Became a Failed Experimental Subject Novel - Chapter 49

“Fuck, those damn monsters!”

Thwack! An A-class Esper, back from deployment, kicked a trash can in frustration. It was understandable; this was already his fifth sortie today. Yet, he hadn’t even touched the monster, the cause of all these deployments, nor seen its tail. It would be strange if he wasn’t angry.

Black Cat was a Disaster-class monster with the unique ability to trick monster alert systems. Simultaneously, it was a mutant that didn’t hunt humans… or so it was mistakenly thought. It was a monster that feigned friendliness until it was confident it could completely shake off any Esper stronger than itself.

“Why is Black Cat acting like this now?!”

“It’s not ‘now’; we’ve been foolishly deceived all this time.”

“It’s not an awakening; it’s more like it’s revealing its true nature.”

Black Cat was moving at an absurd speed across W-City, devouring humans. Three days since Black Cat began its hunt, approximately 500 citizens had died. This damage was minimal only because Starlight had been flying around so quickly.

“Considering we haven’t caught a Disaster-class monster for three days, the damage is still relatively low…”

“It’s still a miraculous number for a Disaster-class, but it will increase… sigh…”

Each shelter holds a maximum of about 50 people, meaning Starlight had failed to arrive on time ten times. It took about a minute for a shelter to be completely breached, plus a bit of time to dig deep into the ground. If Starlight arrived within that time, citizens were rescued with only minor injuries. Then they would enter the next shelter… and tremble again in the fear of death. The resentful and fearful gazes of the citizens as they were ushered back into shelters greatly demoralized all the Espers.

“This is no time for disheartening talk!”

“Then what do we do about it? It’s in Sector 2 one minute, then Sector 7 a minute later, then disappears and reappears in Sector 11?”

“Even if Starlight fights it briefly and damages it, it comes back perfectly fine… We’re just taking a war of attrition unilaterally, so why are we even buying time?”

“It’s a monster that even S-class Espers couldn’t catch until now, and it’s finally coming at us like it can win…”

The current situation felt like Starlight and Black Cat’s game of tag, previously confined to one sector, had spread across all of W-City. Black Cat, now overwhelmingly faster than before, would disappear and reappear in entirely different locations, traversing W-City from end to end to consume humans. Its speed was far greater than Starlight’s, leaving A-class Espers unable to even glimpse Black Cat’s tail. The Espers’ goal was at least to buy time until Starlight arrived, but even that was becoming exhausting.

“There’s no way… this is…”

“We can’t do it, we just can’t… we’re all just going to die…”

Even if they did see its tail, a few A-class Espers banding together couldn’t possibly catch a monster that even top-tier S-class Espers couldn’t handle. It would only increase the number of injured and dead. If these sacrifices were valuable for hunting the monster, the Espers would throw their lives away at any moment, but this was a senseless death. Even if Espers died to Black Cat, Starlight wouldn’t be able to catch it. Its stealth and speed were too, too fast.

Black Cat knew humans too well. It knew how to exhaust Espers, how to make humans afraid. W-City was Black Cat, the cat monster is a hunting ground and playground. Had any monster ever driven W-City’s Espers to such despair?

“Snap out of it, you guys! S-class Espers from other cities can come for support and stop them! We just have to hold out until then!”

“Sigh…”

“We’re not even holding out right now… We’re just being dragged around, and so is Starlight.”

Even as the A-class Esper tried to rally them, the Espers, lost in helplessness, only sighed. Perhaps even if no Espers were deployed when Black Cat appeared, the result would be the same. People would die, Starlight would chase, and then it would swiftly reappear in an opposite sector and playfully kill more people.

Just then, Starlight burst through the door into the waiting room.

“Haa… haa… haa…”

“…You’ve worked hard.”

Starlight, who had traversed W-City from end to end dozens of times, was panting heavily, unlike an S-class Esper. As soon as she returned to the waiting room, Starlight entered the investigation room. Seeing her, the other Espers let out sighs mixed with admiration and lamentation.

“She’s truly amazing…”

“She must be determined to catch it now… the guilt must be weighing heaviest on her.”

“What guilt? Black Cat is just a madman.”

“Damn it… If Cage hadn’t pulled that strange stunt and they had just fought together…”

“Everyone to the investigation room!”

“Yes!”

The Espers, who had been speaking dispiritedly, immediately jumped up at Starlight’s voice and entered the investigation room. In the dark room, a large screen displayed numerous recordings of Black Cat’s appearances. The Espers were investigating Black Cat’s abilities to somehow hunt the Disaster-class monster.

“The holes that form when it launches its blade tail elsewhere, they really look like wormholes.”

“It might be a similar ability to the shadow movement it used before.”

“This definitely looks like spatial blink.”

“The traces left by the blade tail, according to those affected, are ice hardened intensely by an ability.”

On the whiteboard next to the screen, a full summary of Black Cat’s newly observed abilities was written, along with corresponding countermeasures. However, there was one ability for which there was no countermeasure at all. It was the already observed ability: shadow movement.

“It goes into a shadow and disappears, only to reappear in a completely opposite sector, so there’s no way to counter it.”

“This speed… it’s no longer just Disaster-class level. It might be on the verge of Extinction-class…”

“Aaaagh! We don’t have time now, and we’ll have even less time! How do we stop that monster if it becomes Extinction-class?!”

“Someone shut that guy up, why’s he having a fit again?!”

“How can I not have a fit! There’s no way to stop that monstrous bastard!”

“You’re not the only one with a headache!”

“Quiet down, the ones having the hardest time right now aren’t us, it’s the citizens.”

Currently, W-City’s citizens hadn’t been able to leave the shelters for three days. Unlike Calamity-class disasters, which an S-class Esper could definitively end, this was an unavoidable choice to minimize damage from a Disaster-class monster whose end might not be seen. Hiding from Black Cat, which repeatedly appeared and disappeared to devour humans, the citizens in the shelters could only tremble in fear, wondering if it would be their turn next. Their helplessness was just as great, if not greater, than that of the Espers who could do nothing.

“When will S-class Esper support arrive?”

“Two days at the earliest.”

“Damn it… thousands more will die…”

“Alright! Stop the dispiriting talk! Let’s come up with more solutions!”

“Is there even a solution…?”

The A-class Espers, submerged in despair, spoke in melancholic voices. Their previous strategies had failed. When several A and B-class Espers ambushed a location, waiting for Black Cat, it merely tore open nearby shelters and scoffed at them. A plan to spread out and buy even a moment’s time for Starlight only resulted in three more casualties. The gazes of the helpless Espers naturally turned to Starlight, who was at least making Black Cat flee.

Starlight was staring blankly at the screens showing Black Cats.

“…It’s strange.”

Starlight, Yoo Anna, had been feeling a sense of incongruity as she relentlessly chased Black Cat. Three days ago, after Black Cat began hunting humans, got angry in front of a shelter, and fled, Yoo Anna arrived at the scene upon news of Black Cat appearing in a completely different direction. Even as she punched at Black Cat, she thought something was off. That day, Black Cat, who had been angry just moments before, was now laughing as if delighted.

“It’s too… different.”

At first, Black Cat scattered like mist under Yoo Anna’s punch. And after taking one critical hit, it melted away as it always had. Then, it scattered like mist again…

…It’s different.

No, this is a wrong thought. This kind of thinking is weak. Black Cat finally decided to abandon its thorough disguise and start hunting. The game was over; all that remained was a unilateral massacre. As if proving Starlight could no longer chase it, the creature was moving freely throughout W-City. Monsters were inherently like this. They hide their instincts when weak and act on them when strong.

Still… what if?

Yoo Anna, anxious that her current thought might be wrong, still followed her intuition and moved her hand.

“This… is different.”

Click, click. Yoo Anna manipulated the screen, bringing up all the videos of Black Cat recorded over the past three days. As she meticulously organized and divided the footage, the other Espers’ gazes focused on her. Looking at the various Black Cats organized across the screens, Yoo Anna said, her eyes trembling, “This one is different, and this one… is different…”

“…Senior?”

“It’s different!”

Perhaps, just perhaps. Though she thought it impossible, Yoo Anna shot up from her seat and spoke to the A-class Esper standing nearby.

“Besides the ice blade and spatial manipulation, has any Esper been harmed?”

“Huh?”

“No, rather, has any Esper been harmed by lightning, fire, wind… Black Cat’s previously known abilities?”

At Yoo Anna’s sudden question, the Espers looked at each other. When not a single hand was raised, Yoo Anna recalled how Black Cat never retaliated against her attacks. When it did retaliate, it was always with new abilities; it never used its old ones. As that thought dawned on her, Yoo Anna’s voice trembled slightly.

“Amorphous monsters change their form freely as needed, so why has Black Cat maintained a fixed form until now? It’s because it thought that form was advantageous to itself, to deceive humans… no, because it looked cute! So…!”

“What are you suddenly talking about…?”

“It doesn’t need to change its form! Black Cat’s appearance is already a perfect disguise!”

Clatter! Pushing chairs aside, Yoo Anna walked to the investigation room wall, her fingertips glowing with fire, and began to write scorched letters on the whiteboard covered in writing.

“Why, why couldn’t I have thought of this?! Me?! Why?!”

“What are you saying…?”

Yoo Anna wrote “Black Cat” on the whiteboard and then meticulously listed each of Black Cat’s observed abilities: Stealth, Shadow, Levitation, Lightning, Flame, Physicality, Sound Wave, Impact, Telekinesis, Regeneration.

And next to it, in a different space.

“Co-Code… A?”

“Senior, th-that’s…?”

Code A, a temporary code assigned to newly observed monsters. Below it, Yoo Anna’s hand dropped powerlessly as she reeled off abilities like stealth, ice blade, and blink.

“Are you s-saying this isn’t Black Cat, but a different monster?”

“Wait a minute, then, this absurd speed…”

“It’s not one monster; we were just mistaken…?”

“Why, why didn’t we notice this?!”

“It would be strange to notice it…”

Black Cat was a unique monster that could completely hide from monster alarms. And such a monster, moreover, had the same appearance as Black Cat, used similar multiple abilities, and was running rampant. It was so special that they never imagined there could be another one. 500 people had already died because of that misconception. Just as the Espers’ self-reproach reached its peak, Yoo Anna gazed at the whiteboard and mumbled.

“…There might be another one.”

“What?”

At the sight of Yoo Anna writing “Code B” again next to it, all the Espers froze. Yoo Anna clenched her fist, writing an equals sign between A and B, signifying that they were identical. Two entities with completely identical abilities, perhaps a male and female pair, as is common with pack-hunting monsters.

“Otherwise, the movement speed doesn’t make sense, nor does the recovery speed.”

“Black Cat became Extinction-class because…”

“If it were Extinction-class, it wouldn’t need to hide! Black Cat is still Disaster-class!”

“Wait, if that’s the case…”

Currently, there were three Disaster-class monsters in W-City: Black Cat, Code A, and Code B. As the Espers held their breath in the face of this even more despairing situation, Yoo Anna’s voice trembled.

“Then, then…”

A thought flashed through her mind, filling Yoo Anna with complex emotions. She drew on her abilities with a whoosh. In the investigation room, filled with searing heat, Yoo Anna slumped into a chair and massaged her forehead. If her current hypothesis was correct, then… should she be happy or sad about it?

Yoo Anna reviewed the videos again to solidify her theory.

“…Ha.”

And then, after re-examining the videos, Yoo Anna made an inscrutable expression, as if crying and laughing at the same time.

“Were we getting in the way?”

“Getting in the way, Senior…?”

In the meticulously organized videos, Black Cat showed two types of improvements. One was with its back to the shelter, and the other was facing the shelter. Yoo Anna looked down, her head bowed. Emptiness, absurdity, followed by a glimmer of hope hovering in the air.

This was clearly madness. If Yoo Anna was mistaken… this would be an act of foolishness beyond anything Cage had done. Nevertheless, she had to do it. This was the only way to reduce the damage. Having made her decision, Yoo Anna looked around at the Espers and opened her mouth.