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Chapter 23

I yanked the throat of one of the pirates with a swift motion. His head, still partly attached to the spine, dangled, brownish blood oozing profusely.

This guy belonged to a species called Rockwalkers. They were an intelligent species that lived on a planet filled with rocks and metals, sustaining themselves by consuming minerals. While their initial appearance in the settings might have sparked curiosity among science fiction enthusiasts, in the actual game, they didn’t differ much from regular humanoids.

Except for their skin, which was as rough and hard as stone, everything inside them, including the flowing blood, was just like any other biological being.

Using the Rockwalker’s head, from which blood was dripping, I vigorously struck the head of a nearby cyborg. The cyborg’s head became as unrecognizable as a watermelon smashed to bits.

‘That makes it two teams.’

This time, our target was the group heading to the laboratory. Just like the group that went to the armory, they entered the laboratory in a state of complacency. When I arrived, only three of them remained.

The other three had already dissolved into the acidic slime.

‘Sigh, lost two of them.’

I munched on the remaining lower halves of the cyborgs. Just to be sure, I detached one of their legs and tried eating it, but it didn’t count towards the evolution condition. It seemed that the text box only recognized those I had killed.

Similarly, the predation effect didn’t trigger either. The chance of the predation effect occurring on corpses I hadn’t killed was quite low. It was almost like sampling, and it didn’t seem to count for much.

I spat out the steel I had been chewing on. In the game, even Amorph could chew on machines, but it was challenging to adapt to it in reality. It felt like chewing chicken bones down to the marrow.

“Cough, hack, guh…”

Next to me, 26 was killing one of the cyborgs. It seemed to have caught on, as it hunted skillfully without my help. Although the cyborg struggled desperately to tear 26 apart to escape, 26 held onto its neck, choking it without moving an inch.

Even as a cyborg, at its core, it was still human. If it couldn’t breathe, it would die.

Before the cyborg’s breath was cut off, I destroyed its heart with my tail. As I killed the prey, 26 retreated from the throat and sent a pulse in my direction.

｢Baby, are you hungry?｣

[ZZZ ZZZ (I have to kill creatures like this)]

｢Yeah.｣

[ZZZ ZZZZZ (Then eat that)]

｢Alright, enjoy your meal.｣

I felt sorry for 26, but I had to kill and eat the cyborg for it to count. I gave 26 the Rockwalker and picked up the cyborg’s corpse.

Just as I was about to take a bite, the communication device on my combat arm, which I had been carrying, rang.

[Alive and kicking, you guys. Report.]

[I-I’m in the command center. Ah, still in the middle of work!]

[In the cargo container, these guys seem incredibly wealthy. There’s so much stuff to take; it’s like a gold mine.]

[Boss, the dining area is in complete chaos. There’s not a single edible thing left.]

“We’re searching the armory.”

[Why aren’t the guys who went to the lab answering?]

After mimicking the voice of the guy from the armory, I answered quickly and then swiftly bit into the cyborg’s body. The small organ structure in my throat mutated quickly to produce a new voice.

In a short amount of time, after finishing the mutation, I looked at the communication device that had been lying next to the corpse and replied.

“No issues in the lab.”

[Huh? You’re not the communication officer, right? Why are you holding the communication device?]

“Uh, well, the communication officer is currently preparing for the demolition.”

[…Is that so? Alright then, click.]

The boss ended the communication with a suspicious tone. Whoever the boss was, they seemed quite intelligent. It was unusual for pirates to maintain such a systematic hierarchy.

Normally, Hulk mutants had reduced intelligence due to the side effects of genetic modification, but this boss appeared to be different.

‘Maybe they’ve been modified with some technology I don’t know about.’

These smart Hulk mutants were a creature I hadn’t encountered in the game.

‘I doubt the original is around anyway. Let’s be cautious just in case.’

‘Predator Senses’ followed by an intelligent Hulk Mutant. The differences from the game keep piling up. It’s making me nervous but also piquing my interest.

‘Come to think of it, there’s 26 too.’

That pink bubble amoeba busily munching on Rockwalker’s internals is quite different from its game counterpart. It might be the mascot, but it certainly wasn’t as intelligent in the game.

‘I’ve been wandering around with a Bubble Amoeba. The community would’ve been surprised.’

While Amorph were specialized for solo play, I, too, wasn’t particularly sociable, whether in reality or in games.

Lost in thought, I continued to dispose of the cyborg corpses.

The flesh of the newly killed cyborgs had a lemony flavor.

***

‘Something’s off.’

Elchen raised an eyebrow as he held the communication device.

Before becoming a Hulk mutant, he had been a soldier. To be precise, a defeated soldier. He had received the punishment of becoming a Hulk mutant for losing in combat. If the Eden family hadn’t taken him in, he would have roamed the battlefield as an intelligence-deprived monster.

In any case, being a former soldier, he paid attention to reporting procedures. Some subordinates occasionally disobeyed his orders, but they all became dust in the universe. After a few incidents, the reporting system remained stable.

Of course, mistakes were always a possibility, but Elchen couldn’t shake his unease. Perhaps it was the influence of the wild animals mixed into his genetics. The instincts that had helped him survive dozens of times on brutal battlefields were warning him now.

The recent communication wasn’t a mistake but a trap.

Elchen made up his mind and picked up the communication device again. Aside from the team currently conducting the search in the armory, he sent a message to the team that had gone to the dining area and cargo hold.

“This is the boss. Something seems suspicious with the ones who went to the lab. Get ready, everyone, and head to the lab.”

[Understood.]

[Yes, boss.]

After ending the communication, Elchen summoned the medical officer.

“Medical officer, where are the escape pods and the engine room on this ship?”

“Just follow me.”

Elchen was a cautious man. His subordinates wouldn’t lose to creatures like monsters, but this was an unknown situation. Just as on the battlefield, he sought out a way to retreat first.

‘I can’t just leave the ones who dared to touch my flagship alone’, he thought.

Securing an escape route wasn’t the end of it. Elchen was planning to plant bombs in the engine room to ensure that whoever had tampered with his ship would be dealt with. Most ships were powered by fusion engines, and even a small bomb could create a massive explosion.

Once Elchen safely escaped, he could remotely detonate the bomb, and the monsters would be wiped out without a chance to react. Of course, any remaining crew members on the ship would also perish, but pirates always had plenty of recruits. They could easily replace their losses with new crew members.

‘Garlic and medical officer should be enough’

The subordinate who hadn’t even considered that their boss might be thinking of abandoning ship was now closely monitoring the medical officer.

As the three of them made their way to where the escape pods were located, Elchen called the medical officer.

“Medical officer.”

“Yes?”

“You’ve fought against the monster, right? Is there anything that could be its weakness?”

“No, there isn’t.”

Elchen furrowed his eyebrows, and he could tell that his subordinate’s response didn’t sit well with him. The medical officer seemed uncertain about how to handle Elchen’s reaction, but he had already spoken his mind.

‘He’s reacting like this, even though he’s scared of me?’ Elchen thought. He knew that the medical officer was afraid of him, yet he didn’t hesitate to give an answer that Elchen disliked.

From the medical officer’s perspective, it seemed that this creature was even more terrifying than Elchen. Elchen’s mind sank like ice, and he decided to change his line of questioning.

“Then what are its strengths or traits?” Elchen asked. When Elchen didn’t show any signs of anger, the medical medical officer cautiously revealed his thoughts.

“Well, it’s like the creature is a ghost.”

“A ghost?” Elchen questioned.

“Yes, it can capture and consume people even in bright light, leaving no corpses behind. We only realized someone was missing later,” the medical officer explained.

“Where is this ‘ghost’ on the spaceship? Are you suggesting your people are so incompetent that they can’t deal with it?” Elchen inquired.

“Well, this ship has various security measures in place. Even we find it challenging to navigate at times, yet this ‘ghost’ managed to move around undetected, killing people. If that’s not a ghost, what is it?”

The medical officer’s words left Elchen in silence. Judging by the atmosphere created by the medical medical officer’s words, it seemed he was telling the truth.

‘A ghost, really? What nonsense.’

Did that mean this ship had become some sort of ghost ship? A ghost ship in the age of space travel. It was no joking matter.

After a moment of contemplation, Elchen took out his communication device again. It hurt his pride, but it seemed like he needed to gather his subordinates and take action.

But when he was about to change his mission through the communication device.

It was already too late.

The Unidentified enemy had already launched an assault.

***

***

‘A clever one.’

Even high-ranking humans fell for the imitation, but Elchen wasn’t fooled. Perhaps the Hulk mutant was more like a clever beast than an intelligent being. It seemed he had noticed the trap through his wild instincts.

‘It’s too late anyway.’

We had just left the laboratory and returned to the nest in the cooling room. Currently, my auxiliary system is monitoring my designated area on the ship. The pirates’ movement towards the laboratory is clearly visible.

This time, I plan to attack the enemy in a new way. I laid down on the ship in the nest and closed my eyes. As my auxiliary system reached my designated area on the ship, my sensory perception, which had been limited to my physical body, gradually expanded.

My consciousness flowed through the ship, starting from the cooling room, through the corridors and into other rooms. The sensory flow that began in the cooling room spread like ripples through the ship’s passageways and chambers.

People who have used drugs often describe feeling something transcendent beyond the boundaries of their physical bodies. Could what I’m experiencing now be something similar?

Every time I breathed, the tendrils trembled, seemingly breathing along with me. The chill I felt from the metal plates that the tendrils enveloped made me shiver involuntarily.

Finally, the auxiliary system completed the connection. The enemies were no different from creatures crawling within me. I issued a command to the spores with neurotoxic abilities along the path to the laboratory.

‘Activate.’

As if issuing commands from my brain to the nerves within my body, the auxiliary system conveyed my orders to the tendrils. The spores responded by expelling their venom in unison.

From the ceiling, walls, rooms, corridors, floors – it didn’t matter where – a highly toxic substance that paralyzed living organisms rained down throughout the ship.

I could sense the confusion of the pirates as they grappled with this completely unexpected attack. Desperately trying to destroy the spores and cut down the tendrils to escape, they didn’t last long. Their bodies, in defiance of their owners’ will, turned into lifeless husks. Some who quickly realized that the spores were the problem managed to escape, but the majority made foolish choices.

‘Success.’

I had expected to fail, but attempting to control through the link to the nest was only possible after becoming an apex organism.

‘In the game, that is.’

I tried it in the real world, wondering if it might work, and it succeeded. Of course, it wasn’t a reckless gamble. There were enough factors for success: the nest was still small, I was familiar with the areas I had already visited, and there weren’t many spores. My expectations had turned out to be spot on.

‘The ones who got away are just five.’

More than half had fallen victim to the spore assault. The seven who couldn’t escape lay motionless on the ground, waiting for death to claim them.

I rose from the nest. The thin tentacles below my chin dropped from the nest, and for a moment, I felt a sense of inertia. It was like the soul that freely roamed the infinite space was once again imprisoned in a body called the flesh.

The sense of inertia didn’t last long, but the energy expended in controlling the nest didn’t return. I felt a strong hunger, a sensation I hadn’t experienced in a while.

[ZZZZZZZ ZZZ (I’m hungry, let’s go get some food)]

｢Yeah.｣

I carried 26 on my shoulder and headed for the laboratory. On the way, I saw fallen pirates. It was typical pirate behavior to mercilessly abandon colleagues who seemed hopeless. It’s good for me that I didn’t have to fight while hungry.

I gnawed on the fallen pirates unceremoniously. With each bite of my teeth, I could feel their bodies twitching. Their movements were as lively as a freshly caught fish flipping about.

Did they know? The more they resisted, the more saliva flowed into my mouth. My teeth tore into the enemy’s flesh without restraint, and my four arms crushed their bones and plucked out their organs.

I was so hungry that even machine parts passing through my throat didn’t feel repulsive. The silent feast in the corridor had come to a triumphant conclusion.

‘Now, there are only two left.’

Out of seven, five were cyborgs. I had already devoured eight cyborgs, so I needed only two more to complete my evolution into an apex organism.

I followed the traces of the pirates who had escaped, using one of the cyborg’s finger bones as a toothpick.

They were hiding somewhere other than the laboratory. It turned out to be the crew’s workout room.

‘Of all places, they had to run here.’

The workout room was a spacious area, so it was probably chosen because it offered a good shooting angle.

The problem was that the dead crew members had also acted the same way. The place where camaraderie was fostered among comrades had long become a slaughterhouse at my hands.

From behind the broken door, the fearful people inside emitted pheromones and breath. It was clear they were startled as soon as I entered. The sight of walls and floors covered in blood as soon as I walked in must have been quite shocking.

More than 20 people had died inside. Adding five more wouldn’t make much of a difference.

I handed the finger bone I had been holding to 26, who was on my shoulder, and stepped inside the workout room.

***

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