Visiting the Tiger's Den
Visiting the Tiger's Den
The door was open.
I carefully poked my head in.
A woman with her upper body exposed was lying face down on the floor, gasping for breath.
A young man standing before her nudged her chest with the tip of his foot and spoke.
"You want to get treated like shit again because of this? Should I tell the siljang-nim? That this bitch is shitting blood again?"
"I'm... sorry...!!"
The woman lifted her head in terror and spotted me.
The expression that immediately appeared was hard to decipher.
Despair, fear, worry, guilt.
Those emotions showed through, but I couldn't understand why she'd make that face in this situation.
Anyway, thanks to her, my presence was discovered.
No point in sneaking around anymore.
I stepped boldly inside and asked the young man, who turned to look at me.
"How do you want to die?"
The young man floundered for a moment, then put on a stern expression and scolded me.
"What are you talking about? Get out of here first. This is a place you're not allowed to enter."
He seemed to have misheard my question.
I kindly explained it to him.
"If you want, I'll kill you as slowly as possible. Of course, I'm busy too, so I can't spend forever on it. About three minutes? I can help you savor your death for about that long."
As I spoke, I pointed with my fingertip at the area beneath the woman's chin.
To be precise, I was pointing at the drops of blood that had fallen from there and the small puddle those droplets had formed.
The man stared blankly at the puddle I indicated, then frowned.
"What's with you?"
From the hostile glare he gave me, he seemed to have already caught on.
"Since when were you—"
Aish.
If he finished that sentence, it'd be irrefutable, and I couldn't let that slide...
Unfortunately, I couldn't grant him the time to savor death.
I flicked my finger.
From the puddle of blood, a sharp spike formed.
I rubbed my chin as I watched the long spike pierce through the man's head and embed itself in the ceiling.
'Almost no delay, transformation time roughly 0.1 seconds per meter? Considering the amount of corpse energy consumed, the fuel efficiency...'
It seemed better to use my own blood if possible.
Just the fact that I used someone else's blood cut the efficiency in half.
Oh, right.
This isn't the time to be calculating stuff like that.
I looked at the woman.
Her eyes were wide with shock as she stared up at the young man dangling in the air.
Maybe she had a weak stomach.
I wondered if this was normal since right after my rebirth, the first thing I saw was dogs tearing into human flesh, but apparently not.
I moved my finger to return the blood to its original state.
The man's corpse thudded to the floor, forming a slightly larger puddle.
I took a moment to organize my thoughts.
'What's the best way to say this?'
On the canvas spread in my mind, I drew the connection between the woman's situation and the future I wanted.
I crafted a pleasing line and slowly opened my mouth.
"They say outside, it's normal to start a family. A man and a woman who cherish each other meet, have a child, and work hard to raise that child well. Colleagues and neighbors in the village look upon it favorably and even cheer them on."
I took a step closer to the woman and asked.
"Did you know that?"
I don't know where she was born or how she grew up.
But I could clearly see how she was living now.
So it was bound to work.
"You didn't know, did you?"
I crouched down in front of the woman, who was shedding tears profusely, and whispered.
"Don't worry. Becoming normal is really easy."
Everyone's weakness is desire.
Easy achievement,
A treasure within reach is like a heart protruding from the chest.
I grabbed hold of it and shook it.
"Should I tell you? How you can become normal."
Fortunately, I had enough time.
After making her imagine a peaceful family life with joyful days, I guided her on the path to turn that imagination into reality.
A very easy path.
A shortcut that could be completed with just a few words and a bit of labor.
The only downside was that she wasn't the one opening the door at the end of the path?
'Damn, that door is heavy.'
Back in the jail cell.
Zenon, standing in front of the iron bars, asked.
"Why didn't you say anything?"
Behind him, I could see a man pulling a cart of dog food.
If I answered wrong here, I could end up like that.
I had to prepare everything with utmost care: the lines I'd utter, my tone of voice, the posture and attitude I'd show.
"I told you a few times. I just found out too."
With a sullen face, I lowered my gaze.
After a brief silence, Zenon began his interrogation.
"The magic activated on its own, you say?"
"Yes."
"You didn't even harbor the intention to kill the other person?"
Nod, nod.
"Then what were you thinking?"
"That I had to help eonni..."
"Can you do the same thing now?"
There it was.
The crossroads.
I slowly raised my head.
My gaze turned toward the dogs eating their food.
Human flesh being torn apart with loud chomps.
I stared at it blankly, then deliberately shifted my gaze quickly back to Zenon.
Zenon's eyes twitched.
His hand gripping the staff was full of tension.
Caution,
Fear,
And anticipation.
Reading those barely discernible emotions on his expressionless face, I made my choice.
"I don't know. Should I try it?"
I asked with an innocent face, and the expected answer came back.
"Go ahead."
I stood up.
I approached the iron bars and pointed at the pool of blood collected beneath the dog food.
"That."
Zenon had already turned his body toward it even before I pointed.
I pondered until the very last moment.
While the foreign substance writhing beneath my heart ejected something sticky, and it gathered toward my fingertips, I kept racking my brain over what scene would be best to create.
'If I were Zenon, what would I want to see?'
The moment I found the answer, the path I had to take became clear.
BANG!
A thunderous noise like a gunshot rang out.
Now, what Zenon and I were looking at was no longer the pool of blood.
Long straight lines connecting the floor to the ceiling.
Five blood-red spears stood amidst the dust kicked up by the sonic boom.
I followed Zenon confidently all the way back to the room.
The researchers I encountered on the way back all looked at me with disbelief.
The people already in the room were the same.
Seven in total.
Two of them were the shorty and the old man I'd seen in the morning.
Everyone was clearly tense.
They watched Zenon with serious expressions, like investors who'd dumped their entire fortune into stocks and were waiting for the market to open, then reacted differently the moment they heard his next words.
"There was no rampage."
The six individuals, including the shorty, let out sighs of relief before putting on worried expressions.
The old man and the remaining one couldn't hide their bewilderment.
Some awkwardly smiled and said it was a relief, while others sneaked glances at the old man and broke out in cold sweat.
Zenon didn't seem to care about their reactions.
"I'll move up the schedule. Prepare for the final ceremony as soon as the test subject is replenished."
The shorty's faction glared fiercely at the old man.
The old man gritted his teeth in frustration, then spoke to those following him.
"Let's go. Seems we need to move more urgently."
The old man's people left the room first.
The shorty's faction watched Zenon's mood and filed out one by one.
Once we were alone, Zenon activated the alchemy table.
I waited quietly.
Of course, I expected Zenon to speak first.
But an hour passed, and Zenon's voice never came.
Clatter,
Bubble bubble,
Sizzle.
I couldn't tell when the alchemy would end.
My patience reached its limit.
"Hey."
Even when I called out, there was no response, so I continued with a sulky face.
"Don't you have anything to say to me? Something you're curious about, or something you need to explain?"
Only then did Zenon stop what he was doing.
He even put down the tongs he was holding.
"I have nothing to be curious about from you."
He walked over to the bookshelf, which was always kept firmly locked.
That bookshelf was the only object in this room I hadn't been able to examine.
Zenon grasped the lock hanging on the bookshelf and chanted an incantation.
"Hekete Sera Timer."
A dead language, similar to Latin or Ancient Egyptian in terms of the previous life.
It was strange that he deliberately chanted in a dead language for an incantation used simply to improve concentration.
As soon as the bookshelf opened, Zenon took something out from inside.
It was a thin file.
He handed it to me and added something odd.
"If the experiment is destined to succeed, then I won't have anything to explain either."
Puzzled, I furrowed my brow.
I took the file anyway.
'Is he saying I'll find out when I succeed?'
I tried to interpret the true meaning of what I'd just heard while checking the file's contents.
But I couldn't.
The phrase that caught my eye as soon as I turned the cover.
'Successful Possession Cases: Soul Specificity'
Possession.
Soul.
Even just that was enough to roughly grasp the situation I was in.
I widened my eyes and examined the documents.
Flip, flip.
Twelve pages in total.
All of them were documents recording personal information of 'otherworldly souls' who had been possessed into 'homunculi.'
I blankly stared down at my palms.
Zenon's voice reached me.
"From the start, we couldn't control which soul would be summoned. So there's no need for me to know who you are."
After a brief surge of emotion, a faint excitement flowed from his continuing voice.
"Want to know? What lies at the end of this ordeal?"
I closed the file.
When I lifted my head, my eyes met Zenon's, soaked in madness.