Ch.50Wronged Baby Monster

“The dead angel has come back to life?!”

It happened in the basement level 2 of the research building, where the freezing equipment had long since broken down and the place was in shambles.

“An angel…? You mean that thing with just legs?”

“Yes! That National Disaster-Level Monster that was exterminated ten years ago!”

“It came back to life?”

“Literally! Director, it suddenly stood up, passed by me, and broke through the wall to get outside!”

Lee Heejeong was currently explaining what had happened exactly 30 minutes ago.

She was describing how the lower half of the Angel, which should have been long dead, suddenly got up on its own and what it did afterward.

“A dead monster coming back to life…”

Sure enough, just as she said, there was a large hole in one of the outer walls of the specially equipped cooling room in basement level 2.

That hole connected to the middle of the asphalt road above ground, and even just looking at the CCTV footage from the road, it was clearly the lower half of the Angel.

…But how?

‘That should have been just a “piece of meat” too dead even for me to revive.’

Lee Jin-ah tilted her head, puzzled by the inexplicable situation.

Just then.

“Director, I think that baby monster is the cause of this incident.”

“M-me?”

Lee Heejeong subtly pointed at someone, seizing the opportunity.

It was Eve, baby monster #2, who had been hiding behind Lee Jin-ah the whole time.

“She’s the culprit, Director.”

“N-no! I’m not!”

“Interesting. Heejeong, if Eve is really the culprit in this case, can you tell me the evidence?”

“Of course.”

Currently, the research building had become an isolation zone again because of the escaped monster, just like before.

With only the three of them in basement level 2, Heejeong found it somewhat regrettable that there were no other researchers around to help sway public opinion.

“Actually, I’ve been tracking that baby monster.”

“You’ve been tracking Eve?”

“Yes.”

After all, she was confident she could gaslight one stupid baby monster all by herself.

“She causes so much trouble! Whenever she comes down to the research building, the researchers can’t do their work because of her! So I was trying to tell her to stop interfering, but she ran away, so I was chasing after her.”

“Is what Heejeong says true, Eve? Have the people in the research building been unable to do their work because of you?”

“W-well…”

Heejeong deliberately gave ambiguous answers.

It was true that Eve had been wandering around the research building and playing with researchers who should have been focusing on their work.

She mixed subtle truths between lies to make the immature child unable to answer properly.

After all, she had plenty of experience with this kind of opinion manipulation in online communities after work.

“I didn’t…”

“See! Director! She’s stuttering! That means I’m right, doesn’t it?!”

“…Let’s continue listening to the story.”

She silenced the fidgeting child with her loud voice.

Then, believing that Jin-ah completely trusted only her, Heejeong gradually began adding red herrings to the original content.

“So I chased her down to basement level 2. There are many valuable research materials here, so I was going to tell her to be careful, but she was so wild…”

“N-no! I was standing still!”

“Oh my, this child. Don’t you think I know that you showed killing intent when I mentioned your mother while we were talking earlier?”

“…! B-but that’s…”

“Killing intent?”

Flinch!

At that moment, Jin-ah’s tone changed at the mention of “killing intent.”

Regardless of the reason, a monster controlled by humans should never show killing intent toward humans, even by mistake.

That was the rule of human society, and especially toward someone who belonged to the Hunter Association, which established that rule.

“Eve. Is what she said true?”

“W-well…”

Jin-ah asked in a calm but forceful voice.

Eve, who had been trembling with her head bowed, hesitated for a moment.

“Y-yes…”

She carefully answered.

Slap.

Immediately, she received a stinging slap that nearly turned her head around.

“Go to your mother’s room on the top floor right now.”

“Yes…”

“Take off your skirt and all your underwear as soon as you get there and prepare for punishment. Today you’ll be spanked on both your calves and buttocks until they bleed. Understand?”

“…I understand.”

There was much Eve wanted to say too.

But she had indeed broken the rule her mother had absolutely forbidden.

So Eve had no choice but to swallow her feelings of injustice and do as she was told.

With one arm covering her eyes, she sniffled as she trudged out of the research building’s second floor.

Left alone with Jin-ah in the devastated cooling room.

Snicker, snicker.

‘I shouldn’t laugh yet…!’

That filthy baby monster bitch.

Thinking about how that child would be physically punished until she bled this evening, Heejeong found it really difficult to hold back her victorious smile.

A perfect victory indeed!

The only disappointing thing was that the monster still remained as the Director’s controlled monster.

‘If I gaslight her a few more times like this, the Director will eventually hand that little brat over to me as my test subject.’

Time was on her side anyway.

Heejeong had experience sending celebrities and politicians packing through online witch hunts.

‘Just you wait!’

To her, an immature child was nothing more than prey ready to be torn apart.

Meanwhile.

“Heejeong.”

“Yes?”

“So.”

“…What do you mean, ‘so’?”

She thought the whole situation was already over.

“The next part of your story.”

Jin-ah wanted to hear the rest of it.

“I mean the reason you said Eve was responsible for the Angel’s lower half coming back to life. Please tell me.”

She had deliberately changed the subject of the conversation, thinking Jin-ah would have forgotten about it by now, but seeing the Director still wanting to discuss it, Heejeong was momentarily flustered.

But since she asked for it.

“It’s simple, Director!”

Heejeong packaged her speculation, half serious and half joking, with plenty of her own brain theories, to make it sound as plausible as possible to Jin-ah.

“That monster Eve is the offspring of the entity named Angel, isn’t she!”

“That’s right.”

“So when I said something to that baby monster, the corpse, which should have been dead, must have resonated with its offspring and temporarily come back to life!”

“…Come back to life?”

“Yes! You know, like those monsters that can sometimes resurrect the corpses of their dead kind as zombies!”

A statement made with the thought that it would be amazing if true, and if not, then it wasn’t.

Heejeong shrugged her shoulders, thinking lightly of it.

But as soon as she finished speaking.

“Heejeong. Your deduction is wrong.”

“W-what?”

Jin-ah responded seriously to what was said half-jokingly.

“First of all, Eve doesn’t have that ability. And resurrection abilities aren’t versatile enough to revive a corpse with only its lower half remaining.”

“Ah, yes…”

“Even if it were resurrected as a zombie, it would need at least some major organs remaining in the body. Having limbs would be even better.”

“Is that so…?”

“Yes. Especially the ‘head’ for thinking is absolutely essential.”

The reason why in zombie movies you see zombies with only their upper bodies remaining, but never zombies with just their lower halves.

The reason was very simple.

Without a head to send brain signals, it was just a piece of meat with only nerve cells alive.

Some internal organs were also needed to absorb nutrients and supply energy to move.

Even zombies couldn’t move if they starved, just like when they were alive.

‘In other words…’

The idea that the Angel’s lower half was resurrected and moved by Eve or anyone else was nonsensical from the beginning.

The Angel hadn’t come back to life.

Just as a car without an engine can’t be controlled no matter what you do inside it.

And if there was a way to move such a car, that method would be external, not internal.

For example, pushing a car that won’t start from behind.

‘Something troublesome seems to have entered Korea.’

Jin-ah walked toward the hole that the Angel’s lower half had supposedly created.

And as Heejeong followed behind her, sure enough.

Swish.

She could easily find the “thread” that was presumed to have moved the Angel.

“A meticulously crafted magical thread… It’s so thin that even A-rank Hunters wouldn’t be able to see it with the naked eye.”

In other words, the culprit had attached threads to the Angel’s lower half and controlled the dead woman like a puppet.

Anyway, this cleared Eve’s false accusation.

“D-Director! Then who could the culprit be?”

Now that one fire was put out, it was time to go put out another.

With that thought, Jin-ah turned to face her junior researcher who had been subtly trying to deceive her, but who was still useful.

“Heejeong.”

“Ah, yes, Director!”

“Remember that US assignment I mentioned to you before? It’s almost at the approval stage now.”

“R-really?!”

The United States headquarters, the only main office of the Hunter Association.

Getting a job as a researcher there was Heejeong’s dream, unchanged from the original story to now.

Heejeong’s eyes sparkled at the fact that it could soon become reality.

“Just help me with a few of my tasks from now on. Then, I’ll send you to America.”

“Th-thank you! Director.”

Dreaming of the American Dream!

Imagining that she could soon escape from the Korean peninsula, a market too small to contain her, Heejeong felt like she could fly.

As she placed her hand on the shoulder of the woman who had once again become her “loyal subordinate.”

“Heejeong. I promise you.”

Jin-ah smiled and promised.

“I will definitely help you leave this land. So just follow my words and actions well.”