Breaking the Eggshell (Eggshell Destruction)
Breaking the Eggshell (Eggshell Destruction)
The fish was chopped into pieces.
Hwodudeuk, among the falling fish chunks, I picked up one head and held it out to the woman.
"It's easier to grill this way, right?"
There shouldn't be any mistakes now.
I stood up and looked down at the dagger in my hand.
'No matter how I think about it, sharpness isn't the issue.'
Before escaping the laboratory.
To check Hati's durability, I had cut her neck with a sharper sword than this.
But not a single scratch remained on Hati's skin.
I stared blankly back at Hati.
Hati tilted her head, then slowly approached me and reached out her hand.
I took her hand.
I roughly knew why Hati kept showing favor toward me—from reading Zenon's research notes.
'She says she smells a kindred spirit... but why is her specs so different from mine?'
Still, this situation worked in my favor.
Rather than a comrade who makes arbitrary decisions with mediocre intelligence, it's easier to coordinate with a loyal hound that moves by ingrained instinct.
So for now, I put off studying Hati.
"Come down when you're done eating."
I grabbed the bag placed behind the woman and ran out of the cave.
Outside the cave was a cliff.
My body, propelled about three meters into the air by inertia, experienced a moment of weightlessness.
'How should I fly?'
Two options:
[Float by manipulating all the flowing blood.]
[Modify my body into a form capable of flight.]
The sea surface approached faster than I expected.
'I should have decided before jumping.'
Regretfully, I gently tore the skin near my shoulder blade.
From there, I created wings using the blood that burst out.
Since making feathers would require too much effort, I modeled the shape after a bat's wing.
Peolleok
My body jolted once, as if a parachute had deployed.
My brain, far younger and more intelligent than the one from my previous life, precisely read the rough sea breeze and quickly calculated how to move the wings to glide all the way to the white sand beach.
It was an interesting experience.
When I had a fragile human body, I couldn't even enjoy amusement rides properly because I felt uneasy, but now I was even conducting fall experiments using my own flesh.
A question suddenly arose.
'Does this phenomenon support the claim that the body is a prison for the soul, or the claim that the neural network of the brain is itself the mind and soul?'
Perhaps it could be both.
Pudeodeok
I folded my wings.
Sagak
When I set foot on the soft sand, a creature that seemed to be the master of this land came out to greet me.
A material that the Department of Genesis researchers always considered using when creating chimeras, but never adopted because it was too expensive.
The monster 'Ehusyka'
It was a horse with disproportionately large forelegs and blue scales covering its skin.
Of course, calling it a 'horse' was just a description used in the encyclopedia for this monster's appearance.
This creature's characteristics were closer to a sea serpent than a land animal.
'As long as I watch out for its venom, should be fine?'
In my heart, I wanted to let myself be stung right away and test whether my body could withstand the deadly venom of a 'Class 3 Hazard monster.'
But my soul was still trapped in a prison.
A prison far larger and sturdier than the one from my previous life, but still an unknown prison whose durability I couldn't yet ascertain.
Since it was a prison I had grown rather attached to, I wanted to be cautious about durability tests.
The monster, which had been standing still, took a step forward with its foreleg.
I was about to shed tears of blood, but changed my mind.
'Still, it's a Class 3 monster. I should run the experiments I can.'
I manipulated the blood flowing inside my body and tore open the skin of my palm in a long gash.
Blood with lower viscosity and a brighter color than when expelled through the eyes spilled out in a stream.
I tried moving the blood that had fallen onto the white sand, staining it red, with fine control.
'Looks like it works?'
The first experiment was a success.
Like cement in concrete, I could use the blood as an adhesive to coagulate a large amount of sand.
I intended to measure the strength of the coagulated sand like this.
But a more pressing matter caught my attention.
Ehusyka, walking slowly.
I recognized it easily because there was no fat layer in its massive forelegs.
'Why is it so relaxed?'
The rippling muscles reflected the creature's carefree disposition.
Even in the breath it exhaled after coming right in front of me, I sensed not a hint of wariness.
"Pseusseusseu"
The creature shook its head, snorted, and began circling around me.
Thanks to that, I was startled when I saw its mane.
'It's not fur.'
They were very thin snakes.
Come to think of it, the encyclopedia had this description.
'There is a period when it sheds its fur and becomes sluggish. Subjugation is easier during this time, but caution is required as monster numbers surge around its habitat. Some speculate that the increased monsters gather to protect the weakened Ehusyka.'
An interesting hypothesis came to mind.
'Could that fur actually be its young?'
More precisely, snakes that look like fur.
Just like the young of wolf spiders, if those were juveniles waiting to leave the nest, then the temporary shedding of Ehusyka's fur could be interpreted as the period when the young become independent.
If so, then the monsters that supposedly surge in numbers would be hunters gathering to prey on the newly independent juveniles—exactly the opposite of the hypothesis in the encyclopedia, which was interesting.
'Which side is the truth, I wonder.'
After circling a couple of times, I reached out my hand toward Ehusyka, which had stopped in front of me.
'Should I take it and raise it?'
The moment greed arose.
"Pseusseusseu!!!"
Ehusyka ducked its head to avoid my hand and hopped up.
It wasn't an attack.
The ground caved in immediately upon its landing.
With a splashing sound, Ehusyka splattered the sand that had turned liquid in all directions, and vanished completely beneath the surface.
At the same time, the undulating sand returned to solid form, creating a small ridge.
Pasasasak
A temporary trait change.
Although Ehusyka had hidden itself, I could clearly sense its presence.
The creature flowed down to a deep underground cave and then traveled farther away, carried by the groundwater there.
Ehusyka was too fast for me to try following.
I wanted to test this body's mobility only when safety was assured, and since Hati and I had bodies that looked too much like children, I couldn't abandon the woman for camouflage purposes.
In any case, this was just the beginning.
I was satisfied that the messenger of this new world, with which I had finally formally exchanged greetings, was a subject of study with more mystery than expected.
I sat down on the soft sand, planting my rear.
I took a book out of the bag and opened it.
The book's title was 'Rehingel Travelogue'.
The content was similar to a tourist guidebook.
First came a map, then illustrations of landmarks, along with descriptions of places the author had visited.
Unlike a guidebook, it introduced regions following the author's travel route, so the order and length were arbitrary.
For me, that part was actually good.
'Oh ho. So there was an abandoned factory here.'
This book included terrain that would never be featured in a real guidebook.
One of them was an abandoned factory zone near Brighton City.
According to the materials I saw in the accounting office, just a few years ago, this was the largest hunting ground for supplying guinea pigs.
What was strange was that this book was published even earlier—eight years ago.
'Whether then or now, it's still an abandoned factory. Why did they suddenly change the supply source?'
Just as I was about to speculate, a heavy object landed right beside me.
Sand flew up like bullets.
I squeezed my eyes shut to remove the sand stuck to my eyeballs.
I sighed and said as if scolding.
"Hati. When you land over there, dust splashes this way."
I opened my eyes and looked to the side to see Hati tilting her head.
I wasn't happy with her landing spot, but I felt satisfaction that she had come down alone without the woman.
'So she only interacts with me.'
Just as I expected.
I stood up and tore the skin on my back.
I spread my wings and held out my palm to Hati, signaling her not to follow.
Even for a child's weight, moving easily required fairly large wings.
A full two meters per wing.
If anyone saw me, they'd think a pterosaur had appeared.
The woman, who had been fidgeting as she looked down from the cliff, stiffened the moment she spotted me.
'Does she feel like she's seeing a demon instead of a pterosaur?'
I'm supposed to look like a cute girl, but the bright red wings' effect must have been too strong.
Thanks to that, it was easy to move her.
Like a cat carrying its kitten, I grabbed the nape of the woman, who was frozen still, and flew down to the white sand beach.
Only after being dropped onto the sand did the woman come to her senses and call me by a bizarre title.
"Um... well... D-Demon Lord-nim..."
I sighed and made a request.
"Please wait a moment."
Title,
The tone she should use when addressing me from now on,
How she should introduce Hati and me in front of others, and so on,
It was annoying to explain everything one by one with words.
I tore a page from my notebook and wrote a manual.
'I should change her name too.'
After a brief thought, I scrawled down the woman's name first.
'Helsi'
It was a name chosen because I remembered that she had surprisingly good stamina.
At the point when the three distinctive individuals had decided on their next destination on a beach in Rehingel.
It was an event at a historic night market that could only be reached by crossing a rough sea, passing through fertile plains, and entering the heart of a barren wilderness.
If a scientist from another world had seen it, they would have thought the merchants of the Silk Road era were gathered in a luxurious mansion discussing business.
A courtyard planted with abundant date palm trees.
A fountain spewing clear water in its center.
A splendid carpet spread over white marble, and elegantly dressed people seated around it.
The appearance of the woman just entering the courtyard suited the background perfectly.
Her brown skin radiated health.
Her hair shimmered with a fresh green tint.
A mysterious ceremonial robe typical of desert tribes, made from orange fabric.
Capturing everyone's attention with her mere appearance, she opened her mouth with an indifferent expression.
"You've all already heard, I'm sure."
Everyone seated on the carpet anticipated her next words.
"Zenon is dead."
But no one expected the news appended immediately after.
"And Heta's Pupil has awakened."
Everyone's eyes shot open, and as a fat man who seemed to be a wealthy magnate jumped to his feet,
"We must find it."
The woman commanded everyone.
"Find out right now. Just what Zenon created."