My body was no longer human.
And under the influence of that body, even my mind was being eroded.
If this went on, then just as the Progenitor had promised,
I would be unable to stop the change by my own will alone and would end up becoming sothing similar to it.
...But at that very mont—
“Uwaaaaaaaargh...!”
From my mouth, blood poured out.
“Guide...?!”
“Commander!”
At that,
the people who saw it rushed toward in alarm.
“Don’t co!”
The mont I thrust a hand toward them, their bodies flinched and stopped short.
“It’s nothing... so don’t co.”
“How is that... nothing...?”
They stared at , cold sweat running down their faces.
Certainly.
Suddenly seeing coughing up blood would look dangerous no matter how you sliced it.
I could more or less guess what they were thinking,
but unfortunately, I had no room to explain it in detail.
'...I almost changed completely.'
To them,
it probably looked as though sothing had gone terribly wrong with my body.
...The reality was the exact opposite.
'Good thing... I prepared for this.'
By vomiting up this blood,
I was able to recover at least a little bit of my reason.
...Even now, the urge to devour them was rising inside .
But I had regained enough reason to stop them from approaching.
'A plan that only works if I beco a monster.'
It was an extrely dangerous operation.
Separate from the fact that there had been a few more variables than I had anticipated,
the simple fact of ceasing to be human was itself an enormous risk.
Which was why—
'I’m not enough of an idiot... to prepare no way back.'
Of course I had also prepared a way to suppress that risk.
It was sudden hemoptysis, but I was not particularly startled by coughing up blood.
That was only natural.
Because this hemoptysis was sothing I had intended.
And.
Thanks to that—
Bzzzt... crack....
As the blood drained out of my body,
a translucent window appeared before my eyes.
That thing which had not only been completely shattered,
but had vanished from my sight altogether.
[...activates.]
The status window revealed itself.
***
'...The status window.'
The status window floating before my eyes.
Its condition was still disastrously damaged.
The words were difficult to make out properly, and I could not even see the full rectangular shape.
But.
No matter how badly damaged it was,
the important thing was that I had started seeing it in my vision again.
'The standard this system uses to recognize a human is...'
I recalled Lee Hyejin, the aberrant glutton I had encountered underground in Chuncheon.
Her body had been completely reborn as a monster.
And yet,
her status window had not fully left her.
The reason was simple.
'Body and mind.'
Her body may have mutated, but her mind had still remained human.
And.
By vomiting up the blood that was mutating ,
I too had reclaid, if only by the tiniest amount, my identity as a human being.
That was why the status window had begun to appear before again.
I looked at its contents.
[...activates.]
[— the %@, and —————]
I still could not properly read it,
but I knew what it was.
In the past,
while correcting Luca’s mistaken evolution in the proper direction,
I had succeeded in concretizing the divine power I possessed.
[Skill - Swallow the Sweet, Spit the Bitter]
At that ti,
I had been able to obtain one skill as a reward.
[There are many kinds of delicious food in the world.]
[Countless dishes and foods have enriched the lives of living beings and aided their growth and survival.]
[However.]
[There were two serious problems common to those countless dishes.]
[One was that delicious food is often unhealthy.]
[And the other was that no matter how delicious a dish may be, there is always a limit to how much one can eat!]
[For chefs, and indeed for all who enjoy food, these two problems were absolutely fatal.]
[Thus, several great sages gathered together, put their heads together, and agonized over how to solve this problem.]
[And as a result!]
[Their great efforts ultimately succeeded in creating a single thod.]
When I first received this skill,
I rembered being quite taken aback when I saw those lines.
That was only natural.
[After eating the food, vomit it back up!]
Because the effect of the skill was rather filthy—.
No, shocking.
[After using the skill, the consud dish is ‘perfectly’ expelled from the body after a certain period of ti.]
[All positive and negative effects caused by the dish are removed.]
[Long-term changes caused by the dish are halted.]
[If the effects of a dish are canceled through this skill, another dish can be consud imdiately afterward.]
A skill that let vomit back up the food I had eaten.
Honestly, it had made wonder what kind of skill this even was.
To begin with, since I could stack the effects of multiple dishes, the last line was a useless ability for .
But.
'...It may be more useful than I thought.'
After thinking it over carefully later,
I ended up taking another close look at this skill.
According to the insight I gained there in Gyeonggi Province,
among the effects obtained through cooking,
temporary buffs might actually be only a partial aspect.
Perhaps the true potential possessed by a cook lay in the long-term changes even I myself did not fully understand—
the power of dishes steadily accumulating inside the body.
But.
'There’s no guarantee all those long-term effects are positive.'
Howard had pointed out, while ntioning healthy food, that bodily changes caused by cooking occur over the long term.
But in most cases, bodily changes from cooking were actually negative more often than not.
Delicious food was often bad for the body.
But.
If I used this skill, the dish would be completely expelled from my body.
aning those negative effects would no longer be able to affect .
Right.
For example....
[Eye of the C— (——)]
Lowering my head,
I looked at the red liquid that had burst from my mouth and was now running over my body and the floor.
[Sup—-grade Vam— blood and —— serum]
The treatnt Luca had given .
The miraculous product that had studied my degraded blood and reached all the way back to its original source.
...The very blood that had turned into a monster.
'If consud, a dish that long-term transforms my body into one like the [Progenitor].'
It was, in every sense,
the perfect example of the kind of food I had feared would have harmful long-term effects.
'So I spat it out.'
From now on, that blood would no longer be able to affect my body.
...But.
Staring at that blood, I imbued it with my will.
And then—
...Poong.
The blood that had burst from my mouth moved sowhere.
Slither....
The glass vial I had on .
I pulled the glass vial from my inner pocket and grasped it in my hand.
The blood flowed back into the bottle that had originally held the serum.
The blood I had drunk returned to its original place.
“...!”
“Com... Commander?”
Seeing that, the soldiers widened their eyes in shock.
Right.
This was not sothing the human could have done.
'Luca’s serum no longer remains in my body...'
Thanks to that,
no further transformation would occur.
But unfortunately, the concept of race... was not sothing so simple.
Breathing harshly, I looked before .
[Ra—e]
[Hig—-er Va—ire S—cies]
My race, once changed, did not easily return.
If draining the blood from my body were enough to change my race back, then even vampires could beco human again simply by draining out all the blood in their bodies.
Removing the serum might stop any further change,
but it did not an I could return to being human.
-How laughable.
At that mont, a faint auditory hallucination rang out from sowhere.
-You thought a re trick like that would let you escape?
At that voice, I gave a bitter smile inwardly.
'I know.'
I had already expected this much.
Compared to beings like them, the power I possessed was, at most, a re trick.
'The petty tricks I possess right now... cannot reverse this transformation.'
With sothing this minor, escaping that thing’s power was impossible.
In that case,
what I needed was—
'not so petty trick of mine.'
Using the power of the vampire I now possessed, that ability to control blood,
I located the blood flowing sowhere within my body.
'The power of a greater being.'
And.
The mont I found that blood and imbued it with my will—
Flaaaaaash...!
From inside my body,
sothing burst forth.
The thing that ca out from my chest.
At a glance, it looked like a beautiful red jewel.
But.
That was no ordinary jewel.
[Blood Tear of the Regretful One]
A tiny tear of blood shed by soone.
***
Once, a being that had completely twisted the entire capital of a nation and transford it into another world using nothing more than one human’s mories.
[A drop of tears forged by an external being for its child.]
That external being.
The Matron of Regretful Ones had bestowed that very power upon her child—
Jang Youngwoong, who had been dying buried in regret.
...And when Jang Youngwoong died, it was the remnant left behind in this world.
If Jang Youngwoong had not died and had instead continued on with that will,
then soday it was power that would have overwritten this entire world into sothing wholly different.
And I—
Crunch!
Gripped that blood tear tightly.
At once—
[Warning! Warning! Warning!]
Flaaaaaash!!!
The imnse power erupting from within it bored into my body.
[This is not power forged for you.]
[Borrowing the power of an external being without permission may cause serious probl—.]
My hand was burning away.
A recovery ability incomparable to what I had before healed the injury,
but an overwhelming force was burning through my body faster than even that recovery could keep up.
'To think a re leftover remnant is this powerful...!'
I was astonished by that fact.
And at the sa ti—
Grin....
I smiled and enjoyed the pain.
“I...!”
And at the sa ti.
With all the strength I had.
With every ounce of force I could possibly muster.
“I regret it!”
What I had done—
I regretted it with ferocious intensity.
“Drinking Luca’s serum!”
Ordinarily, a power so imnse it could shake a world without effort,
“And starting my mutation because of it!”
and decide the fate of this enormous star itself—
a power that vast.
“I regret giving up... on remaining human!”
That power—
“I regret all of it—!”
Kwaaaaaaah...!
“From the bottom of my heart!!!”
In response to my regret, it began to convulse violently.
...And then.
A mont later—
{...After rejecting so coldly back then, now you co asking for help.}
A small voice rang in my ear.
{What a selfish child you are.}
To begin with,
this power was not prepared for .
{But... even a selfish child like you.}
Ordinarily, no matter what I did,
it was power I would never have been able to handle.
{This mother shall embrace you without discrimination....}
But.
There are always exceptions.
Flaaaaaash!!!
With its owner’s tacit permission, the swirling power exploded with intent.
The power that governed a star’s fate... poured into my body.
'This power... is ant to soothe weeping children.'
Children sinking into deep regret, dying while sobbing in sorrow.
It was the power prepared by the being that had volunteered to beco the matron of them all,
in order to comfort its children.
[Your regret...]
And.
Its effect... was astonishingly simple.
[...is corrected.]
The choice I regretted.
The choice to give up being human and beco a vampire...
began to be altered.
{Ahh... how I look forward to it.}
And.
Feeling that bizarre sensation covering my body—
{The day you... sink into true regret.}
I—
{and cry out this mother’s na!}
carefully closed both eyes.
***
“Commander!”
When I ca to,
I heard the voice of a soldier supporting my body.
“I’m... fine.”
“You call this fine...?”
“I’m not lying. I really am fine, so don’t worry.”
Wiping away the cold sweat, I pushed aside the soldier holding up and stood on my own.
And then—
pressing a hand to my aching head, I muttered inwardly.
[Status Window]....
At once—
Ding.
With a clear, refreshing sound,
a small window floated up before my eyes.
[Awakened: Shin Youngjun]
And only after hearing that sound could I be certain.
[Race: ]
It had been an incredibly dangerous gamble.
A choice that, if it failed, might have cost everything.
But fortunately—
[Primate - Human Species?]
It seed I was the one who had won that gamble.
User Comments
0 comments from readers