Became a Failed Experimental Subject-Chapter 12: It’s Beef

The press conference had been more exhausting than fighting a monster.

Yu Anna, having thrown off her black suit, collapsed weakly onto the couch.

In her hand, she clutched a keepsake—something she hadn’t been able to return to the family despite having briefly shown her face at Lee Han-yeong’s funeral.

A button snapped off like a coin, and the standard-issue field recording cam given to all heroes.

Official designation: Code Black Cat, a Formless-Type Despair-Class monster.

The nickname had been coined based on consistent eyewitness reports that most of its transformations featured feline or tiger-like traits.

The device was meant to retain data on the monster.

Today, Yu Anna had stood before the world and announced the danger of Black Cat at the press conference.

An anomalous entity whose actions could not be predicted. Being a Formless-Type, even its combat style constantly changed, making it impossible to rely on power compatibility or counters between abilities.

Only a purely powerful psychic could handle Black Cat... and in W-City, Yu Anna was the only real option.

How much of that would the citizens—completely unaware of the truth—understand from this press conference? Yu Anna felt stifled.

But that wasn’t the only reason for the weight in her chest.

The recording inside the cam—the final moments of Lee Han-yeong.

While fleeing from three giant wolves—three Despair-Class monsters—she was bitten, lifted clean off the ground, and screamed.

At that moment, the camera lens shattered into fragments, leaving no clear footage behind.

Only sound remained, and even that was full of static—perhaps from her powers breaking while she was submerged in the earth, or from dust flooding the mic.

Lee Han-yeong’s screams as her # Nоvеlight # lower half was chewed through, the sound of bones breaking, her cries, her breath after surrendering, weak and hollow.

And then, silence.

With a strange, reverberating sound, Lee Han-yeong’s murmuring began.

It was hard to make out—like she was covering her mouth with both hands to muffle it.

But even through the distortion, one thing was unmistakably clear:

[Eat me... and win.]

Lee Han-yeong had asked the monster to eat her.

To grow stronger by devouring her—and fight the other Despair-Class monsters.

And right after that, came a sound that Yu Anna wished she could forget but never would: the crunching of a human skull in a monster’s jaws.

Then a roar, powerful enough to break the worn-down machine that had barely held out this long.

The monster—Black Cat—ate Lee Han-yeong after that.

What followed was likely one of those monster-specific evolutionary surges.

Black Cat, wreathed in flames—he had definitely become stronger than the one in Yu Anna’s memory.

Black Cat, the Despair-Class monster that hadn’t even been formally coded, came back after consuming the core of the wolf monster.

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Then, as if fulfilling a promise, he tried to finish eating Lee Han-yeong.

Afterward, he threw her body aside and fled, as though giving up on even that.

Casualties: 1 Hero, 0 civilians.

A miracle too unreal to believe, considering the rampage of a Despair-Class monster.

Today, she had told the citizens: Black Cat was not some ridiculous monster that protected humans.

But Lee Han-yeong’s final voice... left her confused.

Could a monster that protects people really exist?

If only he’d just attacked someone already.

Caught in a thought a Hero should never have, Yu Anna closed her eyes, giving in to the exhaustion dragging her under.

“...What the hell... are you?”

“Hey! Go-b! Wrap it up and come back up already!”

Drrrrrrrrrrr—I shut off the drill I’d been gripping tight at the sound of the foreman yelling.

This was beneath W-City, in the district that had turned to ruin just recently during the Despair-Class monster’s rampage.

My job now was to break apart the wall that had melted and solidified like glass, piece by piece.

Leaving the drill behind, I got into the temporary elevator with the foreman and rode it up to the surface, where I sat on the edge of the nearest ruin and waited for lunch.

A moment later, a drone dropped a parachute from way up high.

Meal delivery.

“Let’s eat before we get back to it. You’re a double, right Go-b? Never seen anyone guilt-trip me for extra rice just with their name before.”

“Mhm.”

My name right now was Go-bbaegi. A fine, glorious name.

One bowl never felt like enough to fill my stomach anyway—but hey, who complains about free food?

Like the others grabbing coffee during work, I half-drank the food that had been delivered and stood right back up to head back underground.

“Go-b! Don’t overdo it!”

“Still not tired.”

“Ugh... that guy’s nuts...”

“He’s a real monster, I swear... How does anyone hold a rock drill that long? I mean, sure, the work's moving faster since he’s carrying all the gear down himself, but still.”

Gripping the drill again, I walked through the narrow tunnel that had opened up underground as I shattered the hardened wall.

If I stretched out my arms and legs fully, they’d barely fit in the space—tight, even by normal standards.

And this tunnel stretched endlessly into the distance.

These were the traces left behind when Yu Anna chased after me.

Sometimes, inside the tunnel, I’d come across special metal pillars.

Pillars forged from a superalloy that hadn’t completely melted even under Yu Anna’s power—they felt solid even against my strength.

Unless you were at least Disaster-Class, you wouldn’t leave a mark on one of these things. Essential infrastructure in any monster-era city.

After monsters appeared in the world, humans gradually adapted. Buildings were rebuilt into modular units that could be quickly replaced if any part was destroyed.

At the same time, to minimize damage from monsters erupting from underground, they embedded massive support columns deep into the foundations.

They worked like earthquake dampeners—if the area next to one collapsed or shot upward, the column would hold the axis in place and keep surface damage to a minimum.

To rebuild a city, the columns had to stay intact.

I dropped a sensor beneath one of the damaged columns.

A special sensor that responds to signals sent from above—some kind of detection device.

Once they pick up the signal from the surface, they extract the broken column, pulverize the debris, stuff it into the hole, and drive in a new one—that’s the foundation repair process.

It’s a pretty dangerous job.

Since this wasn’t a proper tunnel, just the leftover imprint of an ability, it could collapse at any time—and you never knew where an underground monster might burst out from.

Because of that, the pay was, well, very nice.

Hazard pay on top of that, plus government subsidies. The foreman even said watching me work was worth paying me for three people.

I was putting my all into this job, dreaming of finally stuffing my face with top-grade beef this time around.

“...Hmm?”

That’s when I felt it—monster presence brushing against my senses.

Sharper now than ever, my refined perception picked up the form of each monster, the size of their cores.

Maybe they’d caught the vibration of the drill—earth dragons erupting from the ground, shaped like armored mole-crickets wrapped in iron plating.

Even farther out, a massive centipede monster, happily slithering through a newly-formed tunnel.

A whole crowd of underground monsters—this was why the pay for this job was so damn good.

The monster detectors in this zone were already all busted.

In their place, a temporary monster alarm installed under the elevator was active.

If it went off, that day’s job was done. Everyone had to rush back to the surface and evacuate.

Once evacuated, the shift ended. No more work until the next day, when the heroes came in to do a sweep of the underground monsters.

That day’s pay? Only for the hours already logged.

“...Nope. Not happening.”

I walked straight back to the elevator and shut off the temporary alarm—despite the dozens of warning stickers saying not to touch it under any circumstance.

It was still lunch break anyway. The others would be taking their time before coming back down.

Before they returned, I’d handle the monster cleanup.

A monster specialized in hunting lesser monsters in places like this.

My human form shrank down in an instant—becoming childlike.

My whole body cloaked in shadow. A black leopard with wings—part of the beast that once made up my tail.

An aberration that ruled over the shadows of night.

In a tunnel cloaked in pure darkness, my body extended through every connected space, rooting deep into the earth—and pierced through the monsters’ bodies from below.

“Ssshhhhrrrrrrr...”

Like stabbing in fine acupuncture needles, I delicately jabbed my shadows into their insides, then detonated them like fireworks.

One by one, I swallowed the now lifeless monsters.

Murder-class, Crusher-class—higher threat types than my lunch had been.

They left me feeling much fuller.

Mmm... Honestly, not a bad flavor.

I smacked my lips—or rather, my shadows—and gathered my stretched-out body, returning to human form.

After a short while, I reactivated the alarm and got back to work.

Soon enough, the foreman and the other workers came down in the elevator.

“Man... it’s like someone parked a mini excavator down here.”

“They said our team’s working speed is seven times faster than the others.”

“Go-b really is good at this job.”

The workers looked around at the tunnel, already further along than when they’d left, and began grabbing tools, fanning out across the site.

“Go-b! Drink some water!”

I took the 1.5-liter plastic bottle they handed me and gulped it down, then glanced around at the crew.

Since pay was based on group output, the looks they gave me were warm.

“They said monsters come out all the time here, but weirdly, we haven’t seen a single one.”

“Wasn’t like this before Go-b showed up. Maybe the monsters think he’s not human, what with that size of his.”

“He’s just a good-luck charm, that one.”

****

“Go-bbaegi, are you really done after today?”

“I’ve done enough.”

After working foundation repairs for a while, I said my last goodbye to the foreman.

He looked a little disappointed when I told him I wouldn’t be coming back.

But I had to leave.

Because I still couldn’t completely control the monster aura I gave off, the number of Murder-Class monsters gathering underground was increasing by the day.

They probably mistook me for a weak underground monster and kept swarming.

I’d handled all of them on my own so far, but if I stayed longer, a stronger monster—the kind that hunts Murder-Class types—might show up.

The newly installed pillars were already supporting quickly rising prefab roads and buildings. It would be a waste if all that recovery effort was ruined.

Until I could fully suppress my presence, I couldn’t stay in any one area too long.

“Damn... the ‘Go-bbaegi bonus shift pay’ era’s over, huh? Well, take care of yourself wherever you end up.”

The foreman handed me my final day’s wages with a casual farewell.

Why had I kept doing this job, even knowing I was luring small monsters here? A thick envelope full of cash.

I peeked inside the envelope, and my mood lifted.

Still, I got what I came for.

With this amount, I could eat my fill of top-grade beef.

“Huhuhu...”

I laughed out loud, grabbed my clothes, and jumped up onto the roof of one of the freshly rebuilt buildings—somewhere no one could see me.

The shirt I’d bought with my monster money flapped loud in the wind, but I had to move quickly.

The market in the next district would be closing soon.