I stared blankly at it, wondering what that could be.
“Do you have any guesses?”
The Chief said that as he checked whether there was anything to refer to.
At that, I slowly shook my head.
“…I… don’t know.”
“…I see.”
The Chief said he understood for now.
I dropped my head and stared at the floor with trembling eyes.
‘I don’t know.’
I didn’t know anything.
What on earth was happening to me.
What I was supposed to do from now on.
What could I even do now?
Become even more reluctant to die, worrying every time I became a meat shield that that thing might pop out again?
Maybe that was what I truly wanted.
“Ah…”
A sigh escaped me.
This was hell.
The ground I was standing on right now was hell.
“For now, it seems you have an adaptation ability too. You’d guessed that much, right?”
“…!!”
Just then, while I was spacing out blankly,
Senior Minjun smiled and asked me a question.
My pupils quivered.
I wondered if this person was also an anomaly, but—
“The test results say he’s completely human.”
“…Is that so.”
“Yes. It’s not as if we wouldn’t have tested him.”
At the Chief’s answer, I nodded and slowly opened my mouth.
“…Adaptation. I think that’s right.”
I adapt to all sorts of phenomena around me and apply them.
What I knew so far was that, in addition to that, I could transform my body.
This time, I had become able to liquefy like a chameleon.
I didn’t know the exact circumstances.
“…Maybe it’s through eating, Chief.”
Senior Yeonu, who had woken up at some point, said that.
When I flinched, she smirked and flicked my forehead.
“Can’t adapt to this?”
“…Ow, that hurts.”
“So what?”
Senior Yeonu lay sprawled out, rubbing her eyes.
I couldn’t say anything and only stared at the floor.
“Let’s move for now. We need to go to the training ground and do a field test as well.”
A reassessment.
Roughly speaking, listening to what I had to say ended here.
Now it was time to verify whether it was true.
“Prepare some toxin for the adaptation test… and a monster corpse to see whether he can steal abilities.”
Saying that, the Chief told the Watcher to go to the research department.
The Watcher seemed reluctant, but eventually nodded.
“Haa… very well.”
“Then we’ll move first. Wake up already, Yeonu.”
“Yes……”
Senior Minjun slipped his arms under my armpits and lifted me up just like that.
“Let’s go.”
“…Yes.”
Senior Minjun dragged me out of the office as if I were being taken away.
I was dragged along blankly all the way to the training ground.
* * *
When we arrived at the training ground, the Chief, Senior Minjun, and Senior Yeonu pushed me into the field.
Squatting down as I looked at the three of them outside the field, I waited for the test to begin.
To be honest, I was scared.
I was so scared I felt like I was going to throw up.
But I had to do it.
To prove that I still wasn’t dangerous.
“…I’ll die, won’t I?”
When I asked that, Senior Yeonu answered without hesitation.
“Then did you think you’d live?”
“…No.”
“…Die and come back. We’ll wait.”
She said that.
When I opened my eyes wide and tilted my head, the Chief beside her nodded.
“In this test, your grade will probably rise by about one level.”
“…Is that so.”
“Even if it does, your treatment will only get a little harsher. Nothing much will change.”
“……”
My treatment getting harsher.
That meant my organs might be ripped out while I was sleeping, like last time.
When my body trembled at that, the Chief told me not to worry too much.
“Don’t worry too much.”
“Chief, if you were in my position, would you be able to say that…?”
“……”
“…I’m scared. I just… even breathing now—”
Before I could finish speaking, the Watcher came running from far away, and the sound from outside was cut off.
[Reassessment of Subject Name: Lee Sion will now proceed.]
[Test categories: Adaptation, Absorption, Dual Personality.]
[After the test, the contract will be rewritten.]
Along with the sound of the broadcast saying that, a robot rose up holding a green liquid and the corpse of an unidentified anomaly.
[First, we will restrain the anomaly.]
As it said that, a chair that bound my body rose from below and tied me down.
“…!!!”
—Creak, creaaak.
The belts tightened around me a little too much.
But there was no way for my will to be conveyed, so I broke out in a cold sweat and stared at the green liquid sloshing before my eyes.
“…I have to drink it, don’t I.”
The robot handed me the poison as if it were a bartender.
However, when it saw that I was restrained, it came closer and forced my mouth open.
‘I don’t want to eat it…!!’
If I ate it, I would die.
I would 100% die from this.
I knew that fact, so I wanted to keep my mouth shut, but—
—Clank!! Clank, clank!!!
No matter how much I moved my body, the robot forcing my mouth open did not disappear.
And so, the bitter liquid was forced into my mouth.
“Aaagh…!!”
The moment I grimaced at the bitterness and reflexively tried to spit it out,
the robot quickly pressed down on my jaw, making it impossible for me to open my mouth.
[Poison ingestion 1 complete. 5 remaining.]
“…!!”
It seemed the adaptation test had begun.
How much time passed like that?
“…I want… to live.”
The moment I said that, my body began convulsing like mad.
Even though I tried to endure it, vomit mixed with blood burst out of my mouth.
Foam frothed at my lips, and blood flowed from my nose.
What on earth had they fed me?
‘It hurts.’
I wanted to hurry up and die, then wake up again.
Thinking that, I looked at the team members observing me from outside.
My throat hurt.
It felt like I was going to die.
But while restrained, I couldn’t even run away.
“Kgh……”
The expressionless Chief, my seniors, and the Watcher.
With tears streaming down my face, I met my first death in this test.
* * *
The second death wasn’t much different.
Convulsions, vomiting, bleeding, death.
I followed that route, proving that my body had failed to adapt.
The change began from the third ingestion.
The poison was fed to me as I resisted even more fiercely.
And that poison still gave me horrific pain, but—
[Confirmed no blood in vomit. Bleeding has subsided.]
This time, the bleeding stopped.
But the convulsions did not stop.
In the end, I died from respiratory distress and shock.
In the fourth death, the vomiting disappeared.
And finally, on the fifth ingestion—
“…Urgh… aaagh…!!! Kkhhh…!!!”
About fifteen minutes of convulsions.
Pain like cramps seizing my entire body passed through me, but in the end—
[Survival confirmed. Adaptation ability newly registered.]
“Haa… haa……”
They succeeded in confirming my adaptation ability.
But my relief lasted only a moment.
[Absorption test commencing.]
A horribly decayed anomaly corpse descended in front of me.
It was a fish with a human face.
Its name was as straightforward as could be: a human-faced fish.
[After forced feeding, tests will be conducted to determine whether traits such as the human-faced fish’s abilities—underwater breathing, bewitchment, scales, and so on—manifest.]
As it said that, the robot tore off a bit of the human-faced fish’s corpse and brought it to me.
My face turned pale, and I begged them to wait for just a moment, but—
“W-wait just a—”
—Shove!!!
“Mmmph…!!!”
A piece of rotten human-faced fish corpse flesh was forced into my mouth.
Tears leaked out.
Wondering just what kind of treatment I was being subjected to, I looked at the team members.
‘Please save me.’
But they were only looking at me as if they were watching a lab rat.
If there was one change, it was that Senior Yeonu had stepped back and was looking at her phone.
* * *
Yeonu, who had been looking at her phone, glanced up at Sion, who was undergoing torture under the name of reassessment.
‘A human mind… human… then that kid is—’
For a moment, a horrible thought occurred to her.
The thought that what they were doing right now was, in the end, nothing more than torture.
“…At the very least, it means half of him is human.”
Of course, she couldn’t completely push that thought away.
In the end, it slipped out of her mouth.
It was horrible.
The sight of him struggling because he wanted to live.
The sight of him being subjected to all sorts of experiments after eating, even though the adaptation test was already over.
And all of this—
“Just to confirm his dual personality… to go this far.”
“It only comes out under extreme conditions.”
In truth, this was an extreme environment prepared for the sake of the dual personality.
Give him extreme pressure and pain, then kill him.
Then Sion, whose survival instinct had reached its limit, would be pushed to the back of his consciousness for a brief moment.
—Boom!!!!!!
“…It came out, Chief.”
Just like now, the dual personality with enough power to smash the robot appeared.
They couldn’t tell what it was saying, but the dual personality looked at them with a wide grin.
“Wow… this’ll be fun.”
Minjun said that, smacking his lips.
Yeonu slapped Minjun on the back and warned him not to fool around.
“Don’t joke around.”
“I’m serious.”
“…Tsk.”
Clicking her tongue, Yeonu looked at Sion.
The sight of him smiling as he picked up the human-faced fish corpse he had hated eating so much and chewed it with his hands was truly unsettling beyond words.
‘Disgusting.’
As expected, anomalies were disgusting things.
That was why such a thought could never disappear from her head.
If Sion returned voluntarily from here,
there was a chance his grade might even become lower than before.
‘I hope that happens.’
Yeonu smirked and prayed that Sion would win.
After all, she wasn’t someone who hated people.