Chapter 126: 27th Floor: Necroumbra
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 126: 27th Floor: Necroumbra
What should I do with this unidentified plant—no, this creature?
If this were the real world, I’d have to destroy it immediately, since the people around me could get hurt even if I was fine.
But here…
‘Hmm… if I play this right?’
Suddenly, I remembered who had given this to me.
As everyone knew, it was none other than the Crown Prince.
The security surrounding the trial was so tight that even my capable intelligence chief was kept in the dark to maintain confidentiality.
And that same Crown Prince gave me a man-eating plant to raise?
‘Well, well, the fallout from this is going to be insane.’
This thing was ripe with political potential.
Killing it and revealing the truth would be one thing, but showing it to everyone alive would create a much bigger stir.
To do that, however, I first needed to train this thing.
‘But how do you train a plant?’
“Um… sit?”
As if understanding my words, the plant lowered its flowers and stems.
“It listens well…”
To test if it properly understood the human command structure, I put the plant through its paces, giving it all sorts of orders.
While I was in the middle of this basic training, a lady-in-waiting entered.
“Your Highness? For breakfast… Aaaaaahhh!!!”
“Ah…”
The maid shrieked at the sight of my plant.
It was a natural reaction.
Whatever it did to me yesterday, sucking me dry, must have spurred another growth spurt. Its stems now stretched across the walls and ceiling of my room, and its beautiful petals were lined with hundreds of sharp, interlocking teeth.
The flowerpot had completely fused with the plant, and the roots extending from below it now walked across the floor with a steady gait.
It was a sight that would terrify anyone.
Hearing the maid’s scream, people came rushing over, but the plant didn’t panic.
As if trusting me to handle everything, it calmly stood beside me, draped a stem over my shoulder like an arm, and waved its hand(?) at the newcomers.
“Wh-what is this? Don’t tell me it’s that plant?”
“Y-Your Highness! Are you alright?”
“Good heavens…”
“Ahem… First, don’t spread any rumors. Everyone, please come in quietly.”
*
A makeshift meeting room was set up in my chambers.
“I’ve made sure the servants will keep their mouths shut for now. What should we do with that thing? It’s too dangerous to leave it as it is.”
The head butler seemed deeply unsettled by the creature.
“I feel the same. We cannot rule out the possibility that it’s merely pretending to be obedient.”
The guard captain was also against it.
“For now, a botanist is on his way. Let us hear what he has to say before we decide.”
The intelligence chief reserved his judgment.
However,
“No. I think it will be fine. It listens to me very well, and I don’t think it would attack someone unprovoked.”
I had my doubts at first, too, but something had changed my mind.
It was a status window message.
[A tameable entity exists. Would you like to tame it?]
Of course, this didn’t guarantee absolute obedience, but it did mean that it would generally listen to me and, on a basic level, liked me.
‘Then why did it violate me so forcefully yesterday…?’
There were parts I couldn’t understand, but thinking back, it never attacked me with its teeth. After we were finished, it even returned me safely to my original spot.
It was definitely not hostile.
“Ahem… If Her Highness says so… then let’s hear what that foolish botanist has to say as a final measure.”
Our trust in the botanist, who couldn’t even identify such a dangerous plant, had already hit rock bottom. Still, since we had already summoned him, we decided to at least hear his final excuse.
A short while later.
The botanist, having received the urgent message, arrived in a great hurry.
The moment he opened the door, he saw the plant next to me, snapping its terrifying teeth, and jumped back in shock.
“Hiiieek!!! Th-that’s!!”
“Stop making a fuss! It’s safe, so explain yourself clearly!”
The head butler’s sharp rebuke failed to bring the botanist to his senses.
“Gasp… N-no, but still…”
Seeing that the botanist was too scared to talk, I had the plant perform the gymnastics and dances I had just taught it.
The botanist’s expression changed dramatically as he watched, and he gradually began to calm down. Soon, he let out a small chuckle and composed himself.
“Ahem, I’ve made a fool of myself. But I had my reasons. This creature’s name is ‘Necroumbra.’ Also known as the Corpse-Eating Flower. It is a disaster-grade monster that was once discovered in the Great Forest.”
A disaster-grade monster.
For reference, the Giant Ogre I fought in the city where I was making cream pies was a disaster-grade monster.
‘This thing is the same rank as that behemoth?’
“It hasn’t fully bloomed yet… haa, but at this stage, we can consider it practically fully bloomed. By what means, no, how… did you tame it?”
According to him, this plant’s specialties were surprise attacks and assassination.
First, its ability to conceal its presence was incomparable to that of any ordinary assassin.
He claimed that not only a Swordmaster, but even a Swordmaster’s grandfather wouldn’t be able to tell if it was just a plant or a Necroumbra.
‘No wonder… There’s no way I wouldn’t have sensed anything.’
In the end, the viewers were right, but I felt wronged.
A person like me, who could sense energy with such finesse, felt nothing at all, so of course I assumed it was just a plant.
What’s more, because the creature was fond of me, I didn’t even sense any killing intent when it pounced. I had no choice but to helplessly offer up my pussy.
The botanist continued.
“This creature is known to devour males in a single bite, while females are typically used for reproduction or for continuous amusement.”
“Amusement…?”
“Yes… This plant is unique in that it takes pleasure in watching a female become sexually aroused. It is proof that it possesses human-like sensibility and intelligence.”
Everyone’s eyes instinctively flickered toward me.
“Nothing like that happened to me.”
Lee Do-hee’s special move: feigning innocence.
I hate lying, but for a lie in a virtual world to help me climb the Tower, I could do it without batting an eye.
“No, no. We absolutely were not thinking anything of the sort!!”
“M-me neither!”
“You botanist, stop saying such strange things!!”
They all shook their heads in alarm.
“And this one is different. It was born from my energy, so not only does it obey my commands, but it isn’t hostile toward people.”
“That’s right. This one is different. It was born through a different method in the first place.”
The botanist nodded and continued his explanation.
There was a reason why a flower specializing in stealth like the Necroumbra hadn’t taken over the world.
First, creating the seed itself supposedly takes an immense amount of time. During its long life, it might produce two seeds at most, but usually just one before it dies.
And the biggest problem was that sprouting the painstakingly created seed was extremely difficult.
There was a reason its nickname was the ‘Corpse-Eating Flower.’
Normally, to make it sprout, one had to plant the seed, pile hundreds of corpses on top of it, and wait for several months.
It was said that only after absorbing not just the nutrients from the corpses but also the malevolent energy of hundreds of humans would it finally sprout. Alternatively, a high-level black magician with considerable skill could make it sprout faster. Of course, that still required using hundreds of human bodies as fertilizer.
But since I had sprouted it with my sacred energy, the botanist also believed it had been born as something close to a different species.
‘The conditions are stricter than I thought. Don’t tell me, is that why he gave it to me? Knowing I wouldn’t be able to sprout it?’
No, even if I did manage to sprout it, this… the only answer is black magic, isn’t it?
It seemed everyone had reached the same conclusion.
Their expressions turned grim.
“This… was he planning to frame her as a witch?”
“The Crown Prince! That despicable bastard!! To think he set a double trap!!”
“He intends to frame our princess as a black magician or a witch who murdered hundreds of innocent people. This is a serious problem.”
‘But the plant has already grown. And a maid has seen it. If we try a clumsy cover-up and get caught, the situation will spiral out of control.’
“Everyone, please calm down. For now, it’s highly unlikely that’s the case.”
Thinking it over, the Crown Prince must have given it to me without knowing I could make it sprout. If he had truly intended to frame me as a witch, he would have arranged for hundreds of people to go missing around this time.
But that would have been a burden for the Crown Prince as well. His plan was probably to spread rumors that I might be a witch or might have learned black magic, just in case I managed to sprout it through some other means.
If I had been eaten by the plant, or if there had been other casualties, it might have created an even better picture for the Crown Prince.
‘A double, no, a triple trap? What vicious bastards.’
“I sprouted the seed through legitimate means, so there won’t be any problems. But we should prepare just in case, right?”
A long discussion between me and the intelligence chief ensued.
Now that the botanist knew our secret, we appointed him as the Crawford family’s official botanist, and the five of us put our heads together to devise a plan.
A plan to win the votes of the non-hereditary nobles in this trial.
Various strategies were discussed, including how to screw over the Crown Prince.
And watching it all was the Necroumbra.
We thought there were five of us in the meeting, but there were a total of six entities capable of intelligent thought.
As it listened to our opinions, it would sometimes nod its head, and other times, as if to ask what we were talking about, it would cross its stems into an X and shake its head.
Of course, it did all this from the ceiling where we couldn't see, very, very secretly.
*
Necroumbra.
It hadn’t been long since it had started to think.
It probably began when the white liquid touched its seed.
‘Delicious…’
It was Lee Do-hee’s breast milk.
Lee Do-hee didn’t know it, but her breast milk had awakened the seed of a disaster-grade monster.
‘Who… am I?’
Memories, passed down through its genes, slowly surfaced from within the seed.
Everything the botanist had said was correct, but there were things he didn’t know.
The first was memory inheritance.
A Necroumbra inherits the memories of its predecessors. These memories weren’t just from a single generation but contained the memories of all its ancestors.
Not long after becoming self-aware, it realized it was a heinous, man-eating plant.
Of course, from the Necroumbra’s perspective, these were just ordinary memories of hunting.
It naturally compared the taste of humans from its memories with the taste of the breast milk it was drinking now.
‘There’s no comparison… Human flesh, not tasty.’
It was certain that the breast milk it was drinking now was a heavenly beverage, far more delicious than any human flesh.
And it wasn’t just the taste.
Beyond the nutrients, the milk also contained an immense amount of divine power.
The plant was known to absorb malevolent energy, but in truth, any kind of energy would do.
It was just that absorbing such energy would normally require a legendary elixir or dozens of bottles of the highest-grade holy water, so no one had ever bothered to experiment.
And, naturally, the Necroumbra was highly intelligent.
But its original intelligence wasn’t quite at a human level, just below it, so it should have instinctively devoured people. However, the breast milk it consumed in its infancy had turned the Necroumbra into a genius.
And it was aware of this fact.
With the knowledge accumulated from various memories, it understood human language.
Even with prey right before its eyes, it weighed the costs and restrained itself.
‘The ancestors were all idiots.’
They would foolishly devour humans in a frightening manner and get themselves exterminated. But I will not be like that.
‘Humans fight amongst themselves. I am strong. An obedient pet. Horses, wolves, dogs… I will act like them.’
Of course, even if it had acted that way, a Necroumbra, already known as a monster, would not have been able to avoid extermination.
Its intelligence was high, but it lacked empathy for human emotions like fear, a mistake it would have made. But this time, the circumstances aligned, and it got lucky.
And above all, the reason it decided on this pro-human behavior was because it liked its mother so much.
Who was its mother? Lee Do-hee, of course.
Lee Do-hee would be horrified if she knew, but the Necroumbra already considered her its mother.
‘The human act of giving breast milk is for a baby… She is my mother who loves me.’
Most Necroumbras lived hidden in human society, pretending to be ordinary flowers.
When hungry, they would mindlessly eat people and get caught, but when full, they would quietly spy, pretending to be plants, while searching for their next prey.
And while they were faithful to their instincts, they knew to be cautious in places with many strong individuals.
Like a supercomputer, it had studied human society over thousands of years.
Some memories were damaged along the way, but most were intact.
The conclusion it reached was this:
Even from a human sociological perspective, Lee Do-hee is my mother!
Moreover, Lee Do-hee had said things a human would say to a child, like “my baby” or “grow up big and strong,” which reinforced its belief.
And each time she said it, it could feel her sincere brainwaves.
Here was the second fact the botanist didn’t know.
Necroumbras have special receptors that can detect faint human brainwaves.
The detection range was very short, and it couldn’t read thoughts, but it could distinguish truth from lies or sense emotional states like arousal. With this, it could feel Lee Do-hee’s sincerity.
And it wasn’t just sincerity it felt.
It was sexual arousal.
It could feel the emotion of pleasure.
Its own receptors reacted to the female’s pleasure receptors, allowing it to feel joy alongside her.
This was the reason its ancestors had toyed with women.
When a woman reached orgasm, the Necroumbra would react to it and gain pleasure.
And the learned data in its brain told it something.
A woman who gets aroused while lactating is a huge pervert.
It was certain she would enjoy it even more if her genitals or other areas were touched.
And she was, in fact, a pervert.
The reason she had insisted on installing soundproofing magic in the princess’s room, something normally never done due to assassination risks, was because of the moans that escaped when she got aroused from lactating, and because she masturbated every night to relieve her unspent sexual desire.
Kalisha had strongly requested it, and since the guards were all aware of her martial prowess, they had agreed to only guard the exterior.
And naturally, the Necroumbra had watched all of this from up close.
‘I’ve figured out a way to please Mother.’
The Necroumbra resolved to repay her love.
And its perceptiveness didn’t stop there.
‘Communicating with someone… Who is she talking to in thin air?’
A behavioral pattern it had never seen before.
Beep-boop-beep—
Big data conclusion derived.
Mental disorder, or Dimension Wanderer.
It had a memory of beings called Dimension Wanderers communicating in such a way.
It was a very old memory, but one of its ancestors had been killed by a Dimension Wanderer, so it remembered it clearly.
So, it decided to run an experiment.
It was somewhat aware of how it would be treated if caught, but it wanted to follow her.
‘If she really is a Dimension Wanderer… I’ll be left behind. I don’t want that! I want to go with Mom!’
It deliberately revealed a glimpse of its true form in a place where she couldn’t see.
At that moment, her brainwaves shifted.
From comfort and pleasure to alertness.
The moment it reverted to its disguised form, she looked at me. And then she spoke, as if someone had seen my true form and told her about it.
She was a Dimension Wanderer!
Now it had to think of a way to go with her. And the method was already decided.
‘I will make her happy. Something only I, and I alone, can do! Then she’ll take me with her!’
And so, it resolved to fuck Lee Do-hee.
It wasn’t difficult, as it had the memories of its ancestors toying with other women.
The result, as you know, was a great success.
As expected, she was a tremendous pervert, even among humans. The Necroumbra itself had resonated with her pleasure so many times that its sap control device had broken.
But when it poured the sap on her, it saw her get even more excited, so from then on, it deliberately timed its injections.
It was a bit of a gamble, but she was very satisfied, and it felt a sort of connection forming with her.
‘I am a good child who listens to Mom.’
Then why did it forcefully fuck Lee Do-hee when she resisted so fiercely?
As mentioned before, Necroumbra can distinguish human lies through their brainwaves.