episode_0001
by adminMiserable.
One day.
Routine.
Life.
“Mr. Woochan, you’re awfully quiet, aren’t you?”
“Woochan, isn’t your job exhausting?”
“Ugh. He’s heartless. He just does his own thing and disappears.”
Piercing gazes.
Monotonous actions.
Mechanical tasks.
Living such days.
The reason is simple.
$400 million debt.
$2.1 billion in interest.
Lowest credit rating.
Unaware of the fortune left by my gambling parents, I became a debtor, trapped in a wretched life once again today.
A moment of leisure with a cup of coffee is a luxury.
Pressured by ever-increasing debts, even as society demands repayment like a consumable product.
Business.
Stocks.
I know nothing about making money. I became a laborer at the age when I should have learned those things.
I realize early on.
A future of working for a lifetime.
Not that I want to die.
I just don’t want to live like this.
I just want to rest a bit.
I want to stay still.
I want to solidify like this.
…That’s all.
It was a day of sulking alone.
On an unusually ordinary day, I experienced something surreal.
*
“A payphone booth?…”
As I was leaving work.
I literally stumbled upon a payphone booth.
It was strange.
It’s 2033 now.
With the advancement of mobile devices, street payphones have long been removed. Yet here one stood conspicuously before me.
There was nothing here before.
In other words, it appeared out of nowhere today.
Did someone install it overnight?
Suddenly.
A rumor I saw on the internet crossed my mind.
If you answer a discontinued payphone, you’ll be abducted and vanish.
“…Interesting….”
Saying that, I quickened my pace.
Surely that couldn’t happen.
Passing by the payphone booth towards home-
Ring ring!!!
“……..”
I turned my head.
The phone kept ringing persistently.
Ring ring!!!
It repeated as if urging me to answer.
…An ominous sign.
A suddenly appearing payphone booth.
And a ringing phone just as I passed by.
No matter how you look at it, it’s like something out of a ghost story.
There were no hidden cameras or movie shoots. No suspicious individuals around.
Ring ring!!!
“……..”
I didn’t hesitate for long.
Swiftly.
Click.
I entered the booth and answered the phone.
It was a prank.
Because it couldn’t possibly be real.
Even if it were real, it wouldn’t matter.
“Who is this?”
[…Caught you.]
A man’s voice.
Was it indeed a prank call?
“What do you mean?”
[Voice phishing.]
“……?”
[You’ve been kidnapped.]
Out of the blue.
Simultaneously.
Pushiiing!!!~
Thick smoke filled the phone booth. In an instant, my vision began to blur.
Losing consciousness and collapsing.
Crash!!!-
The phone booth vanished from the street altogether. Passersby walked past as if they hadn’t seen anything.
The ghost story had become reality.
*
Abruptly, I became a test subject.
Days passed.
Years passed.
Now, it’s impossible to tell.
It was horrifying.
Difficult to put into words.
When I first opened my eyes, I was on a futuristic device akin to those in sci-fi movies, subjected to experiments where small robots flew around me administering various drugs before my body disintegrated.
I screamed in agony.
I truly felt like I was going to die.
But strangely, I didn’t.
The robots emitted an unknown light, which transformed beautifully like magic, then flashed, taking away all my pain and sight.
Was it science or magic?
Or perhaps both.
Still, it’s unknowable.
At some point, my hearing was paralyzed.
The smell of burnt flesh lingered before my sense of smell disappeared.
Intense pain numbed my senses as touch faded away.
All senses were stripped away.
It was terrifying and dreadful.
I wanted to die, yet I didn’t. Realizing I was losing my mind, I felt more despairingly sane than expected. I couldn’t comprehend the nature of the experiments. In the pitch-black terror, I sensed the flow of time, unknown and unending.
Time is inevitable.
Whether dead or alive, the next second inevitably arrives.
However, paradoxically, I, devoid of the five senses, did not feel the passage of time.
One minute may have passed.
Or perhaps a million years.
In the end, it becomes unknowable.
For a moment, I recalled meager scientific knowledge.
I exist in the fourth dimension.
Because the time axis is strange.
And space does not even exist.
Unless my mind collapses, these forced thoughts persist.
Terrified.
I imagined fleeing.
I am a successful technologist.
A sign of success in business.
A loving partner.
The best son with warm parents.
But…
What is that?
Overwhelmingly lonely, the terrifying emotion fades away. Anger arises, yet it’s confusing as to whom to vent it towards.
Anyone will do.
If only they could comfort.
If only they could reach out a hand.
…
Devoid of the five senses.
Discernment fades away.
One minute equals a million years.
A million years equals one minute.
In the end, it becomes unknowable.
For a moment, I recalled meager scientific knowledge.
I exist in the fourth dimension.
Time that does not mix with anyone.
Imaginary space meeting the fake.
Unless my mind collapses, these forced thoughts persist.
Lonely.
Imagining as if already dead, wanting to escape.
I truly want to die.
I’d rather go insane.
I wish I could wake up from this dream.
I want to melt in a pool of lava.
But…
How?
In my unbroken sanity, anger flares up. It takes zero seconds to realize the futility of that anger, leaving me perplexed.
Anyone will do.
If only they could bring it out.
If only they could give meaning.
…
…
…
For a moment, meager…
Ah.
How far did I get?
Boring.
Thus, I regret.
I said I wanted to rest quietly.
I said I wanted to remain still.
Was that arrogance?
Swoosh~
Suddenly, one sense blossomed.
Aah.
Refreshing sensation.
A feeling of quenching thirst.
A sense of fullness spreading throughout my body.
The end of a long wait.
Change has arrived.
For a moment, I recalled meager scientific knowledge.
I focused on the newly felt sensation.
The more I concentrate, the clearer it becomes.
On the sensation itself.
Let’s cherish this.
*
Regained three senses.
Touch.
Taste.
And hearing.
At this point, a voice was heard.
“I really don’t know. A plant that can perfectly absorb every bit of food given to it. What kind of feed transformed it like this?”
An unfamiliar language.
Yet fully understood.
They call me a plant.
“Yeah. Let’s push it further.”
Right after those words.
Paaah!~
A strange sensation arose.
The man injected something into me.
Filling me up with something.
My body is changing.
Growing.
What will happen now?
Who owns the voice?
Calmly, I reminisced about the past.
I still remember. The cheerful voice I heard on the payphone.
The owner of this voice is the mastermind behind making me like this. The thought of breaking free from that and killing crosses my mind, consuming each nerve.
Enduring in that state for a long time.
*
A new sensation emerged.
This is clearly sight, but I could perceive everything around me as if feeling it.
The system of absorbing light is different.
My whole body seemed like an eye.
Able to see everything.
Through this sensation, I confirmed that I did not possess a human body. Astonishingly, I took on the form of a single stem of a plant.
Inside a vast laboratory room.
The floor covered in black soil.
There, I was growing.
Truly a plant.
There wasn’t much excitement. Reality has felt unreal since the phone booth. Once you thrash about in pain, you become completely numb.
“Why isn’t it growing bigger?”
Someone entered the room.
A young man with black hair wearing a gown.
He appeared as an attractive, ordinary human.
The voice I remember. The one who took away my freedom, inflicted pain. The enemy who turned me from a human into a plant.
I want to kill him immediately.
However, a vast energy could be felt.
This is also a new sensation.
It can be instinctively understood.
Strong.
A man would be strong enough to easily crush a human with just one finger.
He looked at me, contemplating.
Soon.
“In this state, it’s all just a flash in the pan. There’s no other choice.”
He brought various substances and sprinkled them on me.
Unidentified black substances.
Blood infused with great energy.
Unknown bone dust.
This is…
It felt good.
I absorbed it through my whole body.
When I regained my senses for the first time, it was much better than that feeling that once filled my body. It felt so good that I might go crazy. If it had been a human body, my pupils might have rolled back, and my mouth might have twisted uncontrollably.
This is like a drug.
And noticeable changes began.
*
“Surpassing expectations.”
The man exclaimed.
One week.
It took me this long to grow enough to fill this entire room.
And I gained a new ability.
I can move.
I can promote stem growth where I want, expand and contract the stems like breathing, or even uproot them.
“I wonder how far you’ll grow.”
The man admired my growth power.
An incredible rate of evolution.
He then harvested a part of the stem and took it away.
“Come to think of it, did you absorb nutrients through the stem as well? Truly a fascinating plant.”
I could feel parts of my body being cut off, but it didn’t hurt. It was because everything about my senses had strangely changed as I turned into a plant.
I willingly offered my body.
I must continue to grow.
Just believe that I am merely a plant.
For now, let’s keep accepting the drug he gives me.
Until I am confident that I can win.
*
Growth and control.
Now I can fully control it.
If I weren’t trapped here, I could roam freely.
So, it was disappointing.
Despite growing this large by using overflowing mana and byproducts that could have been someone’s corpse, I still cannot defeat the man.
How much longer do I have to pretend to be a plant?
I just…
I want to get out.
I scattered my longing for freedom.
There was no one to listen naturally.
So, I started to dislike staying still.
Swoosh.
I extended one stem long.
There are a total of four cameras monitoring this room. Three of them were naturally blocked by extending stems, and the remaining one was just blocked.
The man inspects me regularly. It will take a few more hours for him to return.
If I move, now is the chance.
A ventilation duct in the ceiling.
I inserted the stem into it.
Zzrrr~
A thin stem extended through the ventilation duct. I could feel the stem weakening as it expanded, but there was no significant strain.
I grew thin stems to explore every room connected through the ventilation duct.
Unfortunately, no exit was visible.
Machines installed throughout the ventilation ducts purified the air, and the passages only connected the laboratories, making it impossible to escape.
Zzrrrr~
The stem reached the end of the duct.
The building structure is visualized in my mind.
Here, there was a corridor with similar labs and specimens to where I was trapped.
Everything is seen through the perspective of the elongated stem.
I observed the specimens for a moment.
Monstrosities confined in each room.
Experimental subjects in situations similar to mine.
Becoming monsters.
Becoming plants.
Becoming objects.
What kind of experiments have they undergone?
It’s frightening to even speculate.
Moreover, they all seemed to harbor unknown forces, weaker than me in most cases, and all seemed to be driven mad by the experiments.
Lacking focus.
Already dead.
Broken like dolls.
No one appeared to be in their right mind.
Except for one lad.
“The girl?”
Eyes filled with deep boredom.
Beautiful silver hair.
Bound to a chair with shining runes and chains made of a special material, the girl sat there.
A peculiar experimental subject.
A powerful force could be sensed.
Even the room’s camera was broken, and the sturdy inner walls were dented.
It seemed like traces of fierce resistance in the experiment, making me wonder if someone with this kind of strength could even stand against a man.
The problem seems to be her looking quite exhausted.
Tap.
A tendril descended from the vent and rested on the girl’s shoulder.
“…Ha. What’s this now?”
Irritation.
Disgust.
A voice filled with anger.
Merely touching her elicited strong disapproval from the girl. However, she only grimaced, unable to move properly because an intangible force from the chair and magic circle was pressing her down.
This might be exploitable.
[Who… are you.]
Startled by a voice ringing in my head, I removed the tendril from the woman.
In response, she smirked.
“Oh? Can you hear me? I saw you squirm just now. Who are you.”
“……..”
Unfortunately, I cannot speak.
Realizing this, the woman furrowed her brow.
“Can you understand what I’m saying? Ugh, damn it. If you can’t understand, bring the tendril back. Then we can talk. No… you can’t understand this either? Ugh, this is so frustrating.”
I can understand. Ever since becoming a plant, unknown languages have been understood as if they were known.
However.
I briefly thought.
The woman possesses great power and may even stand against a man.
At least that’s how I feel.
But she’s immobilized.
Physically at her limit.
In simpler terms, she’s dying.
There’s probably no use like this.
I gave up cleanly.
Instead.
Thud!!
“Ugh!?…..”
Sharpening one end of the tendril, I plunged it deep into the woman’s body.
Crimson blood.
I can sense it.
Sweet.
An unbelievably powerful energy is being absorbed.
Oh.
I can’t control it.
Just like this-
[You bastard!! Stop right now!!?]
Startled.
I retracted the tendril once again.
Another telepathy echoed in my mind.
I realized by now.
As mentioned verbally, when in physical contact with him, we can communicate beyond language.
But that’s all.
Not threatening.
Whoosh!!
“Aaah!!!?”
Just a little more.
‘Just a little more to consume.’
[This crazy bastard!!?]
Accidentally discovered sustenance.
My drug.
Let’s postpone the conversation for a moment.
Let’s plunder a bit more.
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