Became a Failed Experimental Subject Novel - Chapter 8

“Bongbab, why do you always lend to that guy and not me?”
“Because you use it for gambling. So no”

I knew the man before me was always involved in illegal gambling—guessing the location of kaiju appearance alerts—so I never lent him money. I’d rather order six expensive (I still don’t understand why they’re so expensive) Su-ran eggs and put them in ramen than waste money on that kind of thing.

Thinking about ramen made me hungry, and I swallowed the saliva gathering in my mouth.

Come to think of it, wouldn’t kaiju appearance gambling be easy money for me? With my heightened senses, I can detect a wider range more sensitively than the alert system.

But gambling is bad… I shouldn’t do it. I remember hearing that until my ears hurt when I was little.

At that moment, the approach of a kaiju was sensed through my sharp senses.

“…Hmm.”

There are about thirty targets… they’re quite far away, so the alert won’t reach here.

Lately, my sensing abilities have been improving. Perhaps it’s because of the kaiju’s survival instinct… After being properly beaten by an Esper with a burning head and chased, my sensing ability seems to be evolving.

Her name… was it Yoo Anna?

I didn’t expect such a strong Esper to exist.

Unlike kaiju whose strength naturally spreads around them through infrasound, an Esper’s strength is difficult to know until you clash with them directly.

It’s like… the human core… the heartbeat is weak. This is why kaiju often get hunted by strong Esperes after recklessly attacking them, and it’s also why I was badly beaten by that woman.

I never imagined a human could chase so fast and use such strong attacks repeatedly. It’s as if she doesn’t need time to amplify her abilities…

That woman is dangerous.

Being chased by Yoo Anna is exhausting. When I’m tired, I need to eat a lot, and that requires a lot of money.

I don’t have money.

Very occasionally, when I absolutely have to, I go to Black Cat Park and get some offerings… but that’s dangerous.

If the children happen to slip up and spread the word that I’m a kaiju, I might be attacked by the Esperes lurking in the park.

Also, something I recently learned… my core emits subtle waves while deactivated, giving off the faint scent of a weak kaiju.

When a kaiju appeared and I was in human form, I felt like they ignored me before attacking later. It was because they were confused whether I was a kaiju or a human.

This wasn’t good.

Once I reach Crushing-Class or higher, I seem to be perceived as a kaiju not worth eating, but at Lethal-Class, I give off the scent of easily consumable prey.

Furthermore, my actual strength in kaiju form is Despair-Class, so the range of the scent is very wide.

The shallow and wide scent, the smell of a weak kaiju spreading throughout W City, constantly attracted Lethal-Class kaiju.

Because of that, I kept encountering kaiju between Lethal and Crushing Class.

These guys would come towards me, then turn away when they saw a lot of humans, as if saying, “Here’s good enough.”

The kaiju I’m sensing now is probably the same, hiding in the sky above, approaching after smelling me.

Lately, I’ve been trying to erase this subtly leaking scent, but it’s harder than controlling my strength.

It’s like trying to cut your hair evenly and vertically without stopping…

It feels like an extremely unnatural act for a kaiju.

The kaiju instinct is to show off its power, not hide it, so it’s only natural.

Now that I’m also practicing scent control, I’m hiding more thoroughly than before. I’m hiding from both kaiju and Esperes… although I’ve been chased by Esperes a few times when I transformed, I’ve recently learned how to hide before they arrive.

If I have to transform, I finish what I need to do within the time it takes for the Esperes to arrive.

The time limit is about one minute and thirty seconds. Finish everything within that time and return to human form to avoid encountering any Esperes.

And that, in most cases, was sufficient time.

For example, like now.

“Shahaak….”

“Woo, wooa…wa, a….”

The monster I sensed a moment ago was a Lethal-Class Kaiju: the Black Obsidian Butterfly.

It doesn’t possess destructive power beyond killing people, but it’s a Kaiju with evasion capabilities that I can’t catch unless I transform.

A troublesome Kaiju, among the Lethal-Class, considered top-tier.

Its sharp blades, capable of slicing things at a molecular Class, are also threatening unless I transform… and since it flies in the sky before plummeting down, the alert time is delayed, and the Lethal-Class alert also delays the arrival of Esperes.

So, I had no choice but to handle it.

My current form is a slightly stealthier version of the form I transformed into in the apartment—a human-sized black panther, with multiple black tails resembling a giant cat beast.

I, in the form of a black panther ambushing the Black Obsidian Butterfly as it attacks people in the dark, vanished into the loud siren sounds, seemingly abandoning stealth altogether.

With the Black Obsidian Butterfly dealt with, I need to escape before the despair-Class siren sounds.

If that sounds, Yoo Anna will arrive within one minute and thirty seconds, no matter where I am in W City.

I think I could win if I fought seriously, but I really don’t want to fight that monster.

Frankly, I hate fighting humans.

“D…did you help? Maybe…? You…that, black cat?”

I was about to disappear into the shadows, but I stopped when the human woman I helped offered me something.

It’s ham.

Lately, for some reason, the number of people giving me ham after I help them has increased.

From my perspective, it feels like payment for my help, so I have no reason to refuse, but this increase makes me wonder if some rumor is spreading.

“Th…this…”

“Waong.”

“Kyaaak! What to do, wa! waa!”

Approaching the woman with the ham in my mouth, I frowned at the clicking sounds and disappeared again into the shadows.

After putting enough distance between us, I quietly returned to human form and savored the ham.

Mmm, free ham, delicious.

By the way, I’ve never transformed into a cat, so why do people keep calling me a cat?

It looks like a black panther to me…should I transform into a wolf instead of a cat?

I prefer a tiger…but there aren’t any particularly stealthy Kaiju related to wolves…

For hiding, a feline Kaiju is the most convenient.

“Fast.”

Above the sky, where the siren has stopped, a light like a small sun illuminated the night sky.

That’s Yoo Anna, the esper I’m avoiding.

Yoo Anna surveyed her surroundings, emitting psychic waves, then furiously slammed her head against the air, shouting in anger.

“Aaaaaah! Escaped again! This lynx-like brat!”

“I’m not even a lynx…”

Still better than a cat.

I peeled the remaining meat from the packaging and ate it with my hand, avoiding the area, when I was overcome by a strange sensation.

This feeling of my fur standing on end…the direction is towards the moon.

An extremely…strong Kaiju is approaching W City.

Three of them.

***

#W City Black Cat♡ #Helping People #Kaiju are Friends!

“Finally, the thing I’d been dreading finally started to happen”

Yoo Anna threw the smartphone she was holding, embedding it into the sofa.

Even though it was specially made furniture to withstand an esper’s abilities, and even though she unconsciously adjusted her strength before throwing it, she couldn’t suppress her anger.

“This lynx-like brat…!”

This cowardly Kaiju, for some reason, is saving people.

For Yoo Anna and the Esperes, who have witnessed the fate of Kaiju who save people many times, this is an extremely unpleasant situation.

Humans, despite suffering frequently, often fall into a delusion that they are different, believing they won’t be affected because they haven’t experienced it directly.

[Kaiju? Attack people? But it’s this kind? Maybe only to me? I might be different, my fate will be different! I’m actually an esper, a Kaiju tamer!] – And then, they die by the monster.

More annoying than dangerous monsters are the humans who fall for the dangerous monsters’ cunning tricks.

Some monsters act as if they know of the existence of cameras and the internet, disrupting human communication.

That’s what makes them even more dangerous. Many humans fall into the trap of intellectual superiority just because the monster is in the form of a beast.

Humans are stupider than monsters.

The W city Black Cat ♡ tag, which announces something lovely rather than warning about the monster, even including a heart at the end, is spreading rapidly.

Monsters with shapes and body types similar to Code Alpha and capable of freely changing their form are common, so it’s not unusual for their size to decrease.

However, the problem is that its ferocious beast-like appearance has changed into that of a sleek black panther.

The photo uploaded to SNS shows a black panther with a chunk of ham in its mouth, purring and meowing, “Meow,” as if it were truly a cat.

“Damn…”

It’s cute, Yoo Anna unknowingly pressed the like button due to her feminine sensibility, then took it off again.

Does this monster have some kind of charm ability? It’s a characteristic seen in some monsters.

If that’s true, this is a far more serious situation than imagined.

Cats have a unique, enchanting characteristic, and even before the monsterization phenomenon, they received excessive favoritism.

While ruining the ecosystem, people called “Cat Moms” protected cats, claiming they cause no harm to humans, thus increasing the damage.

The current situation is the same.

Disgusting monster moms, if they die, they’ll blame the Esperes again.

It would be better if they attacked humans quickly, then people would again reflect on their past actions, claiming they were innocent victims and were deceived by the monster.

It was incredibly disgusting, but still better than protecting the monster.

Esperes are those who protect humans, so why should they be stressed out because of humans?

She will protect them anyway, but she can’t help but feel annoyed.

“…Yoo Anna. Any traces left by Code Alpha at the scene?”

“None. It’s becoming increasingly secretive.”

“Code Zero still hasn’t appeared?”

“No.”

“Hmm…”

The somewhat fortunate thing is that Code Zero hasn’t appeared at all.

This further solidifies Yoo Anna’s belief that the two monsters might be the same entity.

Otherwise, Code Alpha might have already fought and swallowed Code Zero… but that’s impossible.

When despair-class monsters clash, it can’t end this quietly.

As time passes, the damage only expands. From the moment they start fighting, the monsters become erasers that wipe out civilization.

The two monsters, continuously sighted while swallowing smaller monsters, haven’t eaten monsters or humans, so they must be very hungry.

Hungry monsters are strong… but if they fight for a long time, they naturally weaken.

If Code Zero is a separate entity, it might have already yielded its territory to Code Alpha and escaped… no matter how you think about it, the conclusion is that only one despair-class monster remains in W city.

“Should I consider it fortunate that only one remains…?”

While the remaining one possesses elusive secrecy that makes it difficult to deal with, it’s fortunate that it hasn’t attacked people yet.

If she faces it, just once, she’s confident she won’t miss and will kill it.

With minimal casualties, the despair-class monster threatens W city.

Yoo Anna’s optimistic observation, but it didn’t last long.

Just a few days later, W city’s despair-class monster alert sounded simultaneously in two locations.

Two despair-class monsters.

And on top of that, two disaster-class monsters.