Ch.137Romania’s Test Subject

My ears perked up at the way he read my code name.

Kentum Dekem Unus.

A different way of reading it than Gu Seo-ryong or Sa Gu-gu.

Only those bastards from the Romania Laboratory who created me call my name this way.

“Are you an experiment from Romania?”

Hearing my muttering, he moves his lips with a smile saying, “Correct.”

I moved away from the crowd of civilians while keeping my eyes on his neck.

The identification code engraved on all experiments—I could see something similar to what’s on my neck above the barcode with slash marks.

I’m not sure which number he is, but he seems to have been created in Romania.

“Were you sent by the laboratory?”

I growled my core at a low pitch while glaring at him from a position where I could transform into Black Cat at any moment.

In response, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled innocently like a child.

“Hmm, seems there’s some misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding?”

“Unus, you seem to have many questions for me, but this isn’t a good place. Shall we meet after the refugee screening?”

“You’re going to take the refugee screening?”

He put his finger to his lips, as if he didn’t want to talk more among humans.

If he doesn’t attack first, I have no intention of fighting where humans are present.

I cautiously followed the refugee screening process while secretly breaking away from the path where construction workers were entering the city.

Following the refugee screening quietly, I saw him voluntarily walking into where the heroes were and showing a cooperative attitude.

“Even such a young child…”

“What should we do? He’s an illegal refugee.”

“We should at least let him in, even if we can’t provide refugee support. We can’t make him sleep outside the city.”

After a simple physical examination to check if the refugees had brought anything prohibited into the city, they boarded a bus.

I took out a cat and attached it to the bus to follow them.

The bus stopped at Zone 0, dropped off the refugees, and conducted additional examinations at a government facility.

“A precision scanning device?”

“W-what? They’re doing that to refugees?”

“Well, there have been parasitic monsters before. Just to be safe, we’d appreciate your cooperation with the examination if you’re from outside the city.”

Following the changed examination process after the parasitic monster incident, refugees entered one by one into a scanning device that checked even their internal organs.

“Well, aren’t you something. Trying to smuggle drugs even at a time like this?”

“I-it’s not for sale! It’s for personal use!”

“I don’t know how things work in City B, but in City W, possessing drugs without a hospital prescription is illegal.”

“But…!”

“Nothing more to discuss. Arrest him for now.”

“Ugh… B-but! If I can stay in City W!”

“Arrest that villain from earlier too. We’ll investigate properly.”

“You’ll investigate in City W, right? Here, take me.”

Outside the examination room, I quietly watched him through the window.

With a detailed scan, they should detect organs different from humans and the monster core, so what was he thinking?

But contrary to my expectations, he passed through the scanning device without any issues.

“Hey, did your mom and dad come with you?”

“I came alone.”

“…I wonder if we can’t send this child to an orphanage.”

“Keeping him as a refugee will only turn him into a criminal.”

“Oh, senior?”

At that moment, Starlight appeared in the examination room and looked over the refugees.

With a serious expression, Starlight sighed with complicated emotions and put a hand to her ear.

“All heroes, leave minimal personnel and come to the meeting room for a moment. Refugees, please wait here for a while. Here, bring them something to eat.”

After Starlight left the refugees in the examination room, they each found a place to sit down.

“So they’re still treating us as refugees. Just as rumored.”

“Starlight is known for her love of citizens.”

“Plus there’s Black Cat… Look, the monster alarm isn’t going off at all.”

Among the whispering refugees, he sat down like a child hugging his knees near the window and spoke.

“Now seems like a good time for a little chat.”

At those words, my cat sitting outside the window stood up.

“Is that ability division? You’ve mastered it beautifully.”

“Meow.”

“Huh? Don’t tell me the divided body can’t speak?”

“Meow.”

Yes, I answered, and he made a strange expression as he touched the window.

Then, droplets gradually formed on the outside of the window.

The liquid, closer to mucus, became sticky and took shape.

At some point, it transformed into the appearance of a child and walked toward me.

“Can’t be helped. Would you guide me to where your main body is?”

He was still sitting inside the window.

Is it a division ability like mine? Feeling curious, I coupled with my cat and created a wormhole using space manipulation.

“Ooh! This is space manipulation!”

He excitedly touched the wormhole with his finger and jumped inside.

While my cat followed the refugees, I escaped to an abandoned area outside the city and faced him in the deserted ruins.

With a height just above my knee, looking even younger than Sa Gu-gu, he bowed his head to me in greeting.

“Then again, proper greetings to you, Unus.”

I twitched my eyes as I watched him bowing his head toward me.

This guy, I can’t figure out what he’s thinking.

If he were an experiment sent by the laboratory, I don’t think he would approach me so openly.

Moreover, he was properly controlling his appetite despite being so close to humans.

He’s an experiment that can control his instincts.

Why would someone like that come to City W?

“What are you?”

“Ah, my code is Dekel X. U. E. You can call me Ui for short.”

“Ui, is it.”

He showed me the code engraved on his neck, DCLXVI.

Still wary of the one who introduced himself as Ui, I prepared to return to Black Cat at any moment.

“How did you pass through the scanning device?”

“Huh? Ah, you’re asking how I didn’t get my core detected? Simple. I’m your successor, so naturally I have countermeasures for that.”

“Hmm.”

Countermeasures to avoid being detected as a monster by human scanning devices.

Fur covered my hands and feet, transforming me into a form between monster and human.

“If you were modified to avoid human scanning devices, does that mean you’re an experiment that needs to hide among humans?”

It doesn’t seem like good intentions.

As I silently extended the claws on one hand, Ui suddenly showed a panicked reaction.

“Ah, no, no! Unus, I didn’t come here to fight you right now.”

The resonance of the core, whose meaning I could understand despite hearing it for the first time—the whimpering sound of a beast surrendering.

I’ve seen many monsters and experiments until now, but this is the first one showing such an obvious signal of submission.

“What are you doing?”

“Don’t you know? Complete surrender.”

As he raised both hands, I slowly retracted my sharp claws.

“Haha! You really are kind to children, just as rumored. I’m saved.”

“Rumored?”

“The promise to never attack children—isn’t that a characteristic of numbers 50 through 200? I was really moved when I heard that story. Ah, even after becoming a monster, one can still keep a human heart, I thought.”

With sticky ecstasy, he clapped his hands lightly, genuinely moved, and then dusted off his hands as if dispersing something.

“Well, that disappeared later though. When they started attempting to erode the minds of the experiments. The researchers at that time thought the self-awareness of small bodies like us was the cause of disobedience, so such a touching story was cut short—it was regrettable.”

“You say the story was cut short, but how do you know about it?”

“Oh, I heard it from a researcher.”

Ui answered while tapping his own head.

Experiments know what that gesture means.

“You ate a researcher?”

“Yes, I ate one.”

Ate, digested, and questioned the memories.

Then, is he hostile toward the researchers?

“If you didn’t come to fight, why did you come?”

“Hmm, as you probably already guessed, I wasn’t sent by the laboratory.”

As Ui wiggled his fingers to deny the fact, the image of a researcher from my memory flashed by.

An elderly man among the Romanian researchers.

“I escaped from the laboratory. After destroying it.”

At his continued story, I recalled the completely melted laboratory in City B.

“Are you saying you destroyed the laboratory in City B?”

I resonated my core, causing waves to collide with Ui’s body.

To check the strength of the monster before me, Ui quietly resonated a wave at the highest level of Despair-rank without hiding.

Slightly stronger than Sa Gu-gu.

Quite strong, but insufficient to claim he defeated all the Despair-rank monsters that obeyed the laboratory’s orders.

“Ah, of course, it would have been difficult by myself. Unus, I received a lot of help from you.”

To my question, Ui clapped his hands once and explained further.

“What did I do?”

“Didn’t you urgently create the Alphabets in City A? Coincidentally, City B had Romanians who had evacuated from another laboratory, along with Alphabets.”

As he continued to silently move only his wrists, tapping his fingers together, the image of another researcher overlapped with Ui.

“As they were merging into one laboratory, the facility wasn’t functioning properly due to communication issues between them. A door was accidentally opened briefly, and the outside wasn’t a facility that could withstand my characteristics. So I melted everything.”

As Ui demonstratively tapped the ground with his toes, the ground began to melt.

The spreading smell stimulated my heart and the monster flesh that replaced it, allowing me to understand his ability.

A body with dissolution properties and the ability of corrosion.

After quietly observing the traces of the powerful ability that created a long hole in the ground in just a moment, I voiced a question that suddenly came to mind.

“Did you eat all the researchers?”

“Yes, I ate them all.”

Ui exaggeratedly spread his hands, drawing a large circle.

“The Alphabet executives who migrated to City B, the remnants of Romania, and all those who were in Romania before—a total of 111 people, all of them.”

Smiling brightly like a child boasting to his parents, Ui spoke with excitement.

“Don’t you think it’s fateful? That the number of researchers I ate was exactly 111, matching the number of researchers you dealt with in City A.”

“You said you ate everyone. All of Romania.”

Ignoring his overflowing excitement, I focused on what he said earlier.

All of Romania—suggesting he didn’t just eat those who migrated to City B, but also those who were there before.

From my memory, something I heard once comes to mind.

“Are you the Downfall?”

The downfall of Romania.

An experiment that wreaked havoc on the Romania Laboratory after I was discarded as an experiment.

Ui’s eyes widened in surprise at the word from my mouth, then he pulled up his emotions like a fountain flowing upward.

“That’s right! I am the Downfall. You, the successor to Romania’s first miracle! The experiment created to recreate Unus, and succeeded!”

At the words “successful experiment,” I frowned and looked Ui up and down.

Is he really calling himself a success?

That seems unlikely since Ui is an escaped experiment.

He doesn’t seem to obey the laboratory’s orders.

But this weakness.

Despite being weaker than me, there’s a strange sense of discomfort.

Like drinking grape-flavored juice instead of real grape juice, this weakness doesn’t feel like proper weakness.

The wariness that hasn’t stopped since I first saw Ui, despite his childlike appearance.

A sensation like a small thorn stuck in my head.

“I wanted to see you! Unus! You, whom everyone talked about so much, you who are my goal!”

“You wanted to see me? Why?”

Seemingly not caring about my sharp question, Ui’s eyes sparkled with near-madness as emotions close to euphoria burst from him like fireworks.

“I am your fan!”