Became a Failed Experimental Subject Novel - Chapter 37

“Hmm.”

CRASH! BOOM! CRASH! Amidst the deafening explosions that shook heaven and earth, I, having fully healed the wound on my stomach, got out of bed and stretched.

Sniff, sniff. Recognizing a familiar scent, I went to the elevator and crumpled the iron door open with my hand. Inside was the necklace, the purpose of my visit here.

I put the necklace around my wrist and opened the refrigerator.

The refrigerator was full of severed human limbs and alcohol.

Finding a cola inside, I approached the broken window and sat down.

Outside the shattered window, Starlight and Goo Seoryong were fighting intensely.

Naturally, I thought Starlight would win, but as I saw Starlight gradually being pushed back, I drank my cola.

She’s not performing at her best.

My gaze naturally turned to the people filling the apartment building.

People, ecstatic from having heavily ingested stimulants, filled the apartment with feelings of pleasure and joy.

Whether chasing me or other monsters, Starlight never fully unleashed her psionic energy until all the people were safely in shelters.

Even if they were drugged, they were still people, being an Esper must protect.

It was the right action for an Esper, but seeing Starlight unilaterally taking a beating made me wonder if it was truly right.

Still, killing innocent humans wasn’t something I was particularly keen on either.

But, the ones here are bad guys, is it really okay even if they haven’t done anything wrong?

Even if they’ve done bad things, humans are humans, and that applies to villains too.

Humans are animals.

The structure of the strong preying on the weak, where the strong exploit the weak, is also the law of nature; it is not wrong.

The monster’s instinct says that the strong feed on the weak.

Humans are prey; eating a strong Esper makes one even stronger.

A sense of familiarity toward Goo Seoryong, a monster from the same research lab. If I teamed up with Goo Seoryong to kill Starlight, I could eliminate the threat to me.

The smell of gunpowder and blood, stimulants lingering in the air.

My monster core throbbed, inciting an urge to destroy.

The more I watched Goo Seoryong overpower Starlight, the more alluring she seemed, as if I had received a rich courtship.

Starlight was a strong rival; Goo Seoryong, who overpowered her, was an attractive female.

Ther nest was very comfortable; everything I desired was within reach.

Settle down, monster, CXI, experimental subject, follow your monster instincts.

GULP, GULP. I gulped down the cola, then crushed the empty can with both hands, forming it into a marble-sized ball.

Should I really quit that ‘mind something’ thing? It’s less effective than drinking a can of cola anyway.

As I rolled the plastic ball in my hand, my monster instincts were completely suppressed.

Then, Starlight fell from the air.

A long, trailing arc; the sight of starlight falling brought a fleeting, hazy memory from childhood.

[Do you… want to look, over there, in the sky?]

In my memory, I was looking up at a sky full of stars.

Next to me, someone else, who was also looking up at the sky, called those who did what had to be done “Heroes.”

And my hero became a star in childhood.

[They… must be watching, from over there.]

That day, I kept staring at the stars until late at night, wondering if they were really watching me.

If they really were watching, I wished they would at least wave a hand.

[Ah.]

Late at night, a star flew across the sky in a long streak.

Just like when they ran far away, dressed in glowing red and yellow, just like then.

They were there.

[Huff… huff….]

Starlight, falling to the ground and stumbling, curled up, gathering strength, and talking to Goo Seoryong.

[Because someone has to do it.]

The moment I heard those words, I couldn’t help but laugh.

A star is something that shines in the sky.

I looked down at the starlight on the ground slowly fading, then stepped out of the window and underwent monsterification.

[Oooooooooh!]

The drugged humans woke from their excitement and looked at me.

On the rooftop above the apartment, filled with deep human fear, I opened my mouth and activated my monster core to its maximum, sending Goo Seoryong’s urgent wave spreading across the night sky.

Ignoring the warning wave to stop, I fired a beam of destruction towards the ground.

“Kyaaaah!”
“Aaaargh! R-run!”
“What, why Black Cat! Aaaargh!”

PING, PING, PING! Goo Seoryong, targeted by a single beam, leaped backward repeatedly, then the massively swollen beam pursued her, exploding outward.

BOOOOOOM! People caught in the shockwave of the explosion screamed and began to flee, and I generated an infrasound vibration, expanding the terror once more.

[Oooooooooh!]

“R-run! Ruuuun!”
“We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die! We’re gonna die!”
“Help me! Aaaargh!”

As if an earthquake had struck, the apartment building itself began to shake, and human confusion reached its peak.

Seeing the humans flee, I changed my form, unleashing the psionic ability of a phoenix.

As I spread my wings of red flame, an orange ceiling appeared in the night sky, and a rain of fire began to fall.

Terrified by the gracefully falling flames, the humans ran on the asphalt, even without clothes, while the villains unleashed their psionic abilities of storms and ice mist towards the sky to buy time.

In the center of Gyuryong Fortress, where the exciting music had disappeared, I plunged through the smoke of pure white concrete and landed in front of the listlessly sitting Starlight.

“Ha…! What in the world are you doing!”

With an annoyed voice, Goo Seoryong, highly wary of me, pushed through the smoke and approached. I, with Starlight behind me, calmly looked at Goo Seoryong and tilted my head.

I’m doing ther because I want to; is there a problem?

Then, Goo Seoryong frowned and vibrated her core.

“Are you insane? You’re a monster, and that’s an Esper?”

Goo Seoryong’s monster core vibrated in tune with my wavelength.

As if to say that my kind was on my side, not hers, she gestured for me to immediately hand over Starlight.

I don’t want to. As I changed my wavelength, Goo Seoryong’s wavelength followed again, humming and resonating.

Don’t try to persuade me; I’m a monster who does what I want.

WOOOOOONG. A powerful rejection infrasound spread around, cracking the apartment building with just its vibration.

“F-f-f*ck…! So the rumors that Starlight tamed Black Cat were true!”
“How are we supposed to fight when a Calamity-class and S-class come at us simultaneously!”

Eventually, as the ground began to split from the combined wavelengths of Goo Seoryong and me, some villains began to abandon their positions.

Goo Seoryong, her expression ferocious, stopped her resonance, clenched her fists, and stared at me.

Then, WHIP! her tail, swung behind her back, cracked like a whip and spread her psionic energy.

The deeply spread sensory confusion psionic ability tickled me, so I shook my head once and calmly stared at Goo Seoryong.

So, you want to go at it properly? Fine, you monsterify too?

WOOOONG. As I aggressively vibrated my monster core, Goo Seoryong made an annoyed, tearful face and relaxed her clenched fists.

“Aaaah! Seriously! This is too much! You monster bastard!”

STOMP, STOMP! As Goo Seoryong stomped on the floor, one of the villains who hadn’t fled landed next to Goo Seoryong and shouted.

“Now’s our chance, Lady, while Starlight is disoriented! We caught Starlight! What’s stopping us from catching Black Cat!”
“Do you think Starlight and that monster are the same? Human shields won’t work on that one!”

Then, Goo Seoryong, irritated, sighed and conveyed her intention not to fight.

“Fine… do what you want, if you’re taking her, then take her and get out now!”
“L-Lady?! After all that effort to catch her!”
“Shut up! Do you think I want to let her go!”
“Ah, ahh… ha, Lady is right….”

Goo Seoryong, having given up on fighting me, pointed at Starlight and the outside of Gyuryong Fortress, and the neck of a villain trying to stop her was caught in Goo Seoryong’s hand.

The villain’s eyes glazed over from the injected poison, and Goo Seoryong, releasing the villain, gestured with her chin for me to leave.

Glance. I looked at Starlight behind me, then calmly looked at Goo Seoryong, turned around, and took Starlight’s hair in my mouth.

I bit Starlight’s hair CHOMP! and flew towards the mountain behind the apartment building.

At that moment, from behind me, Goo Seoryong whispered in a voice so small that only a monster could hear it.

“You’d better remember this, darling. You rejected me when I was courting you so passionately, and then you grab another woman right in front of my eyes?”
“Krrrk?”
“I’m a woman who repays what I receive, I’ll never forget this humiliation.”

Hearing that, I stopped in mid-air and looked down at Goo Seoryong.

Now that I think about it, she kept annoying me, talking about courtship and mating even when I said no.

She made my stomach churn with poison after I had a delicious meal, and she said ridiculous things about her body being a delicious honey cake.

No matter how free the meal is, it’s annoying when you find a cigarette butt in your food.

I created another head and opened my second mouth towards Goo Seoryong, who wore a resentful expression.

As the laryngeal prominence on the neck of the second head, shaped like a different monster, swelled greatly, Goo Seoryong uttered a flustered sound.

“W-wait… just a… moment…!”

BOOM! A massive, circular sonic boom was fired towards Gyuryong Fortress.

WOOOOOOONG! The shockwave slowly eroded the apartment building, seeping into the basement.

The psychics remaining in Gyuryong Fortress barely managed to stand, but the buildings without psionic abilities crumbled and collapsed directly from the circular wave, leaving only their rebar skeletons.

Above the instantaneously vanished Gyuryong Fortress, Goo Seoryong, her hair disheveled by the shockwave, shrieked with a tearful face.

“I told you to just get out, youuuuugh!”

I turned my back on Goo Seoryong and flew into the night sky.

The cold night wind, the moonlight illuminating between buildings.
Starlight dangled below my mouth, swinging from side to side.

“Ugh, ah…! Ugh…! Haa…!”

Leaving Sector 9, I arrived at a diligently reconstructing sector and quietly landed on the unfinished building’s rooftop.

How much poison had she been drenched in? Starlight, groaning yet slumped with exhaustion, leaned against a concrete pillar and stared at me in silence.

“Hoo, hoo… hoo… This is, absurd, really.”

Even amidst that, the considerably condensed psionic energy in her right hand flickered menacingly.

Perhaps, it was a single blow she had been gathering, unnoticed by Goo Seoryong.
“Haa… what, haa… a monster, saving an Esper.”

After staring at me for a moment, Starlight released her hand and dispersed her psionic energy.

And, feeling very dizzy, she leaned her head against the pillar and gasped for breath.
“I was going to focus on recovery, endure, and finish them all off when only the villains remained.”
Her breathing was calm, with no hint of wariness.
“How can a monster be more helpful than an Esper….”
The true Starlight spoke to me as if lamenting her fate.
“Seriously… I thought if I really unleashed it, they’d send support pretending not to notice, but they’re just observing the situation, no support is coming, and the villains are making strategies against me… Aaaah, so annoying… What kind of dual awakening is that woman’s? She’s not even an Esper, why is a villain trying to contend with S-class, with abilities that are useless against monsters….”

THUMP, THUMP. Starlight, hitting the concrete pillar with her head, clutched her forehead with her hand and spoke in a weak voice.

“Haa, I’m tired… being an Esper….”

The scent of emotions emanating from Starlight was truly complex.
Excitement, confusion, calm… likely due to a mix of stimulants, sedatives, and the psionic ability of confusion.

Sweating profusely, visibly dizzy, Starlight pulled down her Esper suit to below her shoulders, revealing her bare skin.

“Huuuuh….”

GASP! I flinched and stepped back, and FLARE, FLARE! Starlight, igniting a flame near her chest, diligently burned away Goo Seoryong’s poison accumulated in her heart.

The overlapping layers of confusion psionic energy were already completely burned away, but the biological toxin, produced directly from the body, was both a psionic ability and not a psionic ability, making it seem to take a long time to burn.

Starlight’s psychic power was flame that burned psionic energy… Unintentionally having learned a slight weakness, I circled around. Starlight, who had her eyes closed, opened them slightly and peeked at me.

“What… are you, why are you fidgeting? I’m not hurt, okay? I’m detoxing.”
I know that, but, hmm, what should I call this feeling?

It felt like seeing something I shouldn’t be seeing, so I gestured for her to pull up her zipper. Starlight frowned.

“Did you just tell me to pull up my zipper?”
“Wooong.”
“What kind of, monster bastard is like this…? No, never mind, you were a male after all….”

Starlight sighed and FLARE! increasingly intensified the flames, quickly burning away the remaining poison in her body.

After burning all the poison, ZZZIP! Starlight, zipping up the zipper of her suit, which seemed to be made of a special material, detached her back from the concrete pillar and stood up.

“I’m busy today, so I can’t play with you. Just go.”
“Wao?”

STRETCH! Starlight, stretching, seemed to be planning to fly back to Gyuryong Fortress.

You’re going back there? As I let out a questioning cry, Starlight clenched the pure white light she had conjured in her hand and said,

“Thanks to you, all the civilians have evacuated, right? I have to go catch all of them now.”
“Owaong.”
That’s true.

Now that the distraction of civilians was gone, it was impossible for Goo Seoryong and the villains to defeat Starlight.

The basic principle of hunting is not to miss the moment the opponent is weak. In the unlikely event that Goo Seoryong monsterifies, the situation would change, but even then, it would just be one Disaster-class monster weaker than me and several villains.

It’s too little to hunt Starlight.

Even a moment ago, it felt more like she had succeeded in temporarily incapacitating Starlight rather than killing her.

“Goo Seoryong, and the villains… this has to end now. If they escape like this, the civilians will suffer.”

FLARE! Starlight, increasing the output of her psionic energy, floated into the sky.

Glance. Starlight looked down at me once, then bit her lip with a strange expression.

“…Don’t do anything strange, and please just be quiet today. Legally, monster subjugation takes precedence over villain subjugation.”

I, who had been smelling the emotions of gratitude and discomfort from Starlight, sank into the shadows.

Because it would be strange for an Esper to thank a monster.

“Aaaah~ Seriously, my head hurts!”

BANG! As I disappeared, Starlight flew away, creating a shockwave.

Starlight’s expression, as she flew towards Gyuryong Fortress, didn’t look particularly bright.

However, the trajectory Starlight flew glowed brightly.

A short while later, the sun fell upon the ruins of Gyuryong Fortress.