Ch.42Snake
by fnovelpia
“I told you to eat until you’re full, but you need to follow the rules.”
When my dream of unlimited refills came true, Yu Hye-na set a few conditions in exchange for providing me with meals.
First, don’t take food too quickly so others can eat too.
Second, if villains appear while eating, prioritize protecting citizens.
Lastly, don’t encourage people to cheer by saying things like “yari-kiri” or other strange phrases.
If I follow these rules, I can eat as much as I want, however I want.
“Can you follow them?”
“Mm.”
After agreeing to the conditions, I ate until I was full and yawned with satisfaction.
Who would have thought that my lost utopia would return… This is sacred ground blessed with unlimited refills, and Yu Hye-na is the supervisor protecting this land.
As promised, even after finishing my meal, I didn’t leave the park and looked for a place to nap as drowsiness washed over me.
Since the weather was nice, I lay down in the sandbox at the corner of the playground and closed my eyes.
The warm sand was like a natural electric heating pad.
“Ahaha! Ahahahaha!”
“Waaaa! Ahahahaha!”
As I slept, children gathered around me, playing and covering my body with sand.
While being patted by their tiny hands, I listened to the murmurs of the residents.
“These days, villains are running wild, it’s terrible.”
“That villain boss, Gu Seo-ryong or whatever, still hasn’t been caught? Hasn’t she already fled to another city?”
“Black Cat doesn’t catch villains.”
“I really don’t like that one. It’s a monster after all, right? Who knows when it might destroy our homes if we leave it alone.”
“But it eats a lot of monsters, doesn’t it? It’s like a spider on your window sill in summer.”
Talk about me, monsters and villains, feelings about living in the present.
The voices of residents I heard while lying in the sandbox tickled my ears like news broadcasts in a restaurant.
Kang, kang, kang, kang… The sound of spoons hitting dishes echoes widely.
“Starlight has it tough, taking care of the poor, catching monsters, keeping an eye on public sentiment.”
“She seems to do more work than the mayor. Of course, the government provides various welfare benefits too.”
“Here in District 4, what Starlight provides is better than what those government guys do. This food comes from Starlight’s pocket too.”
“That Starlight is also a government hero. And has Starlight ever come here herself? She just sends her younger sister, the foundation director.”
“Hey, don’t eat then. Do you think sending her sister is an easy thing?”
Hmm, I see… This free meal is provided with Starlight’s money, and the foundation director she sends here is Starlight’s sister.
Absentmindedly nodding, I opened my eyes slightly and glanced toward Yu Hye-na.
So that woman is Starlight’s sister.
Now that I hear it, their faces are quite similar.
The smell… Starlight always smells like maekbanseok eggs, but that woman is full of the scent of boiled beef and rich beef fat.
They’re the same in that they both smell delicious.
I see, I see… Starlight’s sister…
As I was thinking this, I yawned and warned:
“Move your hand.”
“Ah! You knew?”
When the sound waves spread unnaturally wide, I sensed the ability being used by Gu Seo-ryong.
Just before inserting her fingers into my neck, Gu Seo-ryong stopped and raised both hands in surrender.
Beside her, the children blinked as they looked at Gu Seo-ryong.
“It’s a pretty lady!”
“Where did you come from?”
“When did you get here? Have you eaten? If you’re hungry, eat! It’s delicious!”
“My, these children have better eyes than a certain kitten?”
Glancing over, I saw Gu Seo-ryong make a hmph sound as if pouting, while patting the children’s heads.
Having already sensed that the children were excluded when her confusion ability spread, I looked around at the residents who couldn’t recognize Gu Seo-ryong and said:
“You didn’t use your ability on the children.”
“Of course not. If such young kids get hit with a confusion ability, it’s bad for their brains.”
“That’s right.”
The sensory confusion ability doesn’t create illusions in reality but works on the brains of living beings exposed to it.
If children with still-developing brains were affected, various side effects could occur.
“Besides, if I touched children, who knows what my darling would do? My darling isn’t soft-hearted like Starlight, right?”
“Is that the only reason?”
“Hehe, is that all? We’re experiments, aren’t we?”
Gu Seo-ryong chuckled at our conversation that connected due to our shared background as experiments.
All experiments were orphans who were sold to laboratories after entering orphanages.
That’s why we don’t touch children.
It’s not like we made a promise or anything, but it’s something we instinctively sense after acknowledging that we’ve become monsters.
“I really hate this. The monster that wasted four years of my life is leisurely taking a nap in a sandbox. And in that short time, you’ve become the Cerberus guarding my last card.”
“You mean Yu Hye-na.”
“My, were you listening to people’s conversations while lying there?”
Yu Hye-na is Starlight’s sister, and Gu Seo-ryong appeared here to take her hostage.
Squatting down, Gu Seo-ryong rested her chin on her hand while children pulled at her hair.
“In just one more year, W City would have been in my hands. I’d started working on the mayor, and according to plan, Starlight was definitely possible too… but some damn cat ruined everything.”
“Bad luck.”
“Ha, if I just had that woman in my hands, Starlight wouldn’t dare to rush in… This time, with experience, I could restore my nest in just one year. I came here with determination because she’s Starlight’s sore spot… Really, you’re such an unhelpful cat, ah, so annoying.”
“Give up.”
“Yeah, give up, give up. I’m a wise woman. I don’t fight battles I can’t win.”
“Wow! So tall!”
“Lady’s boobies are big!”
“My, look at this one? You’ll grow up to be a villain, won’t you?”
A child who had climbed up Gu Seo-ryong’s head using her hair as a rope shouted.
Gu Seo-ryong grabbed the child’s waist and put him down, but another child continued climbing up her back.
Among them, she removed a small boy who was climbing up while grabbing her chest with his tiny hands, and looked down at me saying:
“So? Have you completely become Starlight’s dog, no, cat?”
“I’m not a cat.”
“Whatever you’ve become, why are you taking Starlight’s side like this? Heroes are like natural enemies to us, right? What, are you planning to be friendly with heroes and become some monster hero?”
“I don’t do hero stuff.”
“Darling, you know what you’re doing is hardly different from what heroes do, right?”
“Is it?”
Working hard every day only to be cursed at, yet still having to stay strong like heroes—my situation seems different from that?
I just eat what I want to eat and do what I want to do, that’s all.
“Not exactly like that? But why do you help humans? Help heroes?”
“Because I want to.”
“That’s such a monster-like and excellent reason…”
“Why do you do what you do?”
Why, as a monster, do you try to imitate humans among humans and stand above them?
To my question with multiple meanings, Gu Seo-ryong gave a monster-like answer.
“Because it’s much more efficient this way. They say women are gatherers, not hunters, right? If you make a proper nest, food overflows without having to hunt.”
“Is that all?”
When I pressed her about the subtle smell of lies I sensed, Gu Seo-ryong smiled and continued.
“There are other things too. I want to be successful, I want to be pretty, I want to succeed, I want good men to beg me to bear their children. Aren’t these women’s dreams? All of them can be achieved if I make my nest splendid.”
“I see.”
This time she was sincere. Gu Seo-ryong sighed with regret.
“So in the end, you’ll continue to side with Starlight? Because you want to?”
“Mm.”
“Then you and I are enemies? Because I want to kill that woman.”
“Do you have a grudge?”
“No? I just want to eat her. She looks delicious, doesn’t she? Such a strong hero… If I eat her, I’ll become stronger than you, won’t I?”
“If you wanted to eat her that badly, why didn’t you monsterize?”
Gu Seo-ryong is a monster.
Monsterization would make her stronger than the vague humanization that constrains the whole body and seems to extract only what’s needed.
But Gu Seo-ryong never monsterized.
“I told you I don’t like monsterization because it’s ugly.”
“But you’d at least have a chance if you monsterized?”
“Even if I monsterized, I know I couldn’t do much damage to that monster of a woman, so I planned a mental attack strategy. If you push humans mentally, gaps appear.”
“Did gaps appear?”
“No? Ha, that bitch… Why doesn’t she just kill some humans? With her personality, it’s obvious her mind would start to waver from that point.”
“Would things change if Starlight’s mind wavered?”
“Hmph, it wouldn’t change immediately… but a gap to dig into would appear, right? To manipulate someone’s mind, you have to eat away at it little by little.”
Gu Seo-ryong raised her fingertips, forming venom at the ends, and licked it with the tip of her tongue.
“My ability, Venom Alchemist, creates drugs within my body, not liquids containing abilities I want. It’s complicated, you know? I have to research which combinations are effective. To brainwash using mind control drugs, I first need to get them addicted to the drug. It takes a long time… Heroes don’t understand this but they’re scared anyway, saying they must catch me, there’s no time, they’ll be manipulated… They’re running around with fire in their eyes, making it hard for me to move…”
“I’ve felt this before, but you talk a lot.”
“Oh? So, you don’t like it?”
“I want to sleep but can’t.”
“Hehe, but you know what? You’re talking quite a lot right now too.”
“…I suppose so.”
Now that I think about it, I was speaking more comfortably thinking of her as a fellow experiment.
When I acknowledged that I was talking more than usual, Gu Seo-ryong giggled and said:
“Well, given the situation, I’m going to go with Plan C.”
“You mean the future-seeing ability?”
“Not that, the third strategy… pretending to flee to another city but hiding under the lamp. But, darling? Sometimes you seem a bit stupid? We’d be perfect for having a baby together. It would be smart like me and strong like you, don’t you think?”
“No.”
“Really? I’ll settle somewhere in District 4, so if you ever change your mind, come find me. As for the location… if you court me, I’ll answer anytime.”
As Gu Seo-ryong quietly vibrated her monster core like a whisper, I frowned and voiced a question that suddenly occurred to me.
“Why are you telling me so much? Weaknesses, whereabouts, things you wouldn’t want known?”
“Hmm? Well, I’m courting you, aren’t I? I’m harmless, I won’t hurt you, so please make babies with me? Isn’t this especially important for monsters like us? When you never know when someone might bite your neck or target your core.”
“Didn’t you tell me to wait and see?”
“A woman’s revenge is making the man who rejected her regret it. ‘I should have had babies with her sooner,’ ‘She’s so much better than that woman,’ ‘Have my baby,’ ‘Have more babies’—seeing you begging like that would be the ultimate revenge, right?”
“Is that so…? I’m not sure.”
“You seem to know nothing about women. I bet you don’t even know why I deliberately showed myself here and spoke to you?”
“Why did you speak to me?”
“Hmph, what female would just pass by a male she likes?”
At some point, Gu Seo-ryong squatted on the sand among the children who were again covering my body with sand. She worked her mouth and spat out a long, sticky saliva, then started smearing the muddy sand on my body.
“What kind of poison is this?”
“Am I crazy enough to spit poison on sand that children are touching? It’s just my pure saliva, I’m applying saliva.”
“Big sister’s spit comes out a lot!”
“Does big sister have a water purifier in her mouth?”
“Blehhh!”
“Ahaha! Gross!”
As Gu Seo-ryong filled her mouth with saliva again and poured it onto the sand, the children played by sticking mud on my body.
Leaving the children behind, Gu Seo-ryong jumped up from her spot and landed softly on the park fence.
“Well, see you next time, Deun-deun. Don’t keep wagging your tail at other women.”
“Bye, big sister~!”
“Bye, big sister~!”
“Oh my… bye-bye~♥”
When Gu Seo-ryong said she was leaving, the children waved their hands, and Gu Seo-ryong slid down the fence like a snake and moved away from the park.
After Gu Seo-ryong left, the children continued waving toward the fence, and seeing this, Yu Hye-na approached and asked with a puzzled voice:
“Was someone on the fence?”
“A snake.”
“S-snake? Oh my, what should we do? Kids? Can you come here for a moment?”
“It’s already gone.”
Yu Hye-na, startled that the children might get bitten by a snake, pulled them away but stopped when she saw my condition.
“Is it okay to keep lying there? You need to protect us if villains come to cause trouble.”
“It doesn’t matter. And they won’t come.”
“How can you be so sure…”
I vibrated my core, spreading a faint wave.
Far away, I could sense Gu Seo-ryong, who hadn’t yet left District 4, hunting villains who were causing unnecessary disturbances.
Cleaning around the nest before settling in is a monster’s instinct.
“They can’t come.”
Corpses can’t cause trouble.
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