Ch.6161. Awakening

While an operation to develop a special force against the Great Hive Mind was underway, I felt that the time to confront the Level 0 Hive Mind in Pyongyang was drawing near.

And naturally, there was only one way to face a Level 0 monster without significant losses.

I needed to evolve into a Level 0 monster myself and directly confront its main body.

So I began my efforts to become Level 0, but… how could this possibly work?

‘…Is this even possible?’

From the beginning, the limit of evolution through instinct was only up to Level 1, and even the game mentioned that the methods were all different. Without knowing the method, these efforts were bound to yield little results.

However, I wasn’t starting completely from scratch. I had a clue—the message that had appeared in my status window before.

[@%%:×/ awareness activated.]

[Currently possessing fragment of @%%:×/ (1/3)]

Although I couldn’t understand or even interpret exactly what this meant, I vaguely realized something.

If I could perfectly analyze or understand this @%%:×/, I could become a Level 0 monster.

Fortunately, I was able to determine that this incomprehensible jumble of special characters represented some kind of mental domain, but this alone wasn’t enough to progress further.

‘…Sigh.’

No matter how much self-reflection and contemplation I engaged in, nothing changed. To give my complicated mind a rest, I quickly skimmed through the information Tetra had collected through the humans we had replaced.

A Chinese industrial spy who was caught trying to infiltrate Nano-Tech Corporation, a hunter guild established using several newly replaced hunters.

While I was briefly checking other information like the first congressman we successfully replaced and stock market changes due to monster attacks—

‘…Hm? Wait a minute?’

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw certain information.

‘No way, what is this…’

Even for someone like me who had been through hell and back after becoming this thing (an otherworldly being through game possession), this was a fresh shock—information related to human trafficking.

‘Is it really this serious?’

In the underground of South Korea, which had relatively good public security even in this era of monsters, surprisingly numerous human trafficking operations were taking place.

Anyone born with high psychic potential could live a successful life, so the poorest classes desperately produced many children hoping to secure at least one child with B-rank potential or higher.

The problem was the treatment of children born in this process.

According to descriptions, the percentage of humans who measured B-rank… no, even C-rank or higher in potential was only about 10%.

Over 50% of children were rated E-rank or lower, and those with B-rank potential or higher were at best only 1-2% of the population.

Naturally, with such a low possibility of being rated B-rank or higher, some children from the poorest classes who weren’t considered useful were—sold by their parents.

It seemed impossible that this could happen when psychic potential testing required official registration and mandatory education still existed, but there was one reason this system worked.

The upper echelons not only actively participated in this but actually orchestrated the human trafficking.

‘These sick bastards…!’

After identifying children with low psychic potential in the poorest areas using psychic methods, they would visit families directly to negotiate with parents and “adopt” the children.

If they found children with high potential from families they could target without consequences, they would send negotiators trained in mental psychic abilities along with specially trained agents to smoothly take the children.

Beyond these methods, these madmen procured children in various ways and utilized them in truly diverse manners.

For children with absolutely no psychic aptitude, these upper-class lunatics would carefully “package” them and sell them worldwide.

Whether to wealthy perverts, illegal child pornography producers, plantation owners in South America, or warlords in third-world countries.

Shockingly, there was sufficient demand for children who could be treated however one pleased, and these children were sold for the relatively cheap price of tens of thousands of dollars.

Meanwhile, psychic users of E to D rank could at least become low-level hunters, so they had their uses.

The National Intelligence Service’s black ops division, and even more shadowy underground organizations, operated secret facilities to train disposable agents.

They would pickle these children in various chemicals to accelerate their physical growth to adulthood within 10 years, implant control devices in their brains, and simultaneously train them through brainwashing to follow orders.

In about 10 years, they would produce low-level hunter-class black operatives who could be used as disposable assets, and these modified soldiers would be consumed in horrible ways under the pretext of “serving the country.”

Even if they somehow survived, they would ultimately die around age 30 due to side effects from the chemicals used to accelerate their growth.

On the other hand, children with C-rank aptitude or higher who could grow into mid-level users received wildly different treatment.

First, they would undergo brainwashing education with chips implanted in their brains. If successfully brainwashed, their perceptions would be distorted by high-level mental psychics, and they would be used as private soldiers for those in power.

If the brainwashing was questionable or if they realized contradictions during operations, they would be stuffed into specially manufactured remote-controlled Giant Armor to become machines that functioned as batteries and psychic power sources.

Children in this state retained basic self-awareness, but that was it.

Their limbs would be amputated and replaced with steel arms and legs connected by wires or tubes, while their limbless torsos would be fixed inside life support systems at the center of the Giant Armor.

After completely removing their faces and carving out specific parts of their brains, control devices would be implanted. At least 40% of their limbless bodies would be replaced with machinery.

And finally, for those who couldn’t be controlled or managed in any way…

‘Fuck, how can they use people like that?’

Even I, whose perception of humans had blurred after being forcibly transformed into a monster, felt disgusted by what these damned bastards had done.

I’ll briefly mention that they carved out all human parts except what was necessary, turning them into tools that would use designated psychic abilities at the press of a button.

Anyway, this revolting reality was enough to shock me when I witnessed it directly.

‘How… how could they…’

Though I’ve often encountered human depravity through media, the depth of these explicitly revealed documents was different from anything I’d seen before.

Perhaps these beings who disregard human dignity even more than I, a monster, do are the ones who truly deserve to be called monsters. No, they definitely do.

Despite my Equanimity(A) faintly working, my emotions rapidly escalated into rage.

And in the midst of this, a thought crossed my mind.

Is there a way for me to stop this?

※ ※ ※

Thinking rationally, I have no obligation to stop this atrocity called human trafficking, however horrific it may be.

In fact, if I intervened in their process of cultivating brainwashed soldiers and appropriately distorted it, I could use the enemy’s infrastructure to produce human agents for my side.

Undoubtedly, my rationality as a “monster” would direct me to exploit this, but…

‘…I don’t want to.’

The “me” who was once human didn’t want to do that.

It might sound hypocritical coming from someone who has kidnapped, brainwashed, and modified human bodies… no, let’s admit it. This is contradictory behavior.

The monster that I am—”Bomb Spider”—cannot honestly be called a good entity.

But even so, that doesn’t mean I can’t stop these horrible acts.

I have power, and if I use it, I can certainly stop the evil happening before my eyes.

So why shouldn’t I stop it?

After all, what moves me isn’t some lofty ideology or specific goal, but purely my own will—

[@%%:×/ meaning recognized.]

[Currently possessing fragment of @%%:×/ (2/3)]

…What?