Became a Failed Experimental Subject-Chapter 49: Bad Cats

"KROOOOH!"

"NYAOOOO!"

The moment I burst out of the ground, I charged toward it.

The one clawing at the shelter’s outer wall leapt up effortlessly, as if used to it by now, and vanished with a soft pop midair, clinging to the side of a nearby building.

"H-Heek, hiik, hiii...!"

"Huuk, huk, euk, huuk...!"

Through the cracked gaps of the shelter, I heard the sobbing of people.

The outer shell of a shelter, if faced with pure pressure alone, could withstand even extinction-class strength for over three minutes — but when a despair-class monster used an ability, it became little more than wet cardboard within a minute.

Those brief seconds served as the alarm — the sound of claws scraping the shelter, the ripples of an ability — that I had to trace to arrive on time.

This time, I had made it.

But the real problem was starting now.

The time limit was thirty seconds from this point on — if I didn’t kill that annoying bastard within thirty seconds, Starlight would arrive.

"Nyahahahaha!"

The creature, already familiar with this pattern, kept popping away, vanishing again and again into thin air.

Even if I charged at it the moment I sensed it, it would slip through a tiny crack in space and disappear.

Experiencing firsthand just how infuriating it was to try to catch a fleeing enemy, I wrapped my body in lightning and swung my claws.

CRACK! — Instantly, my body broke into particles, ripping through space to reappear right in front of the bastard, raking my claws in a lightning slash.

Just then, another creature materialized beside the first and lunged at me.

"NYAOOO!"

"KRRRRR...!"

SCHINK! Landing on the ground, I dodged the split space between the two creatures, watching them cling to the wall above me.

This was one of the reasons this whole situation pissed me off.

There weren’t just one, but two despair-class monsters.

Every time it seemed like I was chasing just one, the other would ambush me if I left an opening.

"NYAHAHAHAHA!"

"KHOHOHOHO!"

Their mocking laughter echoed, and with it, the opportunity to kill even one of them vanished.

If I chased after the two despair-class monsters, I would be the one to die.

But they couldn’t kill me either — not yet.

Within five seconds, Starlight would arrive.

Knowing that, the two monsters kept their distance, circling without closing in.

"KRRRRRR..."

And now, the most infuriating moment was here.

If I left now, trying to avoid Starlight, the monsters would attack the shelter.

If I stayed to protect it, they would vanish far away, hiding their presence, and I’d be the one attacked by Starlight.

If I got wounded, they would stealthily chase me down and finish me off — and if I somehow escaped, they'd simply head to the next shelter.

This was a three-way cycle — a deadly game between the two monsters and Starlight.

Realizing that, I tried to reach out to Starlight.

Talking — if I spoke now, it might backfire, making her believe even more firmly that a monster with intelligence was deceiving her.

But it was better than doing nothing.

However, the moment I tried to speak, the monsters used a sound-canceling ability from far away.

The result was inevitable: Starlight, still thinking of me as one of them, attacked without hesitation.

If I didn’t counterattack, maybe she’d sense something was wrong and stop...?

But the instant I got hurt, the monsters would start chasing me.

That was no good either.

Maybe I should change forms — show Starlight that I was Black Cat, and they were something else?

But whenever I shifted shape, the two monsters would split up: one would pin me down, and the other would go hunt humans.

If Starlight spotted them during that, they would vanish again, hiding their presence like I did — and I’d end up being attacked again.

To track them without alerting them, I had to stay in this cat form.

And to dodge Starlight’s attacks without injury, too.

But the abilities I could use in this form were almost entirely blocked by the monsters' powers.

If I got pushed back, humans would die.

If humans died, the monsters would grow stronger.

The stronger they got, the more I’d get pushed back.

Even knowing this vicious cycle, there was nothing I could do.

"KRRRRR...."

These monsters were strange.

No matter what I tried, they adapted.

As if they had studied me, preparing countermeasures.

"NYAOOO~!"

"KROOOONG!"

Just then, the two monsters let out chuckling cries and sank quickly into the shadows.

Like when I fled, they suppressed their core signatures completely.

And the next instant — KWAANG! — Starlight crashed down in front of me like a falling meteor.

Landing with an explosion, Starlight emitted a deadly aura of power as she glared at me, unblinking.

"KRRRRRR...."

And I, too, prepared to flee from Starlight — but froze.

A voice — no, a primal instinct — whispered in my ear.

Kill Starlight. Eat her.

Then you’ll be the strongest one here.

If killing Starlight was too difficult, maybe I should just devour the humans first, before the monsters could.

To save more humans, I might have to kill a few.

To save humans... I'd have to kill humans.

"GRRRRRRR...."

Chasing ideals wouldn’t accomplish anything.

I had to choose survival — to embrace reality.

Pick the lesser of two evils.

No — this wasn’t even a choice.

It was monster... or human.

"...Black Cat."

Just as I bared my fangs and tensed my body to move in any direction, Starlight, still watching me intently, let her powers fade.

Gulping dryly, she exuded the scent of tangled emotions, crushing a button on her hero suit with trembling fingers.

One hand reached out toward me — not in an attack stance, but slowly, like someone trying to touch a distant object.

"Please... tell me I was wrong."

It was the height of a hand reaching to gently pat my head.

The scent of desperate hope wafted from Starlight.

"Please tell me I was wrong, that it wasn’t you who attacked those people!"

She was begging me — while at the same time, ready to stab a blade through my heart if she had to.

"Please, I’m begging you!"

The moment I heard those words, my conversation with Yu Hyena flashed through my mind.

If you give up on ideals just because reality is painful, nothing will ever get better.

Starlight misunderstanding me — and then being the one to approach first, trying to fix it — was so idealistic it didn’t even seem real.

So I didn’t even hesitate.

I opened my clenched paw... and crouched low.

[OOOOOOOOH!]

"Ugh...!"

Letting out a loud howl to draw all eyes to me, I charged straight at Starlight.

At that instant, she squeezed her eyes shut and, overwhelmed by despair, swung the fist she had been hiding behind her back.

Grinding my teeth, I raked past Starlight’s side.

"...Huh?"

When I widened the distance between us, Starlight stared at me, bewildered — her fist having punched clean through my gut.

"Did you... miss me on purpose? Why...?"

"Khrrrk, krghk, krk..."

"B-Black...?"

Blood gushed up my throat, along with the shredded fragments of my non-regenerating guts.

Shuddering the monster core violently, I sank into the shadows to flee.

Notice it — Starlight.

I shuddered my core again, and Starlight responded by sending out her ability's pulse.

That’s right — keep tracking me.

"Black Cat!"

In the endless cycle of chase and escape, Starlight had learned how to track my location through core vibration scatter, even when I tried to suppress it.

Barely regenerating my wounded body, I swam through the ground, bleeding the stench of blood.

Dodging Starlight, I made a full circular escape route and then dove even deeper underground, shaking her off.

Deeper still, widening the distance.

As I descended into the deeper underground darkness, the space around me groaned.

At the same time, the monster core’s pulse spread through the earth.

The wounded me — they were chasing me.

Unlike me, who had to solidify to land a proper hit, they tore through the space itself, attacking me while remaining in shadow form.

"Krrk...!"

I tried to shadow myself and swallow them whole, but they isolated space itself to block me.

When I tried to devour even the torn pieces of space, creaking sounds like twisted steel filled the darkness as our abilities clashed.

The power of our abilities was about the same — but there were two of them, and only one of me.

Every time the space was punctured and erased, like footprints in the dark, it tore chunks out of my ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) back, leaving wound after wound.

The thickening stench of blood echoed with the monsters' laughter.

"Nyahaha!"

"KROOOOH!"

WUUUUNG! I spread a wide vibration through the earth, a warning to keep their distance, but the two monsters only circled faster, slicing into the ground.

Like a scream smothered under noise, my expanded pulse swallowed their signals.

Above that, I felt the returning ripple of a reflection — and immediately shot up toward the surface.

"KRRRRR...."

The place I surfaced was a frozen forest of buildings, abandoned after days of people hiding in shelters.

The monsters, rising from the shadows like smoke, bared their fangs and grinned at my blood-soaked figure.

"Nyahahaha!"

"Kheuuu!"

Two despair-class monsters lunged to kill me.

A monster is most thrilled right before it completes its hunt.

In an instant, I fully regenerated the wounds I had been hiding, shifted into shadow, and burst out beneath one of them, sinking my fangs toward its throat.

At the last moment, the creature left a puff of black smoke and escaped upward.

Immediately after, a huge hole opened up in its body.

"Nya...?!"

The wounded monster's cry, mixed with a spray of blood, triggered a sudden explosion of abilities from heroes hiding nearby.

Human, superpowered auras are much harder to detect than monsters'.

If Starlight hadn’t deliberately let herself get caught in my scattered pulse, I wouldn't have been able to lead them here.

"Confirmed — Bad Cats!"

"They really were different monsters!"

"These motherfucking pieces of shit!"

All the A-rank and B-rank heroes unleashed their powers — and at the center, Starlight, spinning a miniature sun.

Every hero’s ability in W-City was aimed squarely at the two monsters.

"KRROOOOO!"

"NYAAAAA!"

Direct psychic bindings through telekinesis, pressure waves manipulating the air, bolts of lightning crafted from electric abilities, particle cannons, fire blasts, soundwaves that grated against monster nerves — all converged.

I, too, joined in, trapping the monsters with a crushing wave of telekinesis so they couldn't move.

Yu Anna dove into the storm of colliding powers, burning everything away and creating a space where nothing could exist.

No matter how they struggled, the relentless firestorm forced its way through, delivering absurd, searing pain.

The sun that kills monsters.

The orb that devours even sound itself, erasing monsters in silent annihilation, closed in on them.

Even for despair-class monsters, there was no escape from the fatal damage bearing down.

At that desperate instant, one of the monsters bit into the other, lifting it up and hurling it toward the miniature sun.

"NYAOOOO!"

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"KRRK!"

BOOM! Using its injured comrade’s body as a smokescreen, the monster barely grazed past the small sun with a hiss of black smoke.

The wounded one was abandoned — left to die — while the other popped and blinked away to escape the heroes’ encirclement.

Throwing away a wounded comrade to save itself — the most monster-like, brutal judgment.

As I sprang upward to pursue the escaping monster, Starlight shouted while attacking the remaining one:

"Leave the last one to Black Cat! No matter what, we kill this one right here!"

Leaving the one behind to Starlight, I chased the lone fleeing monster through the air.

Having already been struck by Starlight’s attack, the monster was now desperately running from me — our positions completely reversed.

If it couldn’t regenerate, it meant it had suffered a truly fatal wound.

An injured monster.

The smell of blood.

I could catch it — I could end this.

The moment I thought that, the creature, descending past the forest of buildings into an open grassy field, licked its wounds and began to regenerate.

Exactly the same trick I had used to lure them before.

[So this is how you bait them — using a monster's instinct to get excited when chasing wounded prey.]

The moment I realized I'd been lured this time, the monster mimicked a human voice with its ability.

Not just meaningless noises — full, coherent sentences.

The monster before me could speak.

[I learned something good from you, CXI.]

A specimen from the laboratory.