Became a Failed Experimental Subject Chapter 106

Ch.106 Hunting Begins

“What’s going on all of a sudden?”  

[I can’t explain that.] 

The screen projected on the wall showed the central area of A-City, including the District I was in, entirely painted in red.  

The words written at the top: Operation District.  

Are they planning something here?  

[I’ve thought a lot about this before telling you. The only thing certain is that if there’s a superpower human in that area who isn’t a hero, they could end up dead if they’re not careful. Of course, you’re an A-rank, so you won’t die easily.]  

“Hmm?”  

[It’s a long story. Actually, it’s something I shouldn’t even be talking about. Just do as you’re told.]  

Even though they know I’m an A-rank superpower human, they’re casually mentioning the possibility of death for someone of my level. The unusual nature of the conversation piqued my curiosity, but Baskerville seemed uninterested in further discussion as he withdrew the Magic Bullet from the wall.  

“Why are you telling me this?”  

[I kinda like you personally, and we’ll need people like you in the future.]  

“Me?”  

[Yeah, the kind of guy who says whatever’s on his mind, even in front of Kage. Well then.]  

Ping! The bullet shot up into the sky and disappeared at high speed.  

Left alone in the alley, I pondered what could possibly be happening.  

Aside from monster attacks, was there really something that could kill an A-rank superpower human?  

***

[Hey? Can you take a look at this for a sec?]  

At that moment, Gu Seo-ryong tapped the ground with her foot in the distance.  

Shifting my consciousness to the cat’s perspective, I saw Gu Seo-ryong standing in front of a strangely designed door.  

Next to the door, painted with colors and patterns resembling foliage, was something unforgettable—the locking mechanism from the lab. The card reader often used by the lab researchers was right in front of Gu Seo-ryong.  

[Found the lab.]  

Gu Seo-ryong had located the lab.  

This was the news I’d been waiting for. I prepared to move by linking my abilities with the cat’s.  

I was curious about what was happening in the city, but…  

Right now, the lab comes first.  

***

Outside A-City, in a closed-off mountainous area near the city’s outer walls.  

After warping through space to join Gu Seo-ryong, I placed my hand on the door and quietly resonated my core.  

A quiet yet wide-ranging pulse—a technique I’d mastered through practice in controlling my core.  

The faint wavelength, strong enough to detect a Terror-class monster, spread beyond the wall, conveying its structure to me.  

The pulse collided with the wall, spreading again as my monstrous senses captured every echo.  

The shape of the passage, the structural features, the door at the end, the corridor, the seams in the walls…  

“…This is definitely the lab.”  

“Hehe, what do you think? Pretty impressive, right?”  

“But it seems a bit old.”  

“Only the door’s old. The inside’s fine. This card reader might look dirty, but the internals are spotless. They’ve been maintaining it regularly.”  

As I removed my hand from the door, Gu Seo-ryong took out her phone and held it up to the card reader.  

“This must be some kind of secret passage. An emergency exit, maybe?”  

“What are you doing?”  

“NFC tool. I’m extracting the card data that the researchers use.”  

“Explain it simply.”  

“Hacking the door. Ripping it open would be easy, but if we want to enter quietly…? Ah.”  

Beep-beep-beep! The screen on her phone flickered rapidly as data cycled through. Gu Seo-ryong pulled the device away, wiping her slightly flushed face with her hand.  

“Sagugu, can you use spatial manipulation to connect a passage through the wall? As stealthily as possible.”  

“Meow.”  

Sagugu and I slipped into the lab effortlessly through a spatial passage.  

“There is a method… Won’t even leave a record of the door opening.”  

“Took you long enough to realize.”  

“Mom’s an idiot?”  

“It’s only because you and Sagugu use your abilities so unnaturally quietly. Normally, alarms would’ve gone off by now. I’m the normal one here. You two are the freaks.”  

I shook my head and sniffed the sealed air of the lab.  

The unforgettable sterile white interior, the faint hum of ventilation, the mingling scents of chemicals and humans.  

“There are definitely researchers inside.”  

“Good. From now on, we will move carefully. There were surveillance cameras outside the door, so there’ll be some inside too. Slowly, find the devices, and sneak in without getting caught.”  

“Hmm…”  

“Can you help? Find the cameras inside the walls and tweak their angles—just a little—to create blind spots. We’ll slip through them.”  

I placed my hand on the wall, sending out pulses.  

The waves spreading through the walls detected the electromagnetic fields of the hidden devices, pinpointing the cameras.  

“There, there, and there.”  

“Wow, that was fast. Oh, right, you’ve got electricity manipulation too. Alright, I’ll adjust them slowly…”  

“Wait.”  

I stopped Gu Seo-ryong as she moved toward the nearest camera.  

“So we’re going in step by step like this?”  

“Yeah? If the lab rats escape because we’re caught, it’ll be a pain. We’ll sneak all the way inside first.”  

“And then? What’s the plan once we’re right in front of the researchers?”  

“Then… We’ll take out one or two, steal their clothes, and extract information. Even if we kill them, afterward…”  

“…A-City’s got too many annoying things to worry about.”  

“Obviously? If we lose them right when we’re about to corner them, how frustrating would that be? Staying undetected means paying attention to a ton of little things.”  

“Sigh…”  

I exhaled slowly, unable to hide my irritation as I glared at Gu Seo-ryong.  

Kage, heroes, Yeo Woon-jae, the lab… Now that they were right in front of me, everything felt suffocating.  

And here we were, trying to untangle it all in the most tedious, human way. 

“I’m bored.”  

My eyes snapped open as I transformed into my monstrous form.  

Then—CRASH!—I tore open the wall hiding the surveillance cameras with a single swipe of my claws.  

[I’ve thought about this for a while, Gu Seo-ryong. You always think too much like a human.]  

“W-what the hell?! If we do this, we’ll get caught—”  

[We’re monsters, Gu Seo-ryong.]  

I amplified my ability output, warping the exit behind us with telekinesis.  

With that, one of the emergency exits was sealed shut.  

[We’re doing this the monster way.]  

Carefully approaching so the researchers don’t escape?  

Just bite them before they can run.  

Not killing them to extract information?  

Monsters can devour humans and read their memories.  

BEEEEP! BEEEEP! The lab’s alarms blared as they detected the surge of energy. Gu Seo-ryong burst out laughing.  

“…Hah! Right, we are monsters!”  

Click, crack, CRASH! In just four steps, Gu Seo-ryong fully transformed into her monstrous state. With a whip of her tail, the pristine white floor of the lab caved in.  

“So violent… Geez, it’s kinda making me wanna have a baby with you.♥”  

[We’ll split up. I’ll take the center, you go left, Sagugu goes right.]  

“Hehe, then first—can you crush all the exits you can find?”  

[Easy. Short and simple.]  

WHOOSH! An unrestrained wave of monstrous energy spread out, detecting every human presence hidden underground.  

Within the range—smaller than a single city district—I located all seven connected passages and warped them shut with spatial manipulation, sealing them off.  

“Still, just in case, make sure we’re not caught on camera. We’re not escaped test subjects who found the lab—we’re Despair-class monsters who wandered in by accident.”  

[You won’t lose to the researchers, right?]  

“Hey, I am a Despair-class monster. Code G3. Even if they send out test subjects instead of humans, I can kill them all myself.”  

“Meow? Kill?”  

“Yeah, Sagugu. You can kill all the humans here.”  

As Gu Seo-ryong gave permission, Sagugu’s eyes sparkled with excitement.  

“Meowrr! Killing game! This’ll be fun!”  

With Sagugu’s transformation as the signal, I charged toward the center while Gu Seo-ryong dashed left.  

Channeling powerful telekinesis behind me, I demolished the narrow corridors as I advanced.  

My destination: the heart of the lab.  

Where the familiar scent lingered.  

***

The night in A-City was unusually quiet.  

The usual pulses of energy chasing away monsters were absent, and the heroes who normally patrolled the streets were nowhere to be seen.  

A silent city. A peaceful night where nothing seemed to happen.  

Yet, the citizens trembled with unease.  

Today.  

It had to be today.  

Had they developed a new sense, like prey hunted by monsters?  

Some citizens, sensing the killing intent lingering in the cold air, couldn’t sleep.  

And the moment the city-wide alarm sounded, they immediately rushed out, dragging their loved ones with them.  

[Citizens, please evacuate to the shelters. Repeat. Citizens, please—]  

“At least that’s a relief… They’re letting us evacuate.”  

“See? I told you Kage could be trusted.”  

“Kage protects the people…”  

“No time to talk, run!”  

The alarm was different from usual—no mention of Despair-class or Disaster-class threats, just repeated evacuation orders.  

Amid the fleeing crowds, something darted past at high speed.  

“Kyaaah!”  

“Ugh, ghh…!”  

“H-honey…! Honey!”  

Ping! A man’s chest was silently pierced by Baskerville Magic Bullet as it weaved through the crowd.  

Then, the bullet zigzagged through the streets, seeking another target, biting straight through a heart.  

“Tch… Don’t touch my family, he says. Talking like I’m the villain here. Human trash.”  

Rustle, rustle. The sound of paper fluttering in the wind.  

Old-fashioned documents bore the photos of the men who had just collapsed, bleeding.  

The man with long hair hanging over his face sat slumped on the ground, reviewing the files one by one as he amplified his output.  

“Next hound, go.”  

Ping! A bullet materialized in front of him, baring its fangs before shooting off.  

In an instant, it reached its next target—blowing apart their hearts.  

Piece of trash who had abducted children and gifted them as sex slaves to government officials.  

Piece of trash who, after supporting an official’s child, killed a grieving father who begged for justice for his murdered daughter, just to prove his loyalty.  

Piece of trash who dissected superpower humans under the guise of research and defiled their corpses.  

The Hound Team’s thorough investigation, cross-verified multiple times, had rooted out every piece of trash.  

This was garbage disposal.  

Baskerville frowned, increasing the speed of the bullets racing through the city.  

At the base of the tallest skyscraper in A-City, where everything was visible, crimson arcs danced beautifully as they hunted the monsters hiding among humans. 

Those who had survived solely because they were good at cleaning up after government officials.  

“D-damn it! Stay the hell away from—guh…!”  

“Eek! Eek! Eeeek!”  

“Kyaaaa!”  

Some awakened superpower human trash tried to track the bullets’ trajectories, using civilians as shields.  

Trash till the end, huh? Using the weak as shields? Disqualified as superpower humans.  

The bullet curved mid-flight, piercing the superpower human’s skull before moving on to its next prey.  

With all citizens flooding the streets to reach shelters, finding targets was effortless.  

“Hey! This guy’s hiding here!”  

“N-no! I’m innocent! I didn’t do anything!”  

“Hah? Look at this idiot. You hid instead of evacuating? That means you got tipped off through government connections!”  

“You had every chance to become a hero, but you’re still just a worthless superpower human!”  

“Don’t let a single one escape! Don’t leave any filth for the new era!”  

Even those in hiding were hunted down and killed by the heroes spreading through the city.  

As the superpower human trash began to panic and lash out, it didn’t last long.  

Today’s mission wasn’t suppression or arrest—it was extermination.  

Literal cleaning.  

[Is the trash disposal proceeding smoothly?]  

Beep. The voice came from a modified bullet embedded in the ground. Baskerville, veins bulging on his forehead from overexertion, answered.  

“This is Baskerville. Disposal is 50% complete.”  

[Excellent.]  

“What about your side?”  

[Proceeding smoothly.]  

The bullets avoided one particular District, where high-ranking government officials hid.  

Despite the city-wide alarm, some hadn’t evacuated.  

Soldiers with guns, tanks, helicopters—outdated weapons deployed by the elderly elite.  

[…As promised, minimize casualties among the soldiers.]  

“I’ll try.”  

Standing before them, Kage adjusted the isolation barrier trapping them and spoke.  

“But necessary sacrifices can’t be avoided.”  

“Ugh, graaah!”  

Weapons capable of fatally wounding weaker heroes.  

As Kage clenched his fist, the tanks and helicopters inside the barrier crumpled into human-sized scrap metal.  

Blood oozed from the wreckage.  

“Now then, let’s begin the pig hunt.”