Became a Failed Experimental Subject Novel - Chapter 17

I ran into the ground, a sufficient distance away, hearing Yoo Anna’s angry voice fade as I erased my presence. Lately, I’ve been using this method: erasing my presence underground, then taking on human form near a suitable shelter entrance. When the situation ends, people emerge from the shelters, so I can just walk ahead and appear outside, naturally making my escape.

“Hmm, lucky today.”

I never expected there to be a kebab food truck. Despite having transformed into a monster, I had filled my belly heartily and smacked my lips amidst the humans emerging onto the road. People were looking around and murmuring, talking about Yoo Anna and Black Cat.

“She missed it again today? Black Cat… is it okay?”
“No, isn’t Yoo Anna the problem…? Didn’t Yoo Anna, being a top-tier S-Class, come to W-City alone? Other cities have two S-Classes, or something, right?”
“Really important cities sometimes have two or three top-tier S-Classes… It really seems like Yoo Anna alone can’t handle this…”
“Is Yoo Anna too weak to catch a Despair-Class?”

The main topic of their conversation mostly involved questioning Yoo Anna’s strength as an Esper. For those living in the Monster Era, it’s common knowledge that the strongest Esper in W-City, an S-Class Esper, is equivalent to a Despair-Class monster. This had been proven in other cities where S-Class Espers faced Despair-Class monsters alone. So why couldn’t Yoo Anna catch a Despair-Class monster by herself?

Well, because I just keep running away.

Listening to the people’s conversations, I imagined what would happen if I had fought Yoo Anna like ordinary monsters. Monsters can easily sense the strength of other monsters through the core’s resonance, but humans, who don’t feel such things, appear infinitely weak. Unless it’s a highly intelligent monster, wouldn’t it get annoyed at being toyed with by a weaker opponent, charge in more, or mistake them for easy prey, only to die?

Yoo Anna is strong.

As a monster who constantly runs away from her, I can confidently say this.

“Shouldn’t there be an investigation into this? Like, if she got her top-tier S-Class rank through connections…”
“Yoo Anna is quite pretty, isn’t she? Maybe her looks played a part?”
“Do monsters care about human appearances?”
“No, not that monsters care, but the Espers evaluating Yoo Anna might.”
“Wow… how shady, how shady…”
“Hmm…”

Somehow, I felt like I had heard something similar to this when I was younger and it had made me uncomfortable. Ah, it felt similar to the feeling when I put out a car fire, and then heard that the owner filed a complaint demanding I pay for the repairs. Why do people criticize those who try to protect them?

“But seriously, isn’t Black Cat really strange? Why are the buildings always so intact?”
“Maybe it’s not a Despair-Class?”
“What do you mean intact? It just stuck weird things between the buildings again.”
“Hey, we have one of those in our building too; it’s got a pipe stuck in it and made a passage to the next building. People use it to talk and hang out during lunchtime.”
“What Despair-Class goes around doing things like that… It really might not be a Despair-Class, might it?”

The answer was, it was because of me. Because I was doing things so uncharacteristic of a Despair-Class monster, it seemed to people that Yoo Anna was lying. Either she had exaggerated a weak monster as a Despair-Class, or Yoo Anna’s skills were exaggerated. Once they suspected a lie, everything seemed like a lie. But I couldn’t let Yoo Anna catch me, nor could I kill her. Listening to people’s conversations, I felt a little sorry that Yoo Anna’s public image was so bad lately, and it seemed to be my fault.

“Hmm… Yoo Anna doesn’t seem that weak, though.”
“Huh? What’s that? Are you a Yoo Anna fan?”
“Hmm… no.”

I tried to subtly take Yoo Anna’s side for a moment, then immediately gave up. Declaring myself a fan of Yoo Anna to people who were already determined to criticize her was foolish. I am not such a foolish monster. Well… wouldn’t this problem naturally resolve itself when a Despair-Class monster eventually comes to W-City? There’s nothing a monster can do for an Esper. Yoo Anna just has to wait for her time to come. And that day, unexpectedly, arrived not long after.
***

Yoo Anna’s Frustration
[Shouldn’t Yoo Anna really have her Esper evaluation redone?]
[Seriously, there’s an Esper who’s supposed to be on par with a Despair-Class but misses it 22 times?]
[She missed it again today, so now it’s 23 times.]
[Thank you, Black Cat-nim, for surviving again today.]

“Haaah…”

Yoo Anna, who had once again missed Black Cat right before her eyes, sighed, checking her utterly ruined public image. Yoo Anna herself had no words to say to the citizens.
[Is the Esper ranking trustworthy?]
[Do you think the government is a joke?]
[They don’t even show us Esper combat footage, so how do we know if Yoo Anna is really a S-Class Esper?]

However, Yoo Anna was also incredibly frustrated. Who were these people demanding a re-evaluation? She had already defeated a previous Despair-Class monster. In the end, if she couldn’t catch Black Cat, wouldn’t they just say that monster wasn’t Despair-Class either? She couldn’t understand why people were making such a fuss over this. Dangerous monsters, monsters that had caused so many casualties, were being treated like tools for an Esper’s power struggle. Anyway, wasn’t the important thing that she was striving to defeat a dangerous monster?

I don’t need to worry about this, I just need to do my job well.

Even thinking that, Yoo Anna found it hard to cope with the accumulating stress. Black Cat was getting faster and faster. It was still a bit slower than her, which was why it was only this bad. If it got faster… what would she hear then? She even had the foolish thought of wishing Black Cat was another Despair-Class monster and blamed herself for not being able to catch it.

“No, I can get faster too… I just need to get stronger, even stronger…”

The unusual entity, Black Cat, was growing frighteningly fast compared to other monsters. To catch such a Black Cat, Yoo Anna had no choice but to get stronger herself. And ironically, Yoo Anna was feeling her powers becoming more refined as she chased Black Cat. Constantly dealing with a peer-level opponent and trying various methods to catch the elusive Black Cat, she naturally honed her superpower. What if I try this? What if I try that? Like practicing… Unlike other monsters that rapidly increase damage if not dealt with quickly, Black Cat caused almost zero damage, giving her many opportunities to test different ideas.

So, Yoo Anna could definitely catch Black Cat.

…Someday.

When that day would be, she didn’t know herself.

“Haaah… Yes… this is Yoo Anna, the Esper who can’t catch a Despair-Class monster… What is it?”

Sighing weakly at the ringing, Yoo Anna, lying exhausted on the sofa, answered the call. And then, startled, she sprang up from her seat.

“…A Despair-Class monster that escaped from City A is coming?”
***
Mirage, the New Threat
The Despair-Class monster that escaped from City A, Mirage. The characteristics of the Despair-Class monster that Yoo Anna received from City A were remarkably similar to Black Cat’s. A monster that constantly changed its form, preferred to flee from combat if possible, and would vanish the moment you looked away.

“Is there a possibility that it’s the same lineage of monster as Black Cat?”
“It’s possible, but Mirage might be a higher-tier entity.”
“Why?”
“The scale of casualties is too different.”

Mirage, it was said, would scatter a dense, mist-like substance the moment it appeared, enchanting humans. All enchanted humans would die, approaching Mirage willingly and offering their lives. This too, at first glance, seemed similar to Black Cat’s characteristic of enchanting humans with its cute appearance… Yoo Anna recalled Black Cat’s appearance and thought that they might indeed be the same species.

“And this video… is said to be the reason why this monster’s code is Mirage.”

A staff member from W-City’s Monster Countermeasures Department played the video delivered from City A in front of everyone. A man in black steel armor, one of City A’s S-Class Espers, Esper Name “Cage”, using his superpower, Iron Fortress, to confront Mirage. His superpower was the ability to deploy strong, fixed barriers wherever he wished. Those barriers were already famous for creating prisons that even Despair-Class monsters couldn’t escape. Cage would trap monsters in one place to prevent their escape, then hunt them down by slowly whittling them away. The “Ring” tactic currently used by Espers was modeled after that man. The number of Despair-Class monsters he had caught so far, suppressing powerful monsters with minimal damage, reached double digits.

“This is…”

Mirage, a monster in the form of a dragon, was clearly trapped within the Esper’s barrier. It vanished like mist in an instant, reappearing outside the barrier. It took the form of a giant fox with a long body. When Cage rushed to trap it again, it transformed into a large butterfly and flew into the sky.

It really was similar to Black Cat. Both chose to flee rather than fight strong Espers until the end, and both made it difficult to respond by changing forms. If the two were of the same lineage, a major incident could occur.

“Should we build a Ring again this time and make the Despair-Class monsters clash?”
“Given that Black Cat has already defeated one Despair-Class monster, it seems quite strong even among Despair-Class monsters, so Black Cat might even hunt this Despair-Class monster.”

The Espers spoke as if it were natural for Black Cat to hunt monsters. W-City was already Black Cat’s territory. For some reason, Black Cat didn’t properly fight Espers, but it hunted monsters extensively. Lately, Black Cat could even be said to be the monster that had hunted the most monsters in W-City. For such a Black Cat, another Despair-Class monster would feel like a strong monster invading its territory. For monsters of Disaster-Class or higher, where the concept of territory is strong, leaving an intruder in their territory unaddressed was unthinkable. That was why they had made the wolf monster and Black Cat clash last time, wasn’t it?

However, Yoo Anna judged that using the same strategy this time was dangerous.

“…No, that would be dangerous. If they are of the same lineage, a major incident could occur.”
“Are you saying Mirage and Black Cat might team up?”

Monsters have a characteristic of not being hostile to each other and forming cooperative relationships the closer they are in species. Just like the previously appearing wolf monster, if Black Cat and Mirage were to team up… although Black Cat was an unusual monster that caused little human casualties, a monster is still a monster. It was highly likely that Black Cat would try to protect Mirage. Furthermore… if they were truly monsters of the same species, very rarely, a monster could even give birth to offspring. If the two were truly monsters of the same species, and if its escape to W-City happened to be because it sensed Black Cat’s presence from afar and was seeking protection.

They had to eliminate Mirage quickly before it met Black Cat.

“Issue a full evacuation order for W-City. All Espers gather and stand by. Whatever damage is incurred… we must eliminate Mirage before it reaches Black Cat.”

At this moment, W-City’s priority target shifted from Black Cat to Mirage. To avoid the worst-case scenario.