Ch.35Monster (3)

‘Let’s take care of this first before going out.’

While No. 26 was busy eating brains, I had something to do. I cut off the ankle of the man next door and put it in the refrigerator.

‘I’ll need to morph into this person after I’m done with Ras.’

The morphing organ analyzes and mimics genes by consuming flesh. Like when activating the predation effect, I don’t need to eat all the meat.

‘No need to keep everything, just storing a part will do.’

Putting it in the refrigerator should slow down the decay process. Even so, it probably won’t last more than two days.

After disposing of the corpse, I took out the communicator.

‘Next is…’

Who should I call?

Looking at the contacts, Ras’s social circle was extremely limited. Besides the manager, there didn’t seem to be anyone who might know a broker.

‘The manager would be risky.’

Just like on the research ship, a team manager in a space city belongs to at least mid-tier Capital.

Even at the lowest estimate, they’d be Middle Capital, or maybe Third Capital if higher? They’re on a completely different level from easily replaceable people like Ras.

‘If someone like that disappears, it would be noticed immediately.’

The situation now is different from when I killed Kisaragi Yujin.

She was Noble Capital, a class too high for the people on the research ship to handle.

Megacorp is a society based on competition, but paradoxically, it’s also a rigid pyramid society where class mobility has become fixed.

The higher the Capital, the more cruelly they treat those below to prevent them from rising.

Noble Capital sits at the very top of the Megacorp pyramid, so it must be even worse.

As a result, everyone feared Noble Capital’s retaliation, and they could only respond passively to her sudden death. That timid response ultimately brought them great misfortune.

‘It’s ironic. The death of someone in the highest position gets hidden, while the death of someone in a lower position gets noticed.’

Anyway, the Smuggled Animal Management Team Leader isn’t an attractive target. The team itself seemed busy, and if the person in charge disappears, there would be chaos. I need to choose someone else.

‘This person doesn’t seem right, nor this one… huh?’

While checking the messages on the communicator, I noticed a contact that appeared frequently. The messages were just asking if he wanted to go to an establishment after work today, but this person exchanged the most messages with Ras.

‘Makes sense.’

The person’s name was Lloyd. A friend who shared secret hobbies with Ras.

When it comes to “establishments” in the Special Trade Center, they were famous even in online communities. They were places that starkly revealed the dark dystopian worldview.

They were so ethically controversial that they were mentioned in the news several times.

Anyway, someone who enjoys such immoral entertainment might know about brokers.

‘He seems close to Ras…’

Judging by their communications up until yesterday, they appear to have a special relationship.

I used my small arm to send Lloyd a message.

“Hey, I need to ask you something.”

“Didn’t you quit? The mad dog is going crazy, what happened?”

“I got sick of the fucking job. Looking to change careers.”

“Work here is pretty shitty. Where are you going?”

“This is all I know how to do. Gotta stick to something similar.”

“Similar work?”

“Yeah, like smuggling.”

I might have brought up the topic too abruptly, but I had no choice. I don’t know what tone or feeling Ras usually uses to express himself. The longer the conversation, the more gaps will appear.

‘It’s better to keep it as short as possible.’

The other side had been replying immediately, but this time there was no answer, perhaps needing time to think. After a few minutes, the communicator beeped again.

“Didn’t you say before that you wouldn’t do dangerous work?”

It seems Lloyd and Ras had discussed smuggling before. Ras apparently refused at the time.

“I thought about it again and realized I don’t have any good ways to make money.”

“You hopeless bastard. Everyone else is already doing it, you think you can just start now?”

“I have to try at least.”

“Fine. I’ll send the information by email.”

“Don’t do that, can’t we meet and talk about it today?”

“Meet up?”

“I know a bar in the port district.”

“You’re buying drinks? That’s not like you.”

“I just quit, I can buy my colleague a drink, can’t I?”

“You’ve grown up since quitting. Alright. What time do you want to meet?”

I was honestly nervous about this, but Lloyd didn’t seem suspicious, so it went well.

‘Things are working out.’

I sent him a message with the place and time.

The location was an alley at the border of the port district. It’s as close as possible to a manhole connected to the underground secret passage.

I set the time for evening. In this city, there are people around day and night, but the difference between having bright light and not is enormous. To hide my body as much as possible in the darkness, I naturally need to meet at night.

‘It’s better to eat him after he gets off work to avoid complications.’

I sent the message and immediately got a reply. It was just random content about how he’d be lonely going to establishments alone now that I’d quit.

‘No need to be lonely.’

He’ll end up walking the same path as Ras anyway.

‘Got confirmation.’

There was still plenty of time until evening. Since collecting genetic essence from this apartment was on hold, I had to spend time in this house.

“I’m full.”

Looking at No. 26, he had become chubby from eating so much. He waddled onto the soft bed and fell asleep.

‘He must be young, so he needs a lot of sleep.’

After covering him with a blanket, I opened the laptop again. I should check the list before meeting Ras’s colleague, Lloyd.

While carefully examining the list, I marked cases where multiple creatures of the same species were seized.

‘Since the predation effect activates by probability, the more creatures of the same kind, the better.’

As I checked, I saw there were all kinds of creatures. I’d seen all of them at least once in the game, but for some, I wondered if they really intended to smuggle them.

‘There’s even a baby Mountain Crawler. How did they catch that? And… oh?’

While admiring the smugglers’ skills as I looked through the list, I spotted an unusual name.

‘They caught an Outspacer?’

I quickly checked the item next to the name and saw that the transfer field was blank. That means the Outspacer is still here.

’20 of them.’

It would be nice if there was a queen, but since it’s not specifically mentioned, it seems there are only soldiers. Still, that’s a great find for me.

‘Outspacer genes are useful.’

As the name suggests, Outspacers are an alien species that came from beyond space in the game’s lore. They have many similarities to AMorph, such as collecting and enhancing genes and being hostile to species different from their own.

The difference is that unlike AMorph, players operate Outspacers as a colony rather than individual units, and Outspacers can cooperate and communicate with each other.

Simply put, if AMorph is X-ileX-ian, Outspacer is inspired by the classic game X-gra.

Since I’m obsessed with alien creatures, I played Outspacer for quite a long time.

‘It’s essentially an upgraded version of AMorph.’

When a player chooses Outspacer, they become the colony queen of that species, with the main goal of growing the colony. By capturing other creatures and absorbing their genes, those genes are reflected in the soldiers born from the queen.

As the soldiers get stronger, they collect more powerful genes, and the colony grows. Outspacer is a species with a typical king-return mechanism.

Unlike AMorph, which is treated terribly despite being a king-return type species, Outspacer was evaluated in the community as a high-difficulty species with considerable potential.

This is because players can grow the colony into completely different forms depending on their choices.

In terms of performance, it’s a species that quickly becomes powerful after surviving the difficult early stages, so it was quite loved even by players who prioritize performance over concept.

‘Still, I prefer AMorph.’

If you play as AMorph, you should definitely get Outspacer genes if you have the chance. Not only are there many helpful traits, but they’re also related to type acquisition.

‘Let’s get these first.’

Twenty might be a small number, but since I’ll be eating the creatures whole rather than just samples, I can expect the predation effect.

I also checked other useful prey one by one. Unfortunately, since we’re talking about smuggling, there weren’t many cases where more than 10 creatures were brought in.

‘Even if I take everything, I might not get many traits.’

This part seems to depend on luck.

As I was selecting what to eat, shadows had already fallen deeply in the room.

The time for hunting prey was approaching.

I woke up No. 26, and we left the house together.

A gloomy darkness had settled over the entire city. Street lights shone brightly in the dark residential district.

‘Last time I broke them because there were people around…’

There are police patrolling around the residential district late at night.

Before, I had to break the street lights to avoid their gaze, but if I keep breaking them, someone will become suspicious. Today, I should avoid the street lights rather than destroying them.

I moved by jumping between the rooftops and outer walls of densely packed apartments.

The gaps between apartments were quite large, but thanks to the effect of the strength enhancement trait, jumping long distances wasn’t a problem. When landing, I spread the wings on my back to minimize noise.

‘Fortunately, there aren’t many people around before the end of work hours.’

Moving quickly, I soon approached the manhole cover. Though the manhole was right in front of me, I didn’t rush toward it but hid myself.

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

[Zuzu (enemy)]

“Enemy?”

An android was patrolling around the manhole.

‘It’s a combat android.’

Unlike the android I saw on the pirate ship last time, this one had three arms. In addition to two arms resembling human arms, it had a combat right arm equipped with a gauss rifle attached near the waist.

‘That’s strange. An android using a gauss rifle?’

The gauss rifle is a high-firepower weapon just below plasma weapons, highly effective against heavily armored enemies. To put it simply, it’s like a plasma weapon with reduced price and destructive power.

However, the gauss rifle is still an expensive equipment for ordinary soldiers or androids. The gun itself costs more than a low-grade exoskeleton, and above all, the ammunition is extremely expensive.

‘Of course it’s expensive since it uses tungsten alloy ammunition.’

Anyway, the android armament level I knew was certainly not that high.

Even if this city is wealthy, it’s not rich enough to equip ordinary androids with gauss rifles that use expensive tungsten ammunition like water.

Not unless there’s a special situation that requires patrol androids to be armed with gauss rifles.

‘Is there an event or festival?’

The T&C Special Trade Center was a place where various events were held in the game as well. As a city that attracts many tourists, it wouldn’t be strange if there was a festival I didn’t know about.

If a festival is being held, all sorts of people will come in, so naturally, the level of security and surveillance will increase. The festival might be related to why the androids are armed at a higher level than usual.

‘I don’t know if I should consider this good luck or bad luck.’

I got in safely, but who knew a festival was about to be held.

While I was lost in thought, the heavily armed android wandered around the manhole and then went somewhere else. After waiting for a while to confirm that no one was coming, I approached the manhole.

I easily lifted the heavy piece of metal that would be impossible for a human to lift, and sent No. 26 in first. After checking the surroundings one more time, I also entered the manhole.

As I closed the manhole cover, pitch-black darkness like a black hole greeted us.

“Baby, where are we going?”

[Zuzu zuzu (We’re going the way we came)]

Neither of us has trouble seeing without light. He senses air flow and waves with his entire body, and I have auxiliary organs.

I can see it. A small tunnel about 5 meters high extending all the way to the end of the ground.

Inside the tunnel, garbage left by past workers and cigarette butts that someone from the city above had thrown through the gaps in the manhole cover were scattered on the floor.

Dust periodically poured from the walls surrounding the tunnel due to the vibrations created by the subway moving.

I walked toward the destination with No. 26.

‘Let’s spread spores on the way.’

Originally, I was going to spread spores after setting up a nest, but if there’s a festival in the city, that’s different. I need to set up a surveillance network in advance to deal with unexpected situations smoothly.

When I activated the contamination organ in the lower right combat arm, sticky dark brown mucus mixed with spores flowed out. The spore mass that left my body slowly infiltrated the inside of the tunnel as if telling me not to worry.

Since the contamination organ is also a trait that receives enhancement effects, the spores will grow as much as if I had made a nest directly in about two days.

‘That takes care of the surveillance network.’

By the time most of the spores were spread on the path connecting the residential district and the port district, I had arrived at my destination. I carefully opened the manhole cover to check outside.

‘As expected, no one’s here.’

This area is at the boundary between districts, so people don’t walk around here. If they want to go to another district, they take the subway rather than walking.

[Zuzu zuzu (Wait here)]

“Why? I want to go with you.”

[Zuzu zuzuzu zuzu (The enemy is afraid of you)]

Remembering that Ras was afraid of him, he shrank dejectedly. It’s unfortunate, but people are afraid of No. 26, so it can’t be helped.

After hiding No. 26 below the manhole, I went to the meeting place. The other person hadn’t arrived yet. I crouched in a dark alley with my morphing organ activated.

‘He’s coming.’

After waiting for about 10 minutes, someone walked toward me from far away.