Ch.16Despair-Level

I moved a sufficient distance away and escaped underground, listening to Yu Anna’s angry voice as I erased my presence.

These days, I’ve been using this method—erasing my presence underground, then taking human form near an appropriate shelter passage.

When the situation ends, people emerge from evacuation shelters, so I can naturally escape by walking ahead of them and exiting first.

“Hmm, I’m lucky today.”

Who would have thought there’d be a kebab food cart? Having filled my stomach despite my monsterization, I licked my lips among the humans emerging onto the street.

People were looking around and murmuring, talking about Yu Anna and Black Cat.

“Did she lose him again today? Is Black Cat okay?”

“No, isn’t Yu Anna the problem…? Wasn’t she sent to W City alone because she’s a high-ranking S-Class? Other cities have at least two S-Class heroes, right?”

“Really important cities even have two or three high-ranking S-Class heroes… it really seems like Yu Anna alone isn’t enough…”

“Is Yu Anna too weak to catch a Despair-rank monster?”

Their conversations mostly questioned Yu Anna’s strength as a hero.

It’s common knowledge for those living in the monster era: W City’s strongest hero, S-Class rank, means she should be equivalent to Despair-rank monsters.

Heroes in other cities have proven this by handling Despair-rank monsters alone.

So why can’t Yu Anna catch a Despair-rank monster by herself?

Well, that’s because I only run away.

Listening to the conversations around me, I imagined what would have happened if I had fought Yu Anna like ordinary monsters do.

Monsters can easily sense another monster’s strength through the resonance of their cores, but humans, lacking this sense, appear infinitely weak.

If I weren’t an intelligent monster, wouldn’t I get irritated at being toyed with by someone seemingly weak, attack more aggressively, and die thinking I could devour them if I just tried a little harder?

Yu Anna is strong.

As a monster who runs away every time we meet, I can say this with confidence.

“Shouldn’t this be investigated? Maybe she got her high-ranking S-Class status through connections…”

“Yu Anna is pretty, isn’t she? Maybe her looks helped her.”

“Would monsters care about human appearances?”

“No, not monsters—the heroes evaluating Yu Anna would be the ones giving her preferential treatment.”

“Wow… that’s sinister…”

“Hmm…”

This reminds me of something unpleasant I heard when I was younger.

Ah, it’s similar to how I felt when I heard someone filed a complaint demanding repair costs after I put out their car fire.

Why do people criticize those trying to protect them?

“But isn’t Black Cat really strange? Why are buildings always intact afterward?”

“Maybe it’s not actually Despair-rank…?”

“What do you mean intact? It always leaves weird things stuck between buildings.”

“Hey, we have those in our building too—pipes creating passages between buildings. We chat through them during lunch breaks.”

“What kind of Despair-rank monster does that… Is it really Despair-rank?”

The answer is because of me.

Since I behave so unlike a Despair-rank monster, people think Yu Anna must be lying.

They suspect she’s either exaggerating about a weak monster being Despair-rank, or her own abilities are exaggerated.

Once they start suspecting lies, everything looks like a lie.

But I can’t let Yu Anna catch me, nor can I kill her.

Eavesdropping on people’s conversations, I feel a bit sorry that Yu Anna’s public opinion has suffered because of me.

“Hmm… Yu Anna doesn’t seem that weak.”

“Huh? What’s that? Are you a Yu Anna fan?”

“Hmm… not really.”

After briefly attempting to defend Yu Anna, I quickly gave up.

It would be stupid to claim to be a fan to someone determined to tear her apart.

I’m not that foolish a monster.

Well… this problem will naturally resolve itself when a real Despair-rank monster visits W City.

There’s nothing a monster can do to help a hero.

Yu Anna just has to wait for that time to come.

And surprisingly, that day arrived sooner than expected.

#

[Shouldn’t Yu Anna be retested as a real hero?]

[My God, a hero who’s supposed to be equal to Despair-rank has failed to catch it 22 times?]

[She missed it again today, so that’s 23 times now]

[Thank you, Black Cat, for surviving another day.]

“Sigh…”

Having lost Black Cat right before her eyes again, Yu Anna checked her thoroughly ruined public opinion with a sigh.

Even she had nothing to say to the citizens.

[Can we really trust hero rankings?]

[Do you think the government is joking?]

[They don’t even show us hero combat footage, so how are we supposed to know if Yu Anna is really S-Class?]

But Yu Anna felt extremely wronged.

Who was demanding she be retested? She already had a record of defeating previous Despair-rank monsters.

Since she couldn’t catch Black Cat, people were now questioning whether those monsters were truly Despair-rank.

She couldn’t understand why people were making such a fuss about this.

Treating dangerous monsters that had caused so many casualties as tools for measuring heroes’ power…

Wasn’t the important thing that she was trying to eliminate dangerous monsters?

I shouldn’t care about this, I just need to do my job well.

Despite thinking this, Yu Anna was finding it difficult to handle the accumulating stress.

Black Cat was getting faster and faster.

It was still slightly slower than her, but if it got any faster… she dreaded what people would say then.

She even caught herself wishing Black Cat were some other Despair-rank monster, blaming herself for failing to catch it.

“No, I just need to get faster… I just need to get stronger…”

The anomalous entity, Black Cat, was growing at a frightening pace compared to other monsters.

To catch Black Cat, Yu Anna had no choice but to grow stronger too.

Ironically, Yu Anna felt her powers becoming more refined as she pursued Black Cat.

Facing an equal opponent for so long and trying various methods to catch Black Cat after narrowly missing it each time naturally honed her superpowers.

What if I try this? What if I try that? Unlike other monsters that cause increasing damage if not quickly eliminated, Black Cat caused almost zero damage, giving her opportunities to test many ideas.

So, Yu Anna would definitely catch Black Cat.

…Eventually.

When that would be, even she didn’t know.

“Sigh… yes… this is Yu Anna who can’t catch a Despair-rank monster… what is it?”

Hearing a call tone while exhaling a weak sigh, Yu Anna answered from her couch with her exhausted body.

Then she jumped up in surprise.

“…A Despair-rank monster that escaped from A City is coming here?”

#

Mirage, a Despair-rank monster that escaped from A City.

The characteristics of this monster, as relayed to Yu Anna from A City, were remarkably similar to Black Cat.

A monster that constantly changes its form, avoids combat if possible, and disappears the moment you take your eyes off it.

“What’s the possibility it’s the same type of monster as Black Cat?”

“It’s possible… but Mirage might be a higher-level entity.”

“Why?”

“The scale of human casualties is completely different.”

Mirage reportedly spreads something like thick fog that enchants humans when it appears.

All enchanted humans die, willingly approaching Mirage and sacrificing their lives.

This characteristic also seemed similar to Black Cat, which enchants humans with its cute appearance… Yu Anna thought they might indeed be the same species as she recalled Black Cat’s form.

“And this video… explains why this monster’s code name is Mirage.”

A W City monster countermeasure department employee played a video from A City for everyone.

A man in black armor, one of A City’s S-Class heroes codenamed Cage, was seen confronting Mirage using his superpower, Iron Fortress.

His ability allows him to deploy barriers of strong durability wherever he wants.

These barriers are famous for creating prisons that even Despair-rank monsters cannot escape from.

Cage traps monsters in one place so they can’t escape, then gradually hunts them down.

The “ring” tactic currently used by heroes was developed by imitating this man.

The number of Despair-rank monsters this hero has captured with minimal damage reaches double digits.

“This is…”

Mirage, a dragon-shaped monster, was securely trapped in this superhuman’s barrier.

Then it suddenly disappeared like mist and reappeared outside the barrier.

When Cage rushed to trap its new form—a large fox with an elongated body—it transformed into a huge butterfly and flew into the sky.

It really is similar to Black Cat.

Both prefer escape over fighting strong heroes to the end, and both transform into various forms to make response difficult.

If they’re the same type of monster, something terrible could happen.

“Should we build a ring again to make the Despair-rank monsters fight each other?”

“Seeing how it already killed one Despair-rank monster, it seems quite strong even among Despair-ranks. Black Cat might hunt this one too.”

The heroes spoke as if it was natural for Black Cat to hunt monsters.

W City is already Black Cat’s territory, and for some reason, while it doesn’t properly fight heroes… it hunts many monsters.

Recently, Black Cat has killed more monsters in W City than anyone else.

For Black Cat, another Despair-rank monster would be perceived as a strong monster invading its territory.

For monsters above Disaster-rank, which have strong territorial concepts, leaving an intruder in their territory is unthinkable.

That’s why they had previously pitted the wolf monster against Black Cat.

However, Yu Anna judged that using the same strategy this time would be dangerous.

“…No, that seems risky. If they’re the same type, something terrible could happen.”

“Are you saying Mirage and Black Cat might join forces?”

Monsters of the same or similar species tend to cooperate rather than oppose each other.

Like the wolf monster that had appeared before, if Black Cat were to join forces with Mirage… although Black Cat is an unusual monster that causes minimal human casualties, it’s still a monster and would likely protect Mirage.

Moreover… if they’re completely the same species, there’s the rare possibility of monsters reproducing.

If they truly are the same species, and if Mirage is fleeing to W City after sensing Black Cat’s presence from afar, seeking protection…

They need to eliminate Mirage quickly before it meets Black Cat.

“Issue a full evacuation order for W City. Gather all heroes and stand by. No matter what damage we take… we must eliminate Mirage before it reaches Black Cat.”

At this moment, W City’s priority target shifted from Black Cat to Mirage.

To avoid the worst-case scenario.