“Uh… What’s your name? Yes! It’s Park Deun-deun! Park Deun-deun the warrior! Just looking at him makes you feel so secure!”
“Oppa~! There’s something else that feels sturdy too! Let’s not go to the arena, come up to my room!”
“I’ll pay you more in my room! This way~! This way~!”
[He’s in excellent physical condition! He might be quite skilled! Even without a weapon! Wow, he’s full of confidence! Indeed, I wonder which monster he’ll face!]
A burst of laughter filled the air as the host spun the roulette and extended the button towards me.
I raised a finger and lightly pressed the button, and as the spinning roulette gradually slowed down, it pointed to one monster.
[Oh…]
“Oh my, shit.”
“No way!”
The needle pointed at the sole Fragment-grade monster in the roulette: the Rock Lion.
This monster, with a body resembling a statue, was impossible to defeat without sufficient power output.
Especially for a human, a non-monster, unless they had a specific level of强化系（strengthening-type）abilities.
[Now what will you do? If you surrender right now, there’s a fine of ten million won! Ah! Of course, life is more important than money, isn’t it?]
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
“What a waste of a big guy! Coward!”
“Wuuuuuuu!”
“Oppa, come to my room~! I’ll pay you! 103 Building, Room 402~!”
Without responding, I walked off the stage, and the audience, thinking I had surrendered, booed.
But when I headed not towards the tent but towards the steel cage, the jeers turned into cheers.
[Is this possible? Are you thinking of fighting, Park Deun-deun?]
“Kiyaahhh!”
“Park Deun-deun! Park Deun-deun! Park Deun-deun!”
Amid the audience’s noisy cheers, a burly man came out of the tent with a grim expression and headed with other men towards another tent opposite.
They wheeled in a large steel cage containing the Rock Lion and placed it inside. They then injected several shots similar to the ones used on the Knife-Blade Cat and left swiftly.
[The betting results show 28 for human, 72 for monster! Park Deun-deun warrior, if you win here, it’s ten million won! Indeed, will you be able to hunt the Rock Lion?!]
“Growlrrrr…”
Awakened from its slumber, the Rock Lion growled, lowering its upper body gradually.
A typical pre-attack posture of monstrous felines.
I stood ready in a posture with my hands on my waist, awaiting the Rock Lion.
Previously, as a human-type, my raw strength was between the killing-grade and fragment-grade.
However, now… it felt certain that I could output fragment-grade strength.
I grabbed the oncoming Rock Lion’s head with one hand.
[The Rock Lion is charging…Eh?]
“Growlrrr…! Grrrrrrrr!”
“Hm…”
Indeed, this was possible.
Did the practice of controlling the monster’s energy help increase the strength I could use in human form?
My body’s robustness also seemed to have improved a bit… despite the Rock Lion continuously swiping its claws, my arm remained unscathed.
I then pressed down on the Rock Lion’s head, which caused the monster’s demeanor to change as it sensed something unusual.
“Roooar…! Keaang?! Kee, keeerrk…!”
“Uuuuuhhh,” continuing to press its head, cracks began to appear on the Rock Lion’s head.
Cracking, the fissures widened and pink flesh began leaking through the shattered rock as the Rock Lion’s head split apart.
Desperately thrashing its hind legs to break free, the Rock Lion finally stopped moving as its cracked head reached its limit.
[Eh…e… Ah, the Rock Lion…h, has been…defeated. It was Park Deun-deun!]
I wiped the monster’s blood off my hands against the Rock Lion’s corpse, then stepped out of the steel cage.
The audience was extremely quiet, without any cheers, and I wasn’t sure where to go. So I went back into the tent.
The people inside the tent stepped away, keeping their distance from me.
“You bastard… what are you?”
Right then, men in suits rushed into the tent.
“That move just now, it’s at least B-grade or higher… it looks like an abnormal ability. Are you a villain from another organization? No, I’ve never seen anyone like you among the villains in W City with this level of physical enhancement…”
The men cautiously raised their abilities as they approached.
“Where did you come from! Are you a hero! To just come to the Nine-Dragon Castle without fear…!”
“Ten million won.”
“W, what…?”
“…Are you not going to pay?”
I sighed, thinking, as usual.
Sometimes, something similar happens at restaurants. In some restaurants with special events, they say they’ll randomly draw a winner after the meal for a freebie, but in reality, no one ever gets that.
This must be what they call false advertising… thinking about this, I sighed again.
“I thought this might happen. Truly, society is an unforgiving place.”
“What’s this little guy talking about…?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t throw a tantrum like those troublesome people asking for money.”
Looking for a towel to finish wiping my hands, I gave up and instead wiped them on a nearby appropriate place.
At the edge of the tent where the suits were standing, a taut side, after I wiped my hands across it, clear red handprints were left behind.
“In exchange, I paid the entrance fee, so I’d like to take a look around a bit. I assume there will be no problems with me freely wandering around?”
Now it’s probably time for me to retrieve my chained necklace and the thief. With this thought in mind, I spoke.
The man in front of me reeked of fear as he thrust his weapon towards me.
“Are… are you challenging me to fight…!”
“Hm? You are challenging me to fight?”
“No, I asked if you are challenging me to fight!”
“So you are challenging me to fight?”
“No! I’m not the one challenging you! Shit!”
“Could it be that your intelligence is lacking? Your words sound a bit off.”
“Wha- this little bastard! Are you really challenging me?”
Hmm, it’s apparent your intelligence is deficient… I placed my hand on the shoulder of the man in front of me as if to encourage him to work hard.
“Hyeeeek!”
The man held his shoulder, collapsed, and crawled backward.
As I was about to feel sympathy for him, a woman in a similar suit as the men entered the tent, emanating a peculiar scent from outside the tent.
“That’s enough. Though he looks intimidating, he’s my subordinate, after all. It would be troublesome if you killed him.”
“Bo… boss!”
“Hm?”
The appearance of the smiling woman set off a sudden tension among the men in suits. I furrowed my brow at the strange scent.
Though the woman appeared familiar yet foreign, she adjusted her suit sleeve and spoke.
“Who might you be? I’ve heard no mention of anyone coming from the Villain Association, nor have there been any updates from the Hero side either…”
“Hm.”
I sniffed the air, searching for any unusual signs of movement.
The scent of the smiling woman was similar but distinctly different from the others around her.
And yet, it was a distinct feeling I recognized, causing me to ponder.
“Sorry, but our Nine-Dragon Castle operates on a reservation system for B-grade abilities and above. So… would you mind revealing your identity?”
“Park Deun-deun.”
“Ha… please stop with that ridiculous pseudonym.”
The smiling woman slowly raised her hand and extended it towards me.
“If you have no intention of speaking, I’ll have to use force.”
Snap, the sound of her snapping her fingers made my vision flicker.
This… confusion ability, a power that scrambles the senses.
Hearing becomes sight, sight becomes smell, and smell becomes touch.
However, equipped with a monster’s superior senses, I could perceive the woman before me clearly without trouble.
“To the conference room, we need to figure out what this kid is…!”
“You’re clearly challenging me to fight now.”
“Huh…?”
As I raised my hand, the woman, who had been complaining irritably, was startled and took a step back.
She snapped her fingers again, “Snap, snap”, invoking a power different from the one earlier.
Hallucination ability, a dozen versions of the woman surrounded me, and the agony ability caused my body to burn.
Regardless, while the sensory disturbance ability could inconvenience a monster, it couldn’t cause any actual harm. I grabbed the woman’s arm.
“Now, wait…!”
“Crack, crack, crunch,” as I applied force to my hand, the woman panicked and tried to pull her arm away.
And just as I was about to burst the muscles in her arm, her arm twisted into a tentacle and slipped out of my grasp.
Malleability ability, an ability to alter the structure of the body.
Having confirmed her third ability, I began to feel something was off and enhanced the senses of the monster.
At that moment, the woman in front me suddenly flinched in surprise.
Humans usually can’t perceive the low-frequency core vibrations of a monster, so when she reacted startled, I found it suspicious.
The subsequent sensation only made me more incredulous.
“Could it be that you…?”
“Hm?”
A weak level of ultra-low-frequency waves was emanating from the woman before me.
Impossible without a monster core.
“Everyone, get out!”
“Huh? Boss?”
“Leave immediately, this feels like someone I know.”
“Should we… where should we wait?”
“Standby outside! Leave already!”
The smiling woman promptly ordered everyone out of the tent the moment she realized I was a monster.
Once only she and I were left in the tent, I quieted my monster core and asked about her identity.
“Who are you?”
In response to my question, the woman unfastened her shirt and revealed a tattoo above her collarbone.
A barcode with the letters G3.
The woman in front of me was an experimental subject from the same research facility as me.
“Alphabet series, huh.”
“Then who might you be?”
I brushed my messy hair aside and exposed the area around my neck.
Upon seeing it, G3’s eyes widened in surprise, and she exclaimed,
“C, CXI? The guy from Romania?”
The term “Romanians” refers to test subjects with Roman-letter numbering, a common term for monsters created in the lab.
I overheard this from the researchers; my number, converted into digits, was 111.
G3 in the Alphabet series… that would be 73.
“Surprising, coming face-to-face with the same experimental subject.”
“Even more surprising is me… wait, why would you come to a place like this? To eliminate me?”
“What nonsense?”
“It’s not that, then… is it a coincidence that you came looking for me?”
At my nod, G3 sighed and sat down on a bench.
“Phew, I’m relieved. I thought the strongest guy from Romania was sent here to assassinate me from the lab.”
“Strongest? I’ve never heard anything about that.”
“The alphabets knew it well. They’d sometimes instigate fights in the lab, right? Every time, CXI would do nothing, yet no matter what the others tried, they couldn’t harm you.”
“That’s hardly the definition of strongest, it’s ridiculous.”
Being well-aware that the opposing monster was also an experimental subject like me, I had no intention of fighting, so I often just lay down in my spot.
Then, other monsters would pat my back, and I’d either dodge or take the hits.
By passing the time like this, the researchers eventually gave up, and the experiments stopped. And somehow, that reputation of “strongest” stuck.
“What do you mean? You know what it means that no matter how they attacked, you never went berserk, don’t you?”
“Hm.”
Indeed, that must be it.
A monster that never goes berserk no matter how many attacks it receives suggests that the opponent’s attacks were not threatening at all.
Apparently, my non-resistance gave the impression that I was simply ignoring the other monsters.
And truthfully, most of them were weak enough that ignoring them didn’t matter anyway.
“That CXI… it really is believable that you’re not here to kill me.”
Because G3 knew I never fought any monsters in the lab, she let her guard down.
Since I didn’t see any need to be on guard, I completely suppressed the vibrations of my monster core, prompting G3 to extend her hand to me.
“If you didn’t come as an enemy, let’s introduce ourselves, shall we? I’m G3, my name is Gu Seoryong. What about you?”
Human custom of introducing oneself, I grabbed G3’s hand and stated my name.
“I am Park Deun-deun.”
