## Chapter 119 – Bud (2)
“…How do you know him?”
“Who answers a question with a question? Answer my question first.”
‘Im Chan-woo’ came out of the mouth of a woman I was meeting for the first time.
She knows his name even though she’s not a researcher.
No, she knows a name that even members of the research group don’t know.
I should be the only one who knows about Chan-woo.
Why? Because I didn’t report anything about his identity to the higher-ups.
In other words, even those high-ranking people above would only know about him as a ‘male subject.’
Why does a woman who isn’t a researcher, nor in a managerial position…
“…I don’t know much about him either.”
“Liar.”
The woman abruptly stood up from the table where she was sitting and approached me.
She stroked my hair and said softly.
I shook off her hand that was unpleasantly touching my head.
Liar? Could this woman be…
“…Im Chan-woo, 21 years old. Currently living apart from his parents and attending university.
And currently the only male who has accepted the petals and is surviving…”
“Another lie.”
“Ah, I was mistaken. He’s 20 years old.”
“…Huh?”
“How about that? It doesn’t seem like something’s ringing in your head this time?”
I deliberately spat out false information as a test.
All I did was slightly inflate his age, but it was enough to deduce a little about her identity.
It’s not something to brag about, but I thought I was good at deceiving others.
I had a talent for playing pranks, and my childhood talent worked better in society than I thought.
I thought I had mastered lying, and no one had ever noticed my lies and pretense.
Except for him, Chan-woo.
That man, barely an adult, would have very little social experience,
And yet he recognized the mask I was wearing. A mere 20-year-old kid.
So I thought, ‘Ah, he has the ability to recognize what threatens him.’
The first day I met him in person, I lied. He noticed, of course.
He said the same thing as the woman in front of me now. He said, “Don’t lie.”
Chan-woo and she overlapped in my eyes. The ability to see through lies…
“…You’re like Chan-woo?”
“…Wow… Mister, you’re amazing… Hehe.”
Before I knew it, she had forgotten that she had asked me a question,
And with a smile that replaced affirmation, the woman caressed my cheek.
“Since you don’t seem like an ordinary human, I’ll stop trying to deceive you clumsily.
When I see someone capable, I always want to make them mine. Call me Rije.”
“That’s an unusual name. Is it an English name?”
The woman who held out her hand for a handshake called herself Rije.
“No, it’s not that simple. It’s a precious name to me.”
“…Yes, well… I don’t care about that. But you probably know, right?
I didn’t come here to cooperate with you.
I don’t feel any merit in holding your hand right now.”
“Yeah, I know that’s what you’re thinking. But you know too, right?
That I don’t intend to kill you right now.
Is that why? Your attitude has become incredibly arrogant.”
As this woman says, she probably has no intention of killing me right now.
I don’t know why, but it seems like she likes me. I can push a little harder here.
How can I be so sure for such a simple reason? Because I know best.
“…Hehe.”
A person who has to get what they want by any means necessary.
This woman has the eyes of such a person. Those are the eyes of someone I know best.
The eyes I see in the mirror every day, wearing a mask to get closer to what I want.
I’m sure this woman named Rije is probably similar to me.
She will never kill me until she gets what she wants, until she possesses me.
If she were to kill me, it would be after she had played with me and gotten bored.
But to her, I’m still a toy with value.
“I’ll stop trying to find out about Im Chan-woo. I doubt you’d tell me the truth anyway.
So? What do you want from me this time? I’ll help as much as I can.”
The woman leaned back on the sofa opposite me, and negotiations began.
“Let’s cut to the chase. Do you know about the ‘power source’ in this lab?”
“…Why?”
She was still smiling, but her eyelids twitched slightly just now.
This woman definitely knows about the ‘power source,’ about the fruit.
“I came here to find it. If you know anything, please tell me honestly…”
“I ate it.”
“…What?”
“I said I ate it, that thing.”
Rije said that, propping her chin up with one hand and licking her lips.
“Sorry? But I didn’t know it was so important to you guys.
If it was that important, you should have cherished it, but you managed it so carelessly, didn’t you?
Anyway, I’ve already eaten what you want, so is there anything else you want?”
“…What happened to the director, the director from Seoul?”
“Director? Ah, that bearded fatty? What did you do with him? NO. 1?”
“…He’s probably at the bottom of the sea by now.”
“That’s what they say?”
In a situation where my head was starting to hurt, I asked about the whereabouts of the director, who also had the fruit as his goal.
Rije raised her head and asked the man standing behind her about the director’s condition.
The man named NO. 1 calmly conveyed the director’s death.
I can see how the director of the Busan branch ended up without having to ask any more questions.
Then the identities of Rije and NO. 1 are naturally…
“You guys are escaped test subjects…”
Before I could finish my sentence, NO. 1 rushed at me in an instant.
The knife he pulled from his waist stopped just before it touched my pupils.
“Don’t ever call her that again.”
“…Your loyalty is quite extraordinary.”
“Sorry, NO. 1 is a little sensitive to that word.”
Rije smiled and apologized to me. Seeing that she didn’t deny my words,
They must have been civilian test subjects who were caught and brought to this lab.
I don’t know how she, an ordinary test subject, survived the lab’s experiments,
And obtained the power source to take over this lab…
Anyway, this place where I’m standing is no longer a place for humans.
After delivering a chilling warning, NO. 1 returned to Rije,
And she waited until the overheated atmosphere of this place had calmed down a little before continuing.
“Anyway, is there anything else you want us to do?”
“There’s nothing that particularly appeals to me. If things have turned out this way, I have no business here.”
“…Hmm, what if I let you study my body?”
“…What do you mean?”
Without realizing it, I took my back off the sofa and approached her.
She smiled slightly, succeeding in attracting my attention.
“Mister, the reason you’re interested in that man Chan-woo is because of his body, right?
Ah, does that sound a little strange if I say it like this? Anyway, I’m right, aren’t I?
A human who accepted the petals and wasn’t taken over by these nasty parasites,
A human who maintained his own consciousness while only his body evolved one step further…”
“…Keep going. This is interesting.”
“I don’t know why you’re interested in humans like me and Im Chan-woo, but I don’t think it’s for a trivial reason.
You’re different from those fake people I’ve seen wearing those white coats.
…Mister, you were planning to come here with Im Chan-woo, weren’t you? Because you didn’t know what would be here.”
Rije pointed to my gown that I had taken off and hung on the sofa, seeing through my thoughts.
She knew from the beginning that I was planning to use Chan-woo.
She knew all about my plan to steal information from them and attack.
And yet she’s not killing me, even knowing that.
…
Isn’t it getting more and more interesting?
I wanted to hear more of her story.
“As you said, I’m the same as Im Chan-woo. So I can feel it.
That someone similar to me is coming to this place, someone who ate the same thing as the fruit I ate.
Maybe Im Chan-woo is feeling something similar to me? Hehehe…
How about it? I’m the same being as the man you know. That man would have refused.
A human who likes to arbitrarily investigate, touch, and stare intently at his body.
But I’m different. I’ve already felt the pain of having my skin peeled off in this lab,
And I’ve almost gone crazy several times. I’ve been here for almost two years.”
Rije was talking about a dark story, the dark side of the research group, as if it were nothing.
Moreover, even though she was the person involved in this story. Ah, I think she’s amazing.
And I feel sorry for her. She was swept away by the research group’s ambition at a young age.
“…If you help me, I’ll give you two years’ worth of data from when I was studied here.
And I’ll go along with any experiments you want. Ah, except for anything too painful. How about it?”
I can definitely see it. The Busan branch was doing something stupid.
Rije must have been a girl who lived an ordinary life without knowing anything.
They turned her into a monster. A monster they couldn’t handle themselves.
I also know one of those monsters. Unlike her, he lives in society,
And he’s a monster who’s mistaken that he’s human.
A creature that can’t be understood with human knowledge, and a creature that will greatly advance humanity.
That’s why I observed him from afar. How similar and different he is from humans.
How dangerous and safe he is.
I was observing him with an iron cage between the lion and me.
“There’s no reason to refuse.”
How stupid is that? Even a baby can see a lion through the bars of a cage.
But I had no choice. Going into the lion’s cage is like offering your own neck.
But what if that lion offers his own neck? Is there any need to refuse this?
This is a great opportunity for me.
“…Okay, now that we’re on the same side, let’s get along?”
“…Ah, wait, one last thing.”
I stopped Rije, who was smiling and holding out her hand to me again.
“Yeah? What’s wrong?”
“…His name, how did you know it?”
I understand that she felt Chan-woo’s existence.
The test subjects could feel each other’s existence.
But they didn’t know each other’s individual names.
Does she have a separate contact person?
“…He told me.”
“Who did?”
“That’s a secret~”
Rije’s appearance, laughing brightly for her age, didn’t match the surrounding scenery.
Inside the office, which was broken everywhere, and some of the broken lights were ‘buzzing’ before going out.
In the darkness that fell for a moment, her eyes were shining with a beautiful purple light.
