## Chapter 21 – 거래 (Transaction/Bargain)
“What’s wrong? It’ll get soggy if you don’t eat it quickly.”
The team leader, with a comical sheep-towel on his head, was eating a cup of ramen in front of me.
Originally, I should have been preparing the funerals for the fallen agents, but due to the team leader’s almost forceful request, I ended up awkwardly joining the research team’s company dinner.
But to think they’d come to a jjimjilbang for a company dinner… I’d heard stories, but he really is quite the eccentric.
“What is it? Is there something on my face?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
“Come on, I can tell you want to say something just by looking at your face.”
“…”
The team leader smiles as he peels a boiled egg. Whenever I see that smile, I can’t help but lower my head.
A sense of pressure that I don’t know where it comes from.
There’s something unidentifiable in the smile of a man in his late 30s, smaller than me, who just stays cooped up in his room doing research.
I don’t know what it is, but I know that smile is fake. A pretense to hide something.
“…I’m sorry about earlier today. I have a hard time controlling my temper… No, I should apologize, but isn’t that just an excuse? I’m sorry.”
This time, he bows his head to me with a serious face as he apologizes.
“…It’s alright.”
It’s disrespectful to him, but every single action of this man is unpleasant.
Dr. Jung Ah-un, whose English name was Luke, was the new team leader who suddenly took office after the previous team leader’s disciplinary dismissal.
I heard he was a prodigy in biology from abroad and came here around last year.
“…”
Is this unpleasant feeling just because of what happened during the day? I hope it’s just my imagination.
“Oh, you’re all done washing up. Min-jung, do you want an egg?”
“Ah, yes, thank you.”
“Don’t eat too much, though. We’re going out for beef for the second round later.”
“Huh? Sir, you already had ramen…”
“I just have a big appetite… Haha…”
The research team finishes their baths and comes out in droves, wearing the yellow-ochre jjimjilbang uniforms, surrounding Dr. Ah-un.
Since they’re all people I’m not familiar with, no one talks to me. I should probably slip away now.
“Just a moment.”
“…Yes?”
“Our Tracking Team Leader also worked hard, so he should come with us. I’ll pay, so call the rest of the Tracking Team. A Team… might be difficult, but call B Team and C Team too. We all worked hard together.”
————————
“Alright, then now…”
I’m in an awkward position, trying not to let my index finger, which is placed on the professor’s forehead, fall off. With one hand, I take out a small glass bottle from the bag I’m holding.
Inside the bottle are flower petals, those flower petals. I haven’t had the time to use these lately because I’ve been so busy, but this works out perfectly.
Seeing that the dome in the sky has been lifted, it seems like the pursuit has stopped. And in the midst of all that, I accidentally gained a new power.
But just because I gained something new doesn’t mean I’m going to be complacent, like before, going “Wow! Super Power!” Let’s have the mindset of using whatever I can to the fullest.
Whether it’s a person’s life or anything else.
I’ll do the experiments I need to do, and enjoy what I can enjoy. Since I got it anyway, I’m going to kill two birds with one stone.
I grip my hand tightly, break the bottle, pick out only the flower petals from the glass shards, and bring them to the professor’s ear.
As always, a slime-like creature that wriggles out from the flower petals instantly enters the professor’s head through her ear.
“…Hiss…”
The professor, whose brain function is being controlled by me, can only let out a short groan and slightly twitch her left eyelid.
I can feel the movement of the parasitic creature because I’m connected to her.
The moment it reaches her brain, I give the order.
“Stop.”
Instantly, the parasitic creature stops moving. It reached the host’s brain, but unlike previous cases, a body snatching isn’t happening.
I heard that parasitic creatures don’t have intelligence until they absorb the brain, but I don’t know how it heard my command. But I had a feeling I could do this.
It’s like there’s an instruction manual for a toy in my head.
“From now on, you will slowly, little by little, steal the brain whenever the host feels pleasure.”
I imprint a suggestion into the parasitic creature in her head.
“And Professor, you know what’s happening to you.”
“Yes… there’s a monster in my head…”
A long strand of saliva falls onto the professor’s chest, wetting her shirt.
“I can feel myself slowly becoming not myself whenever I feel pleasure. But I can’t tell anyone about this fact or about me.”
“Yes, I understand…”
“Above all, you have to follow my orders, even if you don’t want to.”
“…Yes…”
The professor furrows her brow and answers a beat late.
I feel a slight resistance. Putting in any more suggestions would put a burden on the professor’s brain, so I should stop here.
I still don’t know exactly, but it seems that parasitic creatures that have parasitized but haven’t taken over the brain can be controlled to some extent.
Considering their characteristics that change depending on the environment and the host’s condition during the parasitic process, this might be a pretty big discovery.
I can create the woman of my dreams, and completely change their personality.
“I got something amazing.”
…
What on earth is that shining apple that gave me such an amazing power, and why do they have something like that?
There’s still so much I don’t know.
“……”
Thinking about it now won’t give me any answers.
I shake my head, shake off the 잡념 (japnyum – distracting thoughts), and take my index finger away from the professor in front of me.
I’ve done all the experiments I need to do, so now it’s time to enjoy myself.
“…Ah, ah? What’s going on…”
The professor’s complexion turns pale as she immediately regains consciousness as I take my finger away. Thanks to the suggestion from earlier, she realizes what just happened to her at the same time as she wakes up.
“Cha, Chan-woo? What is this…”
“Be quiet, Professor.”
The professor still can’t grasp the situation.
Of course, who would believe that there’s a monster in their head?
“Professor, your breasts are an ‘erogenous zone,’ right?”
“What are you… Ungh?!♡”
The professor, who was being sexually harassed by a student, tried to raise her voice, but the moment her chest was grabbed, her voice rose in a completely different way. She covered her mouth with both hands, surprised by the voice she made, and blushed.
“…Why…am I…?”
“Why? Because I ordered you to?”
“…What?”
“I said that ‘your breasts are an erogenous zone.’ The suggestion is working much better than I thought.”
“You, don’t tell me…”
“Don’t you remember what I said?”
If you feel sexual pleasure, your body will be taken over by a monster. That must have flashed through the professor’s mind.
I barely managed to hold back my laughter as I looked at the professor’s face, which had turned pale in an instant.
“…Hic…!!”
I quietly say to the professor, who turns around and runs down the hallway.
“Go ahead and run.”
“…Ugh…!!♡♡”
She awkwardly stops walking and trembles all over.
Soon, her legs give out and she collapses in place, lost in the afterglow. I approach the professor, who is sitting there, and say,
“Even if you run away, you won’t be able to ask anyone for help anyway.”
“…”
“…If I wanted to, you’d disappear, leaving only your body behind, you know?”
“…Why are you doing this to me…”
The professor looks up at me with eyes filled with fear, as if she’s about to cry. I bend down to match the professor’s eye level and continue speaking.
“…I don’t have a good relationship with the professors. This is a game to get closer.”
“…Game?”
“If you just hold out for two weeks, I’ll let you go. Then you can report me to the police or do whatever you want.”
“…What if I lose?”
“…You know the answer.”
In contrast to the professor, who has a look on her face as if she’s lost everything, I put on the most fake expression I can.
I held out my hand to the professor.
“We’re going to get closer from now on, us.”
————————
I’m dizzy, where am I?
“…yo? Are you okay?”
“Ugh, yes…”
“If you can’t drink, you should have said so. Are you alright?”
Ah-un Park is patting my body. That’s right, I was definitely at a meat restaurant for a company dinner, so where am I now…
“Still, it saves me the trouble of anesthetizing you.”
“…What…”
I try to get up, but my hands and feet won’t move.
“Oh, don’t move, you’ll get hurt.”
“Where is this, you crazy bastard? Untie me!”
Ah-un Park, wearing a mask and protective goggles, winks playfully and says in a joking tone.
“I can’t go into the lab for three days, so I have nothing to do during that time, right? Time doesn’t come back, so it’s a waste to waste it, right? We have to use every day preciously.”
“What are you talking about? Untie me, you psycho!”
“Tsk tsk, cursing is bad.”
Suddenly, a cold yet hot, intense pain covers my thigh.
“Aaaaaaaargh!!”
The doctor took a scalpel and stabbed it into my left leg.
“…Agh, augh…”
“Does it hurt? You shouldn’t interrupt people when they’re talking.”
“Sir, sir…!! I was wrong. Untie me first and then we’ll talk, okay?”
“Anyway, I have nothing to do for three days, right? But it just so happens that I have a research subject, a ‘male specimen.’ How exciting is that?”
He’s not even listening to me, or rather, he can’t hear me.
I saw the ‘something’ that I saw in the jjimjilbang earlier in him, as he was purely smiling.
“Please…please, save me…”
Tears stream down my face without any regard for my 체면 (che-myeon – dignity/face), and I desperately beg for my life.
“…For that reason, if you hang out with me for just three days, I’ll spare you! I’ll even turn a blind eye to you stealing the power source.”
“No, please, don’t do this, please!!”
“Even if something goes wrong, I’ll remember you. A brave and diligent person, I remember everyone. Rest assured, I’ll see you in three days.”
Devil, he’s a devil.
