Became a Failed Experimental Subject-Chapter 29: It’s Park Dundeun

[Uhh... what kind of name is that—yes! Park Dundeun, everyone! Fighter Park Dundeun! Just looking at him makes you feel safe and solid!]

“Oppa~! I bet everything about you is solid! Forget the arena, come up to my room!”

“I’ll pay you way more if you come to my place! Over here~! Over here~!”

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[What a body! He might actually be really skilled! And not even using a weapon! Wow, that’s some confidence! Let’s see which monster he’ll face!]

Laughter thundered across the arena. The announcer spun the roulette and handed me the button.

I raised a single finger and lightly tapped the button. The spinning roulette gradually slowed and pointed to a monster.

[Ah...]

“Oh shit.”

“No way!”

The needle landed on the only Destruction-Class monster on the roulette: the Rock Lion.

A beast with a body like solid stone. Without high-level power output, it wasn’t even possible to fight it.

Especially not if you weren’t a monster but a human—unless your physical enhancement abilities were beyond a certain threshold.

[What will he do? If he forfeits now, the penalty is ten million won! Ah! As expected! Life matters more than money, right?]

“Fight! Fight! Fight!”

“What a waste of a body! Coward!”

“Boooooo!”

“Oppa! Just come to my room instead~! I’ll cover it! Room 402, Building 103~!”

Without replying, I stepped down from the stage. The audience booed, assuming I had surrendered.

But when I headed toward the cage instead of back to the tent, the boos turned to cheers.

[No way! Is he really going to fight? Park Dundeun!]

“Kyaaaaah!”

“Park Dundeun! Park Dundeun! Park Dundeun!”

Amid the thunderous cheering, the rough-looking man stepped out from the tent with a scowl, leading other men toward the opposite tent.

Men in suits dragged out a massive cage containing the Rock Lion, setting it inside.

They quickly injected multiple syringes—similar to the ones used for the Blade Cat—and backed off.

[Betting results: Human 28%, Monster 72%! If Park Dundeun wins here, he takes home ten million won! Can he really slay the Rock Lion?!]

“Grrrrr...”

The Rock Lion awoke, saw me, and growled low, slowly lowering its upper body.

That crouching posture unique to feline monsters—just before pouncing.

I stood with my hands on my hips, waiting.

Previously, in human form, I could muster power somewhere between Murder-Class and Destruction-Class.

But right now... I was sure I could match Destruction-Class output.

I caught the Rock Lion's charging head with one hand.

[The Rock Lion is charging—wha?]

“Grrrr...! GRRRRRRRR...!”

“Hm...”

Yeah, it works.

Maybe all that practice controlling the monster aura helped—my strength in human form had grown.

Even my physical toughness seemed improved... the Rock Lion kept swinging its claws, but not a scratch appeared on my arm.

When I pressed down on its head, the monster’s momentum shifted—like it realized something was wrong.

“Groooar...! Keh?! Khhk, kheurk...!”

I steadily pushed down on its head, and cracks began forming.

Crack, crack—pink flesh peeked through the splitting stone, and the Rock Lion’s skull began to tear open.

Its hind legs flailed, trying to escape, but the moment it passed its limit—crunch—its shattered skull collapsed, and its body stopped moving.

[Uh... uh... the Rock Lion... has been... slain. B-By Park Dundeun.]

I wiped the monster’s blood off my hand onto the Rock Lion’s corpse and stepped out of the cage.

The audience was dead silent—no cheering.

Not sure where to go, I headed back to the tent.

Inside, everyone backed away, putting distance between themselves and me.

“You... what the hell are you?”

Then, a group of men in suits suddenly stormed into the tent.

“That just now... you’re at least a B-Class esper, right? Are you with another organization? Wait, no... I’ve never seen anyone like you among the villain groups operating in W-City with enhancement-type abilities...”

Their tension grew. I could feel them charging up their powers.

“Where the hell did you come from?! Are you a hero?! You’ve got some balls showing up at Guryong Fortress...!”

“Ten million won.”

“Wh-What...?”

“...So you’re not giving it to me.”

Watching their reactions, I thought, Yep, here we go again.

I’d seen this before, even in restaurants.

Some places run “special events” where you get a free meal if you draw the winning slip at the register after eating.

But no matter how many times you eat, you never win.

They call that false advertising, don’t they?

Yeah, I figured as much. I sighed and said,

“I kinda expected this. Society’s always cold [N O V E L I G H T] like this, huh.”

“What the hell’s this bastard saying...?”

“Relax. I’m not some crazy guy who’s gonna throw a tantrum demanding the money.”

While talking, I looked for a towel to finish wiping my hands, but when I couldn’t find one, I just wiped them on something nearby.

I rubbed them against a taut spot on the tent wall, right beside where the suits were standing, leaving a bright red handprint.

“Instead, let’s just call the entrance fee paid. I’d like to look around inside a bit. You don’t mind if I walk around freely, do you?”

It was probably about time to go find my chain necklace and the thief who stole it.

That’s the message I was sending.

But the man in front of me raised his weapon, his scent full of fear.

“Y-Y-You wanna fight?!”

“Hm? You wanna fight?”

“No, I mean—are you trying to fight?!”

“So you do want to fight?”

“No! I didn’t mean it like that! What the fuck!”

“Are you... maybe a little slow? Your speech is a bit off.”

“Y-You bastard! You really do want to fight!”

Yeah, he’s definitely lacking some brain cells...

To encourage him to live a better life, I placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Hi-Hiiieeek!”

He immediately collapsed, clutching his shoulder, crawling backward on the ground in terror.

Then he started convulsing.

I looked down at him with pity, and at that moment, a woman in a suit stepped into the tent from outside, giving off a strange scent similar to the men.

“Let’s stop there, shall we? That one, believe it or not, is my subordinate. I’d prefer it if you didn’t kill him.”

“M-Ma’am...!”

“Hm?”

As the woman with the smiling expression walked in, the suits around her tensed up—her scent changed.

I frowned at the unfamiliar yet oddly recognizable stench.

She adjusted the cuffs of her suit and spoke.

“Who are you exactly? We didn’t hear anything about anyone coming from the Villain Association, and the Hero side hasn’t reported anyone either...”

“Hm.”

I sniffed through my nose, sensing the strange aura.

Her scent was similar to those around her, yet distinctly different.

Still, the strange familiarity stirred something in my memory, making me pause.

“Sorry, but here in Guryong Fortress, B-Class and above espers need to reserve in advance. It’s not too late now, so... would you mind telling me your real identity?”

“I’m Park Dundeun.”

“Haa... drop the joke name already, would you?”

The smiling woman slowly raised her hand and held it out in front of me.

“If you won’t talk, I’ll have no choice but to use force.”

Snap—a sharp finger snap echoed, and my vision glitched.

This was... a power of confusion. A sensory-warping ability.

Hearing became sight, sight became smell, smell became touch.

But thanks to the monster's innate hyper-senses, I could still perceive her clearly.

“Take him to the conference room as-is. We need to figure out what the hell this bastard is...”

“Yeah, this definitely means he wants to fight.”

“...What?”

When I raised my hand, the woman—whose voice had been dripping with irritation just moments ago—suddenly flinched and stumbled back.

Then she snapped her fingers again—snap, snap—and a different power surged through my senses.

An illusion-type ability. Her form multiplied into dozens, surrounding me, while another ability, likely hallucinogenic, flared across my body.

Didn’t matter. Abilities that only disrupt perception might wear a monster out, but they don’t deal any actual damage.

I grabbed the woman's arm.

“W-Wait—!”

Crk, crk, crunch—as I squeezed, she panicked and tried to yank her arm away.

Just as I was about to burst the muscle in her arm, it shifted into a tendril-like form and slipped from my grip.

Liquefaction. A shapeshifting ability that alters the structure of the body.

Now that I’d identified a third ability, I started to get the sense something was off. I expanded the monster’s senses.

The moment I did, the woman blinked in shock.

Seeing her flinch at the subsonic vibrations from my core—something no ordinary human could sense—left me confused, but what came next stunned me as well.

“You... don’t tell me—”

“Hm?”

A faint subsonic pulse—barely perceptible, even to espers—was radiating from her.

That shouldn’t have been possible without a monster core.

“Everyone, out!”

“Huh? B-Boss?”

“I said out! I think I know this one.”

“W-Where should we wait—”

“Outside! I don’t care—just get out!”

The woman with the smiling expression, the moment she sensed what I was, kicked everyone out of the tent.

Now it was just the two of us inside.

I quieted the monster’s core and asked her:

“What are you?”

In response, the woman unbuttoned her shirt and revealed the area beneath her collarbone.

A tattoo. Letters printed above a barcode: G3.

The woman in front of me was an experimental subject, just like me—from the same lab.

“An Alphabet Series, huh.”

“And you?”

I swept back my messy hair and showed her my neck.

Her eyes went wide.

“C—CXI? That one from Romania?!”

“Romania” was the generic term used for the numbered experimental subjects created by the lab, encoded with Roman numerals.

I learned that by eavesdropping on the researchers’ chatter. My number, if translated into digits, was 111.

The Alphabet Series—G3—was number 73.

“This is unexpected. Didn’t think I’d run into another test subject.”

“Same here... wait, hold on. What are you doing here? Did they send you to eliminate me?”

“What?”

“So not that, huh? Then... what, this is just some random coincidence?”

I nodded, and G3 let out a sigh and flopped down onto a bench.

“Haah, what a relief. I seriously thought the lab sent their top assassin after me.”

“Top assassin? That’s a new one.”

“You were famous among the Alphabet Series, you know. Whenever the lab ran combat tests, CXI would never fight back. No matter what anyone did to you, it didn’t do shit.”

“And that’s what made me the strongest? Ridiculous.”

Since I knew the other test subjects were monsters just like me, I never had any interest in fighting them.

I’d just lie there most of the time, and they’d come pounding on my back.

I’d either dodge it or just let it hit me.

Eventually the researchers would get tired of it and shut the whole thing down, so I just kept doing that.

And now I find out they called that being “the strongest”? Unbelievable.

“What are you talking about? You know exactly what it means for a monster to take endless hits without ever going berserk.”

“Hm.”

I see—that’s what it was.

For a monster, not going berserk no matter how many times it’s attacked means the attacks weren’t threatening at all.

So to them, my non-reaction must’ve felt like I was ignoring them.

And yeah, most of them were weak enough to ignore.

“If you’re really that CXI... then I believe you’re not here to kill me.”

G3 seemed to relax, probably because she remembered that I never fought anyone back in the lab.

I didn’t feel the need to stay tense either, so I completely suppressed the core’s pulse.

Then G3 held out her hand to me.

“If you didn’t come here as an enemy, we might as well say hi. CXI, right? I’m Gu Seoryong. And you?”

Ah, the human greeting custom.

I shook G3’s hand and gave her my name.

“Park Dundeun.”