Ch.8Dangerous

# Chapter Translation

“Bongbap, why do you always lend money to that guy but not me?”

“Because you use it for gambling.”

I never lent money to the man in front of me, knowing he always participated in illegal gambling that predicted where monster alerts would sound next.

Rather than wasting money on such things, I’d rather spend it on six eggs—though I still don’t understand why they’re so expensive—and add them to my ramen.

Thinking about ramen made me hungry, and I swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth.

Come to think of it, couldn’t I easily make money if I participated in monster appearance gambling?

When I heighten my senses like this, I can detect things more sensitively and over a wider range than the alert system.

But gambling is bad… I shouldn’t do it. I remember having that drilled into my ears when I was young.

Just then, I sensed a monster approaching through my sharpened senses.

“…Hmm.”

I could sense about thirty creatures… but they were quite far away. The alert wouldn’t sound here.

Recently, my detection abilities had been improving.

Probably due to monster survival instincts… After being properly thrashed by a hero with a flaming head and being chased, my detection abilities seemed to be evolving.

Her name was… Yu Anna, wasn’t it?

I hadn’t expected there to be such a strong hero.

Unlike monsters, who naturally emit infrasonic waves that spread their strength around them, a hero’s strength is difficult to gauge until you directly clash with them.

How should I put it… the human core… the heartbeat is weak.

This is why monsters often recklessly attack strong heroes only to be hunted in return, and why I was badly beaten by that woman.

I never expected a mere human to chase me at such high speed and unleash such powerful consecutive attacks.

It was as if she didn’t need time to charge up her abilities…

That woman is dangerous.

Being chased by Yu Anna is exhausting.

When I’m exhausted, I need to eat more, which means I need more money.

I don’t have money.

Occasionally, when things get desperate, I go to Black Cat Playground to receive some offerings… but that’s risky behavior.

If the children accidentally let slip that I’m a monster and spread it around, I could be attacked by heroes lying in wait at the park.

Also, I recently discovered something… while my core is deactivated, it subtly emits wavelengths that give off a very faint monster presence.

When I’m in human form when monsters appear, they seem to ignore me at first but then try to attack later—they’re confused about whether I’m a monster or human.

This wasn’t good.

Destruction-rank and above monsters seem to perceive me as a monster not worth eating, but Homicide-rank monsters sense me as easy prey.

Moreover, since my actual strength in monster form is Despair-rank, the range of my emitted presence is very wide.

A shallow but wide presence—the scent of a weak monster spread throughout W City continuously attracts Homicide-rank monsters.

Because of this, I kept encountering monsters between Homicide and Destruction rank.

These creatures would head toward me but change direction when they saw too many humans around.

The monster I sensed now was probably the same—it seemed to be hiding in the sky above, approaching after catching my scent.

Recently, I’d been trying to erase this subtle presence I was leaking, but it was more difficult than controlling my strength.

It felt like trying to cut hair vertically in uniform lengths without stopping.

It felt like performing an extremely unnatural action for a monster.

A monster’s instinct is to reveal its strength, not hide it, so this was only natural.

With my current practice of presence control, I’m hiding more thoroughly than before.

Hiding from both monsters and heroes… Despite being chased by heroes a few times when I transformed, I’ve recently learned how to hide before being caught.

If I must transform, I finish my business within the time it takes for heroes to arrive.

The time limit is about 1 minute and 30 seconds—if I complete what I need to do and return to human form within that time, I won’t encounter heroes.

And in most cases, that was enough time.

For example, like now.

“Shaaaah…”

“W-wha… wa, ah…”

The monster I detected earlier was a Homicide-rank beast-type monster, the Obsidian Butterfly.

It doesn’t have destructive power beyond killing people, but it has evasive abilities that I can’t handle without transforming.

It’s one of the most troublesome monsters among the Homicide-rank.

Its sharp blade that cuts things at the molecular level is also threatening without transformation… Since it flies in the sky and drops down, it takes longer to trigger the alert, and with a Homicide-rank alert, heroes arrive even later.

So inevitably, I handled it.

My current form added stealth to the form I used when transforming in the apartment—a black panther the size of a human with multiple black tails, similar to a giant cat yokai.

I pounced on the Obsidian Butterfly as it was about to attack people in the darkness. With the butterfly in my mouth, I disappeared into the noisy siren sounds that had thrown all stealth to the wind.

Now that I’ve dealt with all the Obsidian Butterflies, I need to escape before the Despair-rank siren sounds.

If that goes off, Yu Anna will fly here within 1 minute and 30 seconds, no matter where in W City I am.

I might win if I fought seriously, but I don’t want to fight such a monster.

To begin with, I don’t like fighting humans at all.

“Did… did you help me? Are you… that Black Cat?”

I was about to disappear into the darkness when I stopped, seeing what the human woman I had helped was holding out.

It’s ham.

For some reason lately, more people have been offering ham when I help them.

From my perspective, it feels like payment for my help, so I have no reason to refuse, but I wonder if some rumor is spreading about this?

“This… this is…”

“Meow.”

“Kyaaah! Oh my goodness, wow! Wow!”

I approached the woman and took the ham in my mouth, then disappeared back into the darkness, frowning at the clicking sounds.

After putting enough distance between us, I quietly returned to human form and savored the ham.

Mmm, free ham, delicious.

By the way, I’ve never transformed into a cat, so why do they keep calling me a cat?

Shouldn’t I be called a black panther… Should I transform into a wolf instead?

I like tigers… but there aren’t many stealthy wolf-related monsters either…

Cat-type monsters are the most comfortable for me right now while I’m hiding.

“That was fast.”

Above in the sky where the siren had stopped, a small sun-like light rose, illuminating the night sky.

That’s Yu Anna, the superhuman I avoid.

Yu Anna looked around, emitting waves of superhuman power, then shouted angrily, clutching her head in mid-air.

“Aaaaargh! It got away again! That lynx-like bastard!”

“I’m not even a lynx…”

Still, better than being called a cat.

I was picking off the remaining meat pieces from the wrapper with my fingers while moving away when I was seized by a strange sensation.

This feeling of hair standing on end all over my body… the direction is toward the moon.

Very… powerful monsters are approaching W City.

And three of them at that.

#

#W City Black Cat♡ #Helps People #Monsters are Friends!

Finally, the dreaded situation was starting to unfold.

Yu Anna threw the smartphone in her hand, embedding it in the sofa.

Despite the furniture being specially made to withstand superhuman standards, and despite unconsciously controlling her strength just before throwing it, she couldn’t contain her anger.

“That lynx-like bastard…!”

What was this cowardly monster thinking, helping people?

For Yu Anna and the heroes who had seen the outcome of monsters helping people many times before, this was an extremely unpleasant situation.

People, despite being deceived so many times, develop a mental illness where they think they’ll be different just because they haven’t experienced it directly yet.

A monster? Attacking people? But it’s so kind! Maybe just to me?

I might be different, my fate could be different! I was actually a superhuman all along, a monster tamer!

And then, they die by the monster’s hand.

More annoying than dangerous monsters are the humans who fall for the cunning tricks of dangerous monsters.

Some monsters act as if they know about cameras and the internet, disrupting human communications.

This makes them even more dangerous, but many humans fall into the trap of intellectual superiority just because monsters take animal forms.

Humans who are more foolish than monsters.

W City Black Cat♡—this tag with a heart at the end, indicating love rather than warning about a monster, was spreading rapidly.

A form similar to Code α, a monster that freely changes its shape—it’s not unusual for it to shrink in size.

The problem is that its fierce predator appearance has changed to that of a sleek black panther.

In the photos uploaded to social media, the black panther with a chunk of ham in its mouth purred and meowed as if it really were a cat.

“Damn it…”

It is cute, Yu Anna unconsciously liked the post due to her feminine sensibility, then unliked it.

Does this monster have some charm ability? It’s a characteristic seen in some monsters.

If that’s really the case, this was a more serious situation than imagined.

Cats have inherently charming characteristics, and even before the emergence of monsterization, they received serious favoritism.

Even while destroying ecosystems, “cat moms” would protect cats claiming they cause no harm, increasing the damage.

The current situation is identical.

Disgusting “monster moms”—if they die, they’ll blame the heroes again.

It would be better if it quickly pounced on humans—then people would once again reflect on their previous actions and claim they were innocent victims who were deceived by the monster.

It was utterly disgusting, but still better than protecting monsters.

Heroes are supposed to protect humans, so why should they be stressed because of humans?

They would still protect them, but the irritation was unavoidable.

“…This is Yu Anna. Any traces left by Code α at the scene?”

“None. It’s becoming more stealthy.”

“Code 0 still hasn’t appeared?”

“No.”

“Hmm…”

The somewhat fortunate thing was that Code 0 hadn’t appeared at all.

This point further solidified Yu Anna’s thought that the two monsters might be the same entity.

Otherwise, Code α might have already fought and devoured Code 0… but that’s impossible.

When Despair-rank monsters clash, it can’t end this quietly.

As time passes, the damage only expands—from the moment combat begins, monsters become erasers that wipe out civilization.

The two monsters that continued to be sighted devouring minor monsters had eaten neither monsters nor humans, so they must be starving.

A starving monster is strong… but if the fight drags on, it naturally weakens.

If Code 0 were a separate entity, it would have already surrendered its territory to Code α and fled… No matter how you think about it, the conclusion is that only one Despair-rank monster remains in W City.

“Should I consider it fortunate that only one remains…”

Although the remaining one possessed a troublesome stealth, it was also fortunate that it had not yet pounced on people despite its unusual behavior.

If she could encounter it just once, just once, she was confident she could kill it without letting it escape.

The Despair-rank monster threatening W City, with minimal damage.

Yu Anna’s hopeful observation, but it didn’t last long.

Just a few days later, Despair-rank monster alerts sounded simultaneously in two locations in W City.

There were two Despair-rank monsters.

And two Disaster-rank monsters as well.