Ch.140Sagugo and Pipikung

Gu Seo-ryong spoke while touching my cat’s ears instead of snapping her fingers.

“I already think he’s close to being a walking laboratory.”

[Why?]

“He’s excessively cooperative. Especially, asking me to look after Sa Gu-gu should be quite bewildering, right? Yet he just says, ‘Yes, understood.’ Isn’t that strange?”

[Perhaps he wants to show you he’s not an enemy since you’re close to me?]

“If that were the case, he shouldn’t make me feel so bad. He dislikes me. There’s a difference between wanting to be friends and approaching someone with ulterior motives.”

Gu Seo-ryong was already half-convinced that Ui was acting according to the laboratory’s intentions.

“What’s his purpose? Why did he say he’d tell me about the Annihilation-rank? If Ui is the laboratory’s success, why specifically me?”

[If he’s a success, he has no reason to approach me, a failure.]

“Could the laboratory’s target be you? Then their goal is to create an Annihilation-rank monster that follows their orders? Are they trying something by teaching you about the Annihilation-rank?”

[Hmm.]

We still don’t know enough to find answers.

Gu Seo-ryong and I were lost in questions with no clear direction toward the truth.

Just then, I felt Sa Gu-gu’s wavelength in my core.

[Gu Seo-ryong.]

When I looked up, sensing Sa Gu-gu searching for me with negative emotions, Gu Seo-ryong immediately returned to where Sa Gu-gu was.

In a corner of the refugee camp, at a playground where the rare children among refugees gathered to play.

There, Sa Gu-gu was whimpering while holding a broken Pipi-kung doll.

“Mommy!”

Seeing Gu Seo-ryong, Sa Gu-gu ran over and clung to her legs.

Flustered by Sa Gu-gu’s sniffling, Gu Seo-ryong embraced Sa Gu-gu’s head and looked at Ui.

“You’re not playing well with the child, not even tolerating play, and making her cry—what does that mean?”

“You misunderstand.”

When Ui opened his hand to show the broken leg of the doll, Sa Gu-gu raised the remains of the Pipi-kung doll she was holding.

“Sa Gu-gu’s Pipi-kung is broken!”

“You were gripping it tightly while playing, so I thought that was how you played with it.”

“Pipi-kung number 110 is broken!”

“Wasn’t the joint already damaged before I touched it? Experiment No. 499, you need to learn to control your strength…”

“Sa Gu-gu Pipi-kung! Pipi-kung!!”

“No, sigh…”

As Sa Gu-gu burrowed into Gu Seo-ryong’s arms, Gu Seo-ryong gave Ui, who was sighing, a thoughtful look.

“Gu Seo-ryul, your partner is even more annoying than you are.”

“Oh? Are you saying that as a child, you find another child annoying?”

When Gu Seo-ryong made this comment, Ui’s eyebrows furrowed.

“I see, I wondered why you suddenly asked me to look after Experiment No. 499. It wasn’t because you were jealous that I’ve been by Unus’s side longer than you, but you were testing whether I’m really a child?”

“The fact that you notice such things so quickly doesn’t seem childlike at all.”

“Sa Gu-gu Pipi-kung!”

As Sa Gu-gu waved the broken Pipi-kung at Gu Seo-ryong as if to show her, both Ui and Gu Seo-ryong, who had been glaring at each other, momentarily turned their attention to Sa Gu-gu.

“…You suspect I might be mimicking a child to target your and Unus’s weaknesses. Let me be clear: I am actually a child of this age, just as I appear. In fact, I’m even younger than Experiment No. 499 clinging to you.”

“I don’t find that credible at all. Do you think your current behavior is childlike?”

“Is being a child so important? Hmm, then there must be another reason…”

“Pipi-kung!”

Once again, Sa Gu-gu waved the Pipi-kung doll as if to say “look at this.”

“Pi! Pi! Kung! New Pi! Pi! Kung!”

“This kid, really!”

“Nyaak!”

Finally, when Sa Gu-gu started climbing up Gu Seo-ryong’s body after being ignored, Gu Seo-ryong punched Sa Gu-gu on the head.

“I’m talking right now! I told you good children stay quiet when mommy is talking!”

“Sa Gu-gu’s Pipi-kung broke… you promised to give a new one when Pipi-kung breaks…”

When Gu Seo-ryong scolded her, unable to hold back, Sa Gu-gu touched her head and pouted her lips as if wronged.

Hearing the whimpering voice, Gu Seo-ryong sighed and reached into her chest area to pull out a new Pipi-kung doll.

“Sigh, I’ll give you one, now go play over there.”

“Give me one more.”

“I said one at a time!”

Then, as if she had never been whimpering, Sa Gu-gu opened her eyes wide, clutched the new Pipi-kung doll, and held out her empty hand.

When Gu Seo-ryong refused to give another Pipi-kung doll, Sa Gu-gu silently patted the grass to smooth it out, then lay down and began flapping her arms and legs.

“Give me one more! Give me one more! One more!”

“This kid really learned all the bad habits! Here! Take it and go play over there quickly!”

“Pipi-pipi-kung-kung!”

Having finally received two dolls, Sa Gu-gu held a Pipi-kung in each hand and raised them high above her head.

As Sa Gu-gu hopped around excitedly, Ui’s incredulous gaze turned to Gu Seo-ryong.

“Aren’t you manipulating your partner’s mind? What is this willful behavior?”

“Would you say she’s childlike? Oh, perhaps you don’t know what being childlike means since you’re no longer a child?”

“As I’ve already mentioned, I’ve eaten many researchers, so…”

Just then, Sa Gu-gu walked away from Gu Seo-ryong’s side and approached Ui, pressing her fist holding the Pipi-kung doll against Ui’s cheek.

“What are you doing? First you had your partner make me feel bad, and now what are you making her do?”

“Gu-gu, what are you doing? Come here.”

Seemingly oblivious to the tense atmosphere between Ui and Gu Seo-ryong, Sa Gu-gu looked back at them both as if asking what was wrong, and rubbed the Pipi-kung doll against Ui’s face.

“You don’t have Pipi-kung? Did you grab Sa Gu-gu’s Pipi-kung hard because you wanted one?”

Apparently, Ui had crushed the Pipi-kung doll that Sa Gu-gu had offered while trying to play together. Sa Gu-gu, explaining what had happened after Gu Seo-ryong left, smiled brightly.

“You like Pipi-kung too!”

“Gu Seo-ryong, instead of suspecting me, you should first adjust your partner’s mental state…”

“I’ll give you Pipi-kung!”

When Sa Gu-gu rubbed the Pipi-kung doll she was holding in one hand against Ui’s face, Ui’s expression, which had been coldly glaring at Gu Seo-ryong, changed strangely.

“That seems to be something you’re quite attached to.”

“I’ll give you just one! Number 111!”

“The 111th? You’re giving it to me? Um…”

Ui, who blankly received the Pipi-kung, looked back and forth between Gu Seo-ryong and Sa Gu-gu, then quietly looked down at the Pipi-kung doll in his hand.

“Should I thank you for this?”

“When you get a gift, you say thank you?”

“Ah, yes, thank you.”

“Pipi-kung playtime starts!”

Sa Gu-gu grabbed Ui’s arm tightly and walked toward the sandbox, with Ui being dragged along in a daze.

“Pipi-pit-pipit-pipi~pit-pipit-pipi~”

“What on earth is that song?”

“Pipi-kung’s big walk together! You sing too!”

“I don’t know what that song is.”

“Sa Gu-gu will teach you!”

I quietly looked up at Gu Seo-ryong, who was chuckling at the sight of Sa Gu-gu dragging Ui away.

“Gu-gu is making things confusing…”

Ui, being led by Sa Gu-gu and pushing the Pipi-kung doll against the sand, didn’t look much different from the other children around.

Gu Seo-ryong wore a subtle expression that was hard to describe.

#

Every morning in W City’s closed zone, construction of the cat tower begins.

For citizens who want to contribute to building the cat tower where Black Cat will stay and play, this site allowed anyone to participate, even without experienced workers.

Even young children who still need parental care earn pocket money by running errands for adults or moving small rubble the size of pebbles.

“Unus, was Sa Gu-gu originally this kind of experiment?”

Ui, who had followed me to the site along with those children, was sitting on the stairs used for construction work to build the second floor of the cat tower and talking to me.

In his hand was the Pipi-kung doll he received from Sa Gu-gu, which, unlike Sa Gu-gu’s, was in pristine condition without a single crack.

“From what I know, quite a lot of good resources went into Sa Gu-gu, but she’s strangely out of her mind.”

Thud. Each time I came down and up the stairs after putting down ten bags of cement at once, Ui would speak to me.

“Using Gu Seo-ryul’s ability, she could chip away at Sa Gu-gu’s ego. Is that why? She seems beyond innocent—almost pure white.”

Currently, I was working alone in this building without other workers.

Every day, the workers, recognizing the uniqueness of an A-rank superhuman, assigned me some of the physically demanding simple labor to speed up the cat tower construction.

“Gu Seo-ryul seemed quite wary that I’m not childlike, but if Sa Gu-gu is the standard, I don’t think I can avoid suspicion. If only such a pure white child is considered a child, then I should be called a tainted adult.”

Thud. After moving another wooden box full of bricks to the upper floor, I glanced at Ui.

Sitting on the stairs, Ui was continuously fidgeting with the Pipi-kung doll.

“Is Pipi-kung that good? Sa Gu-gu didn’t seem that young, but to give something she likes so much to someone she just met. I thought she was impulsive and selfish, but despite her damaged ego, her humanity to give her own things to others… hmm, interesting.”

Ui had been sitting near where I was working for 10 minutes now, talking only about Sa Gu-gu.

“Sa Gu-gu calls Gu Seo-ryul ‘mommy,’ but they don’t look alike at all. Of course, they’re not blood-related… but seeing that she hasn’t been properly influenced despite being raised by that unpleasant woman, her original ego must have been quite strong. I wonder what Gu Seo-ryul did to make Sa Gu-gu follow her?”

“Sigh…”

After continuously moving loads with thuds, I sat on the cement floor of the next level I was building and looked down at Ui sitting on the stairs.

Gu Seo-ryong, after watching Ui being dragged away by Sa Gu-gu to quietly play with dolls, had left with the position that she didn’t know what to make of it either and would put it on hold for now.

For now, since Ui wasn’t showing any aggression at the moment, we could decide what to do after hearing what he had to say.

So, I was planning to hear about the Annihilation-rank.

“Thinking about the phrase ‘childlike,’ I suppose Sa Gu-gu’s behavior could be seen as cute. Come to think of it, she controls her strength quite well despite her mental state. Even if Gu Seo-ryul did something, Sa Gu-gu’s…”

“Stop talking about Sa Gu-gu.”

Clearly, Ui had followed me to the construction site today to satisfy my curiosity about what was in my head.

Yet all he talked about was Sa Gu-gu, Sa Gu-gu, Sa Gu-gu.

Was the monster who only talked about Pipi-kung that shocking? He won’t stop talking about Sa Gu-gu.

“You were supposed to talk about the Annihilation-rank today.”

“Ah, right.”

At my reminder, Ui stood up from the stairs and dusted off his pants.

After finishing the last box of bricks, I sat on a pile of cement and gulped down a bottle of government-provided water.

The loads weren’t heavy for me, but moving without breaking anything while maintaining human form was difficult.

After I finished drinking, Ui, who had been quietly watching, took the empty bottle and apologized to me.

“First, I apologize for the delay in our conversation.”

“So what is this about?”

Forget the apology, just explain. As I tapped my forehead, Ui brought up an unexpected topic.

“Unus, do you know why monsters eat humans?”