Ranks and the Queen's Legend
I couldn't know exactly what the woman intended to do to me, but I could at least guess it was something unwelcome, so I hurried to speak up.
"Is there really any need to open up my brain?"
The closer she came, the harder the doll in my arms trembled, and the thought flashed through my mind that the monster might show up here. If that happened, the two of them could end up fighting because of me, so I had to stop her at my own line, as best I could.
Even if it meant spilling everything I knew about the monster, I figured that would be far better than watching her own kind tear each other apart.
"…Hm?"
"Opening up my brain — that's probably so you can look at my memories or something, right? If you just asked, I'd answer willingly. Why go through all that trouble?"
Stop.
The woman halted mid-step, and at the same instant, the trembling of the doll in my arms ceased as well. She stared at me for a long moment as if beholding something strange, then spoke without dropping her smile.
"Oppa… do you have any self-awareness of just how bizarre a human being you are?"
"Hmm… not really, no?"
I answered honestly because I genuinely didn't know, and something about it struck her as funny — the monster burst out laughing again.
"Pfft… ah, you're a hilarious one, aren't you? Normally, you see, once an ordinary human learns we exist, they can't talk like that. It's usually one of three things. They lash out in a desperate struggle to survive, or they grovel and flatter us while begging for their lives, or they run. But you… you're just talking to me like a normal person, aren't you? The way you'd talk to another human. Honestly, you're the first one like this I've ever met. I think I'm starting to understand why that eerie creature of mine set her sights on a human like you."
"I haven't met many people like you either… but I'd rather not die, so I'll answer as faithfully and sincerely as I can."
"Good — you keep a proper line without being disrespectful. Fine, I had no intention of killing you anyway, and if I opened up your brain, my kind might get angry later if she caught on. So I'll just ask. That is, assuming you don't lie to me."
"Honesty is about the only virtue I have."
At my answer, the woman giggled yet again.
"Ah, I really, really like this oppa of mine… enough that I could just devour him on the spot."
Slurp.
Licking her lips and smacking them as she looked me over, the woman's eyes flashed with the savage gleam of a predator. That look, laced with an unspoken threat, brought the tension creeping back into me — but perhaps my days of facing down the monster had steeled me, because I recovered my composure quickly.
"If my kind doesn't eat humans, then tell me — what on earth does she live on? I'm just dying, dying to know~?"
It was a fair question, and nothing I couldn't answer… the problem was that the honest answer was a little embarrassing, so I couldn't bring it out right away.
"Well, that's…"
"Aha… so I do need to open up that brain after all? Where'd all that honesty from a moment ago go?"
When I hesitated and hemmed and hawed, the woman ostentatiously morphed her finger back into a tentacle.
"…Semen, ma'am."
"What?"
I mumbled it half-swallowed, barely audible, and of course she asked me to repeat it.
"…Semen."
"…I really must have something wrong with my hearing. You did not just say semen, did you?"
"…I did. That's what I said."
Face burning crimson, eyes pinned to the floor, I answered with the feeling of a man who'd happily crawl into a mouse hole if one existed. Whether my flustered honesty made my words all the more convincing, the woman clearly didn't think I was lying — and that only deepened her shock.
"No way. In all my years… hah, honestly!… I've heard of kin who live on animals instead of humans, but kin who feed on human semen? That's a first… I mean, that's basically an urban legend among us."
"Urban legend…?"
"That's what we call it. Don't worry — there's no way your lover is the person behind that legend, so forget I said anything. Wow… but I really would like to see her face, just once. Does human semen taste good? Can a body even sustain itself on that?"
Apparently unable to believe it, the woman kept muttering in disbelief, then asked me casually:
"Your girlfrie— wow, the word just won't come out of my mouth. Calling my own kin your girlfriend… anyway, what class is she?"
"Class?"
When I looked baffled at the unfamiliar term, she clicked her tongue and explained.
"I can see you have no idea. I'll give you the rough outline, so listen up and then tell me where you think she falls."
I listened as the woman explained the hierarchy that existed among monsters — Pawn, Knight, Rook, Queen — and sank into thought. Going by her description alone, the monster would be a… Queen, or so it seemed.
But she also explained that the Queen class was something like an urban legend — that it existed in form only, and in practice there was essentially no such thing.
Nah, no way.
"Hmm… she split her body and maintained it for a fairly long stretch of time, so… I'd say… a Rook, maybe?"
"……Ah. Um. No. Yes. Of course. I see."
When the woman suddenly went stiff-faced and started addressing me with honorifics, I asked, puzzled.
"Why are you suddenly being so formal…?"
"Was I? I've always talked this way… my apologies, but what might your name be? Ah, mine's Yoo Ah-rin in Korean — please feel free to just call me Arin."
Smiling with the most benevolent grin in the world, the woman — Arin — answered me, and I was still bewildered by her abrupt about-face.
"Hyun-ok… it's Hyun-ok."
I considered giving a fake name, but I balked at lying and told her the truth instead.
"Hyun-ok, I believe I've asked everything I wanted to know, so I'll be on my way now."
"Actually, there's something I'd like to ask too, if I may?"
Arin, hands pressed together before her chest, beaming slyly and already turning to slip away — I called her back cautiously. I still didn't understand her sudden change in attitude, and it even felt as though our positions had subtly reversed, but that was no reason to get lippy with her.
"Ahaha, of course, Hyun-ok."
Arin turned back around, wore a briefly sour expression, then smoothed it into a smile at once.
"That word came up earlier — agent. What… is that, exactly?"
I could have let it pass, but something the monster had told me a few days ago resurfaced, and I couldn't help asking.
Arin worked her lips a few times, hesitating over her answer, before slowly opening her mouth.
"Hyun-ok, have you ever heard of the organization of humans who hunt us down and kill us?"
"Yes, roughly."
"Hm… I don't know how much you've heard, but we call that organization BRGI, in the Korean style."
"BRGI? What do you mean, Korean style?"
"It stands for scum."
"Hmm…"
It was funny, somehow, but it felt like the sort of thing I probably shouldn't laugh at.
"To put it briefly: those scum are the only unofficial organization in human society that knows we exist, and their goal is to exterminate us. You don't need to ask why, right? Because we eat humans. Beyond that, to them we're a great threat — beings who could potentially bring about the extinction of humanity. Does that not land? Let me give you an example. What if one of us transformed into a human positioned to start a war among humans? What if one transformed into a human positioned to launch a nuclear strike?"
"Ah…"
From humanity's perspective, monsters capable of transforming into any human at all really were a threat far beyond that of simple man-eating creatures.
"It's not just transformation, either. Kin who reach a certain class or higher can manipulate human brains — twist their common sense, rewrite their memories. So it's only natural they'd try desperately to kill us. Just as we eat humans to survive, they kill us to survive — there's no good or evil in it. Though, well, there is malice in there somewhere, close to outright hatred."
From her image alone, I'd expected Arin to do nothing but look down on humans, yet she explained the relationship between her kind and humanity with unexpected objectivity. The words and atmosphere were nothing like her earlier self, and I sat there listening in a daze before a sudden curiosity slipped out of me.
"But… how do those humans tell that you've transformed into one of them? What I heard is that your appearance and insides are completely identical to a human's, and you can even imitate a whole personality so well you seem fully human."
"Among those scum, there are ones called agents who've undergone surgery. They're injected with our cells, and the humans whose surgery succeeds can recognize, to some degree, the kin hiding among humanity — and their physical abilities grow drastically stronger too. From what I hear, among the agents themselves, they're graded by letters of the alphabet according to how compatible they were with the surgery. And curiously enough, only human women can receive it. I don't know why, so don't ask."
Ah. So that's why all the combat agents earlier were women.
Remembering what Arin had mentioned in passing, I nodded to myself, satisfied.
"That's why I keep a low profile, you see. At the Rook class there's almost no need to watch my back around humans, but I'm on the lower-middle end of Knight, and those people could very well kill me."
When Arin revealed her own class, I finally understood why she'd started addressing me so deferentially midway through. In short: she didn't want to get on the wrong side of kin who outranked her.
"We divide ourselves into three classes, but the gap between each tier is staggering. To climb from one to the next, you have to devour countless — countless — humans and survive a very long time. Especially at the Rook level: even a low-grade one could wipe a small city off the map, if it didn't care about risking its life. With time and a meticulous plan, a large city would be possible too."
A Rook, armed with transformation, the ability to rewrite common sense and memories, and bodily fission — yes, I could believe it was possible.
"Honestly, there's more I'd like to ask, but… it's getting late, so I should head back soon. My girlfriend will worry. The station… you can manage on your own, right?"
"…Oppa… seriously, no matter how I look at you, you're strange."
Arin switched her speech back entirely, as if something about me had reset her, and gave me a look brimming with bafflement.
"What on earth does that Rook see… in an ordinary human like you…"
For a split second I almost answered, It's because of the semen — and clamped my mouth shut.
"…No, wait… how a human like you ended up dating a monster like that — that's what I really want to know."
Arin tilted her head just slightly, studying me intently, then muttered that she couldn't stand it anymore, and abruptly came closer, smiling. But unlike before, the doll in my arms didn't so much as quiver.
"Oppa, want to have sex with me? Just once?"
"…I'm sorry, what?"
Arin's words were so far beyond anything I'd anticipated that I could only stammer back at her.