Became a Failed Experimental Subject-Chapter 16: It’s Despair-Class

I had already fled far enough underground, and while I listened to Yu Anna yelling furiously above, I erased my presence.

Lately, I’ve been using a method where I suppress my presence underground, then shift into a human form near a shelter access tunnel.

When the chaos dies down and people start coming out of the emergency shelters, I just walk out ahead of the crowd. Looks perfectly natural.

“Mm. Guess I’m lucky today.”

I didn’t expect a kebab cart, and even in my monster form, I got to fill my stomach.

Smacking my lips, I stood among the people pouring back onto the street.

Everyone was murmuring, looking around, whispering about Yu Anna and the Black Cat.

“Did she lose him again today? The Black Cat... is he okay?”

“Isn’t Yu Anna the problem here? Isn’t she an upper-rank S-Class? Isn’t that why she’s alone in W-City? Other cities usually have two S-Classes, right?”

“In really important cities, you’ll even see two or three top-rank S-Classes. I don’t think Yu Anna can handle it alone...”

“Is she... too weak to take down a Despair-Class?”

Most of the conversation revolved around people doubting Yu Anna’s strength as a hero.

W-City’s strongest hero. Hero ranks. S-Class being equivalent to Despair-Class.

For those living in the monster era, that’s common knowledge.

And it’s been proven—S-Class heroes from other cities have taken down Despair-Class monsters solo.

So why can’t Yu Anna do it?

Well, because she keeps running away.

As I listened to the people around me, I imagined what might’ve happened if I had fought Yu Anna like a regular monster.

Monsters can sense the power level of others through the resonance of their cores.

But humans, who don’t radiate that, just look... weak.

Unless they’re intelligent, most monsters probably get annoyed being toyed with by what seems like a weakling, or they think, “Just a bit more and I can eat her,” and then they get killed.

Yu Anna is strong.

That much I can confidently say—as someone who runs from her every time we meet.

“Shouldn’t someone look into this? What if she got her rank through connections?”

“Well, Yu Anna’s kinda pretty, right? Maybe that helped her...”

“You think monsters care how humans look?”

“No, not the monsters—I'm saying the people who rate heroes probably do.”

“Wow... that’s messed up. Seriously messed up...”

“Hmm...”

I don’t know, I think I’ve heard stuff like this before as a kid.

Ah, right. Like that time I put out a fire in someone’s car and then they filed a complaint asking me to pay for the repair.

It’s that same feeling.

Why do people trash the ones trying to protect them?

“But seriously, isn’t the Black Cat way too weird? Why are the buildings always fine afterward?”

“Maybe he’s not really a Despair-Class...”

“What do you mean fine? He always leaves weird crap stuffed between buildings.”

“Yeah, there’s one of those on our office building too. It’s got a pipe going to the next one and people talk through it during lunch.”

“What kind of Despair-Class does shit like that? Seriously, maybe he’s not one...”

The answer was: me.

Because I kept doing things no actual Despair-Class would ever do, people had no choice but to think Yu Anna was lying.

Either she was exaggerating a weak monster to seem stronger... or Yu Anna’s own ability had been overhyped.

Once the suspicion starts, everything looks like a lie.

Not that I could just let her catch me... or kill her either.

Listening to the way people talked, I realized the public opinion around Yu Anna lately wasn’t great—

and it was probably my fault.

“Hm... doesn’t seem like Yu Anna’s that weak, though.”

“Huh? What’s that? Are you a Yu Anna fan or something?”

“Hmph... not really.”

I tried, just a little, to speak in Yu Anna’s defense—

and immediately gave up.

Proclaiming yourself a fan to someone determined to tear her apart is just stupid.

And I’m not a stupid monster.

Well... maybe this’ll resolve itself someday, when a real Despair-Class shows up in W-City.

There’s nothing a monster can do to help a hero.

All Yu Anna can do is wait for that day to come.

And as it turned out, that day wasn’t far off at all.

****

[Shouldn’t Yu Anna get re-evaluated as a hero or something?]

[Seriously, there’s an S-Class hero out there who’s failed to catch a Despair-Class twenty-two times?]

[Make that twenty-three after today.]

[Thank you, Black Cat, for surviving another day.]

“Haaaah...”

Once again, Yu Anna had lost the Black Cat right in front of her eyes.

Sighing, she stared at her shredded public image online.

She had no words left for the citizens anymore.

[Are hero ranks even trustworthy?]

[You think the government’s handing out popsicles instead of ranks?]

[They don’t even show hero combat footage. How are we supposed to know if Yu Anna’s really an S-Class?]

Still—Yu Anna was furious.

What kind of idiot says she should be re-evaluated?

She already had experience taking down previous Despair-Class monsters.

Now they were saying maybe that monster wasn’t a real Despair-Class either just because she couldn’t catch this one?

She couldn’t understand why people were getting so riled up about this.

Those monsters caused massive casualties—

And now people were treating them like props in some power-comparison game for heroes.

Shouldn’t it matter more that she was trying her best to stop a dangerous monster?

This kind of stuff shouldn’t get to her.

She just had to do her job well.

That’s what she told herself—

but the stress was getting harder and harder to ignore.

The Black Cat was getting faster.

Right now, he was still just a little slower than her.

But if he sped up even more...

She didn’t even want to imagine what people would say then.

She actually found herself wishing—

that the Black Cat was a different Despair-Class entirely.

A stupid thought.

And yet, she couldn’t help but blame herself for not being able to catch him.

“I just... need to get faster too. Stronger. Stronger than this...”

The anomaly known as the Black Cat was growing at a terrifying rate, even compared to other monsters.

If Yu Anna wanted to catch him, she’d have to grow stronger too.

And ironically, chasing him had started sharpening her powers.

Fighting someone of equal rank for so long, missing him by inches every time—

it forced her to come up with new tactics.

Polish her abilities.

"What if I try this? Or maybe that?"

It was almost like practice.

And unlike other monsters who caused damage if not dealt with immediately, the Black Cat left near-zero collateral damage—

giving her all the time in the world to experiment with ideas.

So yes. Yu Anna could catch him.

Someday.

She just didn’t know when.

“Haah... yes... it’s me, the S-Class who can’t catch a Despair-Class. What is it now...”

Exhaling another breath, Yu Anna was sprawled out on the couch when she got a call.

Exhausted, she reached for her device—

and bolted upright in shock.

“...You’re saying a Despair-Class that escaped from City A is headed this way?”

****

The Despair-Class monster that escaped from City A—Mirage.

The information Yu Anna had received from City A about this Despair-Class monster described something far too similar to the Black Cat.

A monster that constantly changed form, avoided combat whenever possible, and {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} vanished the moment you looked away.

“What’s the chance it’s the same type of monster as the Black Cat?”

“There’s a possibility... but Mirage may actually be the superior entity.”

“Why’s that?”

“The difference in casualty count. It’s... enormous.”

Mirage was said to appear in a thick, fog-like haze that mesmerized anyone nearby.

Every human it lured was reported dead—drawn to Mirage’s side, offering up their lives of their own free will.

A chilling trait. And one that bore an eerie resemblance to the Black Cat’s own tendency to mesmerize with its deceptively cute appearance.

Yu Anna thought of the Black Cat’s face.

Maybe... they really were the same kind.

“And this footage—this is apparently why they assigned it the code name Mirage.”

The W-City Monster Response Division staffer played a video sent over from City A.

A man clad in black armor—one of City A’s S-Class heroes—stood facing Mirage. His hero name: Cage.

His psychic power: Iron Fortress—the ability to project high-density barriers at will, anywhere.

His walls were infamous for forming unbreakable cages, traps even Despair-Class monsters had never escaped.

Cage’s strategy was always the same—trap the monster in one place, cut off its retreat, then wear it down methodically.

The “ring” tactic that most heroes now used was inspired directly by him.

He had taken down more than a dozen Despair-Class threats.

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“This is...”

In the video, Mirage was clearly sealed inside Cage’s prison—its form that of a massive dragon.

Then, suddenly, it evaporated like mist... and reappeared outside the barrier.

Its body now elongated, shaped like a giant fox.

As Cage lunged to trap it again, it morphed once more—into a huge butterfly, rising effortlessly into the air.

It really did resemble the Black Cat.

Choosing flight over combat, shapeshifting constantly to stay unpredictable...

If they were the same species, this could become a massive problem.

“Should we build another ring and try forcing the two Despair-Class monsters into a collision?”

“Since the Black Cat already killed one Despair-Class, maybe he’ll take this one out too.”

The heroes spoke as if it were natural that the Black Cat hunted other monsters.

W-City was practically his territory now.

For some reason, he never truly fought the heroes... but when it came to monsters, he hunted relentlessly.

In fact, lately, the one who’d killed the most monsters in W-City wasn’t any of the heroes—

It was the Black Cat.

From the Black Cat’s perspective, another Despair-Class showing up would be seen as a powerful invader trespassing on his turf.

For Disaster-Class monsters and above, territory became an instinctual obsession.

Letting a rival roam freely in your space simply wasn’t an option.

That was probably why they had sicced him on the wolf monster last time, too.

But Yu Anna thought this time... that strategy might be too dangerous.

“...No, that’s—no good. If they’re the same type, this could get out of control.”

“You’re saying Mirage and the Black Cat might team up?”

One known trait of monsters:

The closer they are in species or type, the more likely they are to cooperate rather than fight.

Like the wolf monster they’d encountered before.

If the Black Cat and Mirage were closely related, and if they formed an alliance—

Even if the Black Cat had caused relatively low human casualties so far—

he was still a monster.

There was a high chance he’d try to protect Mirage.

And that wasn’t even the worst possibility...

If they were truly the same species, there existed—on very rare occasions—

cases where monsters could reproduce.

If Mirage had fled to W-City specifically after sensing the Black Cat’s presence from far away—

if it had come here asking to be protected...

Then Mirage had to be eliminated before they ever made contact.

“Issue a full-city evacuation order.

Call in every available hero and place them on standby.

No matter the cost—Mirage has to be destroyed before it reaches the Black Cat.”

At that moment, W-City’s primary strike target shifted.

The top priority was no longer the Black Cat—

It was Mirage.

To prevent the worst-case scenario.