Ch.135The Dissolved Laboratory

# W City

“Huh, they just completely blew up an entire mountain.”

All the heroes of W City had gathered in the operations room.

Currently, W City could spare as many personnel as possible for support since there was nothing to do thanks to Black Cat.

Some heroes who had been well-rested and in peak condition after not fighting monsters for a while were even getting restless.

“That’s definitely a monster, right?”

“Well, it’s probably not a volcano at least. There aren’t any volcanoes in this area.”

“It’s pretty close to B City. I’m surprised it didn’t enter the city.”

“It must be wary of B City. After all, B City was the first to implement the hero surveillance network that was later applied to A City.”

The monster elimination method of placing heroes at regular intervals throughout A City to create special ability wavelengths.

Such an idea was largely thanks to B City.

Although B City didn’t have many heroes, when counting the number of villains too, it had the most superhumans of any city.

The special ability wavelengths constantly emitted by numerous superhumans had the effect of blocking some monsters from approaching.

“If that’s why it’s not approaching the city, then it must be one of the weaker Despair-rank monsters.”

“But can we really call a monster with that level of special ability weak?”

On the screen was the trace of special ability left by a monster that hadn’t revealed its true form.

The mountain, dissolved by what could be called a melting, decomposing, or acidic slime-like liquid, had already become flat ground.

Monsters avoid those stronger than themselves, but rush in to devour anything that seems even slightly weaker.

“If it can use that kind of special ability continuously, it would be justified in treating B City as prey.”

“Should we head out early? B City said they know we can send many heroes from our side and mentioned they’d prepare a train.”

“We might end up sending an entire team as support for the first time in a while. Let’s get ready.”

“No, that won’t be necessary.”

Among the heroes who were contemplating while watching the mountain still melting in real-time on the screen, Yu Anna spoke up.

“It’s already gone.”

The dissolution speed wasn’t increasing, nor was the range expanding.

What continued to melt on the screen was literally just the aftermath.

The monster had already disappeared from B City.

And at the same time.

In front of a large TV installed in Zone 3, a muscular man with a large build and a white-haired woman were watching B City’s news and saying the same thing.

“It’s already gone.”

“Mm.”

However, where their gazes were directed was slightly different from others.

The protruding formations of the melting mountain.

Like how bones are the last to decompose when meat rots, some parts still maintained their shape.

Just as one can guess the original form by looking at remains if they know the original shape, the two experiments’ gazes were guessing what had been in the mountain.

“The laboratory has melted away.”

What the monster that disappeared from B City had dissolved was the laboratory Gu Seo-ryong had been pursuing.

“Did they use an experiment to erase the traces?”

“Is there any other way to see it?”

“It seems they’ve noticed we’re after them.”

“I’ve never been clumsy enough to let someone know I’m following them.”

“I’m sure you haven’t.”

It wasn’t that Gu Seo-ryong, who was using the master code, had made a mistake.

This was probably a decision made after seeing that the researcher they had left in A City didn’t return.

It’s reasonable to view this as the researchers cutting their losses, knowing that monsters can devour human memories.

“Well, it would be strange if they didn’t run away.”

Gu Seo-ryong and I had already revealed ourselves in A City where the laboratory had been operating.

There’s no way they hadn’t seen that situation.

Of course, they would also know that I had become Annihilation-rank.

“From the B City laboratory’s perspective, it’s too obvious that they’re the next target. They’re not stupid enough to just wait around to die.”

“We should have moved faster.”

Still, I don’t feel too disappointed.

Next to the communication tower on the tallest building in the city, I ate the food Gu Seo-ryong had bought from the park and said:

“Can you find it?”

“Oh my, of course. I didn’t take the code for nothing, you know?”

Gu Seo-ryong had found the laboratory even without the researchers’ memories.

With the master code now, finding a laboratory parasitizing near a human city is just a matter of time.

“No matter how far they’ve run, they couldn’t have gone too far. We’ll find them if we search the adjacent cities. Next time we find them, let’s destroy the laboratory first and then go on a date.”

“We’re not dating.”

“But we dated before?”

“That wasn’t a date.”

“Even with Sa Gu-gu there, a date is still a date.”

“What is a date?”

When I looked at her with disdain, Gu Seo-ryong moved closer to me and tore off meat clinging to a bone.

“By the way, why is the special ability still active? Shouldn’t everything be dissolved by now? It’s still digging deeper underground.”

“Is it strange that the acid remains active?”

“Hmm, it is strange.”

Gu Seo-ryong put the bone she had cleaned of meat deep into her mouth and then pulled it out.

Bubbles formed on the smooth, melted surface, and a sour smell spread through the air before gradually subsiding.

“Acid normally evaporates as it dissolves its target. But that acid isn’t evaporating and continues to remain active.”

“So it’s not due to its characteristics.”

A monster’s characteristics are powers originating from the monster’s body, like a snake having venom or a bird flying.

While it may be deadly poison, even ordinary people can survive with an antidote, and just as wings can be bound to prevent flight, unlike special abilities, a monster’s characteristics follow the laws of reality.

The acid that doesn’t disappear carries a power that transcends the properties of acid and corrodes reality.

“A dissolution special ability, then.”

Looking at it that way, it is certainly strange.

Special abilities weaken the further they get from the core where the power originated.

If the laboratory people had abandoned B City and fled, the dissolution should have ended by now.

“…The maintenance and power of this special ability are too strong for an ordinary Despair-rank monster.”

“Either that, or the experiment is still near B City.”

“Would there be any need for that?”

“No. It’s too thorough in its dissolution to be pretending to have left B City. Even the process of dissolution is clearly eliminating a proper laboratory, not a dummy—obvious to us, if not to uninformed humans.”

If the experiment that dissolved the laboratory isn’t still hiding in B City, there’s only one answer.

A monster that can maintain a special ability of this magnitude even while moving very far away, demonstrating output beyond Despair-rank, and obedient to the laboratory.

“Perhaps a successful creation was there.”

“Could be? What do you think, is it Annihilation-rank?”

“I can’t tell just from this.”

“True, if you could tell whether something is Annihilation-rank just by looking at traces, you’d be a shaman, not a monster.”

Gu Seo-ryong shrugged and got up, approaching Sa Gu-gu who had already finished eating and was playing nearby.

“Anyway, the B City laboratory has disappeared. I’ll check if they’re just hiding somewhere pretending to be gone. You just have fun doing whatever you want for now.”

“I’m not having fun.”

“That wasn’t having fun?”

“I want to play with big brother too! I want to go play together again!”

Sa Gu-gu approached me holding out her Pipi-kung doll, gesturing for me to play the Pipi-kung game with her.

Before I could refuse the doll, Gu Seo-ryong patted Sa Gu-gu’s head and pulled her back, saying:

“If the successful creation really is Annihilation-rank, Gu-gu and I won’t be able to help you, so don’t just play around—think about what to do.”

“I haven’t been playing, but I understand.”

“Successful creation…?”

At that moment, Sa Gu-gu froze in her position, still holding out the Pipi-kung doll to me.

A blank look I’d seen once before, filled with confusion.

“Will Sa Gu-gu… become a successful creation? By eating CXI…?”

“Gu-gu? Here, Pipi-kung.”

“…Huh?”

Sa Gu-gu, who had been muttering and blinking her eyes, saw the new Pipi-kung that Gu Seo-ryong held out and returned to her normal self.

The Pipi-kung doll in Sa Gu-gu’s hand, which had briefly experienced confusion, was already broken.

“It’s Pipi-kung No. 91!”

I watched Sa Gu-gu running around the rooftop with her new Pipi-kung, then gave Gu Seo-ryong a meaningful look.

I’d seen it once before, but Gu Seo-ryong’s drugs weren’t working properly on Sa Gu-gu.

There’s only one reason.

Sa Gu-gu had become stronger than Gu Seo-ryong.

It’s only natural since Sa Gu-gu was a monster with higher physical completion than Gu Seo-ryong or even 444 from the beginning.

“Gu Seo-ryong.”

When I called her name, Gu Seo-ryong vaguely blurred her sharp gaze and quietly met my eyes.

As a fellow monster and experiment, Gu Seo-ryong knew what I was going to say.

“What can I do? She’s eating all the monster cores I should be eating.”

“Is that okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? It’s good when a tool gets stronger, right?”

“Then you’ll end up being eaten by Sa Gu-gu.”

Sa Gu-gu is suppressing her instincts thanks to Gu Seo-ryong’s drugs.

If she becomes strong enough that Gu Seo-ryong’s special ability and drugs no longer work on her, then…

To my warning, Gu Seo-ryong laughed silently and said as if it were nothing:

“Gu-gu may be impulsive, but she’s not that kind of child.”

#

A few days after the B City laboratory disappeared overnight.

There was an unprecedented vitality in the outskirts of W City.

“Are we really doing this?”

“Claiming a closed zone…”

“That’s what the government used to say during the fortress city propaganda back in the day! That if we keep fighting monsters, someday we can reclaim our land!”

After hearing that Black Cat wanted a cat tower, Starlight accelerated the Black Cat Cat Tower plan she had been hesitating about.

After officially announcing the start of the Black Cat Cat Tower construction, a vote was held yesterday in which only W City citizens could participate to decide which zone to claim.

The residents who had survived in W City until now came out to the outskirts to witness this historic moment with their own eyes.

“That building is still there.”

“That building was built so well, it was the taekwondo gym I went to when I was young.”

“That road… my father used to drive me to school on his way to work.”

Claiming a closed zone outside the fortress city walls is a very difficult task.

Heroes fight risking their lives, and citizens also build walls prepared to die, which get destroyed and rebuilt repeatedly to create a human nest.

In the early days of the fortress city plan, citizens who had experienced those moments firsthand swallowed hard as they clung to the city walls.

However, today there was no need to worry about monsters targeting citizens who had come outside the city.

“Opening the door.”

Below the outer wall, Starlight placed her hand on the wall to operate something, and a door that never opens, opened.

A door to the closed zone that is never opened for citizens.

Mechanical devices that had never operated before creaked as they opened an entire section of the wall.

The workers of the W City restoration project, who had all attended without exception after the official announcement of this construction.

And refugees who came forward to be recognized as citizens of W City, free from discrimination, ahead of W City’s zone expansion.

Day laborers who simply wanted to share this moment, citizens, and low-level superhumans without combat abilities.

“…Let’s break ground.”

“Break ground!”

All of them felt a strange thrill as they stuck their shovels into the ground in front of the outer wall.

Thud, thud, thud—digging up the asphalt covered in decayed and blown-in soil dust was a meaningless act.

Eventually, heavy machinery would be the first to overturn the land and lay the foundation for the new zone.

Yet, as those who planted their shovels in the ground like performing a ritual, both the citizens standing on the outer wall and those digging shouted as if by agreement:

“Wooooaaaah!”

“Waaaaaaah!”

“Don’t get excited! Stay calm, there could still be an emergency situation, so please work while being prepared to evacuate at any time! No, everyone!”

Despite Starlight’s instructions, the workers rushed madly in front of the heavy machinery.

The neighborhood right before their eyes that they thought they’d never see again after monsters took it away.

Seeing everyone running like children among the ruins, Starlight finally seemed to give up and sighed.

“Really, I understand how you feel, but…”

Even as she said this, Starlight flew toward a nearby fire station.

After looking down at the fire station for a moment, Starlight spread her special ability wavelength and shouted loudly to those who had stopped in front of the collapsed buildings:

“This isn’t the time for this! Black Cat is waiting for the cat tower!”

“Damn right! Wait for us, Black Cat!”

“We’ll make you the one and only cat tower in the world!”

The workers gathered again around the heavy machinery, spreading out with pickaxes and sledgehammers.

Heroes had already completed the survey of buildings in this area.

The plan is to completely dismantle the collapsed buildings and restore only their external appearance as much as possible to create cat tower pillars that evoke memories of the past.

“Thank you for letting me see my mother’s soup restaurant again!”

“Our house! If it weren’t for the monsters, we’d still have 10 years left on the mortgage for our house!”

The workers demolished the memory-filled buildings that could no longer be lived in with their own hands.

Full of laughter, they were filled with expectations for the future rather than the painful past.

“Report completed demolitions! The debris removal team will enter immediately!”

And among the workers stretching near the empty trucks.

I, who had been sitting quietly, got up and prepared to clear away the debris.

“Let’s go, Mound of rice!”

“Mm.”

Once we clear all the debris around the pillars scheduled for construction today, we’re done.