I Made a Friend
I had wanted to find food.
And I had succeeded in hunting some down.
So far, while walking across the Great Forest, I had killed a grand total of two monsters.
One was a giant with a single eyeball, and the other was a massive boar.
The giant with one eye was a bit of a mouthful, so I would just call it a Cyclops.
Originally, I hadn’t meant to hunt the Cyclops at all.
For one thing, it looked so damn disgusting that I hadn’t even been able to think of it as food in the first place.
Humans didn’t look at cockroaches and think, There’s dinner, did they?
It felt exactly like that.
So when I’d entered the mine where it lived, I’d intended to just keep going on my way.
Then it had suddenly screamed something and lunged at me out of nowhere.
I’d been startled, so I’d punched it straight in the face.
BOOM—!
Its head had exploded, and that had been the end of it.
It looked like some drunk guy had vomited food all over the street, so I’d squeezed my eyes shut and gotten out of there as fast as I could.
It wasn’t as though I’d gotten nothing out of it.
The Cyclops had still been a creature that needed to eat.
I’d taken its enormous cauldron, its ladle, and something that looked like a kitchen knife.
The Cyclops had been either my size or bigger.
The knife and ladle it used were just the right size for me.
They also looked sturdy, probably because they were made of iron.
I’d moved them into the cave, and then kept going.
That was when I’d encountered the giant boar.
Maybe it was because of the instinct encoded into monster genes, or maybe because I was human.
Either way, at a glance, it looked like something that could be eaten.
In any case, I was now in the cave after successfully hunting the boar.
And I was staring at the giant carcass, lost in thought.
"How should I cook this…?"
I’d been living on my own for five years.
I knew my way around most Korean home cooking, but butchering and preparing a boar was a first.
Could I even make something tasty out here in the middle of nowhere, without sesame oil or even salt and pepper?
The boar’s gamey stench was so awful it was almost unbearable.
I could handle the butchering well enough with the knife, but the real problem was how to make it delicious.
I had no carbohydrates to serve with it, no seasonings, and I was apparently going to have to use stone dust.
"If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve asked the people I met for some seasoning… no, that probably would’ve been impossible too."
While hunting these two monsters, I’d run into all sorts of living things.
Among them were even beings intelligent enough that I could have called them “people.”
Dwaves, goblins, elves, orcs, and the like were the most common.
Come to think of it, the ones who looked most human of all were a person with dragon wings and a tail, and another with cat ears.
Just like the elf girl I’d met at first, none of them understood my language.
And they were afraid of me.
I understood that.
I really did.
But honestly, I still felt a little hurt and lonely.
Living in a foreign land with a monster’s body, and not a single person I could talk to.
Even when I tried to communicate with body language, it didn’t go well.
"Get a grip."
I slapped both cheeks.
So what if we couldn’t talk?
Once I learned the language, we’d be able to talk. And if I waited, surely some chance would come along eventually, wouldn’t it?
Humans were animals that adapted.
Humans who had become monsters were still animals that adapted.
For now, I should just fill my stomach.
It was all because I was hungry.
Once I had a delicious meal, this gloomy feeling would probably fade too.
I walked toward the river.
I’d placed the boar’s corpse on the stone table I’d made earlier.
I took up the knife.
Starting at the belly, I drew a straight line through the hide.
I peeled the split skin back as it opened.
Then I removed the innards and tied the meat, after stripping away the skin and organs, with a resilient tree branch.
When I hung the rather convincingly prepared meat from a willow tree, blood dripped down in heavy drops.
It took quite a while for the blood to drain out.
While I waited, I went into the forest to look for something to go with the meat.
This was the place where I’d pulled up rotten wood to gather firewood.
That elf I’d seen back then was probably living somewhere near this forest, huh?
As I let my mind wander, I bent down and sniffed the grass growing from the ground.
I’d love it if there were some herbs in here.
I carefully checked the mushrooms growing under the trees too.
Somebody had told me that brightly colored ones were poisonous mushrooms.
I should probably take the plainest-looking one— huh?
I felt a warm touch on my tail.
I turned around.
Ever since my body had become that of a monster, people had always panicked and run when they saw me.
But this woman was gently stroking my tail.
It was the first time anything like this had happened.
Should I call it the warmth of a familiar and longed-for person?
Even though her actions were somewhat rude, I simply crouched there and stayed still.
"Um, that’s a poisonous mushroom."
"Huh? Ah, thanks."
A mushroom that looked this ordinary was poisonous?
No, wait a second.
How could I understand what she was saying?
Until now, I hadn’t been able to talk properly with anyone.
"You use such an unusual language. Did you come from far away?"
More importantly, what was this woman doing, speaking so calmly to a monster?
Was she used to situations like this?
As far as I knew, I’d never seen any monster other than myself speak Korean.
It was a moment I’d longed for so desperately, but now that it had come so suddenly, I was too stunned to react.
"Can you actually understand me…?"
"Yes. Is there some problem?"
"How can you understand me?"
The woman smiled faintly.
"I’ve got better hearing than most people."
"That doesn’t make any sense…."
"I was just born that way. Other than that, I’m nothing special— just an ordinary person. Please don’t worry about it."
She was an unusual person.
The most unusual one I’d ever met, in fact.
"You’re not afraid of me?"
"Me? Why would I be?"
"Everyone else runs away the moment they see me."
No one was supposed to look at a black-scaled monster bigger than an elephant and feel nothing but fear.
Even other monsters got scared when they saw me, so her reaction must have seemed incredibly strange.
By human standards, she was a beautiful woman.
She wore a white blouse with a green skirt, and she looked like a chrysanthemum with the sweet scent of flowers.
Her golden hair caught the sunlight as she twisted it around her fingers, and she smiled shyly.
"Should I be afraid because you look scary?"
"You can tell at a glance, can’t you? Even I think I look huge and terrifying…."
"I’m sorry. I can’t see what you look like."
She lifted a slender finger and pointed to her eyes.
"I’m blind."
So that was why she’d kept her eyes closed all this time.
Because she couldn’t see.
Well, I didn’t know what to say.
Even though the atmosphere had suddenly gone quiet, she kept smiling.
"I think it’s actually better this way. Because I’m blind, I can talk to you without being scared, can’t I?"
"Still, wasn’t my voice too loud? And my tail—you touched it just now. I don’t exactly seem human, do I?"
No matter what, she couldn’t have thought of me as a normal person.
"Even if I can’t see with my eyes, I can see something more valuable than that."
"What’s that?"
"The heart."
She pointed toward the path I’d walked down.
Chrysanthemums, much like the color of her hair, were swaying in the breeze.
"You’d been walking carefully so you wouldn’t step on the flowers."
"That’s just because I could see them…."
Hadn’t she just said she couldn’t see?
How did she know that too?
"Even so. There are so many people who see flowers and just step on them anyway."
"Thanks for seeing me in a good light."
Ahem. I cleared my throat.
"My name is Lucy. What about you?"
A name, huh. I could have given her the name I’d had when I was human, but I didn’t want to.
No matter how much of a human heart I still had, I believed a monster should have a monster’s name.
But the biggest reason was simpler than that: the life attached to that name had already ended.
Calling the name of a life that had already passed felt like something only a walking corpse would do.
Even if it’s a little difficult, I’m still doing my best to live in this monster’s body.
"I still don’t have a name. Just call me whatever feels right."
"Then would it be all right if I just called you friend? I’d like to get along with you."
"Sure, Lucy."
"All right, friend."
Lucy held out her hand.
And I held out mine too.
My hand was far too big for a proper handshake, so instead we simply pressed our palms together and shook them up and down.
Lucy hesitated for a moment.
"What’s wrong?"
"Oh, nothing. What were you doing, friend?"
"I was looking for things to go with the meat."
"…Can friend eat poisonous mushrooms too?"
"I’m not sure, but I’m not exactly eager to test it."
Lucy placed the backpack she’d been carrying on my hand.
Inside were fresh vegetables, fragrant herbs, and mushrooms.
"These go well with meat. If you season and age it with salt, it takes away the gamey smell and makes the meat more tender. Oh, I have some rock salt at home too— should I give you that as well?"
"That would be amazing, but weren’t you the one who worked hard to gather it? Is it really okay to take it for free?"
"Of course. We’re friends, aren’t we? And besides, I’ve already gotten my payment from my friend."
Lucy was kind.
So dazzlingly kind it was almost like sunlight.
For her to be this gentle to a monster she’d just met, my withered sense of faith in humanity began to swell back up.
"Hah… the world is still warm after all…."
"I’m glad you’re happy."
After receiving the fresh ingredients and rock salt from Lucy, I moved back to the riverbank where the meat was hanging.
For the first time in a long while, my steps felt light.
A delicious bite.
An empty stomach and a pleasant surprise.
Those were the perfect seasonings for bringing out the taste of meat.
"The shackle has eased…."
Lucy confirmed that the sensation of the shackle constricting her painfully around the heart had grown faint.
It had been so long since she’d been able to breathe comfortably that she simply stood in the spot where her friend had left, quietly lingering for a while.
The fresh air entered her lungs.
And she could feel it all without pain.
For Lucy, who had been cursed by high-level mages unlike ordinary people, it was nothing short of a miracle.
When she had held hands with her enormous friend, the pain had eased.
And when her friend had gone away, the pain had slowly begun to return.
Still, that fleeting moment when she’d been able to breathe sweet, easy air was a blessing like rain after a drought.
"Friend is quite a fascinating person in many ways…."
Lucy murmured softly and flexed her right hand open and closed.
Would she be able to hold hands with him again next time?
"Of course, if it wouldn’t be too rude."
Following the path guided by the wind, Lucy headed home.