Became a Failed Experimental Subject-Chapter 8: It’s Dangerous

"Go Bongbap, why do you always lend to that guy? What about me?"

"Because you use it for gambling. So, no."

Illegal gambling rings that bet on where a monster alert will go off—

Knowing full well that the man in front of me was always into that shit, I never lent him money.

If I’m going to blow cash on something, I’d rather just order six soft-boiled eggs—still no idea why the hell they’re so expensive—and toss them into my ramen.

Thinking about ramen made my stomach growl, and I swallowed the saliva that was pooling in my mouth.

Come to think of it, if I got into one of those monster appearance betting games myself, wouldn’t I actually be able to make money pretty easily?

When I heighten my senses like this, I can detect a wider range more sensitively than the warning systems can.

But gambling is bad... I’m pretty sure I remember getting my ears chewed off about that when I was a kid.

At that moment, something slipped through my sharpened senses—

A monster was approaching.

"...Mm."

Rough estimate—thirty targets.

The distance was considerable, so there wouldn’t be an alert going off here.

Lately, my detection ability had been improving.

Probably thanks to my monster survival instincts...

After getting seriously worked over by that Hero with the head that looked like it was on fire and being chased for days, my detection seemed to be evolving.

Her name... was it Yoo Anna?

I didn’t think there’d be a Hero that strong out there.

Unlike monsters, who spread their strength through low-frequency waves as a natural aura, Heroes don’t emit that kind of presence. You don’t really know how strong one is until you’ve come face-to-face with them.

How should I put it...

The human core—the heartbeat—is weak.

That’s why monsters who foolishly ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) charge at powerful Heroes end up hunted themselves.

It’s also why I got my ass handed to me by that woman.

No way I could’ve imagined that a human would be able to catch up at such speed and unleash that level of power, one blow after another, like reloading wasn’t even necessary.

As if the act of charging a special ability just didn’t apply to her.

That woman is dangerous.

Getting chased by Yoo Anna is exhausting.

And when I’m exhausted, I need to eat a lot.

To eat a lot, I need a lot of money.

I don’t have any.

Every once in a while, when I’m really desperate, I head to Black Cat Park and help myself to the offerings people leave behind.

But that’s a risky move.

If any of the kids slip up and blurt out that I’m a monster, there’s a chance Heroes lying in wait around the park will descend on me.

Also, I recently learned something new—

When my core is deactivated, it still releases faint pulses that give off a trace of monster presence.

I used to wonder why, whenever a monster appeared and I stayed in human form, they seemed to ignore me at first—only to come for me later.

Turns out, they couldn’t tell if I was human or monster.

That... wasn’t good.

If the monster’s at least Crusher-Class, I probably register as worthless prey.

But if they’re Murder-Class, I give off the aura of something small, easy, edible.

And since my actual strength when I monsterize is Despair-Class, the range of my presence is massive.

A weak and wide-spread presence—

Like the scent of a flimsy monster smeared all over W-City, drawing in Murder-Class bastards again and again.

Because of that, I’ve been constantly facing off against monsters between Murder and Crusher Class.

They start heading toward me, but if they see there are too many humans around, they change course and decide, “Let’s just hit here instead.”

I figured the monsters I sensed just now were the same—

Hiding up in the sky until they caught my scent and started drifting this way.

Lately, I’ve been trying to suppress this faint aura that leaks out—

But it’s harder than controlling raw strength.

It feels kind of like trying to trim your hair in perfectly even vertical lines without stopping once.

An action that, for a monster, feels deeply unnatural.

Because monster instinct isn’t about hiding power—

It’s about revealing it.

So in a way, it makes perfect sense.

Now, with even aura control under practice, I’ve been hiding even more thoroughly than before.

From monsters, from Heroes—

Even though there’ve still been a few times I had to monsterize and got chased down by Heroes,

These days, I’ve learned to hide before they show up.

If I have no choice but to transform, I finish everything I need to do within the time it takes for Heroes to be dispatched.

The time limit: about one minute and thirty seconds.

If I take care of everything in that window and revert to human form, there’s no chance of running into a Hero.

And for most cases, that’s more than enough.

Just like right now.

Shaaaa—!

“U-uwah... W-whoa...”

The monster I sensed earlier was a Murder-Class esper-type: Obsidian Butterfly.

It didn’t have destructive power beyond what was needed to kill humans,

But its evasiveness was such that I couldn’t catch it unless I monsterized.

Among the Murder-Class, it was one of the top-tier tricky ones.

Its razor wings could slice anything they touched on a molecular level—

Also a threat unless I transformed.

Because it flew high above and descended from the sky, the time delay before the alarm kicked in was significant.

Plus, Murder-Class alerts didn’t prompt Hero response as fast.

So I had no choice.

I took care of it myself.

Right now, I was in a modified version of the form I’d used back at the apartment—

A human-sized black panther, but with enhanced stealth and a cluster of black tails,

Resembling some kind of giant feline spirit beast.

Me, attacking the Obsidian Butterfly as it tried to ambush a human from the dark—

Clenching it between my teeth.

And then, with no trace of stealth left, I vanished into the wailing sirens.

That’s all of the Obsidian Butterflies taken care of.

Now I need to run before the Despair-Class siren goes off.

If that alarm starts blaring, Yoo Anna will fly in from anywhere in W-City within one minute and thirty seconds.

If I fought her for real, I might be able to win—

But I really don’t want to fight a monster like that.

Honestly, I just don’t like fighting humans to begin with.

“D...did you help me? Was that... are you... the Black Cat?”

I was about to vanish back into the shadows when the human woman I’d saved held something out toward me—

And I stopped in place.

Ham.

Lately—for some reason—more and more people were handing me ham after I helped them.

From my perspective, it felt like fair payment, so I had no reason to refuse it.

Still... if more people were doing this, maybe some kind of rumor was going around?

“Th-this is...”

“Meow.”

“Kyaaa! Oh my god, oh wow! Wooooow!”

I stepped up, took the ham into my mouth, and vanished again with a scowl at the sound of camera shutters clicking.

After putting enough distance between us, I quietly turned back into a human and savored the ham.

Mm. Free ham. Tastes good.

That aside... I’ve never once transformed into a cat, so why does everyone keep calling me that?

Shouldn’t it be obvious I’m a panther?

Maybe I should try turning into a wolf instead of a cat?

But I like tigers...

And there aren’t really any stealthy monsters that fall under the wolf category anyway.

While I’m in hiding like this, feline-type monsters are just way more convenient.

“Fast.”

Above, in the sky where the siren had died down,

A blinding light rose into the night like a miniature sun.

That was Yoo Anna—

The esper I keep running from.

Yoo Anna looked around as she let out waves of psychic energy,

Then suddenly screamed and grabbed her head in midair like she was about to lose it.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is freёnovelkiss.com.

“Aaaaaargh! He ran again! That damn wildcat bastard!”

“I’m not even a wildcat...”

Still, better than being called a cat.

I peeled off a chunk of meat from the wrapper and chewed on it while getting away from the area—

Then stopped.

A strange sensation crawled over me.

Every hair on my body stood up.

Direction—where the moon was hanging.

Something strong was approaching W-City.

Three of them.

****

#W-City Black Cat♡ #HelpsPeople #MonstersAreFriends!

In the end, the thing I’d been dreading finally started to happen.

Yoo Anna hurled the smartphone in her hand, embedding it deep into the sofa.

Even though the furniture had been specially reinforced to handle a psychic’s strength,

Even though she’d instinctively held back at the last second—

She still couldn’t stop herself from throwing it.

“That damn wildcat motherfucker...!”

This cowardly monster, for whatever twisted reason, was helping people.

For Yoo Anna and the other Heroes—who had already witnessed time and again what becomes of monsters that “save” humans—

There was nothing more disgustingly intolerable.

People...

Even after getting screwed over so many times,

They always convinced themselves it would be different for them, just because they hadn’t personally experienced it.

Monsters? They attack people? But this one’s so sweet? Maybe just not me?

Maybe I’m different. Maybe my fate’s special. Maybe I’m actually a psychic—a monster tamer!

And then they die to a monster.

What’s more irritating than a dangerous monster...

Are the humans who fall for a dangerous monster’s manipulative bullshit.

Some monsters—even seem aware of cameras and the internet—

Interfering with human communication in ways that make it hard not to believe they know exactly what they’re doing.

That makes them all the more dangerous.

And yet, just the fact that the monster takes the form of an animal is enough for most humans to fall straight into the trap of intellectual superiority.

Stupider than the monsters themselves.

#W-City Black Cat♡—

Instead of sounding an alarm about the monster, this tag spread like wildfire as if it were announcing something adorable.

The heart emoji at the end said it all.

It wasn’t unusual for monsters resembling Code Alpha to shrink in size.

Size-shifting monsters were a known type.

But the real problem was that the form had changed from a ferocious beast to something lean and elegant—

A panther.

In the photos uploaded to social media,

The panther had a chunk of ham in its mouth,

Growling and mewling like it really thought it was a cat.

“...Fucking hell.”

Cute, Yoo Anna admitted to herself reflexively,

Almost clicked “Like” without thinking—

Then immediately unliked it again.

Does this monster have some kind of charm ability?

It was a trait found in some monsters.

If so, then this situation was more serious than she had imagined.

Even before monsterization became a phenomenon,

Cats had always held a dangerously powerful allure.

Cat lovers—"cat moms"—would defend them with religious fervor,

Saying things like, “Cats don’t hurt anyone,”

Even as cats devastated ecosystems.

This was no different.

These revolting monster-moms—

If they died, they’d just blame the Heroes anyway.

Honestly, it would be better if the monster attacked a human right now.

Then people might finally reflect on their stupidity and say, “I was an innocent victim. I was deceived by the monster.”

It was utterly disgusting.

But still better than them continuing to protect the thing.

Heroes are supposed to protect humans.

So why the hell did she have to feel stressed because of humans?

Even so—

She would protect them anyway.

It didn’t mean she wasn’t annoyed as hell about it.

“...Yoo Anna. Any trace left behind by Code Alpha at the scene?”

“None. It's getting stealthier.”

“Still no sign of Code Zero?”

“No.”

“...Hmm.”

The only thing that felt like any kind of relief was that Code Zero hadn’t shown up at all.

That fact only further solidified Yoo Anna’s suspicion—

That the two monsters might be the same entity.

The only other possibility would be that Code Alpha had fought and absorbed Code Zero...

But that was impossible.

When Despair-Class monsters clash,

There’s no such thing as a quiet ending.

From the moment the fight begins,

Monsters become erasers that wipe away civilization.

The longer the battle lasts, the more devastating the damage becomes.

So far, both monsters had only been sighted absorbing low-grade ones.

No humans, no destruction—

Which meant they must be starving by now.

A starving monster is strong—

But the longer the fight, the weaker it gets.

If Code Zero really is a separate entity,

Then it either fled after surrendering its territory to Code Alpha,

Or...

Either way, the conclusion remained:

Only one Despair-Class monster was left in W-City.

“At the very least... I guess we should be thankful there’s only one left...”

It had stealth capabilities that made it difficult to confront—

But since it hadn’t attacked a human yet,

She could still say they were lucky.

If she could just confront it once—just once—

She was sure she could take it down this time.

With minimal casualties.

The Despair-Class monster threatening W-City.

That was Yoo Anna’s hopeful assessment.

But that hope didn’t last long.

Just a few days later,

The Despair-Class monster alert sounded in two separate locations in W-City—

Simultaneously.

Two Despair-Class monsters.

And on top of that,

Two Disaster-Class monsters.