"Relax. I'm about to show you what 'worse than death' really feels like."
Ivan slapped fresh duct tape over Choi Young-jae's mouth.
What happened next in that room even made Byeon Sang-wook's skin crawl. Watching the man on the floor twist and writhe in agony, he lit another cigarette and quietly stepped outside.
Half an hour later Ivan finally stopped. He smiled and wiped his hands clean with a wet wipe. The experiment hadn't worked, but he now understood human anatomy on a much deeper, nastier level.
When he pushed the door open, Byeon Sang-wook was standing right outside, a small mountain of cigarette butts at his feet.
"He dead?"
"Not yet. This is only day one. We've got plenty of time. I'll make sure he learns exactly what despair tastes like."
Ivan brushed some dust off his white coat, voice completely calm.
"Meeting you was the worst thing that ever happened to him," Byeon Sang-wook muttered. He flicked away his cigarette and headed toward the rooftop.
...
A week flew by.
To Ivan's surprise, Choi Young-jae still showed zero signs of infection. The bastard had been tortured so thoroughly that his mind was completely broken. It looked like even the concept of desire had been beaten out of him. Ivan felt a little disappointed, but it wasn't a total loss. Overall, he still came out ahead.
Meanwhile.
Cha Hyun-soo was sitting at his computer playing games when he heard the girl next door talking. She was complaining to her cat about how hard she'd been dieting and still wasn't skinny enough. With pure envy in her voice she told the cat, "I really wish I could be like you. Eat whatever I want every day without worrying about getting fat."
Right then her phone rang.
"Hello? Yes… okay, I understand. If there's another chance next time… please let me know."
"I'm so fucking hungry!"
The girl hung up with lifeless eyes. Another rejection. She had poured everything into those auditions, starved herself, practiced until she dropped, but it was always the same bullshit result. She collapsed onto the bed, yanked the blanket over her face, and cried in quiet, miserable sobs.
Life and her dead-end career finally crushed her. Despair flooded in. The mental barrier she'd built against hunger exploded. A monstrous, all-consuming urge to eat took over her entire body.
Under the bright room lights, blood gushed from her nose. Black, worm-like veins spread across her pale face like living tattoos. The whites of her eyes disappeared, swallowed by pure darkness. She twisted her head with a stiff, unnatural jerk and stared at the blue cat eating kibble in the corner.
Next door, Cha Hyun-soo heard loud crunching and chewing but shrugged it off. He slipped his headphones back on and kept playing his game.
In room 1419, Ivan suddenly turned his head toward the trainee's apartment. He had just picked up a new, twisted electromagnetic wave. Looked like the first monster had finally been born.
Night came.
Cha Hyun-soo jolted awake from a nightmare. His phone on the nightstand buzzed with a text.
Groggy, he grabbed it. Delivery notice. The security guard wasn't around, so they'd left the package at his door.
He dragged his tired ass out of bed and opened the door. The box of instant ramen he'd ordered was scattered all over the hallway floor.
"The fuck?"
He followed the trail of noodle packets and stopped dead.
A bloody, torn-off cat head rolled right up to his feet. Then a woman's hand shot out from the open doorway, snatched the head, and dragged it back inside, smearing a thick trail of blood across the floor.
Cha Hyun-soo nearly pissed himself.
"I'm so hungry!" a hoarse, raspy female voice growled from inside the room.
Cha Hyun-soo saw shit was about to hit the fan and bolted back into his room in panic.
He didn't notice the tall figure standing in the dim corner at the other end of the hallway.
"I hope your ability gives me at least a little surprise," Ivan muttered, hands tucked into his white coat, completely unfazed.
The second he finished speaking, the Hunger Monster crawled out in a twisted, unnatural posture. She still looked mostly human, not fully transformed yet. She dragged herself forward, repeating in a broken voice, "I'm so hungry…"
"I'm so hungry… I need to eat." Her eyes locked onto Ivan instantly.
She staggered to her feet and lunged at him with shocking speed.
"I'm pretty tough. You sure you can stomach me?"
In a flash, Ivan whipped his right hand forward, fingers curled like claws. The force created a visible ripple in the air. His hand clamped onto her face and slammed her head-first into the wall.
Boom! The back of her skull sank into the concrete. Ivan casually adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses with his free hand.
"Full analysis."
The Hunger Monster hung off the ground, limbs dangling. She hadn't completely lost her mind yet. Ivan could see pure terror in her eyes through the gaps in his fingers.
Two or three minutes passed.
The analysis finally finished.
[Analysis Complete]
[Talent Skill: Hunger Mutation]
[Fusion Condition: Kill the fully-formed Hunger Monster]
[After fusion, the player will develop an insatiable appetite. Driven by hunger, the player will devour any digestible matter around them. The player's body will undergo mutation. If the player's sanity cannot overcome the hunger, they will fully transform into a monster.]
[Additionally, this talent has growth potential. By continuously satisfying the desire and consuming food, the player's physique will keep improving. Friendly reminder: during this process the desire will also grow stronger. However, once the player shatters the desire, this talent will lose its growth property.]
Honestly, after reading the Hunger Monster's talent, Ivan felt pretty disappointed.
"Side effects are way too fucking big," Ivan muttered. Sure, he enjoyed good food, but only if it actually tasted decent. Shoving random garbage down his throat would just ruin his mood.
Plus, from what he remembered of the original story, the growth potential on this ability wasn't even that great. With his current physique, he'd have to eat an insane amount before seeing any real improvement.
Besides, if he wanted gluttony-type power, he'd rather analyze that muscle monster from the show instead.
"Disappointing piece of shit," Ivan said, tossing the Hunger Monster aside like a bag of trash.
She rolled across the floor, then looked back at him with pure terror in her eyes. She immediately spun around and scrambled toward Cha Hyun-soo's room.
"Useless ability." Ivan watched her flee, shook his head, and pulled out a wet wipe from his pocket to carefully clean the blood off his hand.
A few minutes later the Hunger Monster changed targets. She stopped right outside Cha Hyun-soo's door and pressed the doorbell.
Inside, Cha Hyun-soo was curled up under his blanket, still shaken.
The sudden ringing made him flinch hard. He stared nervously at his front door.
"Excuse me… is anyone there? Please help me, I'm so scared… please…"
"Is nobody home? Please… help me…" Her voice trembled like she was genuinely terrified of something.
Cha Hyun-soo slowly climbed out of bed and crept toward the door.
Hearing her crying outside, he picked up the landline phone on the wall. The screen showed the girl begging for help.
"Are you okay?"
At some point she had wiped the blood off her face. When she heard a response, she immediately started talking. She said she just got home and found her place trashed, and her cat was missing.
The second those words left her mouth, the image of the bloody cat head flashed in Cha Hyun-soo's mind. Just to be safe, he grabbed his cellphone to call for help, but there was no signal. He told her to wait a moment.
The girl kept begging him through the door, asking him to open up and stay with her.
"Nice acting," Ivan muttered from the other end of the hallway, watching everything unfold.
He didn't step in to stop it. He was curious about Cha Hyun-soo's talent too. Unfortunately the kid had only just started getting infected, so Ivan couldn't analyze him yet. Letting the Hunger Monster push things along might speed up the process.
Cha Hyun-soo started feeling like something was seriously wrong with the woman outside. He asked to see her hands.
"What?"
"Let me see your hands."
The Hunger Monster went silent for a second, then completely snapped. Her face twisted into something monstrous as she roared, "Open the fucking door! Open it right now!"
Her eyes turned pitch black. Blood poured from her nose and mouth. She looked like a straight-up demon. She slammed her fists against the door, trying to break it down.
Cha Hyun-soo shook all over, eyes wide with terror.
Right before she could smash through, loud music suddenly blasted from upstairs. Yoon Ji-soo was practicing guitar and singing. The noisy sound caught the Hunger Monster's attention. She twisted her neck at a weird angle and shuffled toward the noise.
As she passed Ivan, she pressed herself closer to the wall to keep her distance.
"Solid performance. Very convincing," Ivan said with a grin.
The Hunger Monster stopped, tilted her head, and looked at him. Blood strings dripped from her lips. "Th… thank you."
Once she was gone, Cha Hyun-soo grabbed the dustpan from the corner, snapped the head off it, and armed himself with the long handle. He gathered his courage and burst out of his room.
The second he stepped into the hallway he ran straight into Ivan in his white coat.
"Did you… did you see a weird woman just now?" Cha Hyun-soo asked, voice shaky.
Ivan shook his head. "Nope. Didn't see anything."
"Then why are you holding that stick?" Ivan asked, surprised. He hadn't expected the kid to have the balls to run out armed with just a pole.
Pretty ballsy.
"No time to explain!" Cha Hyun-soo was worried about the girl living upstairs. He took off running in the direction the Hunger Monster had gone.
___
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Read 12 Advance Chapters—P@t- Captain69