.
That… was not as simple as thrashing Su-hyeok. I had no idea what I needed to do to dig into the history bound to this body.
The only things that came to mind were meeting Radiant White, or following the traces Shining White had left behind and trying to recover the past that way.
No immediate solution, so I'd leave it at that for now.
Third — and this one I'd only just realized — I still didn't know how to properly use this body.
Special-grade monsters, with only the rarest exceptions, weren't just physically superior. They also had unique abilities, like the one Rabbit had just demonstrated.
I'd been built to join the Zodiacs — meaning I'd been made special-grade — so I had to have something like that too. And I had no idea what it was.
Time Acceleration counted, sort of, but anyone with real power could do a version of that. So it didn't really qualify.
Which meant the only option was to keep using this body in every way I could think of until I found the ability myself.
Hmm.
…Starting with the easy parts should be fine, right?