Ch.86Stray Cat

The dak-galbi was delicious, but Meister’s emotions were especially tasty.

Meister experienced shock, surprise, and regret before falling into pure despair when he saw me.

Pure despair without any trace of fear made an excellent seasoning for the dak-galbi.

Slurp. As I swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth, Sa Gu-gu bounced around me excitedly.

“Oppa’s drooling! Thinking about dak-galbi! Dak-galbi is super-duper delicious?!”

“Gu-gu? I’ll make you dak-galbi today if you behave yourself, okay?”

“Behave!”

Sa Gu-gu flattened herself against the floor.

Gu Seo-ryong sat on top of her with practiced ease and wiggled her finger against her cheek.

“It would be faster to just devour him and read his memories… Anyway, you’re saying Meister really is connected to the Laboratory? This is a chance to both gather information about the Laboratory and provoke them, isn’t it?”

“If Meister isn’t the mastermind but merely bait, all this will do is reveal your existence to the Laboratory.”

“Oh my? Are you suggesting we shouldn’t kill Meister because you’re concerned about me?”

“No.”

I’m becoming known for my peculiarity as a monster that protects humans, but there’s a good chance the Laboratory still doesn’t know about Gu Seo-ryong.

If that’s the case, killing Meister would be the worst option.

“Why do you think Meister isn’t the mastermind?”

“His emotions.”

“That’s something only someone who met him would know.”

The monster’s sense that allows me to feel human emotions rather than my own.

Tap, tap. Gu Seo-ryong tapped her cheek as she fell into thought.

“Well, if Meister was helping the Laboratory, neither you nor I would be failures… It’s also strange that they’re still at this level even after producing a numbering as advanced as Sa Gu-gu.”

“Nyanya.”

“Alright, if you say so, that must be it. Then, I need to find out what’s in Meister’s bag. For that… I also need to know how long Meister plans to stay in W City.”

Gu Seo-ryong slapped Sa Gu-gu’s bottom as she gradually revealed her tail and ears while lying flat, then stood up.

Probably meaning to put her tail away, Sa Gu-gu tucked her tail and ears back in, and Gu Seo-ryong placed her arm on Sa Gu-gu’s head with an exhausted expression.

Then, she extended her hand to Sa Gu-gu.

“Gu-gu? Phone.”

“Yeees.”

Sa Gu-gu brought out her ears and tail, opened a space, and pulled out a phone.

Is she using Sa Gu-gu’s ability like a portable bag? That’s a usage I never thought of.

While the unique application of her ability is surprising, what’s more surprising is the phone itself.

“You have a phone?”

“Huh? Don’t you have one? Still?”

“How did you register your identity?”

“Ah~? Well, hmm… I see, you’re an innocent kitty who doesn’t know anything about illegal methods.”

[Hello? Who is this?]

“It’s me, darling.”

[Darling? I think you have the wrong number… but…]

Click-click-click. Gu Seo-ryong made incomprehensible sounds to the person on the other end of the call.

Not human language, but monster sounds.

As her long snake-like tongue flickered and whispered, the voice on the other end changed strangely.

[…Confirmed. Please state your business.]

“What’s the city entry and exit schedule for the VIP currently in W City?”

[Currently undetermined… Extended stay confirmed for the time being.]

“Good. Delete all call records.”

Snap! Gu Seo-ryong snapped her fingers and hung up.

“What was that just now?”

“Hmm? Mental manipulation. I learned a lot from watching the parasite, so I changed my method a bit.”

“Can you use your ability through the phone?”

“Not exactly, but… it’s similar? After properly pickling the brain with drugs and setting conditions for my ability… simply put, I’ve just made them enter a hypnotic state whenever I use a command word.”

“Interesting.”

“I’m operating more under the radar now, since I don’t want to attract attention and get chased by Starlight like in Kowloon Walled City. What do you think? Impressed? I’m such a capable woman.”

“You haven’t implanted a separate parasite, have you?”

“That’s too disgusting~ Even if I could, I wouldn’t. That… well, that method would be more convenient since you wouldn’t need to add drugs periodically, but I prefer my way? It’s also hard to immediately tell where things are going wrong if you don’t keep checking.”

Gu Seo-ryong’s brainwashing method still relies on drugs, so it has the problem of wearing off over time.

She doesn’t leave traces in the brain to avoid detection…

Thinking it’s probably fine to leave it alone, I relaxed my hand, and Gu Seo-ryong sighed.

“Jericho, please stop trying to choke me, even as a warning. It’s hard for me to escape now. At least limit yourself to my tail or legs. Or just think about it, like this time.”

Feeling a chill on the back of her neck through her monster senses, Gu Seo-ryong stroked her neck with a strangely excited look.

“Anyway, this is unusual. Meister staying in W City for a while… Is it because of you? There’s no reason for someone as important as Meister to stay unless it’s to research a monster that protects humans.”

“Probably.”

“I have various questions, but alright. I need to steal the contents of Meister’s bag while he’s in W City. Can I ask you to do it?”

“You want me to steal?”

“It suits you, Mr. Thief Cat, doesn’t it? Since you’ve stolen my heart before, you can easily steal something like that, right?”

“I’ve never touched your heart.”

“After playing with me so roughly so many times. What a bad boy.”

Setting aside Gu Seo-ryong’s heart, I think it wouldn’t be difficult for me to steal Meister’s belongings from the Hero Headquarters.

Send a small cat to confirm the location, then open a space and snatch it… if it’s just for a moment, even Starlight would have a hard time noticing.

“But do we really need to steal it?”

“What else would we do?”

“Couldn’t we just ask him to lend us the bag for a moment?”

“Would he give it to us if we asked? There’s no way we could get something related to the Laboratory that easily.”

For some reason, I feel like he would just give it to us if we asked.

But the conversation proceeded toward stealing.

The reason I agreed was simple.

“I suppose stealing would be more fun.”

“Thief game! Fun!”

Because it seemed fun.

Whether she had the same thought, Sa Gu-gu’s eyes sparkled beside Gu Seo-ryong.

Sensing unease from Sa Gu-gu’s demeanor, Gu Seo-ryong grabbed her by the scruff of her neck.

“Gu-gu, you can’t come. Stay home with me.”

“No! Home with mommy is boring!”

Whoosh! Following her tail and ears, Sa Gu-gu’s hands became covered in fur as she jumped through space, escaping from Gu Seo-ryong’s grasp.

Monsterization? Did she learn it from Gu Seo-ryong?

Sa Gu-gu landed on all fours on a nearby rooftop, licked the fur on the back of her hand like a monster would, then spat out the fur that stuck to her human tongue.

“What is with her! Why does she keep running away these days! After all the care I give her!”

“She looks like she’s having fun.”

“Are you saying she’s just playing right now?”

Probably, I think? Cats do enjoy running around and playing.

I nodded, and Gu Seo-ryong sighed before jumping up to chase after Sa Gu-gu.

“Anyway, Jericho? I’ll leave the bag theft to you. Contact me with that cat thing of yours after you steal it!”

“Nyaooo!”

“Stop right there!”

Gu Seo-ryong chased after Sa Gu-gu, who ran on all fours across the rooftop, fleeing from her.

As for me… I suppose I should prepare for some theft.

“Meow.”

“Meaow.”

“Meowt.”

I created three cats and sent them to Zone 0.

#

“Huh? A black cat…”

“What? What cat is here?”

“Kyaaa! So cute!”

The cats I sent toward the government building in Zone 0 were treated like completely normal cats as they roamed the interior.

An ability known only to Starlight among the heroes so far—the heroes let my cats into the depths of the Hero Headquarters without the slightest suspicion.

“Did it lose its mother?”

“Come to think of it, Iron Might was carrying a cat the other day…”

“Is it that cat?”

The heroes, arbitrarily treating my cats as motherless, felt sorry for them and offered food.

The food consisted of sausage, beef jerky, milk… hmm, delicious.

The food at Hero Headquarters isn’t bad at all?

While tasting the food, I left one cat as it was and sent another one elsewhere.

Sniff, sniff. Trying to track Meister’s scent, I was confused when I couldn’t detect his smell from my memory anywhere.

Perhaps he took a shower? He did go outside, so that’s possible.

If his scent was masked by shampoo or soap, it would be impossible to track him with this weak monster cat’s senses.

The cat roamed throughout the Hero Headquarters to locate Meister.

“But why are A City soldiers so hostile toward heroes?”

“We’re not hostile because we want to be. The heroes started it first… If A City had heroes like you, there wouldn’t have been a need for this in the first place.”

“Ha, if that were the case, you’d still be treating us like tools, wouldn’t you? Saying things like ‘superhumans start as privates.'”

“Superhuman suppression device? Do you think superpowers are guns? As if they can be suppressed like that.”

Then, the cat entered a room filled with people who appeared to be heroes and soldiers.

In the room where complex emotions swirled, I entered hoping they might talk about Meister, and immediately a soldier and hero raised their voices.

“You superhumans are dangerous elements who can become villains with the slightest mistake. That’s why you need to be under our control…”

“They’re going to fight again. Lower your voice… But the soldiers are strange too, right? Superhumans are humans too, not tools.”

“O-of course, superhumans are humans. But the fact that you’re different from us…”

“That’s what I want to say! Humans and superhumans are different, and by human standards…! Huh? A cat?”

“What? Why is there a cat here?”

“Meow.”

The people who were arguing about something strange stopped talking when they spotted me.

Then, as a female soldier stroked me, the surrounding emotions gradually subsided.

“Oh my, what’s this? It’s super cute.”

“A black cat of all things, how ominous.”

“In W City, it’s a symbol of good luck, you know?”

“A black cat as a symbol of good luck? It may be cute, but traditionally it’s a symbol of bad luck, isn’t it?”

“There’s Black Cat, you know.”

“Were we talking about cats? Right now, we were discussing why superhumans are the way they are…!”

“What does it matter? Let’s take a break. Isn’t your throat sore?”

“No…”

As emotions settled down, once consciousness drifted elsewhere, they seemed to calm down.

The heroes and soldiers petting the cats continued their conversation in a more relaxed manner.

“How is Meister?”

“Can someone check on the treatment room?”

“Hmm… looking at the capsule status, he seems to be healing well.”

“They say he’ll regain consciousness tonight.”

Did Meister get injured in the meantime?

If so, I need to find where the treatment room is.

Having gained information through the heroes’ conversation, I tried to make my cats break away from the heroes.

“Meow, meow meow…!”

“Meowww!”

“Wow, so fluffy.”

“The fur is so clean, what is this?”

“The paw pads are so soft…”

However, the cats, at the level of ordinary animals, couldn’t escape from the heroes’ hands.

Having no choice but to abandon two cats, I moved the last one.

Treatment room—I don’t know where it is, but a place housing someone as valuable as Meister must certainly be in a secret location.

As the cat headed toward a corner of the building where there were no people, it heard strange sounds.

“Hey, this isn’t the time for…”

“…Shut up.”

“I don’t think relieving stress this way is a good habit…”

“I said shut up.”

Hmm…

This doesn’t seem to be the right place.