Ch.29I Am Pak Deundeun

“Uh… what’s my name… Oh! My name is Park Deun-deun! Fighter Park Deun-deun! Just looking at me makes you feel secure!”

“Oppa~! I bet other things about you are secure too! Skip the arena and come up to my room!”

“I’ll pay you more in my room! Over here~! Over here~!”

“He’s in excellent physical shape! He might be quite skilled! And without any weapons! Wow, he’s overflowing with confidence! Let’s see what monster he’ll face!”

Loud laughter filled the air as the host spun the roulette and held out a button to me.

I raised one finger and pressed the button. The spinning roulette gradually slowed down until it pointed to one monster.

“Ah….”

“Oh my, fuck.”

“No!”

The needle pointed to the only Destruction-rank monster on the roulette—the Rock Lion.

This monster, with a body like a stone statue, was impossible to face unless one had sufficient special ability output.

Especially for a human with physical enhancement abilities, unless they exceeded a certain level.

“What will you do? If you surrender now, the penalty is ten million won! Ah! Of course! Life is more important than money, right?”

“Fight! Fight! Fight!”

“What a waste of that build! Coward!”

“Boooooo!”

“Oppa! Come up to my room~! I’ll pay for you! Building 103, Room 402~!”

When I walked off the stage without answering, the audience booed, thinking I had surrendered.

But when I headed toward the cage instead of the tent, the jeers turned to cheers.

“Unbelievable! Are you planning to fight! Park Deun-deun!”

“Kyaaaaa!”

“Park Deun-deun! Park Deun-deun! Park Deun-deun!”

Amid the audience’s loud cheers, a rough-looking man emerged from the tent with a scowl and headed toward another tent with several other men.

The men brought out a large cage containing the Rock Lion, placed it inside, administered several injections similar to those given to the Blade Cat, and then left.

“Betting results: Human 28, Monster 72! Fighter Park Deun-deun! If you win here, you get ten million won! Can he hunt the Rock Lion?”

“Grrrr….”

The Rock Lion, awakening from its sleep, growled at me and slowly lowered its upper body.

It was the characteristic pre-pounce posture of feline monsters.

I waited for the Rock Lion with my hands on my waist.

Previously, in human form, my strength was between Homicide-rank and Destruction-rank.

But now… I felt I could definitely exert Destruction-rank level power.

I grabbed the Rock Lion’s head with one hand as it lunged at me.

“The Rock Lion is lunging… huh?”

“Grrrr…! Grrrrrrrr…!”

“Hmm….”

As I thought, it’s possible.

Perhaps practicing controlling monster energy helped increase the strength I could use in human form.

My physical durability seems to have improved too… despite the Rock Lion continuously swinging its claws, not even a scratch appeared on my arm.

As I pushed down on the Rock Lion’s head, it sensed something was wrong and its demeanor changed.

“Groooo…! Kyaang?! Kak, karuck…!”

Crunch. As I continued pressing down on its head, cracks gradually formed in the Rock Lion’s skull.

Crack, crack. Pink flesh oozed out between the fractured rocks as the Rock Lion’s head tore apart.

After thrashing its hind legs trying to escape, the Rock Lion stopped moving when its head shattered beyond its limit.

“Uh… uh… ah, the Rock Lion… h-has been… hunted. Th-that was Park Deun-deun!”

I wiped the monster blood from my hands onto the Rock Lion’s corpse and exited the cage.

The audience was completely silent without a single cheer. Not knowing where to go, I returned to the tent.

As I entered, the people inside backed away, distancing themselves from me.

“You bastard… what are you?”

Just then, men in suits rushed into the tent.

“That just now, that’s at least a B-rank superhuman, right? Are you a villain from another organization? No, I’ve never seen a villain with that level of physical enhancement ability in W City who looks like you…”

The men raised their special abilities cautiously as they grew more wary of me.

“Where are you from! Are you a hero? Coming to Kowloon Walled City without fear…!”

“Ten million won.”

“Wh-what…?”

“…You’re not going to pay?”

Looking at the men’s rough appearance, I thought, “Just as I expected.”

This happens sometimes at restaurants too… Some restaurants have special events where you draw lots at the counter after eating, and if you win, your meal is free. But no matter how many times you eat there, you never actually win.

I think they call this false advertising… Having expected this, I sighed and said:

“I figured as much. Society is indeed cold.”

“What are you talking about, you bastard…?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a scene demanding money like some troublemaker.”

While talking, I looked for a towel to finish wiping my hands, but gave up and rubbed them on a convenient surface.

Right next to where the suited men were standing, I wiped my hands on the taut tent wall, leaving distinct red handprints.

“Instead, I’ll consider my entrance fee paid and would like to look around inside. I can wander freely, right?”

Now I should be able to search for my chain necklace and the thief.

With that meaning in my words, the man in front of me pointed a weapon at me, emanating a scent of fear.

“A-are you looking for a fight…!”

“Hmm? You want to fight?”

“No, I’m not saying I want to fight, I’m asking if YOU want to fight!”

“So you do want to fight?”

“No! I’m not saying I want to fight! Fuck this!”

“Are you perhaps intellectually challenged? Your speech is a bit strange.”

“Y-you bastard! Are you really looking for a fight!”

Hmm, he definitely seems intellectually challenged… I placed my hand on the man’s shoulder, meaning to encourage him to work hard in life.

“Hiiieek!”

The man collapsed, clutching his shoulder, and crawled backward.

Now he’s even having seizures. As I looked down at the man with pity, a woman wearing a suit similar to the men entered from outside the tent, emitting a peculiar scent.

“That’s enough, please. He may not look it, but he’s my subordinate. It would be troublesome if you killed him.”

“N-Noona…!”

“Hmm?”

When the woman with a smiling face entered, the suited men suddenly emitted a tense scent, and I frowned at the strange smell.

The somehow familiar yet unfamiliar woman adjusted her suit sleeve and spoke:

“Who might you be? I haven’t heard anything about the Villain Association sending someone, and there’s been no news from the hero side either…”

“Hmm.”

I sniffed the air, examining the alien presence.

The smiling woman’s scent was both similar to and distinctly different from those around her.

Yet it definitely gave me a sense of alienness that I recognized, making me ponder.

“I’m sorry, but our Kowloon Walled City operates on a reservation system for B-rank superhumans and above. It’s not too late… would you mind telling us who you are?”

“I’m Park Deun-deun.”

“Sigh… let’s drop that unfunny alias.”

The smiling woman slowly raised her hand and held it in front of my eyes.

“If you don’t intend to tell us, I’ll have no choice but to use force.”

With a snap of her fingers, my vision flickered.

This is… a confusion ability, one that mixes up the senses.

It felt like hearing became sight, sight became smell, smell became touch.

But with a monster’s heightened senses, I could still perceive the woman in front of me without any problem.

“Take him to the conference room like this, I need to find out what kind of bastard he is…”

“Now this is definitely picking a fight.”

“What…?”

When I raised my hand, the woman who had been speaking in an annoyed tone jumped back in surprise.

She snapped her fingers again, snap, snap, and a different ability enveloped my senses.

An illusion ability—the woman multiplied into dozens, surrounding me, while a pain-inducing ability burned through my body.

Regardless, abilities that disturb the senses might tire a monster out, but they can’t inflict any real damage.

I grabbed the woman’s arm.

“W-wait…!”

Crunch, crunch, creak. As I applied pressure, the woman panicked and tried to pull her arm free.

Just as I was about to burst the muscles in her arm, her arm transformed like a tentacle in my hand and slipped away.

Molluscization—an ability to change bodily composition.

Having confirmed a third ability, I thought something was strange and heightened my monster senses.

The woman before me blinked in shock.

Her startled reaction to the low-frequency vibrations of my core, which humans shouldn’t easily detect, puzzled me, but what I sensed next surprised even me.

“You, could it be…?”

“Hmm?”

Ultra-low frequency waves, too faint for even superhumans to detect, were emanating from the woman in front of me.

Impossible without a monster core.

“Everyone out!”

“Huh? N-Noona?”

“Get out now, this… seems like someone I know.”

“W-where should we wait?”

“Wait outside and figure it out yourselves!”

The smiling woman, having sensed I was a monster, drove everyone out of the tent.

Left alone with her, I quieted my monster core and asked about her identity.

“What are you?”

At my question, the woman unbuttoned her shirt to reveal the area below her collarbone.

A tattoo below the collarbone, letters above a barcode: G3.

The woman before me was an experiment from the same laboratory as me.

“You’re from the Alphabet series.”

“And you are?”

I brushed back my messy hair and showed the area around my neck.

G3’s eyes widened in surprise, and she spoke in a shocked voice.

“C-CXI? The one from Romania?”

Romania refers to experiments numbered with Roman numerals, one of the common terms for lab-created monsters.

I learned this by eavesdropping on researchers’ conversations. My number, converted to decimal, is 111.

The Alphabet series G3 is… 73.

“This is surprising, to encounter another experiment.”

“I’m the one who’s surprised… Wait, why is an experiment here? Are you here to eliminate me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I guess not. Then… what? Did you find me by coincidence?”

When I nodded, G3 sighed and sat down on a bench.

“Phew, what a relief. I thought the lab had sent Romania’s strongest as an assassin to kill me.”

“Strongest? That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

“You were famous among the Alphabet series. Remember how the lab would sometimes make us fight? CXI never did anything, but no matter what was done to you, you never took damage.”

“To call that ‘strongest’ is absurd.”

Well aware that the opposing monsters were experiments like me, I often had no intention of fighting and would just lie down.

Other monsters would pound on my back, and I’d either dodge or take the hits.

Spending time like that, the researchers would eventually give up and stop the experiment… To think they were saying strange things like “strongest” because of that.

“What are you saying? You know what it means when a monster doesn’t go berserk even after countless attacks, right?”

“Hmm.”

I see, so that was it.

When a monster that’s been attacked countless times doesn’t go berserk, it means the opponent’s attacks aren’t threatening at all.

It seems my non-resistance was perceived as looking down on the other monsters.

In reality, most of them were weak enough that I could ignore them anyway.

“If you’re that CXI… then I can believe you’re not here to kill me.”

G3 seemed to let down her guard, perhaps because she knew I never fought any monsters in the lab.

Seeing no need to be cautious either, I completely calmed the vibrations of my monster core, and G3 extended her hand to me.

“If you’re not here as an enemy, shall we introduce ourselves? CXI? I’m Gu Seo-ryong. And you?”

The human way of greeting—I took G3’s hand and stated my name.

“I’m Park Deun-deun.”