Ch.55Thoughts Grow Heavy

# Enhanced Translation

Finally, the long-awaited weekend arrived.

Since I still hadn’t found a proper job, I’d been filling my stomach with small monsters and now arrived at the paradise known as the free meal center.

“Oh! Mu-ryo! You survived!”

“Mister, you’re alive!”

It was early, before many people had arrived.

I entered the park drooling, ignoring those greeting me while staring intently at the serving counter.

Right now, people looked too delicious, so it seemed better not to look at them.

Yu Hye-na approached me with complicated emotions and stopped me.

“M-Mu-ryo! I’m so glad you’re safe. I was worried.”

“Worried?”

“During the Bad Cats attack, you ran off somewhere instead of going to the shelter, right? And then… we heard news about heroes getting hurt by monsters inside the shelter, and since you’re an unregistered superhuman… I couldn’t contact you either. I wondered if you’d come this weekend, and what I’d do if you didn’t…”

“I see.”

When I answered without even looking at Yu Hye-na, she tugged at my pants as if wanting me to look at her.

“…You know, at times like this, you’re supposed to say ‘thank you for worrying about me.'”

“Should I be grateful when someone worries about me? Why?”

“Um…? Well, um… I… I hoped you’d be safe from the monster attack?”

“I hoped you’d be safe too. Does that mean you should be grateful to me as well?”

“I… guess so?”

“Then let’s call it even.”

“Huh? Um, okay…? Okay…”

At my response, Yu Hye-na somehow emitted a dark, sticky scent like chocolate from one corner of her emotions.

We’d thanked each other, but she didn’t seem to feel good about it.

Leaving Yu Hye-na behind, I scooped up food and sat down to eat.

After one bowl, I felt a bit more alive.

Having regained some composure, I went for another bowl and found Yu Hye-na standing there with a sullen expression, emitting that strange, bouncy, candy-like flavor.

“Excuse me, Han Mu-ryo, I was really worried about you.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Hmph… have you been starving for days?”

“I haven’t eaten since the last soup meal.”

“What? Why, why not?”

“I thought if I ate, others wouldn’t be able to eat, so I held back. I have no money, no job, and few restaurants are open.”

“Oh!”

“I’m very hungry.”

At that, Yu Hye-na’s expression brightened dramatically as she approached and picked up a tray.

She filled it with food just like mine and followed me to my seat, placing the tray beside me and sitting down.

“Eat a lot. I had no idea… you must have been really hungry.”

“You must be very hungry too.”

“As if I could eat this much! I got this for you to eat. I’ll help you get more, so eat quickly.”

While I emptied my tray, Yu Hye-na brought the next one, and the residents of Section 4 whispered as they watched.

“Something must be going on. She’s acting like a new bride.”

“If someone rescued me like he did her, I’d fall for him too.”

“If he saved me twice, I’d even have his baby.”

“Is she going to take all our food for him?”

“I can hear you!”

“We meant for you to hear!”

After eating about four plates amid the residents’ laughter, my hunger was somewhat satisfied.

Having found some relief, I returned with Yu Hye-na to fill another tray.

“Your eyes look a bit better now? Until just now, they were so sharp they looked like they could chew through steel plates.”

“I feel like I might survive now.”

“Is it okay to talk now?”

“Mm.”

“…You didn’t get hurt during the Bad Cats incident, did you? Were you hiding somewhere?”

“I was moving around busily. I’m still tired.”

“You didn’t fight the Despair-rank monster, did you? My sister said only heroes fought this time…”

“Hmm.”

“Eat slowly. Here, water.”

Feeling there was no benefit in continuing this conversation, I stuffed a whole piece of meat into my mouth.

Beside me, Yu Hye-na opened the cap of a 1.5L water bottle.

As I gulped down water straight from the bottle, Yu Hye-na rested her arms on the table and stared at my face.

“Hey, Han Mu-ryo.”

“What is it?”

“Well… a-actually… I’ve been thinking about various things since being in the shelter… we’re living in a world where we never know what might happen next, right? With monsters constantly appearing like natural disasters that aren’t really natural disasters?”

“That’s right.”

“So… you know… that…”

“Speak.”

“That… thing you said in front of my house before… what was that?”

“What thing?”

“About me looking delicious… that…”

The sweet, sticky smell emanating from Yu Hye-na reminded me of the mothers at Black Cat Playground.

They had strange reactions back then too.

“Does ‘looking delicious’ have some meaning I don’t know about?”

“Huh? Oh, n-no… that’s… um? Well, that’s… w-what did you mean by it?”

“Exactly what I said. You smell like boiled beef that’s been heated thoroughly.”

“…Boiled beef?”

“Today you smell like beef soup.”

At my explanation, Yu Hye-na frowned strangely, lifted her arm to smell herself, then banged her forehead on the table with a bitter dark chocolate scent.

“What’s wrong? Are you dizzy?”

“No… I just feel stupid about all my feelings these past few days…”

“Why?”

“I’m never telling you… absolutely never…”

If she doesn’t want to talk about it, there’s no need to press further.

I glanced toward the serving counter, then nudged Yu Hye-na’s waist as she lay slumped on the table.

“Is it okay not to go to the serving counter?”

“…I don’t want to.”

“Don’t you need to greet people?”

“I just do that because I want to, not because I have to. Would you mind not chasing me away?”

“Mm.”

For some reason, a sticky, bitter maple syrup-like emotion flowed from Yu Hye-na.

Harboring what seemed like unpleasant emotions, she sat with her arms propped on the table and said:

“Since I’m sitting here beside you, don’t you have anything to say?”

“Hmm…”

What does she want me to say?

After thinking for a moment while chewing meat, I swallowed what was in my mouth and recalled something I’d wanted to tell Yu Hye-na.

“What you told me before was helpful. Thank you.”

“What?”

When Experiment No. 444 was rampaging, if I had continued compromising for practical reasons, the damage would have been much greater.

If I had chosen to eat Starlight, to eat humans, it would have been an irreversible choice.

“It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I’m glad it helped you.”

She seemed to notice earlier, when she handed me water, that I was avoiding conversation.

Yu Hye-na tapped the table with her fingertips—tap, tap, tap—and closed her eyes as if deep in thought.

“I don’t know what happened, but something did, right? You don’t want to talk about it in detail though?”

“I’m not sure how to explain it.”

“I’m curious—can I hear what part was helpful?”

“It’s about choices.”

If Starlight hadn’t been there when I faced Experiment No. 444, if Gu Seo-ryong hadn’t helped, the damage would have only continued to grow.

The fact that Gu Seo-ryong helped me also made me feel many things.

“I tried to make realistic choices, but it felt like I was being whittled away… However, when I made what seemed like a reckless choice that might possibly work, the result wasn’t bad.”

“And that was the ideal solution for your situation?”

“Yes. Thanks to you.”

“Oh my.”

A scent similar to what pregnant monsters often emit wafted from Yu Hye-na.

Hesitantly patting my back, she brought her hands together and gave a small clap with her fingers.

“W-well done. Keep doing that in the future.”

“I will if I can.”

“Did you follow the rules this time? You didn’t go too far…?”

“I have a question about that.”

“What is it?”

“I think ideal choices come with many conditions. If those conditions aren’t met, realistic choices are faster and more efficient.”

If Starlight had continued to see me as an enemy until the end, and if Gu Seo-ryong hadn’t responded to my call, the damage would have kept growing.

I did end it eventually, but perhaps if I had eaten just one, no… two shelters, or four or five superhumans before Starlight cleared up the misunderstanding…

If I hadn’t hesitated the moment I felt I couldn’t handle them alone, I could have reduced the damage by more than half.

“Always following every rule is idealistic, and ideals are hope. If you chase hope but fail to catch it, everything disappears. Is it always right to chase ideals despite that?”

“That’s a difficult question…”

Yu Hye-na looked up at the sky as if lost in thought.

“I think there are moments when you have to break rules for something more important, but still… I basically think it’s right. Of course, I’m not saying you should be bound only by rules.”

“So there’s no definite answer.”

“Right… it’s difficult. I think when breaking rules, it should be for the most important thing. Like if you need to destroy someone’s car or a building to save someone… then just destroy it. If someone says that’s wrong, then as you said before, the law is what’s wrong.”

After considering her answer for a moment, I honestly shared my concern.

“If you could save 50 people by killing 10, do you think you should kill those 10?”

“What?”

“If I killed 10 people with my own hands, I could definitely save 50.”

“Is this… like the trolley dilemma?”

“What’s that?”

Yu Hye-na showed fear and anxiety at my question and gulped down cold water.

Then, with a more serious expression than before, she faced me.

“I don’t know what you’ve been through, but no one can answer that question.”

“Why not?”

“Because it assumes both the 10 and the 50 must be sacrificed. And that responsibility isn’t even yours. So you don’t need to feel anxious or troubled about it.”

“Anxious…?”

Hearing that, I reflected on my emotions.

Anxious? Am I feeling anxious?

It doesn’t seem like it.

“It might not answer your question, but I think what’s right is to do your best in the moment… and then consider what might have been a more ideal method. When such choices are necessary, they’re often not realistic choices but compromises. How good can a choice be if it’s not about doing better, but about becoming less worse?”

Indeed, both options I was considering then were unappealing.

It was closer to choosing the lesser of two evils.

Like Starlight, Yu Hye-na looked at me with burning eyes and spoke firmly.

“I think we should focus not on sacrificing 10 people to reduce casualties, but on how to save everyone.”

“But couldn’t the damage have been reduced with those 10?”

“No one deserves to be sacrificed. Who makes that choice, and how? You? By what authority? Does that person really need to be sacrificed? Are you sure? If we keep compromising like that, why not compromise by becoming stronger? Isn’t that much better than thinking something must be sacrificed?”

“If you hesitate like that, eventually all 50 will die.”

“Even if the outcome isn’t good, we should try to find a way to save everyone rather than choosing who must die. If we fail now, we can reduce casualties more next time with better methods. Thinking only of sacrificing 10 people is a compromise.”

It’s unrealistic.

Is she saying to chase ideals even if it might cause more victims?

In a way, it’s a much more cruel and cold choice than mine, a monster.

But the more I listened, the more I thought Yu Hye-na might be right.

“If you keep compromising like that, you’ll keep retreating. Then next time you’ll have to sacrifice more people, and more, and more… There’s no improvement. You need to keep trying to improve to reduce casualties next time.”

“So you’re choosing to reduce future damage rather than current damage?”

“It’s better to reduce current damage too, but to reduce current damage, you should have acted ideally from the beginning.”

The more I listened, the more I thought.

If I had joined hands with Starlight and the heroes from the start, the damage might have been zero.

If I had known such a choice was possible from the beginning.

“Did something happen where you think damage increased because of you?”

As I sat quietly lost in thought, Yu Hye-na asked in a worried voice.

When I honestly nodded, the flavor of emotions I felt from her became complex.

“I… I want to say it’s not your fault. The monsters are the bad ones… they’re like natural disasters. Sigh… nothing I say will really comfort you, but… my sister often struggles with similar feelings. You know? My sister… being an S-rank hero.”

“I know.”

“Even heroes much stronger than you make mistakes. It’s unavoidable. Superhumans aren’t gods, right?”

“…God.”

The moment I heard that word, my brow furrowed involuntarily.

The church my parents attended, the cross at the orphanage, the lights of the laboratory, monsters, syringes, the pain of monster core formation.

“God doesn’t exist.”

“That’s right. In times like these, more people think that way… Anyway, what I want to say is… my sister also cries when she’s upset, fidgets when she’s sorry, laughs when she’s happy, and struggles when criticized… Up close, she’s not superhuman at all. Look, even the sun goes to rest at night, right? My sister needs rest too, and has family waiting…”

“Starlight is human.”

“Exactly! So… you did your best too.”

A careful hand touched my back, patting it gently.

The sweetness like a spiky sugar sculpture, an emotion I’d never tasted before—as I quietly looked at Yu Hye-na, she blushed and jumped up from her seat.

“Th-thank you for surviving! Enjoy your meal! I’ll… go rest.”

With bouncy emotions, Yu Hye-na trotted back to the serving counter.

As I watched her, I resumed eating.

And beside me, in the empty seat Yu Hye-na had vacated, Gu Seo-ryong plopped down and pretended to clean her ear with a sharp fingernail.

“Is the bullshit over?”