Became a Failed Experimental Subject Novel - Chapter 22

[But what if Black Cat gets angry because of this and starts attacking people? Won’t W-City explode?]

Yoo Anna sighed, seeing a comment that mirrored her own worries. This was her biggest concern, especially after acknowledging that Black Cat deliberately avoided attacking humans. Yoo Anna had consistently failed to capture Black Cat. What if Black Cat truly went berserk? If it ceased its unusual behavior, fully antagonized humans, and began to rampage, W-City would be doomed. She had felt this truth even more acutely today, chasing Black Cat as it destroyed buildings.

“Ahhh… seriously, these people who don’t even know what they’re doing…”

If Black Cat were to fight Yoo Anna head-on, if they both fought to kill, Yoo Anna would win. Or, if Yoo Anna fought by completely unleashing her powers, destroying the entire city to pursue Black Cat wherever it hid… then she was confident she could catch it. If W-City as a whole was sacrificed, Black Cat could be eliminated. But for now, that was a last resort, a choice to be made only if Black Cat started rampaging. The current Black Cat was, in a way, an anomalous monster that benefited Espers and W-City, almost a provisional Esper. So, the situation was at a stalemate. Why were third parties provoking Black Cat? If they really wanted to catch it, and couldn’t, why not send an S-Class Esper?

Well, that would absolutely never happen. An S-Class Esper is a city’s ultimate weapon. In an age before monsters appeared, it would be like a city possessing a mobile nuclear weapon. No city in this era would carelessly leak its means of protecting itself from monsters. Unless a truly powerful monster, even an Extinction-Class, appeared… or very rarely, if a powerful Despair-Class was deemed necessary to eliminate before becoming Extinction-Class, S-Class support might be sent. But Black Cat was a unique entity that didn’t easily attack humans. Some large cities, with two or three S-Class Espers, might have the room to send one, but Black Cat’s danger level was very low for a Despair-Class. Sending an S-Class Esper to catch something like this would be foolish.

For now, this stalemate would continue as long as outsiders from other cities didn’t provoke Black Cat. Thinking so, Yoo Anna scrolled through the community’s reactions, then frowned at a foolish post.

[A-City’s S-Class Esper Cage announces he will come to W-City to help capture Black Cat.]

“…Huh?”

What kind of ridiculous joke is this? Are community users writing strange fantasy posts again? But then, articles with the same content began to flood in. A short while later, the same story broke on the news, complete with an interview with S-Class Esper, Cage himself.

[Citizens of W-City, who are trembling in fear of monsters, please be at ease. I, Cage, have decided to eliminate the monster threatening your safety, Black Cat.]

Yoo Anna listened to the blonde, handsome Cage’s interview on TV, a sour expression on her face. It seemed W-City was about to get even more troublesome.
***

Cage’s Arrival and Condescending Demeanor

A few days after A-City’s S-Class Esper, Cage, announced his intention to hunt Black Cat, he arrived in W-City as promised, bringing his subordinate Espers. As he stepped off the train, numerous camera flashes erupted, and crowds cheered, excited to see A-City’s rare S-Class Esper.

“Wow! Iron Fortress! Iron Fortress!”
“Esper Cage! Please look here!”

Cage waved his hand in a polite manner, then shook hands with Starlight, who had come to greet him in W-City, before boarding a limousine. Inside the car, Yoo Anna, seated with Cage’s two close aides, slumped into her seat and crossed her legs. Seeing her, Cage’s smile vanished, and he spoke in a cold voice, unlike the one he used for the cameras.

“The citizens of W-City seem to be nothing but foolish pigs, oink, oink… Unlike A-City, they lack dignity, utterly noisy.”
“Tsk.”

Well, of course, he’s still the same, Yoo Anna clicked her tongue, her displeasure evident. Contrary to public perception, this was Cage’s true character. A severe Esper supremacist, a man entirely wrapped in an overwhelming sense of superiority, as strong as his potent abilities.

“Long time no see, Yoo Anna. They call you Starlight, don’t they?”
“Yeah, long time no see, Jung Ho-young.”

Cage, or Jung Ho-young, surveyed Yoo Anna’s body up and down, then snapped his fingers at the woman sitting next to him. The woman took a cigarette from her pocket and placed it in Cage’s mouth, and the woman on the opposite side lit it. Smoking was prohibited in the car, but knowing Cage wouldn’t heed such rules, Yoo Anna frowned and opened the window.

“I thought you might have gotten stronger after hearing you defeated Mirage, but you haven’t become that strong… As expected, you dealt with a weakened Despair-Class monster that was already exhausted from fighting another monster in this city, didn’t you? How cowardly.”
“What does that matter?”

Yoo Anna genuinely didn’t understand why fighting two Despair-Class monsters against each other before catching one was considered cowardly, and she asked him directly. More importantly, pitting monster against monster was a strategy Cage himself had pioneered. For the person who had used his ‘Iron Fortress’ ability to trap two monsters and then eliminated the survivor to say such a thing, she couldn’t fathom his thought process.

“It matters. You didn’t reveal that fact to the public, and you announced it as if you dealt with it solely by your own power.”

At Cage’s explanation, which cleared up her confusion, Yoo Anna’s expression soured further. “Thanks to that, the people of A-City are spouting annoying nonsense, aren’t they? Saying things like, ‘Am I, Cage, weaker than Starlight?'”

“Are you telling me you came to W-City for such a childish game?”
“I never liked the fact that you, of all people, were rated at the same upper-mid S-Class level as me from the beginning. You, who couldn’t even move against me in the exam.”
“I really have nothing to say.”

As Cage said, Yoo Anna had suffered a crushing defeat against him in the Esper exam. Cage possessed abilities specialized in defense, while Yoo Anna’s were specialized in attack and pursuit. His combat style of trapping opponents in small spaces and slowly wearing them down was completely antithetical to Yoo Anna’s, and even if she attacked, it was impossible for Yoo Anna to break through Cage’s defenses. However, when dealing with monsters, Cage and Yoo Anna’s performance records were identical.

Cage’s Arrogance and Yoo Anna’s Burden
Combat between Esper and Esper, and monster and Esper, are completely different. That’s why they were rated at the same level, but he didn’t like that?

“I’ve heard the rumors. You still haven’t caught W-City’s Despair-Class monster… If I catch that one, everyone will clearly see who is superior between us.”
“Catching monsters isn’t about showing off who’s better.”
“Of course I know that, it’s about making the environment comfortable for the non-adapted, isn’t it?”
“Why don’t you refrain from hate speech?”
“Oh, was ‘failures’ more appropriate? ‘Deteriorated’? ‘Unchosen losers,’ ‘poor lambs to be led by superhumans’?”
“Ugh.”

Yoo Anna was disgusted by the blatant Esper supremacist remarks. In this era, where monsters had appeared and supernatural abilities emerged, many Espers shared Cage’s sentiments. Among them, some even became villains, believing it was absurd for them, as superpowered individuals, to take orders from ordinary humans, living solely for their own desires. However, while Cage’s ideology bordered on villainy, his unique, overwhelming sense of superiority kept him as an Esper. It was a philosophy of enlightened rule, where the superior must lead the inferior, and an ironic pride that demanded he always display the desired and admired image before them. Therefore, Yoo Anna couldn’t criticize Cage, who acted as a perfect Esper. Despite his words, he was an Esper who truly strived to minimize harm to people.

Cage was typically magnanimous, shrugging off insults from non-awakened individuals as simply “inferior beings saying inferior things,” but it seemed he couldn’t tolerate being compared to another Esper.

“I’ve already read all the information about Black Cat. With mere abilities like that, it cannot escape my Iron Fortress.”

Cage clenched his fist with a confident expression. When his hand reopened, a cubic shape hovered within it.

“Isn’t this a good opportunity? An opportunity for me to prove that I am superior to you.”
“Ah, yes… whatever you say…”

Yoo Anna, who didn’t care about such things, waved her hand dismissively and looked out the window. Now that he was here, Cage confronting Black Cat was a foregone conclusion. Could Cage truly catch Black Cat? One thing was certain: Black Cat would not be able to escape Cage. Even if they fought, Cage’s abilities could minimize the damage. Black Cat was a monster… an enemy of humanity that Espers must eliminate.

“Haa…”

Yoo Anna sighed, feeling that she would be busy again once Black Cat was hunted down. It was a thought an Esper shouldn’t have, but she felt a slight regret that Black Cat would be caught.
***

The Alarms Ring On: A Lingering Threat

I put down the vending machine I had lifted to pick up coins that had fallen into a gap, hearing a distant sound. A monster alarm, quite far away, and loud sirens blaring. The rank, again, was probably around Lethal-Class… Well, an Esper would probably come and deal with it. Now that W-City had two S-Class Espers, I wouldn’t need to move. Lately, I had been stressed by Espers constantly trying to capture me, so I was ignoring monster alarms as much as possible. Moreover, according to news I’d heard, an S-Class Esper from A-City named Cage had come to W-City to catch me. With two S-Class Espers, they’d handle everything themselves, and if both of them came at me, I probably wouldn’t be able to escape anyway, so why would I need to rush into danger?

So, I ignored it. The Espers would take care of the monsters. As I continued to ignore the alarms, there were more and more of them. More accurately, the monster alarms seemed to persist for too long. It should have been enough time for the monsters to be dealt with, yet the alarms kept blaring. Yoo Anna didn’t seem to be coming out, either. Were the Espers busy? I wasn’t hunting monsters myself, and Yoo Anna seemed to be waiting, perhaps with some plan involving the other S-Class Esper.

Then, as more time passed, alarms began to sound from all over W-City. This time, the monsters’ infrasound was even detectable, indicating that powerful monsters were appearing. The presence of monsters could be felt everywhere, seemingly three Disaster-Class ones. It was very rare for three Disaster-Class monsters to appear simultaneously, but since I had been continuously hunting other monsters and then disappearing, these Disaster-Class monsters might perceive this area as territory whose owner was absent. At this point, an S-Class Esper would surely appear… but the presence of monsters did not cease.

“…What are they doing?”