Chapter 23 : I Want To Be Like You

Before entering this room, I recalled what Baek Seok-ho had said.

“They are feeding the anomaly with human fear and negative emotions.”

This place was a facility meant to grow anomalies,
harvesting fear from civilians.

But the blonde woman in front of me was voluntarily feeding her own blood to the anomaly.

It was a suspicious sight to anyone.

“…Could she be someone from the research lab?”

Baek Seok-ho shook his head.

“It’s too early to be certain. We need to check first.”

He even considered the possibility that the woman was mentally manipulated by the anomaly.

I thought the same.

No matter how much a researcher might sacrifice to grow the anomaly,
willingly offering their own body was beyond reason.

Even the Bureau agents who paid a price for their contracts didn’t smile so broadly while doing so.

Usually, their expressions would be tense and stiff.

In that regard, the woman was strange.

Instead of the tired Baek Seok-ho, I stepped forward.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The room was eerily quiet.

Only the sound of our footsteps could be heard.

Gulp, gulp.

The anomaly sucked the blood like a thirsty person drinking water, unmoving.

And the woman sitting beside it, slowly lifted her head.

“Oh my.”

She asked with a shy smile.

“What brings you here?”

She acted as if feeding the anomaly blood was perfectly natural.

Baek Seok-ho whispered quietly.

“It doesn’t seem like hypnosis.”

Which meant, she was voluntarily sharing her blood.

Then why?

Chief Baek stepped forward.

“Did you feed this monster your blood?”

“Yes. This child wanted it.”

The woman spoke casually.

“When I gave it, it liked it. When I kept giving it… it liked it even more, so I kept giving it.”

Like feeding a pet.

Her gentle tone made it even more eerie.

“Have you ever given it any other parts of your body?”

“I once tried to pluck out an eye.”

She smiled brightly.

“This child seemed burdened by that. Isn’t that cute?”

Baek Seok-ho was momentarily speechless.

If she was sane, then she was definitely crazy.

“Who exactly are you?”

At my question, she smiled sweetly.

“I’m just… someone who likes ghost stories.”

“Ghost stories?”

“I saw it on the internet. That if you do a high-paying part-time job, you can become the main character of a ghost story. That soon, a hideous anomaly will awaken — someone posted it like a prophecy. At first, I thought it was a joke… but I never thought I’d actually meet an anomaly.”

At that moment, Jeong Eun-seo’s words came to mind.

“Recently, more people have been experiencing ghost stories for real. There are ghost story threads on the internet.”

She said she came here through a community that shares ghost stories, and even after seeing the anomaly, she was ecstatic.

I never thought such a case could actually happen.

She reached out again and gently stroked the anomaly’s head.

The anomaly was a bizarre creature that looked like a giant leech.

It writhed and twisted its skin in a strange, unpleasant way.

But the anomaly swayed lazily, seeming relaxed and in a good mood.

“Fate surely brought me here!”

Baek Seok-ho warned in a low voice.

“This place is dangerous. You will soon be evacuated.”

“Hahaha… Why should I leave when I have such a obedient child?”

She tilted her head and smiled.

It was then.

The anomaly, which had been calm, suddenly bit her arm hard.

“Ahhh!”

Blood flowed from her arm as she screamed.

Yet her face still wore a smile.

Instead, she wore an ecstatic expression.

She looked at the anomaly biting her as if it were something precious.

It was madness.

I couldn’t stand watching any longer, so I shouted,

“Stop!”

The anomaly immediately stopped moving and lay down on the floor.

Then it cautiously glanced around.

“Huh…? Why is the anomaly obeying you?”

The blonde woman’s gaze slowly shifted from the anomaly to me.

Her eyes changed instantly.

“How is that possible? The anomaly calmed down watching you. Can I also control it like you? Ah! I haven’t introduced myself yet, have I? I’m Lilith. I want to be friends with you.”

She stood up and slowly approached.

Close enough that I could hear her breathing.

Whispering very softly into my ear,

“I want to be like you too… Maybe if I eat a piece of your flesh, I can become like you? Ha, I envy you.”

Her breath was hot, and madness was clear within it.

If this were a normal situation where a pretty woman leaned in close, it might be a welcome moment,
but this was not that.

It wasn’t a pure affection toward me— this was twisted desire.

A chilling craving.

I felt repulsed.

Crackling noise —

“Ouch!”

Just before she reached out, sparks suddenly flew from my arm.

Startled, she stepped back.

That was probably the binding left behind by Sandohwa.

“Something pushed me away?”

Her eyes widened with awe as she carefully examined the mark etched on my arm.

But at that moment—

Rumbling sound

The ground shook.

The building groaned, and the ceiling trembled.

A cracking sound echoed as the walls slowly split apart.

The shaking was so intense it was hard to keep balance.

“…Something is happening.”

Baek Seok-ho quietly said while quickly looking around.

“We need to hurry with the evacuation!”

I immediately nodded at his words.

Regardless of the anomaly’s reaction, the building itself was on the verge of collapse.

Survivors who had lost consciousness might get crushed under the rubble.

“Ugh…!”

But at that moment, before I could say anything, pain surged in my eyes again.

A stabbing, deeply penetrating pain.

A flash of a scene came to mind.

Somewhere above.

On the floor right above where we were heading,

There is something there.

I just knew it.

No logic or evidence, but definitely.

‘Right now, it’s…’

Calling me?’

On the 3rd floor of the building where the escape experiment was underway:

“Is the yield only this much?”

Chief Lee Haneul let out a low sigh mixed with shock.

But the monitor in front of him was merciless.

The cold curve ruthlessly drew a downward slope, announcing failure.

“The overall escape failure rate is 93%. However, the fear index increased by only 12%.”

“The number of civilians rescued by the two agents assumed to be from the Anomaly Management Bureau?”

“Seventeen. Rescue attempts are still ongoing.”

Lee Haneul’s brow trembled.

“Are they crazy?”

All of this plan was devised for a single purpose.

To provoke the ‘Anomaly Sovereign’ through extreme fear harvesting.

Extreme emotions tasted by humans.

Despair and fear erupting at the brink of death.

The primal emotions unleashed by a person on the verge of dying—

The waves of despair and fear were supposed to be the key to awakening the anomaly’s slumber.

But the current situation?

“Humans who were being chased by anomalies are massacring the anomalies…”

The staff trailed off.

It was an unbelievable sight.

“Moreover, the anomaly summoned by the Anomaly Management Bureau agent is a Class D ‘Pamyoh’. It was an entity isolated and studied in our lab.”

“Pam-yoh?”

Lee Haneul’s eyes flashed.

A familiar name.

The pieces of the puzzle fit faster than expected.

“Pam-yoh… that’s the anomaly Kim Min-woo took, right? Then… could that agent be Kim Min-woo?”

My breath caught.

We had considered that Kim Min-woo might be at the scene, but never imagined he would sneak in so perfectly.

Now it was clear—the distinct look in his eyes.

“Most were Class E anomalies… but Pam-yoh devoured them all at once. It has become much stronger than before.”

“Kim Min-woo, that bastard… ha. Lim Hyo-rin…”

Lee Haneul sighed deeply, pressing his forehead.

Lim Hyo-rin, that woman.

If we had handed over proper information, this disaster might have been prevented.

Usually, agents only ‘borrow’ the power of anomalies.

But Kim Min-woo actually unleashed the anomaly, letting the anomaly with its original power run wild.

This was a fatal variable.

Who would have thought the Bureau would use such an extreme method?

“We tried to feed it fear… but I never expected it would turn the anomaly into minced meat.”

The experiment was a failure.

If things continued like this, everything would end without any results.

There was nothing to report to superiors, nothing to show investors.

Just as the sky seemed to collapse,

Lee Haneul’s gaze stopped at an experimental data sheet on the nearby table.

“Yes. We must get at least one result.”

She muttered, reaching out.

The plan was to extract the body of the awakened Anomaly Sovereign, process it, and transplant it into a human.

But… if this kept going, the only way was to put it in directly.

Silence.

A subtle tension spread across the researchers’ faces.

The method was reckless.

Success rates were low, and the risk was fatal.

There had been a few attempts with less dangerous anomalies, but none with the Anomaly Sovereign—an A-rank anomaly.

“Prepare Subject 45 immediately.”

“But, chief! The Anomaly Sovereign hasn’t fully awakened yet… and even if it succeeds, there’s no way its eyes will properly integrate…”

“That’s why we’re sacrificing the prepared subject right away. We’ll use a life itself as an offering to stimulate the Anomaly Sovereign. There’s no other way to wake it.”

Lee Haneul’s eyes narrowed sharply.

There was no turning back now.

The researchers hurriedly proceeded with the experiment.

Inside a transparent capsule, a girl lay asleep.

Pale skin.

Deeply closed eyelids and quiet breathing.

Her body was cold.

To be exact, a chill emanated from her body, and red spots appeared across her skin.

Above her, fragments of the sealed Anomaly Sovereign were carefully lowered.

“Human subject anomaly transplantation experiment begins.”

The red magical circle activated.

In an instant, markings appeared on the girl’s body.

Energy radiating from the Anomaly Sovereign flowed through her blood vessels.

“No response.”

“No movement of fragments. No biological wave detected.”

‘Is this a failure…’

Just as everyone thought so, thud.

The capsule shook.

“Ch-chief, now… she’s… moving…”

A trembling hand pointed.

The girl opened her eyes.

Those eyes— glowing blue pupils.

Inside them was a grotesqueness that could no longer be called human.

“…I feel the presence of His fragments.”

Bang!!

A vibration.

The building groaned and the floor trembled.

Rumble rumble rumble—!!

The alarm blared like a rampaging beast.

[Emergency. Anomaly runaway detected. Lockdown of all zones requested.]

Lee Haneul swallowed hard in front of the monitor.

The girl’s body was human.

But what dwelled inside was no longer human.

To be continued.