This World is too Cruel to Men – Chapter 145

What should I do from here on out?

Even saying that was just vague.

After all, there probably wouldn’t be any clever solutions.

I guess even if Zhuge Liang were sitting here instead of me, it would be the same.

Well, maybe not.

And it seemed that Chae-rim, who brought that up, was thinking something similar to me.

“First, let’s organize the facts we know.”

“The facts we know?”

Chae-rim nodded at my words and shrugged her shoulders as she added.

“Ah, like, you know, common knowledge about the Another Ones and stuff.”

Hearing that made me think of one thing.

What on earth does this person expect from a high school student?

Is she maybe suggesting that I say something just so it won’t feel awkward?

“If you think it’s at all related to this situation, feel free to share whatever.”

Even saying that, there was no chance I could speak about anything.

You’ve got to know something to chatter away; just throwing out random words feels too strange.

So I kept mumbling sounds like ‘um…’ and ‘uh…’ and Chae-rim’s face turned suspicious.

“What? You don’t know about the habits of the Anothers? Didn’t you learn that in school?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m a high school student…”

“Exactly. You should be learning about the ecology of the Anothers in biology class?”

“Well, since I’m still a freshman…”

“It’s supposed to be in the textbooks since the first year!”

“Um… probably not?”

Though I said that, if my memory served me right, there was no such part in the biology textbook.

How would I know that? It’s because the first thing I did when I received the textbooks in high school was skim through all the subjects to check what exactly we would be learning in this world’s high school.

“What? They don’t teach that these days? Back in my day, it was in the books for all three years of high school.”

Finding nostalgia here…

But if I remember correctly, during Chae-rim’s time as a student, she must be twenty-seven now.

That means it would be nearly ten years ago when she was in school.

So, isn’t it possible that such topics were included in the curriculum back then?

“Ah… I guess that would make sense.”

“Why does your tone sound a bit strange? Huh?”

Just as I realized that, I was met with a rather sharp retort.

Anyway, we decided to take some time to learn about the ecology of these monsters called Anothers.

“Ugh… I learned this a long time ago, so I don’t remember it well…”

The lecturer was none other than Choi Chae-rim, an active hero and someone who minored in monster ecology for three years back in high school.

“Well, first… you saw what they look like, right?”

“…Yes.”

Would I only have seen how they look?

I’ve witnessed them devour people multiple times.

In that sense, they were indeed monsters.

And they looked just as monstrous as their name suggested.

Roughly speaking, their appearance could be described as visual that wouldn’t be out of place as a monster in an SF movie.

The exoskeleton resembling that of an insect and the six-segmented maw were like that.

“One noteworthy point is… they can’t smell, right?”

“They can’t smell?”

“Well, it’s not just that their sense of smell is weak—it feels like they don’t even have the nose as an organ at all.”

“Oh, so that’s why…”

After discovering this cave and bringing Chae-rim in, no Anothers came chasing after us.

“Of course, not all of them are like that. The higher-tier entities have a different story, but usually, that’s how it is.”

“I see.”

“And… um… oh, sometimes among the ordinary ones, there are bigger ones mixed in, you know?”

“Yes.”

“The Association usually calls those guys Bruisers…”

In simpler terms, Chae-rim explained it felt like they were like commanders.

“The funny thing is, these guys who seem to have almost no intelligence act very systematically when they move alongside Bruisers.”

“That could mean there’s some sort of hierarchy among them.”

“Probably so. The Association has speculated that too.”

“Then there might be entities that rank even higher than those Bruisers.”

“Well, I’ve never heard of such entities being observed, but based on what you described earlier, it’s a hundred percent possible.”

What could that mean?

“You said earlier that they dragged the unconscious people somewhere.”

“…That’s right.”

“Then where did those people get taken?”

“Probably… to their stronghold.”

“Right, that makes sense. And doesn’t something pop into your mind around this point?”

As she said that, one specific creature came to my mind.

Or rather, should I say an insect?

“…Ants?”

“Exactly.”

Of course, one couldn’t say the Anothers behaved exactly like ants.

But… it was true there were similarities.

“Did you know? The bodies of those we commonly call Anothers don’t have organs for reproduction?”

“…Is that so?”

“Yeah, if you think about it, it’s quite fascinating. How do beings that can’t reproduce maintain a population capable of invading someone else’s world?”

“Well…”

They’d probably have specialized creatures for reproduction.

Like queen ants, for instance.

And if that’s what Chae-rim was hinting at, it was pretty clear why the Anothers dragged unconscious persons instead of eating them on the spot.

“My question is, earlier, Dogun said why are they all men… hmm, do they perhaps have some sort of weird predilection for only eating males?”

Surely that was meant as a joke, but why couldn’t I laugh?

And it seemed that Chae-rim felt embarrassed since the joke didn’t land, as she quickly added.

“Anyway… what I was trying to say is that if they really have a queen, she must be considered a very precious entity.”

“Well, that’s obviously true.”

“But what if they noticed our existence? How do you think they would react?”

The moment I heard that, my mind conjured an image of the monsters swarming us from nowhere, like when I poked an anthill with a twig.

“You get my point, right? So whatever you do from now on, you need to keep that in mind while moving. In the worst-case scenario, even I might not be able to protect you.”

Just as I nodded at that, the conversation, which had slightly veered off track, returned to the main topic.

“Anyway… what’s important is finding a way back to our original world…”

“Well, there’s probably only one way to do that.”

Since we were dragged here through a Rift?

Wouldn’t we just leave through the Rift as well?

In that sense, I looked toward Chae-rim, who seemed knowledgeable about the Anothers.

“How do Rifts form?”

“…I don’t know.”

The answer that came back was just that.

“What?”

“I don’t know. There’s barely anything revealed about that part.”

Then what happened to the disaster notice I received just before the Rift opened?

“That? I’m not exactly sure, but I’ve heard that there are some special waves that occur when a Rift opens. And devices are deployed in each public institution to detect those.”

If that’s the case…

“It can’t occur naturally, right?”

“Of course not. If it happened naturally, it wouldn’t suddenly open like this after never appearing before.”

“Unless there exists a certain entity, like the Bruisers you mentioned earlier, that can open and close Rifts…”

“Well, that could be true, but if that were the case, you would have noticed them drop down here.”

Then came a question about whether I noticed any unusually shaped Anothers among them.

“Not really…”

“You might have been too flustered at the time to notice. Think about it carefully.”

If anything came to mind, it would’ve been a ‘Wow! I can finally go home!’ ending.

Unfortunately, all the Ones I saw looked like they were mass-produced in some factory.

That meant the hypothesis of a specific entity that opens Rifts was off the table…

So what could possibly be going on?

How are the Anothers freely crossing between two worlds?

As I was stuck in my head, feeling the pressure, I muttered under my breath…

“…This damn thing.”

My muttering, filled with distress, echoed in my ears right at the moment my body tipped backward as if pushed by something—

“Huh…?”

Before I knew it, Chae-rim was on top of me.