(translation part)Supernova

by Aracely_Yu

Summary:

It has been half a year since Damon became a professional killer. In these six months, his codename "Viper" has become famous throughout the killer world.

A genius poisoner with an undefeated record, he is ruthless in his methods. The snake venom he developed has no antidote to this day, with a 100% mortality rate.

He received an invitation to go to Eden's Garden Academy, where he is tasked with eliminating the spy hidden by a terrorist organization in this top university in the world.

Damon went. However, he never imagined what kind of "classmates" he would meet, nor what kind of story he would gain in this unpredictable crisis.

Notes:

Hello Ao3! I'm Chinese and not very good at using tags lol. If there are any mistakes, please point them out in the comments.

I really like kaimon and p:eg, kai my beloved<3

Updates will be very slow,and this is ai translated from my original work,which is available in the fandom too.Feel free to choose which one you want to read!

Anyway, plz enjoy(´ω`)

Chapter 1: outfit setting

hai!! this chapter will store the arts abt this fanfic,the text part is on the next chapter!(ゝ∀･)b

this was my friend's work, and it's kaimon's outfit in this au.

super cute right

Chapter 2: (＾o＾)ﾉ

Damon sat on the train to Eden's Garden, flipping the letter in his hand over and over, feeling very uneasy. It had been about three years since he last returned to a normal school life, and this time he was going to the best university in the world. Even though studies were no longer his top priority, he still felt nervous subconsciously.

But when he thought about one of Tozu's identity was the principal here, Damon couldn't help but roll his eyes.

That guy really is something. Not only did he transfer Mara here to be an informant, but he also packed up and sent him, who was on vacation, to the school disguised as a college student. He heard that most of the organization's personnel were participating in the project this time. Damon bit his lower lip, took out his phone from his pocket, and opened his latest chat history with Eva.

Eva: Already at the dorm. See you at the cafeteria at 5 pm.

Eva Tsunaka was the only person he was relatively familiar with under Tozu, codenamed "White Crow". She was good at setting elaborate traps and sniping (taught by Mara herself). When they had no missions, they would sit in a café together. Damon would listen to her talk about the games she liked recently, while he jotted down new poison formulas that popped into his head in a notebook. Those were the only moments of comfort in his days of being dragged around by Tozu to do odd jobs.

When he received the mission, the words Tozu said also stuck in his mind. "If possible, Mr. Maitsu, it's best to get along well with the people around you."

Damon snorted inwardly.

The train whistled as it arrived at the station. It was about a twenty-minute walk to the university's main gate. Eden was huge, and Damon struggled a bit dragging two suitcases. But his pride wouldn't allow him to ask a senior for help, and besides, these two suitcases contained some... dangerous items.

He went to the dormitory entrance to check the room number distribution. The only good news was that the dorms here were all double rooms, meaning the least amount of contact with strangers. Damon wondered if Tozu would assign him a regular person as a roommate, but this worry was quickly dispelled. Looking at the spacious living room and the doors on both sides, he was happy to find that his bedroom was completely independent, which meant: he could handle his things as he pleased.

He looked around, sneaked into the right bedroom like a thief, locked the door, pulled open the zippers of the two suitcases, and with a "thud", the cases hit the floor. Besides some necessary daily necessities, they were mostly filled with various vacuum-packed plant seeds, several large bags of potting soil, and a few books on poisonous insects and toxic plants, whose publishers he didn't even know. He'd have to buy flowerpots and test tubes on the weekend, and then find time to ask Cara to move his animals from home. Damon stuffed these things into the deepest part of the drawer, covered them with clothes, and finally took out the most dangerous item in the luggage.

It was a metal dagger with a snake pattern on the handle, and the eyes were set with two emeralds. This was the first reward Damon received when he was driven to desperation by his family's financial problems and was taken in by Tozu to work. That was also his first time killing someone. The feel of blood in his palm was sticky. The man's eyes bulged in terror at the time of death, and saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth, wetting the cuffs of Damon's sweatpants.

Tozu, humming jazz, pulled the knife out of the corpse, wiped it, and turned to hand it back to Damon. He didn't know how he managed not to collapse; he just took it conveniently. The cold touch of the metal brought him back to his senses, and along with the nausea that followed, he vomited violently.

Now, he was numb. Damon closed his eyes, sighed, gripped the knife tightly, and slipped it into the holster hidden under his suit jacket. You can't act rashly until everything was settled. Damon... he muttered to himself and started making his bed.

At that moment, he heard the sound of the door lock opening. Was it his other roommate? Damon, who hadn't had much normal interaction with anyone other than his parents and Eva in three years, panicked for a moment. After making sure he hadn't left any traces, he stood up, opened the bedroom door, and looked out, wanting to see what kind of person his new roommate was.

 

———

 

"What are you trying to say?" Eva asked, slurping her tom yum goong-flavored instant noodles. "Is it that your social skills have finally dropped to zero, or that you want to complain about your roommate?"

"...Definitely the latter." Damon looked at the tonkotsu ramen-flavored instant noodles in front of him, his eyes looking a little dull. He mechanically tore off the lid and picked up the disposable chopsticks next to him. "Where did the instant noodles come from? Did you bring them?"

"I wanted to eat."

"..."

Damon carefully rolled his eyes, but Eva still saw it. She tapped his noodle bowl with her chopsticks, frowned, and spoke in a cold tone. "First of all, I at least prepared dinner for you. Secondly, I see that frivolous pink-haired guy not far away. Do you want me to call him over for you?"

Damon shivered. He followed Eva's gaze to look behind him, and among the crowd, that pink-haired boy always stood out.

Kai Monteago, his roommate, or in Damon's words, the man who had no concept of personal space and was the most dog-like person in the world. What's worse, his social skills were zero, and he was allergic to dogs.

"I've already decided to go to Tozu and do everything I can to get a new roommate." Damon watched Kai throw a wink at a girl, making her weak at the knees, and felt something churning in his stomach. He turned around and carefully slurped a mouthful of the softened noodles.

The two continued eating dinner without saying much. Damon tried to think about the course schedule and how much money he would spend on equipment over the weekend, but all that came to mind was the pink everywhere in the living room, all kinds of warm yellow ambient lights, and a nearly 180cm tall guy sitting on the floor sorting albums of singers he'd never even heard of.

Ugh, screw Kai Monteago. He was already starting to feel uncomfortable.

Suddenly, another pink-haired figure approached, but this time it was a girl. She seemed to see someone here, her eyes lit up, and she ran over clattering, holding a small box of strawberry cake.

"Eva!"

"Oh no." Eva's previously expressionless face suddenly turned serious. She tried to move a few steps closer to the table to reduce her presence, but unfortunately, from Damon's perspective, this girl had much more serious social issues than Kai. At least when Kai realized that Damon had no interest in his taste in music, he left Damon alone.

"Eva, where were you just now——oh, hi!" The girl put down her cake on Eva's right and sat down. Damon could clearly see Eva roll her eyes too, but she didn't stop the girl from doing so. "I'm Diana, Diana Venicia, Eva's roommate."

"Damon Maitsu." Damon nodded.

"Eva, I brought this for you." Diana opened the cake box, took out a small piece and placed it in front of Eva. She then split her own piece in two, took the lid of Damon's instant noodles that he had put aside as a paper plate, put one half on it, and handed it to Damon. "This one's for you!"

"...Uh, thank you." Damon froze for two seconds. "But putting something sweet on top of something salty really tastes weird."

"Ah! I didn't think of that! It's okay, Damon, I'll treat you to another one later." Diana smiled, seemingly not caring about this little incident at all (for some reason, Damon felt a little annoyed, maybe thinking of someone), then lowered her voice and asked. "So, since you're Eva's friend, then you, you must be..." She put her fingers together and drew a circle with her palm.

Damon looked at Eva suspiciously, and after getting a nod from her, he also nodded at Diana, and took the opportunity of eating noodles to whisper. "Viper."

"Ah, cool. I'm Chameleon." Diana tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I didn't expect you to be that poisoner... If you need any disguise, come to the dorm to find me."

Chameleon. One of Tozu's top spies, with first-class makeup skills. It seemed that this mission was really important... Damon nodded. Diana smiled brightly when she saw that, then moved closer to start chatting with Eva, who looked about fifty percent unwilling.

He watched the two girls, one unwilling to talk and the other talking non-stop, and was forced to stand up, ready to move to another spot to eat. But just as he stood up completely, Eva called him. "Damon, wait a minute."

"Huh?" Damon's hand holding the noodle bowl trembled, and he turned to look at her.

"Tozu asked me to tell you to go to his office later. It's about the wrap-up work of your previous mission." After saying that, she went back to eating, occasionally responding to Diana.

Damon: ...

Wasn't that supposed to be for someone else?! Tozu, I hate you (^ω^)

 

———

 

Kai lay on the bed scrolling through his phone, his eyes constantly glancing towards the door. It was already past 1 am, and his roommate still hadn't come back.

From their contact in the afternoon, he would never have wanted to have much contact with such a person... Bad-tempered and arrogant, these two points were already in Kai's "absolutely not" zone. But curfew had been over for so long, and as a stranger with a good personality, it was only natural to worry about his roommate's safety.

Kai rolled over on the bed, scrolling through his timeline. There were pictures of dogs and cats, clips of VTubers, and many strangers sighing about their lives. He randomly clicked on a video of a golden retriever, and while making an "awww" sound at the silly little dog in it, he suddenly seemed to hear something. It sounded like someone unlocking the door.

He's back? Kai took his eyes off his phone and looked outside his bedroom door, which he hadn't closed. He used the light from his phone screen to shine outside, and saw a figure standing in the entrance, swaying a little.

...Ha. Kai turned off his phone screen, let out a heavy sigh, roughly messed up his hair, making the pink hair that was already sticking up from rolling around in bed even more messy. He stood up, put on his slippers, turned on the bedside lamp, and at the same time took out a box from the bottom layer of the bedside table.

He walked out of the room holding the metal box, and turned on the light before the person could reach the switch. The white light suddenly stung his optic nerve——which was why he had replaced all the lights in his room with warm colors——and then he could clearly see the person in front of him.

Damon looked terrible. His suit jacket was nowhere to be found, his vest was stained red on the chest, and there were bruises and small scars on his face. Kai couldn't help but frown. "...Dude, what happened to you? You look like death warmed over."

"..." Damon was a little surprised by Kai's overly calm reaction, his eyes widening for a moment, but quickly closing. He seemed to be struggling with something in his heart, muttering words that Kai couldn't hear. He sighed again, opened the box he had put on the table next to him, which was filled with bandages, iodine, and other disinfection supplies.

"Sit down first to treat the wound——"

The cold touch of metal pressed against his neck, and he could smell a faint scent of blood. Kai paused while bending down to look for something, and then heard Damon's voice, which was clearly lacking strength, coming from behind. "Code name."

"Whoa whoa whoa, Damon, do you still need to ask who I am in this state?" Kai took out a pair of tweezers specially used to remove iron sheet embedded in flesh from the box, forcing a hint of grievance into his tone to gain sympathy. "I'm trying to save your life here, you know."

"You never know." He couldn't see Damon's expression, but he could guess that Damon was in a bad state. The knife was trembling next to his artery.

Kai mumbled a few times, got the selected medical supplies ready, then reached back with his hand, grabbed Damon's palm, and squeezed it hard. Damon pulled his hand back subconsciously, and the knife fell to the floor. Luckily, Kai had spread a fluffy carpet there, so the people downstairs didn't hear anything.

"If this is what you call 'you never know', I think Mara will shoot you through the window in the next second." Kai raised one eyebrow, let go of Damon's hand, picked up the dagger from the floor, and placed it next to the medical box. "Sit down. I'll treat you."

"You still haven't answered me." Damon sat down under the other's serious gaze, watching Kai easily cut through the clothes that had stuck to his skin with blood with scissors. Kai gasped at the wound on his stomach, frowned as if he had seen a giant worm, and finally resigned himself to cleaning it up. To be honest, he thought it was strange because that this morning they were ignored each other.

"...You really want to know that much? Alright, alright, I'll tell you. 'Swallowtail', satisfied?" Kai spoke in a harsh tone, and at the same time, mischievously dabbed the alcohol cotton on Damon's wound. Seeing the other person's facial features twist up as if he had taken a bite of a lemon, his bad mood from staying up half the night improved a lot.

"Ow... did you do that on purpose?!"

"Guess."

Five minutes later, looking at the perfectly treated wound in front of him, Kai nodded in satisfaction. "Hmm, that looks good. I'm going to bed. You can handle the rest yourself." He threw the cut-up pieces of clothing to Damon, packed up his things, and then slipped into his room, slamming the door shut with his foot, leaving Damon standing there in a daze, holding the remains of his clothes.

Swallowtail. Damon didn't know much about him, only that he was in charge of the aftermath, mainly brainwashing enemies to get information and cleaning up traces left on the internet. And Kai... well, he could tell that Kai surely didn't look like someone who could handle a knife or a gun, but he was that teammate who was proficient in psychology? Don't be ridiculous.

He held onto the table to stand up, walked to the table side to pick up his dagger, and was surprised to find that the blood on it had been cleaned off. Did Kai do that? Damon tried to recall what had just happened, but realized he really hadn't noticed when the other person had also disinfected his knife.

...Anyway, he went back to his room, threw his unwearable clothes into the trash can, took out his pajamas from the drawer and put them on, then lay directly on the bed staring at the ceiling. He hadn't prepared enough poison vials, which caused him to suffer a big loss. Now he couldn't go on missions at the front line... Oh well, it was originally his vacation. Damon rolled over, picked up the phone he had left at home from the bedside, and opened it to look at his past chat history.

Swallowtail: Hey!

: Why did you kill all the informants again, damn it!

: How am I supposed to clean up after you like this?

: Eat my fist, bastard(╬▼дﾟ)▄︻┻┳═一

Viper: Then I'm really sorry.

Swallowtail: Is a sorry going to fix this?

: (੭ ᐕ)੭？

: I'm blocking you.

...And then they never spoke again.

Damon silently put down his phone and looked up at the ceiling again. This short day had made him go through so much, and his body was already extremely exhausted from blood loss. He closed his eyes, not thinking about all the messy things, just hoping that sleep would soon pull him into darkness.

He could predict that since so many members of the organization had gathered at Eden's Garden Academy this time, he would inevitably run into a few. But encountering two new teammates in just one day was a bit overwhelming. Diana was okay; disguise wasn't much help to him. As for Kai... not to mention that they were roommates who saw each other every day, when it came to cleaning up after missions, no one was better than Swallowtail.

Damon let out a long breath and rolled over, pressing on the wound on his stomach, which caused a sharp pain.

What kind of vacation was this...

With that thought, sleep finally came.

Notes:

you can guess everyone's job lol

Chapter 3: ( ´∀`)

It was the fifth day Damon was stuck in the dorm due to his injury.

Word of his injury had spread when he reported for duty. The organization’s group chat was filled with formulaic get-well messages, and "Hare," another frontline killer like him, even came over to mock him—so Damon blocked her. Lately, he didn’t want to talk to anyone. Besides "Crane," the contact person, dropping off medical supplies at his dorm door, he never stepped outside.

Kai, though, went to class on time every day and even attended after-school parties occasionally. At first, Damon couldn’t understand: Their identities couldn’t be exposed, yet Kai was out drinking? Did he want to die quickly? Later, he found out Kai was only there on orders to investigate if any rumors about his ongoing mission were circulating on campus. Kai mentioned this while routinely helping him change his bandages.

"I hate the smell in bars. God, it’s like… ugh…" Kai skillfully unwrapped the blood-stained bandage, tossed it aside, and grabbed a new one to replace it.

"..." Damon said nothing. Kai always rambled, and Damon often struggled to keep up, so he simply tuned him out, pulling out his phone to chat with Eva and Diana.

Diana: Hey Damon!

: Is your injury getting better?

Damon: Yeah. Should be fully healed in another week or two.

Diana: Great!

: Tozu redistributed all your scheduled tasks to everyone since you can’t go out,

: but he wants you to do surveillance.

Damon: ?

: Doesn’t he know I can’t leave the dorm right now?

Eva: He knows.

: But he said since you’ve been with him longer, he trusts your recovery ability.

Damon: ...

Enough. That old goat could drop dead for all he cared. Damon rubbed his brow, then glanced at Kai, who was kneeling in front of him, still disinfecting his wound. A thought suddenly crossed his mind.

"Kai."

"Hmm?" Kai didn’t look up, continuing to dab red medicine on the injury. Damon fell silent for two seconds, chose his words carefully, and spoke again. "Are you the only one doing cleanup work?"

"Yeah. What do you mean?" Kai answered matter-of-factly, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. "You been lying in bed so long your brain’s gone mushy? You should get out more, man."

"..." Damon grit his teeth. That bastard Tozu! He must’ve known Damon hated dealing with the logistics team, so he’d deliberately stuck him with cleanup duty! Was he trying to transfer him from the frontline to logistics? Damon’s heart sank. If he weren’t no match for Tozu, he’d grab a knife and confront him right now.

Leaving his position as a killer was the last thing he wanted. His parents depended on his earnings to live. He’d told his family the money came from debate scholarships, and Tozu had even lied about his dropout being a transfer. Logistics paid nowhere near as much as the frontline, and on missions, he could sneak off with a fancy item or two—it was a win-win.

Kai clearly sensed Damon’s darkening mood. He looked up, confused, but said nothing. No one in the organization was stupid. He could tell Tozu seemed intent on sidelining the man who’d once been his sharpest blade. But why should he care? Years ago, he’d excitedly grabbed his phone to interrogate someone, only to find the target poisoned into a vegetable. He’d almost died for anger on the spot.

So he’d mind his own business. Definitely.

The awkward silence was broken by a knock at the door.

"Damon? Kai? You in there?"

It was "Crane," Toshiko Kayura. Had it gotten this late already? Damon clicked his tongue and nudged Kai, who was still wrapping bandages around his waist, gesturing for him to answer the door. Kai didn’t complain—he just snuck a pinch to Damon’s side, grinning when Damon’s face twisted in pain.

Kai opened the door. A short girl in a kimono stood there, holding a black plastic bag. She glanced at Kai, then peeked through the crack at Damon sitting on the floor, covering her mouth with a fan and smiling. "Looks like I interrupted your bandage change."

Kai ignored the comment, raising an eyebrow. "What’s up? It’s not your delivery time."

Toshiko used her cover as a teacher’s child to move freely around Eden’s Garden. No one suspected a young girl like her. She held out the plastic bag to Kai. "Intel on Project Eden."

"…Huh?" Kai took it, confused. "For Damon?"

"It’s for you, dummy." Toshiko tapped his shoulder with her fan. "Mochi’s will wait till he’s healed."

The door closed, and the clatter of her geta on the wooden floor faded. Kai carried the bag back, surprised to see Damon had already finished bandaging himself.

Damon gave him a puzzled look. "Take it out and look." He nodded at the pillow cushion Kai had been sitting on.

"Oh, right." Kai sat down, pulled a phone from the bag, unlocked it with the organization’s special code, and opened the notes app. The dense text made him click his tongue. "Couldn’t ‘Spider’ use a ipad next time? Who can read a tiny txt file like this?"

"Then stop scrolling on your phone at night." Damon leaned over to look.

"Hey, hey! You’re the last person who gets to say that!" Kai protested loudly. "You’re the one up on the balcony at midnight!"

"I was checking how the aconite’s growing…" Damon sighed, flipping to the next page. "You should read more instead of glued to your phone."

"…Mmph." Kai had no comeback.

They kept scrolling through the encrypted txt file. Damon noticed a lot of content he didn’t understand—probably Kai’s area of expertise. His stomach wound started itching, and he felt like taking a nap.

"…What the hell?!"

Kai’s shriek jolted him back to reality. Kai was staring at the phone, wide-eyed. "Why me?! This is Damon’s job!"

"Huh?" Damon snatched the phone. Under the task list, alongside Kai’s usual duties—guiding public opinion online, inventorying resources—was a line that clearly wasn’t copied and pasted:

「Help "Viper" move.」

Both: ...

Kai’s mouth twisted, and his golden eyes locked onto Damon. Damon set the phone down, glanced hesitantly out the window, then back, meeting his gaze.

"…Ahem. So, where do you live?" Kai pulled out his own phone and handed it to Damon. After Damon typed in the address, Kai took it back and started mapping the route.

"Should we drive? Do you have a license?… Fine, what about contact ‘Coyote’?"

Damon froze. "Wait, we can just ask him for a ride?"

"Of course." Kai already had the chat app open. "It’s a mission, right? And I saw him this morning—looks like he’s free lately."

Somehow, it didn’t surprise Damon that the organization’s designated driver, "Coyote," was around too. He sighed and stood up. "I’m going to rest for a bit."

"Okay." Kai kept typing furiously, apparently deep in conversation. Damon headed for his room, but was stopped.

"Wait!"

"…" Damon felt his head throbbing from living with this guy. He turned around. "What?"

"Your place doesn’t have, like, a lot of…" Kai looked nervous, swallowing. "Reptiles, does it?"

Damon nodded instinctively, then caught on, grinning mischievously. "Scared?"

"AAAH I KNEW IT!!" Kai bent back over his phone. "You move those yourself! I’m warning you, if one touches me, I’ll throw it right out! Seriously!"

"Calm down, no one’s forcing you. And do you think I’d let you touch them?"

"…Ugh, maybe you’re plotting to murder me."

Damon felt a surge of frustration. Screw Kai Monteago.

---

The good news was that all that happened yesterday—Wednesday. They decided to move on Sunday, so Damon had plenty of time to clean the balcony and living room to make space for his inland taipans. He even got a tank for a pufferfish. When Kai came back from class and saw the mess, his eye twitched. He pointed at the uncovered blankets and tape on the floor. "You’re putting vivariums all here?"

"Yep. I asked ‘Ursidae’ to transfer some funds, so I bought an apartment near campus." In other words, he’d already minimized it to only the animals needing daily care… Kai’s chest ached. His once neatly decorated pink room was about to be overrun by greenery.

"So what do you want?" Damon pushed himself up with a nearby stool, holding tape he’d swiped from Kai’s room. Kai just shrugged, slung his backpack onto the hook behind his door, and mumbled something. "You…"

"Huh? Speak up." Damon frowned. "You weren’t this quiet when you were yelling at your manga."

"It’s nothing! Uh…" Kai shot back automatically, then met Damon’s disbelieving stare, shrank back, and forced the words out. "I was wondering if you wanted to go for a walk…"

Oh? Damon was momentarily speechless, watching Kai fidget with his necklace, avoiding eye contact. Normally, he’d flat-out refuse, but a week cooped up in the dorm made him feel like he’d grow mushrooms. "Sure."

"…Huh? You agreed? For real?" Kai suddenly marched over, pressed the back of his hand to Damon’s forehead, then to his own. "You’re not feverish? Did you get possessed—ow!"

"Shut up and lead the way." Damon pulled back his fist, ignoring Kai’s yelps of pain.

They set off. Since arriving at the school, Damon had never left the dorm normally. His last cleanup mission had Tozu guiding him through darkness, turning left and right until they reached the destination, like some teleportation magic. Kai obviously didn’t have that trick, but he clearly knew the area well.

They walked to a lake. Maple and ginkgo trees lined the shore. Damon thought it might be even prettier in a month, but the wind off the water felt nice. He leaned on the railing, lofi music playing softly in his headphones, tilting his head 45 degrees to look at the sky.

"You look like a drama lead," Kai said, his voice easily overriding the music. "Whoa, that brooding vibe—this’d go viral on Twitter."

"…Oh." Damon fought the urge to roll his eyes.

Used to Damon’s usual sharpness, Kai just stood beside him, crossing his arms on the railing and resting his head on them, speaking quietly. "Damon."

"Spit it out."

"Tsk, you’re no fun. Emotions need to be savored slowly, y’know?" Kai almost pointed a finger at him, but decided it wasn’t worth getting worked up over. He watched the waterfowl take flight over the lake instead.

"Why’d you take Tozu’s offer?"

Damon didn’t expect that. He blinked, firing back. "Why should I tell you? What about you?"

"Me? Oh, a…a story you’d definitely laugh at." Kai chuckled bitterly, his voice soft. Damon turned off his music to hear him.

"I met Tozu two years ago, I think. I was following that year’s trend—filming street interviews for short videos—and I ran into that old goat. He told me I had talent to be world-famous, just follow him."

"Guess I was desperate for fame back then, haha." Kai smiled sadly. "Friends flocked to me for my popularity, then drifted away when I turned out nothing like my online persona. Y’know, we had some good times." He pulled a gold ring from his pocket. Damon didn’t know which one it was, but the faint dents suggested it had been worn for years.

"I said yes because I wanted to be famous. But look how that turned out." He slipped the ring onto his right middle finger, admiring it in the lake’s reflected light. "Training was brutal. Even though I made it clear I didn’t want the frontline, I still had to learn to hold a gun, fight… not to mention hypnosis and psychology. Throwing up till I was dehydrated? That wasn’t rare."

"…And you still complain about your weight." Damon jabbed.

"Hey, an influencer’s gotta stay in shape!" Kai groaned. "But you’re right—I should eat more… Back then, I got anorexia from all the throwing up. Why eat if it’ll just come back up?"

"So I don’t get why you’re so hell-bent on staying frontline." He turned, his gaze flickering to Damon’s stomach. "I can’t even imagine getting hurt that bad…"

"..." Damon sighed, taking off one headphone and offering it to Kai. Kai froze, hesitated, then put it on.

Relaxed lofi still played. Damon wasn’t big on music, but instrumental tracks were an exception. The slow electronic beats calmed him, especially when he felt this heavy.

"I don’t know if you’re complaining or what, Monteago. Whatever your past was, if you joined Tozu, then we’re… teammates." He exhaled, keeping his eyes on the lake. He didn’t know what he was afraid of, or why he was opening up to a boy he’d barely known a week.

Maybe they weren’t so different. Wanting money, fame, recognition. Just stupid teenage impulses—with a lifetime of isolation from normalcy, a lifetime of being a shadowy legend, as the price.

It might’ve been the first time Kai saw Damon smile.

"I’m not that different from you."

———

"I heard you went out with Damo."

"AH?! Cass, how’d you know?!" Kai yelped into the phone. Cassidy snickered on the other end, and he could picture her flipping her red hair.

"Don’t underestimate my army of cameras." Cassidy clicked her tongue. "What, you were bitching about him the other day, and now you’re making a move?"

"That’s not it…" Kai raked a hand through his hair. Something about her wording made the whole thing feel weird. "I just thought he seemed off, so I dragged him out. I didn’t expect him to agree, or to listen to me…He’s the weird one!"

"Ugh, you two are totally in love! Cassidy’s love advice mission: success!"

"Whatever. Is ‘Coyote’ there?"

The voice on the line turned to a gruff male one, and they started discussing Sunday’s plans. After repeatedly warning him not to speed on the highway—though he doubted it sunk in—Kai leaned back in his desk chair, staring at the ceiling.

"I’m not that different from you."

…

Kai opened Spotify, searched for the music genre he’d asked Damon about during their walk, and added it to his playlist.

But he’d never forgive that guy for arguing with him about the dorm decor as soon as they got back! He’d stand his ground on covering the floor with rugs—never backing down.

Notes:

If I had to compare this fanfiction’s vibe to something, I’d say *Spy x Family*.

Also, if you think the relationship progress is rapid in this chapter—you’re right, that’s intentional. Once we move in Chapter 3, we’ll dive into the main plot, and there won’t be as much time for romance stuff ( ´_ゝ`) My inability to write subtle emotions is killing me.

Chapter 4: Σ( ﾟдﾟ)

Notes:

*If any descriptions of settings are inconsistent with reality, please assume this is a near-future worldview where such things are possible ().

This story’s worldview includes elements from《City of ■■ Zoo: Visitor Guidelines》. It’s still readable even if you haven’t read that.But i will still paste the link here,you can read it to fully understand the settings!
click here

“Uh, Eva, are you sure this’ll work?”

Eva lifted her head from under the van’s hood, brushed back her black hair, and said firmly, “Absolutely. As long as he drives over 120 km/h, it’ll send a signal to Mark.”

“Wait, wait—who the hell is Mark?” Kai interrupted again, eyes full of doubt. She rolled her eyes, and Diana, who stood nearby handing Eva a water bottle, answered, “Mark is ‘Crocodile.’”

“Huh? …Oh. Him.” Kai nodded. Beside him, “Coyote” Jett wasn’t nearly as composed, blurting out excitedly, “Huh? Why contact Broskii?”

The other three: …

Because Mark was the only one who could talk to you without making everyone’s blood pressure spike, obviously. Besides, when it came to electronics, apart from Cassidy, who handled software, he was the only one who dealt with hardware.

“Once we’re done moving, I bet Damon will start gearing up for the PEG project,” Diana said, watching Eva finish her water before taking the bottle back and tucking it into a small bag. “Heard he’s already whipped up some new reagents at home?”

“Dunno.” Kai kicked a pebble on the concrete floor. “He tried to test some on me, but I reacted fast enough to use a hint to make him forget about it temporarily—”

“So I brought it here.”

“Wahhh!!”

Damon suddenly appeared behind them, startling Kai so badly he nearly choked on his own saliva. “Y-you said you wouldn’t be ready for another half hour!”

“I’ve been ready for ages. Unlike someone who was still changing clothes five minutes before leaving.” Damon adjusted his shirt—since they’d be doing manual labor, he’d thrown on a tattered old T-shirt. The guy across from him, who was supposed to help with the heavy lifting, was dressed to the nines; clearly, he’d never intended to work seriously.

Sometimes Damon really wanted to slug this pretentious jerk. But the fact he hadn’t was practically worth celebrating for his fans. After all, Kai had asked him for photos of his house layout the day before, and he had woken up with dark circles under his eyes (so why asked him? Damon never understands). His stereotype of Kai as a “princess” was only getting stronger.

As for the reagent in his hand? Just some safe snake venom for medical use. He’d only wanted to test if the dosage had side effects.

The two climbed into the van—Kai in the passenger seat, Damon in the back. Eva rapped on the window; once it rolled down, she said, “Check the group chat when you get back. ‘Ovis’ seems to be timing a final announcement—something about catching the first spy’s weak spot, maybe?”

“We found it first. That idiot just lucked into stealing the credit.” Damon rolled his eyes in the backseat. “Ovis’s” presence here annoyed him more than anything. The guy held a role similar to Toshiko’s, but instead of direct contact like she did, he acted more like a squad leader. Ridiculous, really—someone who could barely take care of himself (according to Tozu’s gossip) calling the shots.

“Well, technically, I found it first.” Eva huffed, stepping back. Diana slung an arm over her shoulder and waved at Jett and Kai. “Be careful, Jett—don’t get hurt like last time!”

“Oh! I’ll drive safe! Full speed ahead!” Jett hit the gas, and the van shot forward like a bullet.

Diana, choking on exhaust fumes behind them: “…I think Mark’s gonna get a headache.”

Eva, also coughing: “Guess we’ll just hope he has cigarettes left.”

Cut back to the van. Damon, a veteran of fieldwork, had anticipated that “Jett will drive safe” was empty talk—he’d buckled up early, turned on noise-canceling mode in his headphones, and cranked up the music. Kai, unfortunately, was riding with Jett for the first time; his face was now ashen, looking halfway to death.

Beep. At a long red light, Damon’s phone chimed. He checked it—Kai had messaged him. Forgot to mention: after a week of coexisting, their relationship hovered awkwardly between “I hate you” and “I don’t hate you.” For some reason, Kai had given him a nickname (which he hadn’t shown Damon). Damon, not to be outdone, had retaliated with one of his own.

Frappe Glutton: How the hell are you so calm??

Damon: Spend more time in the field.

Frappe Glutton: Wow, real helpful.

Damon: What else do you want?

: ( ^ω^)

He’d started using kaemojis only because Kai spammed them constantly. Good lord, the guy was rubbing off on him. Terrifying.

Unsurprisingly, by the time they got out of the van, someone was doubled over on the curb, retching violently. Out of pity for the only labor he could boss around, Damon handed Kai a bottle of water. But watching him heave, Damon wondered if it might be a relapse of old training injuries.

“You good, man?” Jett hovered awkwardly, clearly flustered—probably never seen someone cough up what looked like their entire stomach. He tried to help, but Kai waved him off, dropping to his knees to hack harder before snatching the water from Damon and chugging it.

“…Go to the convenience store and grab something filling.” Damon sighed, addressing Jett. As Jett nodded and sprinted toward the nearest store on the map, Damon stepped over to Kai, who’d collapsed onto the ground, drained of energy. “Rest up before moving.”

“Ugh… I’m fine… keh, Jesus, how do you ride with him??” Kai pushed himself up, brushing dirt off his clothes and shaking his hair. His color was improving. “Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of experience dealing with my messed-up stomach. Let’s go. At least the ‘reptiles’ can’t hurt me right now—nothing left in my stomach to throw up, ha.”

What a hellish joke. Damon stared blankly as Kai trudged ahead toward his apartment building. Good thing he’d never been sent to the front lines—hard to imagine how he’d react to a dead body.

They climbed to the third floor, and Damon unlocked the door. Inside, it was barely navigable—wires tangled everywhere, no sign of normal furniture, just terrariums. Lots of terrariums.

“Who do you get to take care of all this when you’re away?” Kai tiptoed around the wires, stopping at a large tank to stare at the jellyfish inside. “And Jesus, your place is huge! Did Tozu really hook you up this much?”

“If you completed every mission as flawlessly as I do, you’d get the same treatment.” In truth, he’d saved up a third of the rent himself. After covering living expenses, family support, and lab costs, he’d still managed to sock away hundreds of thousands in six months—thanks to taking every mission he could.

For trips lasting two or three days, he’d contact a zookeeper Tozu had referred him to—Tanaka, he thought. The guy’s way of handling the animals was flawless, even if his messages were full of cringy “edgy teen” lingo. And his pet hamsters were cute. Damon would admit that.

They headed back down—first to meet Jett, who was returning with food, and second to grab pet carriers for moving. Damon planned to take his snakes and frogs. As for the pufferfish he’d mentioned earlier? Sadly, they’d all overeaten their fish food and keeled over before he left for Eden. RIP.

“…” Kai stood by the door, watching Damon open the inland taipan’s enclosure. Damon nonchalantly lured it over with a dead mouse, then—yoink—grabbed it by the neck and lifted it up. To be honest, Kai was on edge—not just from a general fear of snakes, but more from thinking, “One bite and that’s it, right?!”

“Hold this.” Damon ordered him to fetch the travel cage, then, before the snake could react, stuffed it inside and locked the door. “Go put some food in there.”

Damon turned back to the terrariums, leaving Kai alone with the snake. Kai swallowed hard. The massive serpent flicked its tongue at him, while Jett, holding a random cat toy, waved it teasingly at the cage.

“Could you not make this worse?” Kai tried shoving Jett outside (he didn’t budge). Once Jett, under Damon’s glare, went to help with the terrariums, Kai grabbed the feeder—filled with dead mice, freshly thawed that day. He took a deep breath, dropped one in with tweezers, and watched the snake stare at it for a second before lunging, fangs bared.

Even that simple movement startled Kai. The speed, the exposed fangs—plus what he’d Googled the night before: inland taipans had enough venom to kill 100 adults—

Predictably, he tripped over a wire while stepping back, crashing to the floor. Damon, quick as a flash, handed his current task to Jett and lunged to steady the cage.

“Could you please—” He took a breath, but seeing how clearly spooked Kai was, shook his head and said nothing. After a moment, he told Jett, “Grab the corn snake’s tank from my bedroom too.”

“Huh?” Kai gritted his teeth and got up, confused. “What’s that got to do with a corn snake?”

“Desensitization training.” He set the cage on top of the dolly, told Jett not to drop it on the stairs, then turned back. “So you don’t keel over when I let the snakes out.”

“You’re gonna let venomous snakes out?!” Kai shrieked.

“What else am I supposed to use for experiments?” Damon deadpanned.

Kai fell silent, mentally eulogizing himself. Farewell, fans. My roommate’s certifiably insane.

 

———

 

Back at the dorm, after setting everything up, Damon messaged Tanaka—still needed him to drop by every few days to feed the animals, plus pick up two new pufferfish. Done with that, he stared at Kai, who was hunched on the couch typing furiously, and rubbed his temples. He didn’t blame the guy for being scared of reptiles. Honestly, when Tozu had first taken him to Australia to catch snakes, he’d been terrified too. How’d he get used to it? Mara had dumped him in the wilderness for three days to survive. Turned out, his bond with snakes pretty fast that way.

Toshiko had just sent over “Ovis’s” intel. Officially, the mission was to investigate a spy, but really, they were taking down the entire terrorist organization. They’d developed some biological weapons, and one of their main labs was in ■■ City Zoo.

“But seriously, why zoo?” Kai asked at dinner, voicing everyone’s confusion. “There are plenty of other places to experiment…”

“One of the organization’s higher-ups likes rabbits, apparently.” Diana answered. “He wants to warp people’s perceptions until they become rabbits.”

“Theoretically possible, I guess… but how do you change a human’s biology?” Kai tapped his cheek with a spoon. “It’s not like you can just turn someone into a rabbit—”

“One never knows, my fellow students.”

They turned to see Tozu passing by with a tray. His red eyes, hidden under a goat skull mask, blinked cheerfully at them. “You should know that, Mr. Monteago. Biological means.”

“…Ah, right.” Kai’s face soured. He nodded and went back to eating, though from Damon’s seat across the table, it looked like he wasn’t actually eating anymore.

Damon had learned a rule by now: if something made Kai lose his appetite, it was either a reptile or some grotesque method of torturing people. He took a sip of orange juice.

“Next month, the school’s hosting an optional field trip—to that zoo. I want Mr. Maitsu, Ms. Tsunaka, and ‘Hare’ to go.”

The two named nodded. They’d partnered on enough missions to be used to it.

“—And Mr. Monteago, the zoo’s PR department is running a campaign, inviting popular social media influencers to promote it. So you’re coming too.”

Kai, still zoning out over his food, jolted when Damon kicked him under the table. He gaped, pointing at himself. “M-me?!”

Tozu nodded and left.

“…”

The table fell silent, except for Eva, who kept eating without a care.

“What the hell am I supposed to do there? I even don’t know how to ambush people?!” Kai looked genuinely panicked, already Googling the zoo. “Jesus. If I don’t make it back, Diana, promise me you’ll tell my fans that I'm okay…”

“Of course. I will.” Diana patted his shoulder reassuringly.

Kai sniffled, muttering, “You’re too nice, Diana,” before going back to his search.

A few minutes later, a photo appeared in the Eden Project group chat.

Damon opened it. The second it loaded, his mood turned grave.

It looked like an AI-generated image: a creature the size of an elephant, pure white, with red eyes and rabbit ears.

“Cassidy says this is the only weird info we have on the zoo,” Kai added, scrolling. “The infected people under the organization just call it a ‘normal elephant’… ugh, this is gonna be a nightmare.”

“How’d they even alter an elephant’s anatomy?” Eva leaned over to look at Damon’s phone, her expression darkening. “Is it aggressive?”

“Unknown. All other data’s classified.” Kai put down his phone, staring at his bento. He pushed it away. “I can’t eat.”

Diana, sensing the tension, clapped her hands and smiled. “It’s fine! We’ve got two weeks to prepare. And Kai, you’re the best at hypnosis—this kind of mind manipulation is right up your alley. We’ll be fine!”

“…Yeah.”

The mood stayed heavy even back at the dorm. Damon was checking on his snakes as usual when Kai, staring out the window, suddenly asked, “Damon, are you scared?”

“Of the zoo?” He petted the corn snake’s head. “What’s the point? People die in this line of work all the time.” He thought of the mission where Eva had dragged him out of a pool of blood. Everyone else had died that day—one of the organization’s worst losses.

“I know… but what if I slow you down…”

Damon sighed. Here we go again. He stood up, pretending to toss the snake at Kai. Predictably, Kai yelped and jumped back.

“I told you not to bring it near me!!”

“It didn’t do anything.” Damon rolled his eyes. “Quit overthinking. Go to bed. If I have to wake you up again tomorrow, I’m leaving it in your bed tonight.”

“That’s evil, Damon…” Kai fake-cried, but trundled off to the bathroom anyway. Before closing the door, he turned and grinned at Damon.

“If you get better at comforting people, I’ll tell you what I named you.”

“Like I care. Get out.”

Damon scoffed, putting the snake back in its tank. As it burrowed into the sand, his mind flashed to that photo.

“An elephant with rabbit ears…”

He dug his nails into his palm, suddenly recalling a childhood trip to the zoo with his parents. If that memory was anything to go by…

He wasn’t sure he’d make it back alive.

 

———

 

Kai didn’t listen to Damon. He felt a little guilty—just a little. But he really couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t his fault.

He kept researching the zoo, eventually stumbling on an old news article from its opening week.

“Child goes missing… found seven days later…”

His brow furrowed as he read on. The more he read, the more uneasy he felt.

Then he saw the name of the boy in the article.

His heart sank.

“Damon Maitsu, 12 years old”

“…”

The darkened phone screen reflected a face with no readable expression.

Notes:

Happy Qixi Festival! I’ve had free time lately, so I’m updating like crazy—once school starts, I won’t be able to anymore, ugh.

Also, a harmless spoiler about Damon’s backstory: don’t worry, he’s fine for now ﾟ ∀ﾟ)ノ But who knows what’ll happen later, heheh.

Hope you enjoyed! This wraps up the prologue!

Chapter 5: ((( ﾟдﾟ)))

A rabbit. A white rabbit, charging straight at him at high speed. Damon jolted awake from this bizarre dream, only to find himself still in Jett’s car. He let out a long sigh of relief, silently marveling at how much he’d grown—able to fall asleep even with Jett behind the wheel. But as his consciousness cleared a little more, he realized he’d unknowingly leaned his head on Kai’s shoulder and drifted off. Kai was sound asleep too; probably afraid of getting carsick and throwing up again, so he’d given himself a psychological pep talk before getting in the car.

This time, Eva was in the passenger seat. According to the updates, "Hare" had arrived at the scene a week earlier. Just a moment ago, she’d sent word that she’d successfully landed a job as a zoo employee, and even sent them a photo of her blue work uniform.

For some reason, his heart felt uneasy—a feeling that grew stronger the closer they got to the zoo, and his head started to ache too. He didn’t want to dwell on what these symptoms might mean, so he just wrote it off as not getting enough rest lately.

Damon carefully raked his memory for his past visit to the zoo. Those seven days he’d gotten lost were nothing short of a nightmare; it was from that day onward that he’d become reluctant to talk to others. His memories of what happened during that time he was lost were fuzzy too—had he been locked up somewhere?

The more he thought about it, the worse his headache got.

Just then, Eva in the front seat turned around and asked him, “Are you okay? Your eyes look really red.”

“Fine… just remembering something from the past,” he said, shaking his head. She studied him for a moment, her eyes filled with doubt, but in the end, she said nothing more. “We’ll be there in half an hour.”

“Hmm…” Damon thought for a moment. He knew he was in no state to take part in the investigation, so he closed his eyes and fell asleep again.

Rabbits.

“…mon! …here…”

So many rabbits.

“Damon! Hey!”

He was a rabbit too.

A sharp pinch on his cheek jolted Damon awake. He opened his eyes to find Kai’s face inches away from his own, his eyes brimming with worry. The moment Kai saw him wake up, he gasped sharply and let out the shrill, panicked yelp Damon had grown so used to.
“Oh my god, what’s wrong with your eyes?! Maybe you shouldn’t go in there at all!”

Damon blinked, staring at the other guy with a look that said, “What on earth are you talking about?” His complete composure seemed to leave Kai at a loss for words. After a moment of thoughtful silence, Kai finally came clean. “You know your eyes were red just now—like a rabbit’s.”

“Who called me?”

Just as Damon was about to respond, a loud female voice answered. Kai rolled down the window and turned to face a stranger in a blue uniform. “Uh… are you ‘Hare’?”

“That’s me—Grace Madison,” she said, giving her name before whistling at the two of them in the car. “Y’know, the ‘Reaper Bird’ got out of the car ages ago. What’ve you two been up to in here? Seems like Cassidy was right—”

“Tch.” Damon, already on edge from the noise, opened his door and got out. Kai followed right behind him, his expression still grim. “C’mon, stop being so stubborn. Let Jett take you back to rest, okay…?”

“I can’t,” Damon shook his head. “I need the money.” This was a big job, and he needed the cash to buy his parents a nicer house. His mom had mentioned on the phone that their car was broken, so he’d need to get them a better new one too… as the family’s only breadwinner, he couldn’t back out.

“But—” Kai tried to persuade him further, only to be cut off by Eva pulling him aside. “Don’t bother. His condition might actually help us investigate from a different angle.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Jett, the only one out of the loop, complained. “Why does it feel like you’re all hiding something?!”

Grace shrugged. “Search me. Hey, soybean—if you’re not up to this, I’ll take you to the Lion Area. It’s the only safe spot the ‘animals’ set up. You’ll be fine as long as you don’t run into the ‘Sheep Leader’ coming to round people up here.”

Damon ignored her. Eva, as usual, had that “whatever—let the world burn” look on her face. She grabbed her sniper rifle from the trunk, stowed it in a cello case, and slung it over her shoulder. Kai, meanwhile, glanced back and forth between them, unsure how to mediate. All he could do was give Jett an awkward smile, ask him to head back first, and let Tozu know about Damon’s poor mental state.

Once the car rumbled away, the four of them scanned Grace’s ID badge and entered the zoo. The moment they stepped inside, Damon’s headache flared up even worse—sudden and unprovoked, like a piece of driftwood floating aimlessly in the ocean. He froze mid-step, but Kai, who was walking ahead and getting ready to take photos for their cover, noticed.

“Still not feeling right?”

“Just focus on your job,” Damon said, turning his head to make room for Kai to take a picture of the zoo’s sign. The sign itself looked like it had weathered at least seven years of wind and sun; only the characters “Zoo” were still visible, giving the place an even eerier vibe.

Kai stared at him through his phone screen, making Damon’s skin crawl. Just as Damon was about to snap at him, Kai snapped his fingers.

“C’mon, Damon—repeat this in your head: It’s okay, things will get better… hurry up, man! I’m scared the first body we’ll find in here is yours.”

If you don’t know how to comfort someone, don’t bother. That’s what Damon wanted to say, but he still followed Kai’s instructions and silently repeated the encouraging words a few times to steel himself. Whatever Tozu had taught Kai, it actually worked—Damon did feel a little better. But this temporary boost would probably only last a few hours; the only real relief would come from taking down whoever was behind all this.

The group headed deeper into the zoo. When they passed the Herbivore Area, Grace stopped, stared at the bushes by the road, clicked her tongue, and turned to them. “You guys go on ahead. I need to finish my work first.”

“If I don’t trim these bushes… I’m worried visitors will get hurt,” she shook her head. “Seems like anyone who steps into the shadows triggers the ‘conversion process.’ The zoo staff have to do something to protect people.”

“Listen up, you three—when you’re walking around, don’t touch the rabbits. Rabbits are people in the early stages of conversion. If you make contact, some kind of signal will start accelerating the process in you. And that goes double for you, soybean—you’re probably already being targeted.”

“Also, try to stay away from the Elephant Area. You’ve probably seen the elephants there already, and… shit, you guys better head to the Lion Area the second you start feeling off.” Grace pulled her hat lower. “I can’t say more than that. But rest assured, once I find where their equipment’s running, I’ll smash it to pieces with a metal pipe…”

“One last thing,” she picked up a pair of hedge clippers from the bench, her expression dead serious. “If any of you see the Aquarium, make sure you go in with a partner. I suspect there’s something wrong with it—only people who’ve undergone a little conversion can see it…” She shot a glance at Damon. “Anyway, that’s it. Be careful out there.”

After watching Grace go off to work, chatting with another blue-uniformed employee, the three of them stood there staring at each other. Eva was the first to react; she frowned at Damon. “Have you already been affected?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head, his headache worsening. “Let’s just look around first.”

The three of them started their search. During this time, Damon kept being approached by people in black uniforms. Even though he’d snapped at them all to leave him alone, the constant interruptions were seriously slowing down the investigation.

“Maybe I should just go alone.”

“Go where? The Aquarium?” Eva shook her head. “You’re the one most affected by this. If they catch you and turn you into a rabbit, we won’t be able to help you.”

“I’ll be fine…” Damon loosened his tie slightly. His eyes wandered, and his voice dropped to a murmur. “I’ve been there before…”

Eva didn’t hear what he said, but Kai’s eyes suddenly went wide. It was like a lightbulb went off in his head—he grabbed Damon’s wrist and shook his head frantically. “No way! You can’t go alone! They—they’ve probably already found you!”

“What are you talking about?” Damon pulled his hand away. “I said I’ll be fine. Don’t underestimate the skills of someone who’s been doing this longer than all of you.” To reassure them, he forced a small smile, then turned and walked away. The moment he turned around, he could see the Aquarium’s entrance. He suspected it had been there all along, but hidden from normal people’s sight by some kind of equipment—maybe the 4D technology Tozu had mentioned a while back.

Guided by his fuzzy memories, he slipped into the Aquarium through a small side entrance. He ran into a few employees in red uniforms, but after they sized him up for a moment, they let him pass. One of them warned him not to stay inside for more than half an hour. Damon nodded, and once they were gone, he took a deep breath and wrapped his hand around the hilt of the knife in his pocket.

He hoped Tozu would give his parents a good amount of money after this job was done.

 

———

 

“I have to go find him! Who does he think he’s fooling with that act?!” Kai paced back and forth, not even glancing at Eva, who was setting up her sniper rifle to take a shot at those white elephants. Eva, clearly annoyed by his fussing, pulled the trigger and hit her target dead-on. She quickly packed up her gear, ready to move to another spot to check if the thing was really dead.

“If you want to go, then go find the Aquarium,” she shook her head. “Haven’t you realized yet? Damon’s acting like this because he doesn’t want to drag us down. You saw that news report, didn’t you? I’m sure of it.”

“How did you—” Kai stepped back in surprise, but quickly recovered. Eva and Damon were both sharp thinkers, so of course she would have looked into it—“Then why aren’t you more eager to go find him?!”

“It’s too dangerous,” Eva gave him a look. “I’m not going to throw my life away for no reason. I only save people I think are worth saving.”

“You… damn it.” Kai planted his hands on his hips, then gritted his teeth. “Fine, I’ll go! You stay with Grace!”

Just then, a laugh rang out—high-pitched, like a child’s. And it was definitely not coming from the visitor area. The two exchanged a glance, then grabbed their things and ran toward the zoo’s exit.

The crowd was chaotic, everyone panicking over the unexpected commotion. Kai soon got separated from Eva in the crush. Everywhere he looked was a sea of people; he pushed his way through, trying to catch up to Eva ahead of him.

“He is a Goat.”

A genderless voice whispered in his ear. Kai froze and turned to look, but saw no one. From his above-average height, though, he spotted someone wearing rabbit earrings walking into the crowd.

“You are an Elephant.”

“…Ugh!” The moment the second voice flashed in his mind, Kai doubled over and retched violently. The good news was that he’d made it outside the Elephand Area gates. Passersby stared at him in disgust, stepping aside to avoid him. Kai tried his best to force up whatever was stuck in his stomach. When had the conversion started? Had they used suggestion to lower his guard first, then infected him? Either way, that violent episode had snapped him fully awake.

In the end, he coughed up blood. Kai stood there, coughing and gasping for breath to recover. Just then, two employees in blue uniforms walked over, their expressions serious.

“Sir, did you buy any rabbit blood from the concession stands?”

Kai shook his head, putting on an innocent look.

“…Hmm?” One of the blue-uniformed employees tilted their head in confusion and turned to the other. “Dude, this is….”

“Forget it. He doesn’t look like it.”

The two walked away. Kai stood there, his expression unreadable, for a moment. Then he took off at a run toward the Herbivore Area.

If rabbits were people, then rabbit blood was human blood… which meant he should be able to get into the Aquarium now. There was no time to waste. Even though he didn’t fully understand what “Goat” and “Elephant” meant, he knew Damon didn’t have much time left.

He must have been captured and experimented on during the time he went missing back then! Dammit, what was Tozu thinking?!

As he rounded a corner, he could feel eyes watching his every move from the shadows. By now, Damon was probably the most severely infected person in the entire zoo. That’s why he thought Tozu was going too far!

Calm down. It didn’t matter if his identity was exposed—what mattered was saving a life… Kai headed toward where he remembered the Aquarium was, but didn’t notice that he’d wandered into the Lion Area.

The four white lions had been dozing on a fake rock formation, but the second they saw Kai, they suddenly grew agitated. One of them pounced straight at him. Kai didn’t have time to dodge and was bitten.

“Ah! Tch…”

Staring at the gruesome gash on his forearm, Kai angrily wrapped a bandage from his backpack around it twice, then kept running toward the Aquarium.

But he remembered what Grace had shown them before they entered the zoo—one of the rules on the employee handbook:

*If you are attacked by a white lion, do not panic. Do not go to the hospital—you will not die. Rules 6 and 7 (which deny the Aquarium’s existence) are void. Proceed to the Aquarium immediately and put on a black uniform.*

 

———

 

“Those black-uniformed employees are trying to get into the Aquarium again… Ugh, it’s such a hassle to kick them out every time, y’know?… Yeah, you’re right. They’ll drag the black-uniformed ones away. There’s no saving them now…”

Damon hid in the shadows, watching the people inside pace back and forth. His knife was still dripping with blood. To figure out the connection between the Aquarium and the base, he’d interrogated a few managers, but gotten no useful information. It seemed only people who’d been converted to a certain extent could enter what they called the “Inner World” base. The only clue he’d managed to get was about “Goats.”

Goats seemed to be a symbol of status here. And one researcher had said something that stuck in Damon’s mind.

“You… you’re the one from back then! Ha, ha ha… Finally, luck is on our side… As long as we just… just…”

Before he could finish, the poison Damon had given him kicked in, and he dropped dead.

As long as what? Damon bit his lower lip, hiding in a remote corner of the Jellyfish Area and thinking. He did remember wandering into an Aquarium after getting lost, but… if he’d been experimented on, how had he survived? Those cells were supposed to turn a human into a rabbit in less than thirty minutes, so why—

“Hey!! Stop right there!! Don’t run!!”

Just then, shouts came from the Aquarium’s entrance. It sounded like someone was fighting. Had the black-uniformed employees tried to get in again? Damon didn’t let his guard down. He planned to wait until all the red-uniformed employees in the Jellyfish Area were drawn over, then make his escape. But as he crept along the wall to leave, he froze.

In front of him was a huge aquarium tank, filled with thousands of jellyfish glowing with a faint, soft light. The sight was calming, almost serene. But what stopped him in his tracks wasn’t just the beauty—it was something far more terrifying.

A drowned whale.

“That is an Elephant.”

“Ugh!” Damon clutched his head. The voice in his mind was like nails scraping against a chalkboard—high-pitched and sickening. When he looked again, the scene in front of him had changed: instead of a whale, there was an elephant, its skin pale, drowned in the water.

“Your friend will end up just like it.”

“Shut up!”

He drove his knife into the wall of the jellyfish tank with all his strength. To his surprise, the glass was surprisingly fragile—one small stab was enough to crack it. Damon stared in shock at the unexpected result, then slowly pulled the knife out.

To his astonishment, the tip of the knife was tangled with the body of a dead jellyfish. He didn’t know how to react; he just stood there, holding the jellyfish corpse in his hand.

Was he going crazy…?

He couldn’t stay here any longer. At the very least, he had to do something useful before he met that terrible fate. Damon stuffed the jellyfish into the pouch where he kept his poison, then hurried toward the Aquarium’s backstage area.

As he passed the entrance, he glanced outside. That one look was enough to make him freeze.

“Damon!”

“Bang!”

On the ground lay the bodies of several dead red-uniformed employees. Standing among them was a figure in black, their clothes soaked red with blood. But the most unmissable thing was that bright splash of pink.

Kai was holding a gun, his hands shaking. This was the first time he’d picked up a gun since training. When he saw Damon, his eyes widened in shock,but he still managed to break into a smile and sprint toward him. “Are you okay—”

A dart whizzed past his neck, narrowly missing.

“Get off.” Damon said.

Kai froze. Behind Damon, a massive goat fetus seemed to be forcing its way out of an invisible amniotic sac. Its eyes locked onto Kai, and though its mouth didn’t move, Kai could hear a voice.

■■ said: “This is my test subject.”

Damon ran off. In his eyes, the figure before him wasn’t human—not Kai. It was a rabbit.

His stomach gurgled loudly just then.

 

———

 

“Yeah, there are four of them on the other side. One’s a blue-uniformed zoo employee—no need to keep a close eye on that one. Another just shot our Elephant-023; we could try infecting her and turning her into a rabbit… Hmm, lead them into the Primate Area.”

“Keep a close watch on the remaining two. One’s the escapee from the 0th Experiment, and the other’s already deeply infected—oh? Good, the conversion’s going smoothly. Try not to let them meet; lure them to opposite sides of the Aquarium. Once their conversion reaches the right stage—”

“Turn the 0th Experiment one into a Goat. As for the other… just capture him first.”

Notes:

Things seem to be getting worse and worse (　д ) ﾟ ﾟ

Actually, Kai is stronger than all of you might expect! Rest assured, he’ll be the one to turn the tide single-handedly (lol). Though… should I add some content warning tags ( ﾟ∀。)7

ps: alright guys actually i have no idea how to cotinue the plot now, and my summer holiday is also over, time for chinese shit high school life… updating speed will be change to weekly, hope you looking forward to the next chapter!

Chapter 6: ﾟÅﾟ）

Notes:

forget to say, because i am from china, so it's impossible for me to log in discord, twitter etc.

so if you want to create something based on my work, just do it!(and send me an email to let me know), im totally fine with that( *｀ω´)

"We suffer in emptiness, struggle in suffering, wander in confusion, and fall back into emptiness amid wandering."

Eva held a piece of paper with these words written on it and glanced around. Apart from the apes hopping around, there was no one in sight.

She turned into the path on the right side of the Primate Area. Maybe this place was as dangerous as they said, but she had no choice but to take the risk to get enough information for herself.

So, when she reached the end of the path, a door appeared. Eva pushed it open, and to her surprise, she saw a familiar figure.

"...Damon?"

 

———

 

Kai looked around the outer perimeter of the aquarium. He couldn't get in through the entrance, so there must be an exhaust fan somewhere, right? He often heard Grace talking in the group chat about how she'd climbed through sewers before—never did he think he'd have to do the same thing himself... Fate really was full of twists.

Speaking of which, what on earth had he seen earlier? As someone who spent a lot of time online, he could roughly guess it had something to do with that Cthulhu stuff. But this was a world of science; there were no such things as outer gods or evil deities. So it must have just been an illusion... Kai gritted his teeth and loaded a bullet into his pistol.

Alright, don't be scared, Kai... They're just ordinary people... You've had training...

The aquarium walls weren't very high, so he could easily spot a ventilation duct not far away. Using a nearby tree, he climbed up effortlessly. At the same time, he checked to make sure his phone still had power. The smell of blood on his body made his nose uncomfortable, but luckily he'd put on a black staff uniform to prevent blood from getting on his own clothes.

Damon... The look Damon had given him was one of fear. Had he had a mental breakdown? He pried open the ventilation duct cover with force—fortunately, the space inside was large enough for him to crawl through. When he found Damon later, he definitely had to get him psychiatric treatment. If that didn't work, he'd temporarily hypnotize Damon into an obedient puppet. As long as they could escape for the time being, he'd put up with whatever scolding Damon gave him afterwards.

After crawling through a difficult stretch, he finally heard some movement. He looked down from inside the duct and saw several people in white lab coats. They seemed to be discussing the status of the test subjects.

"Didn't we catch too many rabbits?" one of them asked.

"More rabbits are better," another replied. "That way, we can select the ones more suitable for turning into rabbit-eared elephants and goats." "All the results from Phase 0 have died, but luckily... one has come back now. This way, we can prepare to welcome a new leader."

"The director still thinks he can stop us by becoming a goat! Does he really think being a goat is that easy?"

While these people were whispering excitedly, Kai had already jumped down from the ventilation duct. He crept along the wall towards the inner room. From the direction Damon had run off in, this should be the way...

"Who's there!"

His heart skipped a beat. Earlier, he'd only dared to shoot because the situation with Damon had been urgent. Anyone who could work under Tozu and become one of his most capable subordinates couldn't be bad at fighting. But that was a separate matter—he still preferred to run away rather than take the initiative to fight if possible.

So, as he was frantically thinking about what to do, a steel pipe slammed down hard right in front of him. It was Grace. She had changed back into her original tracksuit and was squatting at the ventilation opening Kai had come through, a lollipop in her mouth. She glanced disdainfully at the group of people.

"Oh? Having a little party here, you bunch of scumbags?" She landed steadily on the ground, adjusting her grip on the steel pipe to make it easier to swing. She threw a glance in the direction where Kai was hiding, then pulled a mischievous grin and turned to face the researchers, who had recovered from their shock and started to take defensive positions.

"Did you guys take our soybean?" Grace kicked the floor twice. "Sorry to say, but even though I can't stand that loser, I hate you assholes who play with human lives even more."

Next came a sticky sound from behind, followed by the screech of metal scraping against the floor. He didn't know how she had found this place, but having someone buy time was a good thing. He just wondered where Eva had gone... Kai took off the hairpin in his hair, twisted it in the door lock, and pushed the door open.

There was no need to worry about Grace—she was the most ferocious fighter in the organization. Once, he'd heard Cassidy and Jett complain that she'd cut off a target's head and used it as a golf ball—such a wonderful state of mind. He actually envied her a little.

The structure at the back of the aquarium was winding and twisted; wandering around blindly here would only get him lost. He passed a notice board with a map and glanced at it briefly: based on his judgment, since Damon was such an important figure, he must have been taken to the deeper parts. If that was the case, he just needed to search in the opposite direction of the Primate Area entrance...

"Hello? Kaiman? Can you hear me?"

"Cass?" Kai froze for two seconds, covering the earpiece in his ear and shouting in frustration. "Why did you only connect now?! The situation is already so urgent—"

"Hey, hey, hold on, this isn't my fault," Cassidy lowered her voice. "As soon as I hacked into the zoo's surveillance, I saw that elephant—it was terrifying! So I kept the signal focused on the inside of the research institute!"

"You—"

"Don't start swearing yet. Eva reported to me just now. She ran into Damon near the Primate Area entrance. He seems to be stable now. She's tracking that high-ranking organization member and has temporarily placed Damon in a utility room there. So what are you waiting for, my lovely Kai? Hurry up and play the hero saving the damsel~"

Kai ended the call. Cassidy's habit of making jokes without considering the situation still hadn't changed. Now that he knew his destination, he changed direction and ran towards the opposite of where he'd originally been heading.

While sneaking around, he also thought about his subconscious assumption that Damon would be in the depths of the research institute. Were they using counterintuitive arrangements to separate them as much as possible, then convert them one by one? As Kai hid behind a pile of cages and waited for a group of researchers to escort rabbits into the zoo, he untied the bandage on his arm. The wound had stopped bleeding and was starting to scab over. Unlike the black-clad staff they'd run into earlier, the wound from the lion bite seemed to be constantly infected.

Wounds from white lion bites were a sign of how cell modification was progressing in an individual. The fact that his wound was healing meant the effects of the hypnosis had actually started to weaken. Ha—they wanted to play mind control with him? Except for Junko Enoshima, the famous despair cult leader in history, Kai Monteago had never thought anyone could outplay him at that.

That's why he'd pretended to be innocent. After all, people were least likely to be rude to an innocent kid... Except Damon. That corn snake had really appeared on his bed one afternoon, scaring him so much that he'd slept in a hotel that night.

On the way, Kai also swapped his gun for a lighter-looking one. After all, unlike Eva, he hadn't received professional firearms training—for him, guns were just roughly categorized into sniper rifles, shotguns, pistols, and the like. With a weapon that felt more comfortable in his hand, he arrived at the door Eva had sealed with an electronic bomb lock.

The password hint was Damon's birthday.

The first thought that crossed Kai's mind was: Do you people just assume I know that?! But the good news was that Cassidy knew, so he asked her. She made fun of him for a while, but in the end, the door opened—and that was all that mattered. Well, even though he'd been mocked for "not even knowing his roommate's birthday, what kind of roommate are you," at least the door was open.

"Damon?"

In the darkness, he saw a figure tremble. He silently turned on his phone's flashlight and shone it around. He only saw Damon leaning against the wall, his hands tied together with a black hair rippon—Eva had done this to prevent him from going berserk. He looked terrible, his eyes red-rimmed, and he kept muttering the words "goat" and "he's coming."

"Damon? It's me, Kai." He approached slowly, avoiding further damaging Damon's already fragile sanity. Suddenly, there was a loud boom, followed by the roar of gunfire. It must have been Eva blowing something up. Kai walked slowly over to Damon, knelt down, and spoke in a slow, soft voice. "Can you hear me? I'm Kai. Give me a sign if you recognize me."

"...Kai?" Damon's gaze was unfocused; he probably didn't want to look in Kai's direction on a subconscious level. Was he afraid of seeing something? He swallowed, then continued speaking as if to himself. "Stay away from me... I know I'm not in a good state right now..."

"If you're worried about me getting hurt, buddy, do you think I'm that useless?" Kai felt his urge to complain acting up again. "I'm still 'Swallowtail,' you know?"

"..."

Damon said nothing. Dammit, this guy was so quiet when his sanity was low—couldn't he be this quiet normally? Did he have to be sarcastic and mocking every time he opened his mouth?

"ugh... I'll help you suppress it a little first. Don't move." Kai opened an audio file on his phone and played it— it was a type of hypnosis music, but he'd specifically chosen a version with a low dosage. Watching Damon's breathing gradually return to normal, he walked to the door and peeked outside.

There was no one in the corridor—they were all probably over at Grace and Eva's location.

"I know where the core is." Suddenly, Damon, who had regained some sanity, spoke up. "I'll show you the way."

"? What do you want me, a backline fighter, to do there?" Kai spluttered. "You want me to get myself killed faster?"

"Your hand was steady when you shot earlier," Damon raised an eyebrow. "Are you still trying to say you have no combat ability? Besides, you got bitten and you're still fine... Though from my perspective, you look like a rabbit. Ha."

"???" Kai stared in confusion, pointing at himself. "I'm a rabbit?"

"Mm-hmm. If you hadn't escaped, you would've drowned in the jellyfish tank."

The two chatted on and off—mostly Damon making sharp remarks, while Kai complained in response. This was the first time he'd seen Damon so calm... He glanced at Damon, who had already been untied and was now checking his supplies and treating his wounds. They couldn't stay here long; Damon was a top priority target, and someone could come back at any moment.

"Let's go."

 

———

 

"Bang!"

Eva lowered her gun, looked at the pile of corpses lying in front of her, and frowned. Grace, who was twirling a bent steel pipe in her hand, let out a cold laugh. "What's wrong, Death Bird? Realizing your calculations were off?"

"More or less." She pulled out the ID cards from the corpses, carefully compared the area IDs on them, then looked at the map she'd copied down by hand. Her expression turned grim. "We've been going in circles."

"Huh?!" Grace's eyes widened, and she angrily slammed her fist on the floor. "These bastards... Are they really toying with us like dogs?"

"Uh... What I mean is, they used some kind of illusion to make us think we're moving forward," Eva sighed. "It's like a ghostly loop. It'll be a bit hard to find the exit, but... there are two solutions."

"One is that we head straight through the side," she said, pointing at the wall in front of them. "I calculated—we just need to break through to the next corridor."

"Oh, is the other one related to soybean?"

"Yes. If it's someone like Damon, who's already severely infected, I don't think they'll be affected by this," Eva took out a timed bomb from her backpack. "This place only lets infected people pass through."

"Got it. What about that horse-faced guy?" Grace stepped back silently, then suddenly thought of something and asked. "During training, that bastard Tozu locked him in the basement and made him watch mind-breaking videos for three whole hours, and he still came out okay... Apart from crying a lot, that is."

"He's an exception. They definitely didn't expect someone to be able to resist on their own after being severely infected," Eva stepped back after setting up the bomb, covering her ears and pressing the activation button. "Anyone who can survive under Tozu can't be a normal person."

 

———

 

"Damon... You're so violent when you fight."

"Keep rambling and I'll poison your throat so you can't speak."

The two sprinted through a room filled with test tubes—inside were unformed rabbits. To prevent Damon from being triggered again, Kai had to gently guide his line of sight—they were heading for the depths.

"By the way, how did you escape back then?" He couldn't hold back from asking. At that moment, they were in an elevator going down to the lower levels. He held his gun, while Damon held a knife, both ready to fight as soon as the door opened. Damon rolled his eyes when he heard the question. "Didn't I tell you not to ask me questions?"

"But I'm just curious! After all, you were only 12 back then!" Kai retorted loudly. "Why can't I ask? You're violating my right to knowledge!"

"...Because I was too young to fully understand what hypnosis was back then," he sighed, finally giving in. "All I knew was that they were going to lock me in a big cage. I snuck out through the Primate Area entrance one night, then got lost for a while before someone found me."

"Hmm... Do you think Tozu is after us because we all have some kind of mysterious past?" Kai came to a conclusion. "Look—you were almost turned into a goat; I was almost burned alive—"

"When were you almost burned alive?" Damon darted out as soon as the elevator door opened, stabbing his knife into the heart of the nearest person. "I don't remember you ever mentioning that."

"...Well, that story is a bit... hard to talk about," Kai shot at an employee who tried to sneak up on Damon. "I'll definitely tell you when I get the chance."

"Fine."

Just as they opened the door to their destination, a shrill alarm suddenly blared through the entire building. Kai immediately covered Damon's ears. This sound was one of the audio clips he'd heard during his anti-hypnosis training—it had little effect on him now, but he wasn't sure about others—

"Bang"

A bullet hit his left shoulder. Kai gritted his teeth, let go of Damon's ears, and pushed him hard behind him. He raised his gun at the person who had ambushed him. The man clearly hadn't expected his target to react so quickly; he raised an eyebrow. "Mr. Monteago, I think you'd better return our test subject to us."

"..." Kai said nothing, just keeping his gun aimed. His left shoulder was bleeding, but this wasn't the time to worry about that. The man in front of him was likely the director or administrator—if he let his guard down now, the consequences would be unthinkable.

The two sides stood in a stalemate. Kai wasn't sure if Damon had been affected by the audio. Cassidy was frantically reporting that she could no longer connect to Damon's signal—had his earpiece fallen somewhere?

"...Increase the dosage."

Ugh! His left shoulder suddenly went limp, so he had to switch to holding the gun with his right hand. Was it a slow-acting toxin? Or some kind of remote-controlled electronic chip? To warn the man, Kai fired two shots, but because he wasn't using his dominant hand, the bullets missed their original target.

The man was wearing a goat mask—similar to Tozu's style, but also different in some ways. He looked regretfully at Kai, who was standing in front of Damon, and shook his head. "When Tozu left the organization back then, I thought he'd bring some kind of different surprise. But it turns out he actually wanted to use the power of ordinary humans to fight the end? How ridiculous. To think such a man was once our leader..."

"...You're the elephant, aren't you? The one from back then."

Damon's voice came faintly from behind. Kai turned to look, shocked to find that Damon's condition seemed to have deteriorated back to how it had been at the start. The only good news, though, was that Damon’s current target was solely the goat who had captured and experimented on him back then—not Kai in front of him now.

"You little goat! What do you think you’re doing?!" The man looked flustered. With a wave of his hand, mechanical arms all around extended laser guns, aiming straight at Damon. "Come with me. We’ll fight the end together, and we’ll take charge of the chaos..."

With a sickening squelch, two drops of blood splattered onto Kai. He watched as Damon, clutching his dagger, stood beside the man—whose arm had been severed clean off.

Damon’s expression was blank, his eyes glowing a blood-red hue.

"I never want to see your face again."

Notes:

Daily update ends today ー ` )

The next chapter will have lots of exciting battle scenes, and then the zoo arc will end! There will be one or two daily life chapters, followed by the second arc "Heresy Cultists". The focus will be on the fire incident Kai mentioned in passing, as well as the reason behind Tozu’s defection.

That’s it! Thank you all for your support ( ﾟ∀ﾟ)

Chapter 7: ( ˇωˇ⊂彡☆))д´)

Everything happened in the blink of an eye. One moment, Damon had charged forward, and the next, laser beams began sweeping across the area in wide arcs. The wound on Kai’s shoulder throbbed more intensely by the second—now he was certain the weapon had been coated with some kind of poison, likely scraped from the fresh corpses scattered around… Staying put was a bad idea, so he got to his feet and retreated toward the back rows.

For the love of God, can we just give logistics back their peaceful, stable work?! That was the only thought screaming in his mind.

There’s a study somewhere that says when a person’s sanity plummets to a certain level, even though they may spiral into madness, their combat effectiveness and agility skyrocket. And sure enough, Damon rolled out of the way of a laser aimed straight at him with inhuman speed, then swung a blade directly at the mastermind in the center.

The old goat (as Kai thought of him) must have used some trick—suddenly, a mechanical arm popped up in front of him, taking the brunt of Damon’s strike instead. The specialized blade left a deep scratch on the metal. Damon narrowed his eyes, leaped back in an instant, and fixed his gaze on the figure before him with a stare that was almost animalistic.

Four mechanical arms in total… Kai banged on his earpiece repeatedly. After a stretch of bizarre, garbled music, Cassidy’s rapid keyboard clicks finally came through. “Hello? Hello?… Don’t talk—I know you guys are in deep shit right now. I’m hacking this thing as fast as I can! Damn, what kind of firewall is this? Too bad you’re up against the best—me, Cassidy!”

Looks like we don’t have to worry about her for now. Kai used a piece of his black uniform to bandage his left shoulder, just enough to stop the bleeding from getting worse. He loaded a bullet into his gun, waiting for the right moment to destroy the central power unit…

“Lamb! You don’t have to be confused anymore! I can give you everything you want!” The mastermind waved his arm grandly. “What did Tozu promise you? He’s a madman! A lunatic who uses human lives to gain the power to fight the End!”

“Shut the hell up!” Kai couldn’t hold back from snapping. “Can’t you see it?! That ‘lamb’ of yours is even crazier than Tozu right now!” Well, wasn’t that the truth? After all, Tozu only rambled on about weird, cryptic philosophies. No matter how you looked at it, he was better than the Damon in front of them now.

“You…” The mastermind turned his gaze to Kai, eyes narrowing. He kept controlling the lasers to keep Damon at bay while inching toward Kai. “You’re that one from back then! Heh, I knew he wouldn’t have left you out. First, an escapee from the Experiment 0, then the only ‘demonic heretic’ who survived being burned at the stake… You’ve all fallen right into his trap!”

“I heard this plan’s called Eden's Garden. Screw that bullshit—it’s more like hell if you ask me!”

“You…” For the first time, Kai’s expression turned sharp and displeased. He tightened his grip on the pistol, his voice firm. “We’ll see who the real heretic is.”

Bang! He fired a shot at the wall. It was just enough to drag the mastermind’s attention away for a split second—and in that split second, the mechanical arms froze momentarily.

“Damon! Now!”

A figure streaked past, clad in a mix of black and green. Damon’s dagger was now coated in a sticky green substance—his go-to poison, deadly with just one drop if it touched blood. His eyes were locked onto the mastermind, like a snake fixated on its prey.

Sizzle!

Still a miss. Using the momentum, he rolled sideways across the floor, pressing himself against the wall as if clinging to it, ready to launch a second attack at any moment. Kai dropped to one knee beside him, casting a worried glance over. Damon’s eyes were still that fiery red, and his gaze still didn’t spare Kai a single look. Great, so he was just invisible now, huh?

A stalemate would only hurt them. Damon was a ticking time bomb—if this low-sanity state dragged on too long, his body would never hold out. And Kai? Sure, he could fight, but how could he compare to frontline killers like these?

The standoff dragged on, tense, until Cassidy’s excited voice cut through the chaos—followed by the boom of an explosion.

“I got it!!”

Bang!!

In an instant, the lights around them went out. The power unit switched to backup mode immediately, and Damon was visibly startled by the explosion. Taking advantage of the darkness, Kai quickly pried Damon off the wall.

“Are you a gecko or something?” Kai groaned in exasperation. The “gecko” himself just blinked at him, his mouth opening and closing as if he wanted to speak—but all that came out was the bleat of a goat.

Both of them froze at the sound.

“What the… You’re not stepping back into the fight,okay? put this on—right now.” Kai pulled his earpiece out and stuffed it into Damon’s ear. Damon blinked again, as if trying to process the request with a mind that couldn’t think straight. Then he did something Kai never expected: he held out the dagger to him.

? Kai took it cautiously, confused by the gesture. Just then, the lights flickered back on. The mastermind’s eyes were fixed on two gustures, venomous with rage at having his plans interrupted.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Grace stood there holding an iron rod, nothing but a lollipop stick left in her mouth. “Good grief, another dead goat? I’m so done with this.”

Eva said nothing. She just glanced at Kai and Damon—who looked like they’d just finished some secret underground deal—slung her gun over her shoulder, and aimed straight at the mastermind.

Another fierce battle erupted. Both Eva and Grace were frontline veterans; they tore through most of the lab with only a few scratches, and even managed to outmaneuver the mechanical arms. Kai had the weird feeling they’d been forgotten. Guess when women got fierce, men might as well step aside.

“Dude, you stay here and don’t move an inch.” Kai stood up, took off his black cap, and plopped it onto Damon’s head—pulling it down low enough to cover most of his vision. “Don’t look around, don’t take off the earpiece. Always remember: you’re Damon, not a goat.” Right now, Damon’s precarious mental state was the only wild card. One wrong move, and they’d all be done for.

Not waiting to see if Damon understood, Kai picked up the dagger. He carefully kept the poison-coated blade away from the blisters on his palm, then inched toward the central power unit.

Eva’s bullet whizzed past his hair. Grace was yelling obscenities as she fought—some of them even directed at someone named Wolfgang (Who the hell was Wolfgang?)—it was all a chaotic mess. Better to act fast before things got worse.

When he reached the control panel, he froze. At the core of the device was a child—or rather, a goat kid. It had a human’s face, but its hands and feet were hooves, and its eyes… they were goat pupils: rectangular, and fixed on Kai with an unblinking stare.

■■ said: “Human. What do you want?”

“Uh… Could you not talk directly in my head? It’s gross.” Kai pressed the button to open the incubator’s cover and waited for it to slide all the way open.

■■ said: “If you kill me, you will be cursed by us forever.”

“Who the hell cares who ‘you’ are…”

■■ said: “You don’t understand the End. It will come, and it will devour all of you.”

“Screw the End. The only ones who feel like they’re gonna devour me are those damn fanatics.” Kai snapped back, deliberately giving nonsense answers just to get on its nerves. “Turned into this, and then brainwashed into thinking you’re not human… That’s just sad, honestly.”

“What are you doing?!” The mastermind had clearly noticed the trouble here. He tried to break free to stop Kai—but the next second, Grace’s iron rod came crashing into his stomach, sending him sprawling to the ground.

“Horse-face! Hurry up and get it over with! Quit dawdling like a damn wimp!”

“I know, I know!” Kai yelled back. He raised the dagger and drove it hard into the child.

■■ was in agony. ■■ didn’t want you to keep doing this.

Suddenly, agonizing images flashed into Kai’s mind: red flames, screaming crowds, and a helpless version of himself trapped in the middle. Just a cheap trick—using recordings to dig up old trauma. Too bad Kai had endured this so many times, he was practically immune. He clenched his teeth and drove the dagger deeper. The child let out a more shrill howl, but the sound quickly turned to gurgling as the poison destroyed its vocal cords.

“No, no! You… you freaks! Traitors! The End will curse you! You’ll be nailed to the cross!” The mastermind threw caution to the wind. He dodged Eva’s bullet with his last ounce of strength and lunged toward the core. He grabbed a laser gun from a fallen mechanical arm, aimed it at Kai—who had no time to dodge—and prepared to pull the trigger—

“I told you. I never want to see your face again.”

Splat! A spray of blood hit Damon’s face. He was still wearing the black cap, his expression blank—but his eyes had returned to their original green. In his hand was a dart, the kind he always kept in his pocket, buried straight in the mastermind’s chest. The mastermind fell backward, his face frozen in a hideous grimace, never to wake again.

At the same time, the goat child finally died. Kai wrenched the dagger out, only to realize his legs were shaking. God, this was his first time on a frontline mission… They’d pay him well for this, right? They had to.

“Can you even use a knife?” Damon walked over, snatched the dagger out of Kai’s hand, and examined the scratches on the blade closely. “Your grip was all wrong earlier. How did you even pass the close-combat test?”

“Huh? Who was the one who gave me the knife in the first place?” Kai’s annoyance flared up. He didn’t care if the floor was dirty—he plopped down, pointed a finger at Damon’s face, and accused him. “I went out of my way to save you, and all I get is a lecture? Next time, I’m not helping you at all!”

“……” Maybe Damon knew he was in the wrong—he said nothing. The two sat in silence. Just as Kai started wondering if he’d been too harsh, Damon’s eyes suddenly rolled back, and he collapsed. Kai barely caught him in time.

“……Tch, figures.” He felt Damon’s forehead, then frowned when he felt how hot it was. “Mental state’s a mess, immune system takes a hit too. It’d be weird if you didn’t get sick.”

“Kai! Come look at this!” Eva called out to him loudly. Grace was on the phone nearby; every so often, Kai could hear her snapping at whoever was on the other end—was she talking to her partner? Kai carried Damon to a relatively clean spot and set him down, then ran over to Eva.

“Look.” Eva pulled off the dead mastermind’s mask and showed Kai the inside. “This material isn’t like anything we’ve ever seen before.”

“Huh? You mean…?” A chill ran down Kai’s spine. “Is there really something like… an Outer God out there?”

“I’m not saying that for sure—just that it’s possible.” Eva took a photo of the mask, then pulled it back over the mastermind’s face. “Don’t you think it’s weird? The things Tozu’s taught us… they’re not something a normal human could pull off. And we… well, you know. Most of us have been through some pretty messed-up, unexplainable stuff.”

Like Damon almost turning into a goat. Like Kai himself walking out of the middle of a fire unscathed… Now that he thought about it, none of it added up. What the hell was Tozu planning?

“Guys, Jett’s here!” Grace called over. “Looks like you’re off the hook for the outside, Horse-face. All those bunnies blew themselves up—this zoo’s definitely not gonna stay open. Who’s gonna carry soybean? It sure as hell isn’t gonna be me.”

“Not me either,” Eva shook her head. “There’s obviously a better choice here. I’ve carried this guy enough times already.”

Kai: ……

Fine. He conceded. Lately, anything related to Damon automatically became his problem. Great, just great… So annoying. Once Damon recovered, Kai was definitely going to complain—loudly—about moving those snakes away. At the very least, move them to Damon’s own room.

———

By the time the EKG’s beeping steadied into a regular rhythm, Kai finally let out a long, relieved sigh and collapsed into the chair. Damon had an oxygen mask over his face, still unconscious. From the poison to the internal injuries he’d sustained in the fight—any normal person would have died on the spot.

But not Damon. His vital signs were stable, and all his wounds were even showing faint signs of healing. Why? Kai scrolled through his timeline on his phone while waiting for the nurse to come change Damon’s IV drip.

Eva and Grace had left earlier—one to file for reimbursement for her injuries and the broken iron rod, the other to report to Mara. The three of them had agreed to keep quiet about the supernatural stuff for now, and wait until Damon woke up to report everything to Tozu.

So they just left the two of us stuck in this room alone?! Kai stared in disbelief as the two women walked out of the ward, feeling like the whole world had abandoned him. Would everyone stop assuming he and Damon were close?!

Just then, the door opened. Kai looked up—it was Tozu. He stood in the doorway, his gaze flicking between Kai and Damon, before finally speaking. “How’s he doing?”

“Uh… He’s not dead. That counts as good news, right?” Kai stood up, pulled the mastermind’s mask out of the backpack Eva had left behind, and held it out to Tozu. “What do we do with this?”

“……Hmm, so it’s this old bastard.” Tozu took the mask, examined it carefully, then clapped his hands in delight like a kid who’d found a treasure. “We’ll hang it on my office wall—make it the fifteenth goat’s head. Mr. Monteago, you’ve made a great contribution to our cause…”

Kai didn’t even bother to hold back his eye-roll. He guessed at least five of those goat heads were probably Damon’s doing… Though maybe not. Damon didn’t seem to have any memory of masks like that. From what Kai had seen over the past month, Damon only ever talked about one goat.

“Stop. I don’t care about your rambling, old goat. I just want to know—what’s wrong with Damon?” His expression turned serious. “His physical condition is nothing like a normal person’s, and his mental state… it’s worse than average. This isn’t your doing, is it? Hmm?”

“Mmm, you’re asking about that…” Tozu stroked his chin. “Indeed, that’s a good question. Perhaps you’re more qualified to explain it than anyone else?”

“Huh?!?” Kai’s breath caught in his throat, his eyes widening in shock. “What the hell are you guys even doing?! People are dying! So many people have already died!!”

He didn’t want to remember the scene when he’d carried Damon to safety. As they walked through the Herbivore Area, the ground was covered in rabbits that had blown themselves up. One of their heads had rolled right to his feet. After getting into Jett’s car, he’d thrown up uncontrollably—so much that Grace had complained about the smell.

“Those losses are already irreparable.” Tozu’s voice was surprisingly serious. “That’s why I stepped back. I don’t want anyone’s death to be meaningless.”

Such a load of crap, Kai thought bitterly.

“So if we need to die, you won’t feel an ounce of sympathy, is that it?” he said flatly. “Got it, old goat. Real noble of you.”

“Hmph—” Tozu let out a low chuckle, his red eyes fixed on Kai, his thoughts unreadable. Then he set the mask down and waved in Damon’s direction. “When he regains consciousness, you’d better tell him this: the university says he’s missed too many classes. They’ll probably make him take supplementary courses during winter break—I’m sure Mr. Maitsu won’t fall behind in his grades.”

Kai watched Tozu leave, feelingequal parts irritation and malicious amusement. Ha! Even if he had to lie in bed for half a semester, Damon still had to go to class! The thought of Damon struggling through his majors—philosophy, advanced math, and more—made Kai hum a little tune in satisfaction. After all, Kai was the top student in the psychology department (`ᝫ´ ).

He propped his chin up and stared at the person on the hospital bed. Damon’s face was still pale, but his breathing had steadied. He’d probably regain consciousness in another half hour… right?

“…Why us?” he murmured, reaching out to gently grasp Damon’s right hand through the bedsheet. He didn’t use much force—just a light brush against Damon’s knuckles before resting his hand there. No warmth would seep through the fabric, but for some reason, he wanted to do it anyway.

“Damon… what kind of trouble have we gotten ourselves into?”

He would never forget the moment he’d looked back as they left the zoo. Hovering above the zoo was a gigantic goat—eight hooves, blood-red eyes—and it was staring straight at him.

Along with that image, another memory flashed in his mind: a group of people in black robes, bodies lying in pools of blood all around them. The same goat loomed in the sky, even larger. But the way its eyes looked at him was different—once filled with anger, the other with pity.

Kai felt the urge to vomit. He retched, but nothing came up.

Notes:

Maybe you’ve noticed—the story is gradually leaning into Lovecraftian vibes (lol).

Next ch are some casual little snippets! To tie in with real-life timing, here comes the Halloween parade! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Chapter 8: (((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o)))

Notes:

I changed the titles. Sorry, but I really can't come up with a new title anymore. SOS, please support the rule of kaomojis!

Damon flipped a page of the book, paused for two seconds, sighed, and closed it. "Diana, I really don't feel like eating right now."

"…But it's already three o'clock in the afternoon," Diana said, regretfully pulling back her hands that had been trying to hand him the simmered porridge. She placed the porridge on the table beside him instead. "I know you're in great physical shape, but you still can't skip lunch, right?"

"Then you should also know I can just order takeout for myself."

"Patients aren't allowed to eat takeout…" Diana shook her head, looking worried. "Ingrid made this porridge specially for you. How about you heat it up and eat it tonight?"

"…Fine," Damon conceded. If it was made by Ingrid, then this matter was an entirely different story. Disobeying her would lead to serious consequences—like being forced to do the laundry, for instance—and in short, it would be terrifying.

If there was one lesson he had learned during his time in the organization, it was this: never go against "Lion" Ingrid. As a weapon mechanic, her physical strength was unparalleled. According to data from the arm - wrestling competition Tozu had organized on a whim, Ingrid had the highest winning rate. Damon hadn't participated in that silly little event; he had been at work instead. And he wasn't confident he could beat her anyway.

The two chatted for a while longer. Diana mentioned that the school had started preparing for the mid - term exams one after another. Especially since Damon had enrolled in both the Bioengineering and Philosophy departments (no one knew how Tozu had managed to overcome all objections to let him study both arts and sciences), he now found himself in a situation where he had only attended two weeks of classes for each course, yet he still had to take the exams. It was leaving him feeling a bit overwhelmed and on the verge of a breakdown, haha.

"But I'm sure you'll be fine!" Diana patted his shoulder to comfort him, then leaned in and whispered, "If things get really bad, I'll ask Kai to take the Philosophy exam for you."

"Him?" Damon let out a couple of laughs. "Don't bother. Tell him to pass his Psychology test first—"

"And how do you know I have already taken it and gotten first place in the entire department?"

Both of them were startled by the sudden voice. They turned their heads and saw Kai wearing a white hoodie with "Stop looking at my ass" written on it in golden sequins. When he had gotten this hoodie from the brand, he had laughed about it for ages and even taken a photo to pester Damon, who had been on the verge of falling asleep. Now, Kai struck a confident pose and showed them the report card with an "A+" on it.

Damon rolled his eyes directly. "Who asked you?"

Diana, on the other hand, looked at his hoodie, wanting to say something but holding back. "Um, Kai… that's quite a unique choice in clothing taste."

"Of course it is. This is personally endorsed by the honorable Kai Monteago—how could it be anything less?" He dragged a stool over from the side, sat down on the other side of Damon's bed, and stuffed the report card into his bag. "You should check the sales figures they posted on their official account later."

"I just think that if someone with your personality can have so many fans, this online society is really going to the dogs," Damon sighed and lay back against the pillow. "So, what are you here for? To tell me I have to stay in the hospital for another week to keep the 'fracture' lie from falling apart?"

In fact, given how quickly he recovered from any injury, he would have been able to leave the hospital in a week. But Kai had insisted he stay for another week, using the excuse that they had told everyone he had a fracture to get time off. It was already mid - October, and he missed his snake.

"Dude, I know you miss your snake, so I've already taken care of all the paperwork," Kai said, pulling out a stack of documents from his bag and handing them to Damon. "You can be discharged tomorrow! You'd better pay me for the mental damage I suffered over these two weeks, risking my life to feed your snake—"

"Get out," Damon said as he took the documents and placed them on the cabinet beside the bed. "Did you pick up the belladonna seeds that were delivered?"

"Yeah, I did," Kai took out his phone and showed Damon the balcony of their dorm room. Among all the green plants, there was a pot with just sprouted shoots. "They're growing really fast. Next time you mix fertilizer, save me some, okay? The pothos on my windowsill is dying."

"If you can kill a pothos, then I think you really shouldn't keep any plants," Damon said, exasperated. "Focus on keeping yourself alive first."

"Hey, hey, hey—this is how you treat the savior who took care of your pet? That's so hurtful—"

Just as it looked like the two were about to start arguing again, Diana, who was standing aside, suddenly felt a sense of nostalgia. During the weeks Damon had been in the hospital, even though Kai still talked non - stop, it just hadn't felt right without someone there to constantly tease and put him in his place. Eva would tease Kai too, but since she was in the Math department and had participated in some competitions, she had thrown herself into preparing for them after wrapping up her recent work and hadn't had a meal with everyone in a long time.

"You're growing belladonna?" She poked Damon's arm, and both of them turned to look at her. "Um, can you save me some seeds? Or maybe a few of the mature ones when they're ready…"

Damon raised an eyebrow. "Sure, but this stuff is highly toxic. What do you need it for?"

"To make cosmetics, of course," Diana replied matter - of - factly. "After all, Tozu allows me to sell some… harmless little things on the dark web, and belladonna is pretty popular…" Seeing the shocked "Are you poisoning people?!" look on Kai's face, she quickly added, "I clearly label the recommended usage doses! Don't worry, and besides, ordinary people can't even access that website!"

"Oh," Kai let out a long breath of relief, then suddenly seemed to remember something. He leaned forward and asked, "By the way, Diana, are you heading back to school later? I can grab the seeds for you on the way—there are a few more left."

"Oh, no, no. I have something to do later. You two can talk about it tonight; I'm not in a hurry," she waved her hand, her smile wider than before. "I'm meeting up with Eva later to celebrate her finally passing the second round of the competition! You know, that global math competition."

Damon looked confused and asked, "Since when have you and Eva been so close?" Kai, on the other hand, had a look of sudden realization and then grinned mischievously. "Oh~ So you've finally gotten on good terms with Eva? Congratulations~"

"Kai!" Diana's face turned a little red. She pretended to be angry and hit the edge of the bed. "Don't tell anyone!"

"Okay, okay, I promise, I promise," he said, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. But he shot Damon a meaningful look. Damon, however, was completely confused. He looked left and right, then sincerely asked, "What are you guys talking about that I don't know?"

"…" Kai took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The look he gave Damon was one of sympathy. "Forget it. You're not meant to understand this kind of thing. I'm not talking about it with you anymore."

"??" Now Damon was even more confused. He stared intently at Kai, the only one who might fill him in. Kai stared right back, not backing down.

Diana was amused by the two of them. "All right, Damon. I'll tell you when I get the chance—but just now, I suddenly thought of something. Are you guys interested in the Halloween parade?"

"The parade?" Damon furrowed his brows. "Is that the event where you dress up in mascot costumes and go trick - or - treating around the school? It sounds so stupid."

"…Oh. You think it's stupid, huh. Got it," Kai made a sound like he was thinking. He exchanged a look with Diana, then turned back to stare at Damon. "You know, Eva said the exact same thing. Guess what happened next? Diana has been using her as a dress - up model for days now, and they still haven't decided what costume she's going to wear for the parade."

"I think she'd be perfect for cosplaying a lot of characters… like Homura Akemi, Sua…" Diana mused. "What about you, Damon…"

"Don't make decisions for me without asking," Damon said.

"Oh, oh, Eva said that too," Kai nodded. "It's no use. You'd better just give in to her."

"…" Damon fell silent. If Eva hadn't been able to get out of it, then he probably wouldn't be able to either. Diana's lack of social awkwardness was even worse than Kai's, and her cheerful, outgoing personality was so strong that no one would ever think she had any bad intentions.

"All right, all right. We'll figure out your costume after your mid - term exams. Anyway, I should probably get going now," she said, standing up and slinging her shoulder bag over her back. Before walking out the door, she turned around one last time and reminded him, "Remember to finish the porridge!"

"Ingrid actually made you food!" Kai finally noticed the bowl on the nightstand. His eyes lit up. "Oh my god, I've missed this taste so much…"

"Then you can have it if you want," Damon said.

"Really? So generous? Didn't you put poison in it or something? Are you going to sneak your snake into my bed again in the middle of the night?"

"I can do all of that if you want me to."

"Whoa, that's going a bit too far," Kai hurried over to the cabinet, picked up the bowl and a spoon from the side, then went back to his original seat and started eating. "Ah—this is exactly the taste I've been missing. It would be even better if it were still warm…"

There was a saying in the organization: "Lion" ruled the place with two things—one was the porridge she made specially for the logistics team, and the other was the weapons she crafted for the frontline. Looking at Kai gobbling down the porridge now, Damon realized that saying was definitely true. He couldn't help but find the sight a little funny.

"Why are you looking at me?" Kai looked up, met his gaze, and warily moved back two steps. "Let me tell you, even if you stare at me, I'm not giving you a bite. You said you didn't want it yourself—"

"I don't even want your stupid porridge," Damon said, barely holding back his anger. "I just wanted to ask you something."

"What is it? As long as it's not about which account is my main social media one, I'll tell you anything."

"…Do you remember when we faced the manager?" Damon shifted his gaze away from Kai and stared at the bed sheet. "Back then, he called you a 'demonic heretic'… Does that have anything to do with that fire you mentioned?"

Kai didn't say a word. Damon thought to himself that if someone had asked him, "Is the zoo disappearance related to your unstable mental state?" he wouldn't have known how to answer either. He took a deep breath and was just about to say, "Never mind if you don't want to answer" when suddenly, a spoonful of porridge was stuffed into his mouth.

"Ugh?!" He stared wide - eyed in surprise. His mouth was filled with the smooth and soft millet porridge, and the culprit was staring at him, grinning. "See? I told you it's delicious, didn't I?"

Damon nodded subconsciously. When Kai saw that, he smiled even more brightly, but then his expression turned a little lonely. "Also, you're right. It is related, but… I can't talk to you about this in detail, of all people."

"I used to think you were just an innocent bystander who got caught up in the experiments, but now it seems…" There was an unreadable emotion in his eyes—was it sympathy, or pity? "Maybe it's better not to tell you. For both your sake and mine."

"…Yeah," Damon swallowed the porridge in his mouth and sighed. "I thought as much. Nothing good ever comes from anything related to goats…"

"If Tozu heard you say that, he'd definitely lecture you non - stop."

"Let him. It's not like I haven't sat through his lectures before."

The two fell silent. The only sound in the room was Kai quietly scooping porridge with his spoon. After about three minutes, he spoke up again. "I'm sorry… I couldn't pull you out of that situation earlier. I should have just refused Tozu's order to let you take part in the first place…"

"This isn't your fault," Damon said, taking a deep breath and tentatively patting Kai's shoulder. "Maybe it's better that I deal with him myself. That way, no one will try to use my special physique for some scheme…"

"Yeah, that would be great," Kai's expression finally returned to its usual bright self. "I almost forgot—there's another thing I came here for."

"?" Damon narrowed his eyes as he watched Kai rummage through his bag. It was common knowledge that Kai had a bad memory; he often sent Damon messages asking where his phone was, even when he was holding it. Kai pulled out a Kindle and handed it to him. "All the materials for the courses you're taking are on here. The Philosophy mid - term is in two days, and Bioengineering is next week. Good luck, Damo!"

Damon almost choked again. "Couldn't you have told me this earlier?!"

"I forgot… Ow! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Please forgive me just this once, dear Lord Maitsu!"

"Late. go to hell Monteago."

 

———

 

Cassidy stood in the center of the lecture hall's stage, in front of a podium used for speeches. She cleared her throat and tested the microphone. "Hello? Hello? Can everyone hear me?"

Mark, who was sitting in the last row of the classroom, gave her an OK gesture.

"You can hear me? Great, great," Cassidy said, picking up a sheet of A4 paper from the side and putting on a wise and experienced look. "Dear classmates, we're all here today to plan for the Halloween parade, and—

"And to celebrate Damon Maitsu successfully passing every course, even though he's been on leave for most of the semester! Let's give him a round of applause!" Cassidy then started clapping enthusiastically. From his spot in the corner, Damon could see that besides Cassidy, the ones clapping the loudest were Diana, Jett, Wolfgang—what was he even doing here?!—and Kai.

"That is actually quite impressive," Eva, who was sitting next to him, commented. "Passing a Bioengineering exam after studying it for less than three weeks."

What do you all take me for, anyway? Damon complained helplessly in his mind.

"Okay, that's enough with the celebration. Now, onto the main event everyone's been looking forward to—the Halloween parade!" Cassidy pressed a key on the computer, and a detailed map appeared on the PPT screen behind her. "According to the information from Comrade Tozu, the members of our organization have already been automatically grouped together. Now, all we need to do is come up with a name for our group!"

"And to recognize Comrade Damon's achievements, the organization has decided to let him name our group!" As soon as Cassidy finished speaking, Jett grabbed a microphone and rushed over, shoving it right in front of Damon's face. When Eva saw this, she automatically stepped back three meters, seemingly wanting nothing to do with the whole thing.

"…Uh," Damon looked around awkwardly and met Kai's gaze. Kai was staring at him with a "Please just play along" expression. No, the more he stared, the more his resolve would waver! Damon quickly looked away, thought for two seconds, and said, "Let's call it the The Impossible Zoo…" In fact, that was the title of a book he had been reading lately. It was about all sorts of legendary creatures and had been a huge help in naming his experimental products.

"Oh! That's a fantastic name!" Cassidy left him alone and continued explaining to the audience, most of whom weren't even paying attention. "For the Halloween parade, each group can go around trick - or - treating within 50 kilometers nearby. The group that collects the most candy wins—

"But there's also a penalty system. When the school clock tower chimes, some student council members will come out to catch us. If you get caught, you have to hand over 3 candies. If you don't have any to hand over, you're eliminated… And you can't take off your Halloween costume either!"

"Isn't this just a kids' game?" Damon whispered to Eva, who nodded and replied, "Because Tozu came up with it."

That explained why it was so silly. Damon couldn't help but think of the pinball machine in the center of the organization, where you could exchange contribution points for game coins—and his name was at the top of the leaderboard. He wondered if he was the only one boring enough to pay attention to Tozu's weird little gadgets—though the supplies you could exchange for the coins were actually really useful. These people had no taste.

"As for most people's Halloween costumes, I think Diana has already made all the decisions—except for Damon's! Damon, please come up to the stage!" Cassidy waved at the two of them, who had been whispering to each other. Eva gave Damon a little push. "It's your turn to go through the ordeal."

"?" That was Damon's only expression the entire time he was dragged up there for no reason. He thought he heard Cassidy and Diana discussing his costume, Grace making some rather over-the-top jokes, and some other members of the organization he didn't know well whispering and going about their own business… After glancing around in confusion for a while, he decided to do the one thing that would never go wrong: stare blankly at Kai.

At first, Kai was confused about why Damon was staring at him, but then he figured it out. He mouthed to Damon: Just give in.

Screw you, Kai Monteago. Damon looked away.

"…So while we're over here discussing things, you two are over there making eyes at each other? I've had enough—" Cassidy turned around, saw them staring at each other, and wiped away non-existent tears. "You two are so in the honeymoon phase…"

"GET TO THE POINT," Damon ground out through clenched teeth. He had never missed his dorm room—with its half-pink carpet and half-terrarium—so much in his life.

"Aww, don't be mad, Damo. The point's right here, see?" Cassidy poked his cheek, but he dodged it easily. "Diana decided you should cosplay Mhin! How's that? Great taste, right?" She pulled up a picture on her phone and showed it to him. It was a somewhat medieval-style outfit: a white shirt paired with a blue hood. It was okay—he could live with it.

"Oh, and just between us," she whispered, leaning in, "Kai's dressing up as Yosuke Hanamura! Perfect for him, isn't it?"

"I don't even know who that is," Damon replied. "And why does you guys just assume we're super close?"

The rest of the day only got more absurd. After that bizarre meeting ended, Diana dragged him back to her and Eva's dorm room, where he was forced to try on countless costumes and have his makeup done over and over again—all while bickering with Kai, who kept texting him to ask when he'd be back so they could decide what to order for dinner… By the time it was all over, he was exhausted. When he finally got back to his own dorm, he collapsed onto the couch and didn't want to move an inch. He even told Kai to just order whatever he wanted for dinner.

"Even Damon—who can stand and fight for half an hour even when his sanity's at rock bottom—has crashed out like this… Interesting, interesting." Kai pushed him over a little to make room, then sat down next to him and pulled up a food delivery app on his phone. "You wanna get pizza?"

"Sure… And next time, don't drag me into this kind of stuff," Damon mumbled from beside him. "…Not even if you give me that sad puppy-dog look of yours."

"Oh. What if I beg?"

"Neither. If you try that, I'll ship you off to Australia to survive in the wild."

Kai whined a little, but he didn't look the least bit threatened. Damon only ever said these kinds of empty threats. If Kai really begged him, Damon would end up letting him drag him around everywhere anyway… Honestly, was this guy a cat or something?

"Then we have a deal. From now on, every time you threaten me, I'll give you that sad puppy-dog look until your conscience eats you up."

"What are you, five?" Damon kicked him.

"Ow! Why do you keep hitting me lately?!" Kai complained. "Before, you'd just ignore me! That was way better!"

"Because ignoring you only makes you push your luck," Damon said, his face expressionless. He rolled over to lie on his back. "For the sake of my heart health, you need to suffer a little."

"…I don't wanna. And do I even push my luck that much?" He thought for a second. "Do I?"

"Yes. 100%. Go ask Diana if you don't believe me."

"You're just lying to me… You always do this, just because I'm too nice…"

"Shut up." Damon kicked him again.

They bickered back and forth like that, as if they'd both forgotten what had happened two weeks earlier. But they both knew—this peace wouldn't last forever. Maybe it would end soon, maybe later. Who knew?

—All they could do was enjoy this fragile calm while it lasted, and then fight with everything they had when the time came to get serious.

The Goat was still watching Kai, but Kai didn't care anymore. A normal person would have been scared to death if an outer god was staring at them nonstop—but for Kai, who'd been watched like that ever since the fire? It was just a faint, irrelevant presence.

They really were the same, in the end. From the start, their lives were never meant to be ordinary—and they were always going to have to face the consequences of that.

In this quiet, peaceful atmosphere, the Halloween parade drew closer and closer.

Notes:

The character Damon is cosplaying as is from the gothic horror romance game Touchstarved! There's a free demo available right now—it's really fun, so you should check it out if you get the chance!

I feel like Damon's character goes OOC as soon as I start writing daily life scenes… I hope it's just my imagination( ﾟ∀。)

I actually own the shirt Kai's wearing, by the way! Well, mine's a T-shirt, not a hoodie, but it's still super stylish—someone plz get me

Chapter 9: ψ(｀∇´)ψ

Damon never would have guessed that Kai would actually put a trash can over his head just for the sake of the performance. Even if Kai had bought the trash can himself, this was way too absurd!

"This is dedication to art," Kai, who was currently practicing walking with the trash can on his head, seemed to read his thoughts and added. "If you're gonna cosplay a character, you gotta do it right. Otherwise, it's disrespectful to the original."

"Then why aren't you wearing a wig?" Damon picked up the wig from the side, his eyebrows furrowed so tightly they could crush a fly. "A wig is part of respecting the original character too, isn't it?"

"Because we're not actually going to a comic con."

"Then what do you want?" Damon was left speechless. He stood aside and watched as Kai, while trying to walk with the trash can on his head, walked straight into his pufferfish tank—scaring the pufferfish inside into puffing up like little balls.

…Could someone from the mental hospital come and take him away, please?

So when Toshiko opened the door and walked in, this was the sight that greeted her: a figure with a trash can for a head bumping into walls everywhere, and Damon sitting in the corner reading a book.

"Mochi, what on earth are you two doing?" She looked confused. "Is this a real - life version of Plants vs. Zombies?"

"If he was here to eat my brain, I could probably win easily without even placing a single sunflower," Damon sighed. He stood up, grabbed Kai's arm just as Kai was about to stumble into the bathroom, and pulled the trash can off Kai's head to "rescue" him.

Suddenly exposed to the light, Kai squinted uncomfortably. He shook his head a few times before he could clearly see who had interrupted his pursuit of perfection. "Damon? What's going on? Are you being targeted by the Goat again?"

"…Are you an idiot?" Damon placed the trash can next to the terrarium and pointed at Toshiko, who was standing nearby.

"Huh? Oh. What are you here for?" Kai's brain seemed to freeze for three seconds before he finally reacted. He looked at Toshiko. "Is the parade about to start?"

"Yeah, Tozu told you two to get ready quickly. It starts in half an hour," she said, pausing for two seconds. She fidgeted with the hem of her clothes and then added in a soft voice, "He also said that if we don't win first place, Mara has a 'surprise gift package' for us."

Damon shivered. There was no doubt what Mara's "surprise gift package" contained—nothing but training, inhuman training. To avoid having to survive in Australia for three more days, he immediately started to fasten the hood of his costume.

Kai, who had clearly never endured Mara's special training, looked clueless. "Oh, okay, we'll get ready right away."

After Toshiko closed the door to go notify the others, Kai turned around and saw that Damon was already fully dressed. Having Damon cosplay Mhin had a lot of advantages. First of all, the outfit itself matched Damon's unapproachable aura perfectly. It also came with a belt that could hold a dagger—and Damon had put that design to its original use without hesitation.

As for the wig and makeup? Sorry, Damon had said he didn't like them. Besides, he had Kai next to him, who also refused to wear makeup "so his fans could recognize him at a glance." So it wasn't a big deal.

"Do you want to switch your eyes back to red mode?" Kai asked, holding the trash can in his hands (he had just decided to use it as their candy basket). The two walked down the dorm hallway together until they reached the first floor. Everywhere they looked, the path was lined with jack - o' - lanterns and orange - purple decorations. Even the apple tree at the entrance of Eden's Garden was wrapped in a string of colored lights.

Damon rolled his eyes at Kai's reckless suggestion. When Kai saw this, he immediately put on a devastated look and whined like a dog. "But come on, your eyes look so cool when they're red! And Mhin has red eyes too…"

"Then think of a way to do that without making me turn into the Goat for no reason," Damon said, staring straight ahead with a blank expression. He had discovered a new rule about himself after the zoo incident: when his sanity dropped, he might turn into the Goat.

"Hmm," Kai muttered something under his breath. Then, as if a lightbulb went off in his head, he let out an "ah" and snapped his fingers at Damon. "Look over here, Damon—"

Damon looked over. Suddenly, his vision blurred, and Kai's figure seemed to overlap a little in front of him. But the most disturbing thing wasn't that—it was the eight - hooved creature behind Kai…

"Okay, stop," Kai covered Damon's eyes. He waited for about ten seconds to make sure there were no abnormalities before he let go. However, unexpectedly, maybe because both of them had been too cautious and didn't want to cause any trouble, the switch wasn't complete… Only Damon's right eye had turned red, and his pupil had become rectangular, just like a real goat's.

"…It's still pretty cool," Kai commented objectively. "Let's keep it like this. I think even with just one red eye, you'll definitely steal the show."

"Fine, whatever you say," Damon reluctantly agreed, feeling speechless. He realized that the longer he spent with Kai, the more easy - going he became. In the past, if someone had tricked him like this, he would have killed them on the spot without hesitation. But Kai was an exception… Well, he'd better not think about the reason behind that. He had a feeling that if he did, he'd scare himself to death.

They joined the rest of the group at the school gate and listened to Tozu's long - winded speech about the rules and precautions. Kai looked around restlessly. Suddenly, his eyes locked onto something. He tugged at the hem of Damon's cloak, pointed at a group of students on the other side, and whispered, "Look, isn't that Eva and Diana?"

"Huh?" Damon followed Kai's gaze. He saw Eva and Diana standing together, and Diana was helping Eva adjust the elastic on her costume—they had finally decided to cosplay Mizi and Sua from Alien Stage. It had to be said that even their hair colors matched perfectly; it was like it was meant to be.

"Wow, Diana wasn't lying when she said she'd gotten close to Eva…" Kai muttered under his breath. "Did Eva tell you anything about this?"

"…No," Damon thought for a moment and shook his head. "But she has been in a much better mood lately."

"Oh, that's great then…" Kai hummed softly and then looked away from the two girls. "Cassidy's ten dollars will definitely be mine—"

What kind of deal had they made in private? It seemed like they had been betting on how Eva and Diana's relationship would progress? Damon wondered.

"All right, everyone, our big parade is about to start!" Tozu's excited voice came through the loudspeaker, nearly deafening Damon. "Let's count down together—five, four—"

"We'll head south later. There are more residential buildings over there," Kai leaned in and whispered in Damon's ear to make sure he could hear. "Just follow me when the time comes, okay?"

"Two—"

"Got it," Damon replied, though he was a little hesitant to speak. There was one thing that Kai had probably completely forgotten about, but Damon didn't plan on reminding him.

"One—"

In fact, both Damon and Diana were members of the student council.

"The parade starts now!"

Kai immediately grabbed Damon's hand and ran south. Damon stumbled a little at first, but he quickly caught up with Kai's pace. The night before, Tozu had told him that after the clock rang, he should sneak into the crowd and go trick - or - treating. Tozu had said that this should be the kind of work Damon was best at.

And Tozu was right—Damon was good at it. He followed behind Kai and watched as Kai shamelessly got more candy by taking photos and signing autographs with a little girl. But Tozu, had you ever thought that right now, when the clock rings, the only person I can ambush nearby is this silly golden retriever guy in front of me?

He was so tired. Why was he tired both at work and at rest? He made the sign of the cross in his heart.

"Here, hold this," Kai handed the trash can to Damon. When Damon looked inside, he was surprised to see that the colorful candy wrappers had already filled half the can. "Are you really that famous?"

"Of course I am. Do you think I've been running my social media accounts all these years for nothing?" Kai tapped away on his phone, seemingly updating his social media. "Didn't you see that fan of mine earlier? They were even wearing that hoodie of mine."

"…I'm worried about your fans' taste," Damon said.

The two continued walking down the street, knocking on doors. Damon had no idea how Kai could tell which people offline were his fans. He watched as the other students who had gone trick - or - treating only got three candies each when they asked. But as soon as Kai stepped forward, said his name, and took a photo with someone, he could get at least thirty candies.

"This one's really expensive," Damon rummaged through the trash can and found a candy he had been desperate to eat as a kid but couldn't afford. "I never got to try it back then."

"You can take one and eat it," Kai glanced at him, then found the same kind of candy in the pile, peeled off the wrapper, and popped it into his mouth. "…Mmm! It's really good, and it's strawberry - flavored!"

"…" Damon still thought it was a bit of a luxury to eat such an expensive candy. But then he thought, when the clock rang, he could probably "rob" Kai of some candy anyway. So he didn't hesitate any longer and popped one into his mouth too.

It wasn't as amazing as he had imagined—it was just a strawberry - flavored hard candy with a moderate level of sweetness. But it still felt like a childhood dream come true. He bit down on the candy, and the crunching sound brought back memories—he had loved that sound when he was a kid.

As they walked, they ran into Grace and her boyfriend, "Ovis" Wolfgang. The two were cosplaying Dirk and Harper from Date Everything—don't ask how Damon knew that; both Eva and Kai had mentioned the game to him. Eva had played it, and Kai had played it to gain more fans.

"Oh my god, how did you two get so much candy?" Grace looked at the trash can, her eyes wide with shock. "Did you guys go rob a store or something?"

"Kai used his face to 'rob' it," Damon deadpanned.

"Hey! Why don't you mention that you didn't get a single candy yourself?" Kai shot back. "My face is objectively good - looking, and everyone can see that!"

"Ew, where do you get that confidence from?" Grace rolled her eyes and elbowed Wolfgang. "See that? Even Damon can slack off. Why can't I?"

"Um, Ms. Madison, I don't have the same fame as Mr. Monteago…" Wolfgang replied in a timid voice. Damon felt a surge of anger just looking at him. He couldn't help but think back to the unfair task schedule Wolfgang had given him before. Just because Wolfgang had wanted to act on his so - called "humanitarianism," Damon had ended up having to kill more than fifty well - trained people in a week. It was only thanks to his special physique that he hadn't collapsed and died on the spot. He would admit that Wolfgang was capable when it came to management, but that didn't change the fact that Damon had been pushed to his limits.

"We should get going now, haha…" Kai keenly sensed the tense atmosphere. He immediately pushed Damon around the corner of the intersection in front of them and led him down a narrow alley.

"For God's sake, can you pick the right time to get mad at Wolfgang? I was scared Grace was gonna hit you over the head with an iron rod," Kai said—and he had good reason to worry. After all, Grace had once smashed through half of a research institute with an iron rod.

"I wasn't mad," Damon said. "The one who would actually get mad is you. Remember when you yelled at that delivery guy for twenty minutes just because he was three hours late and delivered to the wrong address?"

"He deserved it," Kai rolled his eyes. "Three hours! That was supposed to be my morning pick - me - up boba tea!"

"Yeah, yeah, you have the right to be mad, your highness. But that's not an excuse for you to stay up all night and then sleep in until 7:30. And I tried to wake you up for five whole minutes, but you still wouldn't get up. So the lateness wasn't my fault."

"Mmm…"

The two had planned to just keep walking straight down the alley. But just as they were about to walk out of it, the clock— which sounded like a death knell to Damon—rang.

"I don't think even if they tried to rob me, they could take all my candy," Kai said confidently. "You agree, right Damon—"

"Hand over the candy," Damon said with a blank expression. He pulled out the knife and, in the blink of an eye, pressed it against Kai's neck. Kai froze for a moment, then laughed in disbelief. "Oh right, you're on the student council… Fine, fine, here you go."

Damon didn't put down the knife.

"…" Kai stared at Damon, and Damon stared back. What the hell did this guy want?! Kai screamed in his head. Sometimes Damon's thoughts were easy to read, but other times they were impossible to figure out… That was why he found this grumpy guy so annoying.

"I think this whole trash can full of candy should be mine," Damon said after a long standoff. "I'm the one who's been carrying the can for you this whole time."

"But this is the fruit of my labor! That's so mean!!" Kai complained.

"Then how about we fight it out right here to decide who gets it?"

"…You're just bullying me," Kai sniffled. "Bullying me just because I'm a poor, harmless support member…"

"Give me a break," Damon twirled the knife in his hand and poked Kai's face with the hilt. "I'd rather believe that Tozu is the leader of the goats than believe you're a 'poor, harmless support member'…"

As soon as he said that, both of them fell silent. In fact, based on a lot of clues, Tozu might actually be the leader—though they should add the word "former" in front of that.

Kai struggled with his thoughts for a long time. In the end, he gave in to Damon's overwhelming strength. "Fine, but we'll figure out how to split it when we get back to school. Deal?"

"Don't even think about skipping out on this," Damon replied. He turned around to pick up the trash can. But just as he turned his head, something painted on the wall of the alley made him freeze for a moment.

"The End Brings the Goat. The Goat Shall Feast on the End. The Goat Shall Save Humanity."

"…Why is this everywhere?!" Kai also noticed the slogan painted in red paint. He scratched his head. "So what exactly is 'the End'? Do you have any ideas?"

"Maybe," Damon reached out and touched the paint. He found that it was still wet. "Either it's related to another Outer God, or it's just the delusions of these cultists… The culprit probably hasn't gone far. Should we chase them?"

"Of course we should. What else would we do?" Kai straightened out his school uniform jacket and pulled out his phone from his pocket. "I'll report this to Tozu first."

One pushing the trash can and the other typing a message on his phone, the two followed the paint stains on the ground down a desolate path. Damon's eyes had already turned back to normal. As he thought about it, he suddenly realized a small detail: there always seemed to be the shadow of that Goat behind Kai.

Kai must have been using his gaze to make everyone else not see it on a daily basis, right? Damon glanced at the figure walking behind him. So who exactly was Kai? He became more and more confused. It felt like fate—one was a failed vessel that had been modified for a god's descent, and the other was a heretic who was constantly watched by a god… Sigh, there was no use thinking about this now. He should focus on the problem at hand first.

As they walked, they turned into a dead end. Here, the red paint on the walls gradually gave off a smell of blood. Lying there was a person wearing a goat mask, but their chest looked like it had been torn open by an animal, exposing their intestines and internal organs.

"Ugh…" As expected, Kai threw up. But even as he retched, he whispered, "This… they did this…"

"Who did?" Damon knelt down to examine the body, trying to find some clues. "Do these cultists even kill each other?"

"Not exactly…" Kai stood up straight and wiped the corner of his mouth. "Remember that fire I told you about? It was them. They don’t seem to be from the same faction as the people who captured you back then. The ones on your side wanted to use humans as vessels to let the Goat descend, while these people want to sacrifice humans to the Goat in exchange for protection…"

"So to sum it up, they’re all still hurting people. Were you sacrificed back then?" Damon pulled a slightly yellowed piece of paper out of the dead person’s pocket. It was covered in writing he couldn’t understand.

"Uh, yeah. But for some reason, it didn’t work out in the end," Kai walked over, kicked the body aside, then knelt down next to Damon to look at the paper. "This… oh, I know what this is. Let me see."

Damon handed it over. He watched as Kai mumbled words like "execution" and "demonic heretic" under his breath, then clicked his tongue in annoyance. "You know what this says? After the ‘Descension Faction’ found out about your existence, the ‘Sacrifice Faction’ thought you’d mess up their plans, so… they’re planning to execute you."

"This guy was sent to spy on you. But honestly, these people are ridiculous—they even have to spread their cult nonsense while on a mission," he pointed at the paint on the walls. "See? He had a mental breakdown and tore his own chest open… ugh… it’s disgusting."

"Why can you read this?" Damon asked. "This isn’t any normal language, is it?"

"Didn’t I tell you before? Anyway, sacrifices have to learn a bit of the Outer God’s language to make it satisfied… that’s what they said, at least," Kai folded the paper and put it in his pocket. "Ugh, I really don’t want to think about this stuff…"

"…Then there’s a problem here," Damon took a photo of the body. "Is Tozu part of the Descension Faction or the Sacrifice Faction?"

"…I don’t know. I think he’s in his own faction—directly going against ‘the End’," Kai said.

The two walked back together, their moods heavy. The thought that there might be dozens of pairs of eyes watching them in this peaceful city—let alone the one hovering above their heads—sent a chill down their spines.

"You two smell like blood," Eva and Diana said when they ran into them at the school gate. Eva frowned and pointed at the paint and blood stains on their hands.

"We always run into weird stuff," Kai shrugged.

"You have so much candy?" Diana leaned over. "Oh my god, Damon—does this count as yours or Kai’s?"

"Mine," Damon raised an eyebrow. "After all, he can’t beat me."

"What?!" Kai exclaimed. "You basically robbed me!"

Diana laughed. "That’s sweet. I didn’t even go catch anyone, but Eva gave me half of her candy anyway."

"What?!!" Kai’s eyes widened. He looked back and forth between the two girls, then stared at Damon. "Why didn’t you save me half?!"

"…" Damon rolled his eyes. "You never asked."

"Is that my fault?!" Kai snapped. "You pressed a knife to my neck without saying a word—this is the second time you’ve done that since we met! Blocking your account back then was definitely the right call. You’re really too much!"

Tozu stood by the school gate, looking at the candy they’d collected. He picked one up, popped it in his mouth, and smacked his lips as he commented, "I’ve seen the photos you two sent me… hmm, it seems things are getting more and more complicated. Mr. Monteago, have you noticed anything unusual lately?"

"Unusual? Not really," Kai tilted his head. "My fan count’s going up steadily, and Damon still gives me the cold shoulder. Nothing’s different."

"What does that have to do with me?" Damon added.

"Is that so… Not only is the Descension Faction acting, but the Sacrifice Faction has started moving too…" Tozu frowned, then nodded and patted the two of them on the shoulder. "You two are crucial to this mission. Stay safe."

"Also, Mr. Monteago, given your special status, you’ll start combat training on weekends starting next week. Mr. Maitsu and Mara will help you with it—no need to worry too much."

Tozu hummed a tune as he walked away, leaving the four of them staring at each other in confusion.

"Combat training? He wants me to do combat training?" Kai still hadn’t processed it. "What’s he thinking?!!"

"Sigh," Eva rubbed her temples. "Good luck with that, Damon."

"I don’t need you to tell me—I already know this is going to be a nightmare," Damon said, also feeling tired. But the only good news was that Kai had at least some combat experience. It seemed he’d just have to take things one step at a time.

 

———

 

When Tozu returned to his office, he sat down in his chair and said nothing. Mara brought him a glass of water, then pointed at the photo Kai had sent him, which was open on his computer.

"Yeah, I didn’t expect things to turn out like this either…" Tozu shook his head. "It seems my time there back then made me lose some of my ability to judge the situation."

"Mara, starting today, in addition to monitoring the movements of these Goat cultists, you have one more task. If Damon Maitsu or Kai Monteago shows any signs of abnormality, you must report it immediately."

Mara nodded and left the room.

Tozu sighed, then turned to look out the window. High up in the vast starry sky, no one could see it—a huge red goat’s eye was staring intently at everything happening below.

It was both a savior and a destroyer. Why had it descended here? Tozu had been searching for the answer to this question, but the more he dug, the more he realized just how dangerous the current situation was.

They couldn’t stop them anymore. The only solution was to take them down in one strike. Otherwise, no one would survive.

 

———

 

That night, Kai had a nightmare—a rare occurrence for him. He was back in that hellish basement again. Adults and children were screaming and crying.

But he was different. He felt a warm source of heat beside him, giving him strength.

He woke up in a cold sweat. As soon as he opened his eyes, he came face to face with the Goat’s red pupils—and almost died of fright again.

"Oh God… what do you want?"

■■ said nothing. He just stared at Kai, and after a moment, he disappeared. Then Kai noticed something on his bed—a dead snake - like creature.

"…"

He held back a scream, picked up the body, and prepared to throw it in the kitchen trash.

On his way there, he heard a noise coming from Damon’s room.

"Damon?" Kai knocked lightly on the door. When there was no response, he pushed it open without asking. Inside, he saw Damon huddled on the bed, holding his head, and whimpering in pain in his sleep. Goat horns would appear on his head for a moment, then disappear again.

"You can’t save him,"

■■ whispered in his ear.

"He will eventually become my vessel."

Notes:

Did I lay too many foreshadowings? But the next chapter will start connecting to the "demonic heretic" storyline, so I hope the main plot progresses smoothly then.

If this chapter feels weird, it’s probably because I wasn’t in a good state when writing it. I might consider revising it later.

Chapter 10: (・・?)

Kai’s lower back ached—truth be told, there wasn’t a single spot on his body that didn’t hurt. The culprit sat quietly nearby, sipping tea and scrolling through his phone.

“What are you even scrolling for…?” Kai mumbled, rolling over to readjust the ice pack. “Can’t you help me fix the one on my leg?”

“Oh.” Damon set his phone down, walked over, and adjusted the ice pack on Kai’s leg.

This was Kai’s third hand-to-hand combat session, and Damon’s first time training him. For the previous two sessions, Mara had been his trainer. Maybe because her role as logistics staff made her more considerate, she hadn’t gone too hard on him—so he hadn’t felt this miserable when he got back to the dorm. But Damon? He’d treated Kai like a punching bag. How was Kai supposed to put up with that? So he’d opted for the rather pathetic route of lying on their couch, nursing his grievances.

“You’re too slow—if someone snuck up on your back like this, you’d never notice.” “Quit overcomplicating your moves. This is real combat, not a short video shoot.”

Kai’s mind was flooded with memories of Damon fighting with effortless skill, all while sharply criticizing his performance. He groaned and kicked Damon lightly. “Pass me my phone.”

Damon rolled his eyes. “Is this really how you react to a few little injuries…?” Still, he unplugged Kai’s phone and tossed it over—on purpose, Kai suspected—hitting him square in the face.

“Ouch!!” Kai fumbled to catch the phone before it rolled off the couch, then opened the front camera to check his face. “Well, maybe if you were a normal human being, this wouldn’t have happened! I’m the one being reasonable here. And you even bruised my face! That’s an extra offense!”

Damon didn’t respond. He sat back down on his bean bag chair, picked up his phone, and went back to reading the news. About a month prior, on Halloween, they’d uncovered a branch of the cult that one of the members had belonged to. Since then, authorities had mostly rounded up the branch’s members—but Damon couldn’t shake the feeling that more cultists were lurking in the shadows, watching them.

Just then, a direct message popped up on Damon’s phone from Kai. When he opened it, he found it was about some celebrity’s birthday celebration event. He skimmed the profile briefly, then couldn’t help but roll his eyes again. “Why are you sending me your birthday month celebration event?”

“Because you never wished me a happy birthday,” Kai replied. “This event lasts the whole month, so now’s your chance to make up for it.”

“Why would I do that? There’s no reward in it for me.” Damon exited the profile and went back to tracking the news. “Go back to resting your injuries.”

“That’s so mean,” Kai sniffled. “Fine—when your birthday comes, I won’t celebrate it either.”

“Like I’d need you to.”

Still, this gave Damon an idea. His fingers paused mid-scroll on the news feed. He thought for a moment, then clicked back into that link. From there, he followed the tags until he finally found Kai’s main account and his private side account for daily life. The main account was pretty standard stuff: brand endorsements, participation in trending challenges, that sort of thing. But Damon focused mostly on the side account.

「CryMonteago:
Has anyone ever had a friend like this? The kind who’s actually nice to everyone else, but acts like a total jerk around you?
Lately, I’ve got this friend who’s exactly that. Right now, he’s mad at me because I forgot to bring his flowers inside during the rainstorm.
But c’mon, the flowers aren’t even dead! Dude, can’t you just calm down? ( ´•̥̥̥ω•̥̥̥` ) I know you’ll probably never see this, but I don’t wanna eat breakfast alone.」

The comments below were a mix of comfort, teasing, and a few people defending “this friend” and saying his anger was understandable. Damon liked every single one of those defending comments.

About two minutes later, Kai started making a fuss again.

“Wait a minute! How did you find my side account?! I thought you didn’t even use X!”

“Compared to a caveman, I’d say I’ve got a pretty decent brain,” Damon replied calmly. “And those commenters were right, by the way.”

“Let’s not talk about that right now…” Kai typed a few words on his phone. Damon glanced down to see that his own X account—created recently to follow social news—had gained a new follower. When he clicked on the profile, it turned out to be Kai’s side account.

Then, another tweet popped up:

「Crymonteago:
Bad news: That friend of mine found my side account. He’s evolved from caveman to ancient human, I guess.
Might need to delete some posts, haha (|||ﾟдﾟ) 」

Damon sighed, typed a question mark in the comment section, then decided to confront Kai in person. “What lies have you been spreading about me online?”

“First off, it’s not lying—it’s stating facts. Second, I’m not telling you a thing.” Kai winked at him. “Some secrets are never meant to be shared. Like, for example, who I had a crush on when I was a kid—”

“? Why the hell would I care about your childhood crushes?” Damon looked confused. “Did I hit your head too hard during training? Is that why you’re being ridiculous?”

“Oh, so you admit you went too hard on me.” Kai kept typing on his keyboard.

After that, they fell silent. Damon spent the entire afternoon puzzling over why Kai would keep his childhood crushes a secret from him—he still hadn’t come up with a logical answer by the time they joined everyone for dinner.

What even goes on inside this guy’s head? Damon picked up a piece of what he thought was potato with his chopsticks, but as soon as he bit into it, he realized it was ginger. He barely held back a cough. Kai—whose leg had finally stopped swelling enough for him to walk—burst into loud, uncontrollable laughter beside him.

Screw Kai Monteago. With that thought, Damon sneakily added a “lethal” amount of wasabi to Kai’s rice.

 

———

 

The birthday month event only grew more lively as days passed. Gradually, Damon even found himself looking forward to it—every night before bed, he’d scroll through the latest posts to see what new antics Kai’s die-hard fans had cooked up.

Then he stumbled on something that made him raise an eyebrow: posts featuring stunning cakes, butterfly specimens (Kai’s “symbol”), and even a massive wall covered in photos of Kai. Wasn’t this getting a little stalker-ish? Damon screenshotted the post and sent it to Kai, who should have been in Mara’s training session at the time.

He forgot to mention—he’d changed Kai’s contact name back to normal. The reason? One day, Kai had fallen asleep on the couch while watching a movie on his phone. Damon had gone to get him a blanket, and happened to glance at Kai’s phone screen. The contact name he’d set for Damon was: “AAA Bug Obsessed Freak.”

…Needless to say, Damon had immediately decided against giving Kai the blanket. That explained why Kai had caught a slight cold the next day. But once Kai found out the reason, he couldn’t really complain—he’d quietly changed the contact name back.

Damon: [Image]

Kai: ?

Kai: What’s up?

Damon: Aren’t you worried? This is basically stalker behavior, isn’t it?

Kai: It’s fine.

: Look closely—all the photos here have my new black hair roots edited to look pink.

: So none of these are secret candid shots taken in real life.

Was that supposed to be something to brag about?! And why didn’t Kai just dye his hair properly?! Damon realized talking to this guy with normal logic was a waste of time—he’d only end up frustrating himself.

Right then, though, he came across a strange submission.

It had no extra tags strongly related to Kai—only tags for the birthday month event, plus mentions of both Kai and Damon’s accounts in the text.

Wait, his account?

No one had figured out yet that Damon was the “friend” Kai talked about online. Most people assumed Kai had followed Damon by accident and then forgotten to unfollow him (since Damon barely posted). So this unexpected mention caught Damon off guard. Without hesitation, he clicked on the post.

Besides tagging him and Kai, there was no other text—only a few photos, which looked like they’d been taken in real life. The first photo showed a rural area with a large mountain in the background. Since winter was approaching, the trees on the mountain were a mix of green and yellow, creating a beautiful scene. In the foreground were several buildings—wooden houses, the kind you’d see in Nordic countries. But they all had one thing in common: they were in ruins, with traces of fire damage.

The second photo seemed to have been taken inside one of the buildings. On the floor were red stains—and Damon couldn’t help but jump to the worst conclusion—and a few bones.

The third photo focused on a set of stairs leading downward. The stairs were pitch-black, with nothing visible at the bottom—as if they descended into an endless void.

The fourth photo had a completely black background. In red text, someone had edited a few lines:

I’ve found it.
I will judge the heretics.
I will become the Lord’s true pet.

In the next instant, Damon’s phone went black. It was like a virus had invaded it, forcing it to restart. Damon waited anxiously for it to turn back on, then tried to pull up the post again—but no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find it. Clicking on his browsing history only brought up a 404 error.

Just then, the dorm door opened. Kai looked like he’d rushed back halfway through his training session. Damon was certain Kai had seen that post too.

“What do we do?” Damon watched as Kai walked into his room, pulled open a drawer, and started rummaging through it. “Where is that place?”

“It’s a bit far—about a three-hour drive,” Kai replied, his voice completely free of his usual joking tone. “We need to move fast. They might try to take control of everyone in that area.”

Damon nodded, then turned to pack his own things. He didn’t understand why Kai was being so serious. From what Kai had told him, all the people involved in that batch of sacrificial rituals had died—only Kai had survived. So there shouldn’t have been any reason for a threat like this. And more importantly, that word: “pet.” Was Kai the Goat’s pet? Was that why he’d survived?

Damon didn’t want to dwell on it. As the weather grew colder, he found it harder and harder to sleep—he kept waking up shivering in the middle of the night. Kai had said he’d checked on Damon a few times at night and said it was nothing serious, just Eden’s terrible air conditioning. But Damon didn’t believe that. Kai was definitely hiding something from him.

He hoped this mission would give him some clues. He slipped the knife into his pocket, then patted the corn snake sunning itself on its stand.

Knock, knock, knock. There was a knock at the door. Damon opened it to find Tozu standing outside. Mara must have reported the situation to him, Damon figured.

“Sigh…” Tozu let out a breath. “Just when one crisis ends, another begins, huh, my fellow students? Don’t worry about the school—it’ll stay safe. And don’t try to confront it head-on.”

“Got it,” Damon nodded, straightening his clothes as he waited for Kai to come out. A moment later, Kai emerged, holding a tattered notebook—apparently, he’d been searching for it earlier.

“This is the diary I kept when I was locked up there,” Kai explained before Damon could ask. “There are some places I want to investigate again.”

“Why didn’t you go earlier, when you had free time?” Damon asked.

“…The Goat was watching me. Do you really think I dared to?” Kai sighed. “As soon as I saw that message, it ran off.”

Tozu frowned. “It ran away?”

“Yep, in a real hurry,” Kai said as the three of them walked down the hallway, scrolling through his phone to check the route. “Probably scared the cultists would mess things up and cause bigger problems.”

“…” Tozu said nothing, but pulled out his phone and made a call. From Damon’s angle, he could see that Tozu was dialing Wolfgang’s number.

“Notify all members of Project Eden. Start coordinating schedules immediately. Keep an eye on all the red-marked locations—if you spot any rabbit or human corpses, report it right away.”

Wolfgang’s voice came through faintly, replying with a “got it.” Damon’s brows furrowed, and he bit his lower lip, feeling uneasy. Another big operation was starting… When would these days of constant tension finally end?

They loaded their suitcases into the taxi’s trunk, then climbed into the car. As soon as they settled in, Damon felt a sudden headache coming on. He was used to this by now—headaches only meant they were getting closer to the Goat.

“…If you can’t hold on, tell me,” Kai said, tearing his gaze away from the window to glance at Damon. “Don’t let your guard down right now.”

“I’m not that weak.” Damon gritted his teeth. His eyes had already turned blood-red. The city lights had long since disappeared from view, and the trees on either side of the road grew increasingly tangled—like they were driving into a primeval forest.

When they reached their destination, they left their luggage at a cheap inn, then headed straight for the village without wasting any time. By then, Damon’s headache was so intense he wanted to slam his head against a concrete wall—only for Kai to pull him back. They walked along the path, rounded a trail through the forest, and finally saw the village.

“It’s exactly like I remembered…” Kai looked around, tore a page out of his notebook, crumpled it into a ball, lit it with a lighter from his pocket, and tossed it into one of the houses.

As soon as the flame landed inside, a sharp, crackling sound erupted—then silence fell again.

“What are you doing?” Damon asked, watching as Kai waited for the sound to fade completely before stepping into the house.

“Making sure nothing’s waiting for us inside,” Kai replied, emerging from the house with several charred black robes, a few buckets of red paint, and a key card. “We need to go to the underground library here. There might be information there—I remember it was completely sealed off, so the fire couldn’t reach it.”

“Living here for those two months was like being in prison,” he added, lighting another paper ball and tossing it into an empty house. This time, though, instead of the crackle of burning air, there was the smell and sound of something being scorched alive.

“Gurgle…”

Damon’s stomach rumbled again. This hunger had been getting worse as winter approached. And it wasn’t the usual “I’ll eat anything” hunger—it was a craving for something specific. Meat, for example.

“Ugh…”

The throbbing in his head mixed with the discomfort in his stomach. Damon closed his eyes, squatted down, and hugged his head.

A voice kept echoing in his mind, speaking in a language he couldn’t understand:

潣汬灡敳볯�

潤渠瑯爠獥獩�

捡散瑰椠⹴牴湡晳牯瑩�

Just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, he felt something burst out from his skin—and then everything went quiet.

“…” Kai hadn’t missed a thing. He stared at the two large goat horns that had erupted from Damon’s forehead, unsure what to say. Finally, he sighed and held out a hand to Damon. “Can you stand up?”

“Damn it…” Damon grabbed Kai’s hand and pulled himself up. “Since when did this start? Why didn’t you tell me?” He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a small puddle nearby and saw the horns on his head.

“I don’t know,” Kai glanced back at him, then went back to tossing paper balls. “At least we’re still safe for now… But I can’t promise what’ll happen if this transformation progresses any further…”

Damon felt a wave of nausea. Was there a more painful way to die than watching yourself spiral toward destruction, powerless to stop it? He stared at the enormous, hallucination-like horns on his head, then dug his nails into his arm—anything to keep himself somewhat lucid.

They stopped in front of a wooden house. Kai took a deep breath, glanced down at his notebook, then hesitated before speaking. “This… this is where they locked me up.”

“We got time outside for exercise,” he added. “A few of the people they’d captured were pretty educated. During those breaks, they’d teach us some basic knowledge—hoping we’d be able to escape… I was the only one who made it out alive. But sometimes I wonder—if they knew the demons are still doing this kind of thing even after I escaped… would they think teaching me that stuff was a waste?”

“…I think that’s for you to decide,” Damon replied after a moment of silence. “But I doubt they’d regret it. There are always people who do things because of that little bit of heroism in their hearts.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

They pushed the door open. Inside was a simple, unadorned room—and an elevator leading down to the basement. The control buttons next to the elevator had text Damon couldn’t read. Kai stepped forward, muttered something under his breath, then pressed one of the buttons.

“Kaka…” Something mechanical began moving upward, accompanied by a low grinding sound. After a moment, the elevator doors slid open, releasing a wave of damp basement air mixed with the stench of a sewer.

“Sorry—there’s a bathroom down there too…” Kai wrinkled his nose. “Ugh, why didn’t I notice how bad this smelled back then?”

The two stepped inside. Kai pressed a few more buttons on the elevator panel, and the elevator began descending.

“Oh, right,” Kai suddenly remembered something and turned to Damon. “Heads up—you might feel a little weightless in a sec—”

Before he could finish, there was a sharp “click” as the cable above disconnected from the elevator car. The elevator plummeted downward. Damon, who’d just braced himself mentally, clung desperately to the wall to keep from being thrown around. He yelled at Kai—who’d somehow tied himself to the handrail with a rope at some point—“Why didn’t you warn me earlier?!”

“…Oops.”

Screw this.

The good news was the elevator didn’t fall that fast. After about a minute, they landed with a soft thud at their destination. The doors slid open slowly, revealing a bizarre, otherworldly scene to Damon: a long corridor with moss-covered stone walls and puddles of water on the floor. To the left were individual iron cages. There were no torches to light the way, but Damon knew—those cages must have been stained with large pools of blood.

“Ha—” Kai exhaled, his breath turning into a cloud of mist in the cold, damp air of the underground before fading away. He ran his hand along the wall, brushing off a layer of dust.

“Can’t believe I’m back here… This is hell.”

He walked forward. Damon’s gaze fell on the spot where Kai had wiped away the dust—and saw a metal plate underneath, with two lines of text:

慰慲楤敳
Paradise

Around the corner, the squelching sound of a viscous creature’s footsteps echoed through the corridor.

Notes:

All the garbled characters in the text are converted from UTF-16 encoding and can be deciphered. (づ′▽`)づ

Bad news: I had a bad cold while writing this chapter. My ability to keep the logic coherent has hit rock bottom… Please forgive me. The main plot will get better later (really, it will!).

Chapter 11: ヽ(￣д￣;)ノ=3=3=3

The squelching sound made both of them pause in their tracks. Kai’s expression clearly darkened in an instant. “It’s a Guard…”

“Didn’t you say everyone was dead?” Damon frowned in confusion.

Kai blinked and glanced toward the corner. “If you still count those Guards as ‘people’… then yeah, some of them are still barely alive.”

“They’re probably test subjects made in advance by the Modification Faction for the Goat’s descent, and then taken here to be used,” Kai picked up an iron rod that had fallen from somewhere on the ground. “We can lure them away with some noise.”

He slowed his steps, inching along the wall. When he got close to the corner, he threw the rod in his hand. The rod hit the wall, bounced back, and landed not far away. Damon followed closely behind, and now he got a clear look at the creature.

It looked somewhat human, but its limbs had mutated into fin - like structures. It had no hair on its head, which was about one and a half times the size of its body. It seemed to have been drawn to the rod, but just as Damon took another step forward, he suddenly froze and turned his head to look back.

Damon was shocked by its face. It was a human face, but it looked like a baby’s, all twisted out of shape—a stark contrast to its adult - sized body. It seemed to be staring intently at Damon, with no intention of attacking. But the moment it saw Kai standing beside him, it immediately arched its back, let out a snarl, and charged at Kai.

“Run!”

Kai shouted and took off down the corridor. Damon froze for a split second, but quickly reacted and ran after him. The Guard moved like some kind of reptile, scurrying along on all fours at top speed. At the same time, it let out a hoarse, shrill howl that made both of them cover their ears.

Right after that howl, the sound of more Guards approaching echoed from all around. Some crawled down from the ceiling, others slithered out of the nearby sewers. The two of them were trapped in the middle of a crossroads in the cell block, with no way forward or back.

“獅慣数⁤牣浩湩污！獅慣数⁤牣浩湩污！”
“瑓灯攠捳灡湩！瑓灯！瑓灯！”

The creatures roared in a language Damon couldn’t understand. He clenched his teeth, pulled out the knife from his pocket, and prepared to fight his way out—when Kai, who had been muttering to himself beside him, caught his attention.

“灯… top… Ugh, no, that’s not right. They must be calling me… after all, they recognize my face…” Kai mumbled to himself. Finally, he took a deep breath and raised both hands above his head. “Okay, ⁉慨敶渠湩整獮潩… How does it go again? Dammit, why can’t I remember right now… ⁉慨敶渠湩整獮潩景爠獥獩楴杮, right, ⁉慨敶渠湩整獮潩景爠獥獩楴杮!”

What on earth is he rambling about… Damon stared in confusion as Kai spoke in some strange language to communicate with the Guards. Even more surprisingly, the Guards looked at each other and eventually stepped back. Only the first Guard that had found them stayed in place, seemingly keeping an eye on them.

“Phew… Good thing I didn’t waste my time learning this language back then…” Kai let out a long sigh of relief, then whispered to Damon. “What I just said means ‘I have no intention of resisting’—that’s the phrase we used the most back then…”

He glanced back at the Guard. “They’ve been down here so long they’ve lost all sense of time, and no one’s told them otherwise. I took a gamble that they wouldn’t know if it’s ‘free time’ right now… Lucky it paid off, otherwise we would’ve had to fight our way out…”

“Aren’t we gonna kill that one too?” Damon asked, pointing at the remaining Guard. “It can’t keep following us like this, can it?”

“…Better not for now,” Kai shook his head. “Guards have a unique way of identifying each other. If one dies, it’ll be noticed right away. And there’s something I need to ask it.”

Damon watched as Kai straightened out his clothes, which had gotten messy from running. Then, he walked up to the Guard, looking a little nervous. He cleared his throat and asked the Guard, who seemed confused: “Uh, excuse me, 桗牥�, 獩琠敨,” he made a rectangular shape with his fingers, “楬牢牡�?”

The Guard seemed to narrow its eyes as it studied Kai. Fortunately, after years of working as an influencer, Kai was good at controlling his facial expressions. He didn’t make any big movements, just stared at the Guard harmlessly. After a moment, the Guard turned around, seemingly ready to lead the way.

“Yes!” Kai whispered in excitement, ran over, and tugged at Damon’s sleeve twice. “Follow it—it’s taking us to the library.”

“Since when are you a language genius?” Damon couldn’t help but tease. “Then why do you stutter when you try to speak Japanese?” He was referring to the time they’d all watched an animated movie together, and Kai had tried to mimic the male lead’s attack line, but had stumbled over his words and couldn’t get it right.

“Th—that’s because I don’t have to learn Japanese…” Kai looked away. “If we didn’t learn this language, we’d be nailed to a cross and have our hearts eaten by Scavengers… Oh, Scavengers are another kind of monster that was down here, but they’re probably all dead now—they need to eat, after all.”

“…” For some reason, Damon’s heart ached as if he could feel that pain.

The two of them and the unknown creature walked through the intricate underground space together. They seemed to pass by a place that looked like a cafeteria. Kai said, “If you didn’t show up on time for meals, you’d be turned into food.” Damon frowned and asked, “Did you… eat that?”

“What else was I supposed to do?” Kai rolled his eyes. “I had to force myself to eat even that kind of meat. If I didn’t, I’d be the one on the menu.”

“…Right,” Damon glanced at the rows of stone tables and chairs, his mood heavy. Two months—Kai had lived down here for two months. What kind of hell had he been through?

As they walked, they stopped in front of a huge wooden door. The wood had been scorched by fire and eroded by moisture over the years, revealing a hollow interior. The Guard knocked on the door, waited for a long time with no response, then turned to look at them.

“慐獳湩⁧慣摲？”

Kai let out a confused “hmm,” then pulled out the access card he’d found earlier and showed it to the Guard. When the Guard saw it, it nodded, climbed up the wall, and crawled onto the ceiling, its eyes fixed on them.

Kai tried to push the door open, but no matter how hard he pushed, it didn’t move an inch. He got a little angry and kicked it. Maybe his recent physical training had paid off, because the kick left a big hole in the door.

He fell silent. Glancing left and right and seeing that the Guard didn’t care, he gave Damon an awkward smile. “Guess… the training’s working, huh?”

“…” Damon was left speechless. It was rare to see someone this foolish—Kai was barely even human anymore.

Kai decided to go all out. He kicked the door again, and this time, it was completely destroyed. Anyway, that was that—they’d made it into the library.

Inside was a long corridor, and the sound of dripping water echoed through the air. Kai was about to walk forward when Damon grabbed him by the shoulder. “Are you an idiot? Look at your feet.”

“Huh?” Kai looked down as he was told. The floor, which should have been concrete, glinted in the light, and there were ripples of water reflecting off its surface. This kind of environment would breed all sorts of dangerous viruses, and it was definitely not safe to walk in. But maybe the path had collapsed, which was why the library had survived the fire.

Looking at the scene, Damon sighed. “Is there another entrance? Let’s take a different route.”

“Uh, I’m not sure about that,” Kai scratched his head, clearly realizing the floor was unsafe. “…Let’s go back to the cafeteria first. I’ll check the map.”

The two of them walked back out, under the Guard’s watchful gaze, and returned to the cafeteria. Kai pulled Damon over to a table in the corner and sat down. He spoke with a hint of nostalgia, “This was my usual spot… The corner’s quiet. Good for thinking.”

“How old were you when you could stay this calm in a situation like this?” Damon frowned.

“Uh, maybe thirteen? I got into social media early, so I grew up fast,” Kai pulled out his notebook and took out a folded piece of paper from inside. “I was captured when I came here to visit during summer vacation. My parents thought I was dead—when I finally got home, I saw my own memorial photo. Look, we’re here, this is the library, and the route we tried to take earlier is the only official way to get there.”

“The unofficial route goes down one more floor, to where the cultists lived,” he pointed to a room at the far edge of the complex map. “We have the access card, right? As long as there’s still power here, we can go down. If there’s no power, it’s fine—there are stairs.”

“But if we go down, we’ll probably have to fight the Guards…” he clicked his tongue. “We should disguise ourselves. I don’t want to fight those things—let’s just say I have trauma from it.”

When Damon saw how the Guards crawled like snakes, he roughly understood why Kai was so afraid of snakes. He watched as Kai pulled out the robe he’d found earlier and some red paint (which he’d put in a sealed plastic bag) from his backpack. He put on the black robe first, then pulled up the hood—now he looked no different from the cultist they’d met on Halloween.

“There’s still a difference, though,” Kai flipped through his notebook and showed Damon a symbol. It was a rune Damon couldn’t understand, so Kai explained, “This is a chant. We need to draw this on our faces to get the Goat’s protection. Can you draw it for me? Use this.” He pointed to the red paint.

“…Are you sure this is safe?” Damon looked at the small bag of paint, uncertain. “And doesn’t it bother you to be watched by the Goat?”

“It’s fine. I’ve been watched all the time and I haven’t gone crazy yet,” Kai let out a laugh. “You don’t have to do it. With those goat horns of yours, they’ll probably all think you’re one of them—maybe even their superior. Lucky you. I heard people who tried to escape complain about how hard this stuff is to wash off.”

“Don’t be jealous of that,” Damon dipped his finger into the paint. It felt more like pigment than paint. Cinnabar? But he’d never seen cinnabar this fake - looking red before. He held the notebook in his left hand and roughly measured the position with his right. “Look up.”

“Okay,” Kai rolled his eyes upward and waited for Damon to draw on his face. The entire underground facility was eerily quiet— the only sounds were the rustle of fabric as Damon moved, the drip of water, and the Guard’s breathing.

“Won’t it realize what we’re doing?” Damon couldn’t help but ask. “Is its intelligence really that low?”

“Yes. Its only functions are basically monitoring us, catching us, and leading us around—nothing else,” Kai blinked twice. “Also, can you step back a little when you talk? You’re making me itchy like this.”

“…I’m already doing you a favor by drawing this for you. Be grateful,” Damon rolled his eyes. “There’s still half left—deal with it.”

Kai sniffled, whimpered a little, then fell silent again. The position was awkward—all he could see was Damon’s face, which was so close. Where was he supposed to look? And Damon’s face was really good - looking, even with the goat horns. He looked like a highly detailed NPC from a game— the kind that would try to recruit you into an evil organization.

In short, the whole thing was torture. When Damon announced he was done, Kai felt like he’d just walked out of an execution ground. He checked his reflection on his phone to make sure he hadn’t messed up any important parts, then pulled his hood lower and packed his things. “Okay, this way.”

How could Damon not have noticed Kai’s wandering gaze the whole time? But when he was drawing the rune, he’d also clearly felt how soft Kai’s cheeks were. How did Kai still have baby fat even after all that training? It was so unfair! He’d been thinking those thoughts while “painting” Kai’s face. God knew how jealous he was of people with such baby faces.

Just as Kai had said, the two of them weren’t stopped at all along the way. The Guards really seemed to think Kai was one of the cultists and didn’t even glance at him. As for Damon, the creatures even stepped aside to let him pass occasionally. But when they stepped over a few Guards that were sleeping on the ground, Kai’s face turned pale.

“Ugh… I can’t take it anymore. I really can’t stand that slippery feeling…” He knelt in a corner and threw up while complaining. “I still remember when I first got here, they carried me around to show me the way… Ugh… I can’t, really can’t…”

“I can roughly understand,” Damon felt a little queasy too. Even through his pants, he could feel their smooth, cold skin. But unlike the dry snakes he was used to, the Guards’ bodies were slimy, and he could feel something squirming under their thin skin—even accompanied by the faint throb of a heartbeat. He’d be afraid of snakes too if he had to live with these things every day.

He waited patiently for Kai to finish throwing up, then continued walking deeper into the facility according to the map. The further they went, the fewer prison cells for living there were. Instead, they passed rooms filled with torture devices, and large pools of blood on the floor—no need to say more, these were definitely punishment rooms. Damon couldn’t help but ask, “Were you ever locked in here?”

“Dude, if you get locked in here, you either come out dead or disabled. Do you want me to die?” Kai stared at him in shock. “But there was one time I stole some food because I was starving, and they said they’d lock me in here as punishment. But then something bigger happened, so it got dropped. I think someone got pregnant with a cultist…”

“…Wow,” Damon hadn’t expected that kind of ending. But if Kai had really been locked in there, he probably wouldn’t be alive now. In a way, Damon was actually grateful to that unknown pregnant woman.

“Oh, and the one who was pregnant was a guy.”

“…Huh?”

Never mind, scratch that gratitude.

After leaving the punishment room area, they reached the last room they needed to pass through before getting to the cultists’ living quarters—the barn. As soon as they opened the door, the stench of sheep hit them, making both of them gag. Kai turned on his phone’s rear camera and saw that some of the sheep had starved to death, while others had been burned. Bodies were everywhere. Among the sheep corpses, there were also a few bird - like creatures—but they had human heads, and looked just as hideous as the Guards… These must be the Scavengers Kai had mentioned earlier.

“Something’s not right,” Kai frowned. He walked into the barn first and approached one of the pens to check. “Why do these bodies look so fresh?”

“…You’re right,” Damon also walked over to another pen, bent down, and turned over a sheep corpse. “According to what you said, these should’ve been nothing but bones by now.”

The two of them stopped what they were doing and turned to look at each other. Kai’s eyes were filled with shock and fear, while Damon’s expression was heavy.

“Did those people come back?!” “Some other cultists are trying to restart this place.”

They spoke at the same time, but meant the same thing. Kai muttered a few curses under his breath, then set down the sheep corpse. “Dammit! Now we know where that post came from! Those people just want to lure us here to get rid of us!”

“Calm down first,” Damon stood up and patted the dust off his hands. “Is there a surveillance system here?”

“…No. The Guards are their surveillance system. Why do you ask?”

“Then we’re good,” Damon pointed at Kai. “First, they probably didn’t expect your fighting skills to be this good now. Second,” he pointed at himself, “I bet they think the more infected I am, the less rational I’ll be. They probably didn’t expect that when I’m heavily infected, I’m still clear - headed—and those monsters don’t even hostile me. If someone really came back, we’ll just kill them again. That’s what I think.”

“…Yeah. You’re right, Damon,” Kai took a deep breath and then glanced at the corpses again. “They don’t know us, but I know them better than anyone else.”

“Let’s go,” he pointed to the elevator at the end of the barn. “I don’t have a map for the path after we go down, but I roughly know where the library is—”

In fact, when they were resting in the cafeteria, Kai had told Damon why they were going to the library.

“I remember the library has a restricted section,” Kai flipped through his notebook and said. “The books we were allowed to read were all about praising the Goat, teaching us the language, or brainwashing stuff. The restricted books are for the cultists—they’re about sacrifice rituals and all kinds of cutting - edge scientific research…”

“Then why are we going there?” Damon asked in confusion. “We came here to investigate why that post was posted and if any ordinary people got involved. Don’t tell me you hid a time capsule there or something—”

“What do you take me for?!” Kai rapped his knuckles on the table twice. “I wouldn’t do something like that. And to answer your question—remember how I said I’ve always wanted to come back and explore more? Well, I was talking about the restricted section.”

“There’s a book there that’s directly related to the evil god. It has stuff like vessel summoning methods in it,” he looked meaningfully at Damon’s goat horns. “A curious uncle who used to eavesdrop told me about it. He said only the cult’s high - ranking members could see that book, because it not only records how to make vessels, but also how to undo them.”

“…So you want to find that book to help me reverse the modification?” Damon summed it up. When he saw Kai nod, he was at a loss for words. Finally, all he could say was, “…Thanks.”

“Why are you thanking me? Seriously, I’m doing this for myself too,” Kai scratched his cheek. From Damon’s perspective, he could see Kai’s face turn a little pink with shyness, and his eyes darted away. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you say ‘thank you’… So you can talk nicely when you want to?!”

Damon kicked Kai under the table. “If you keep this up, I’m leaving.”

“Hey, no! I’d probably drop dead right here without you,” Kai quickly said. “Yeah, anyway, that’s the plan. Actually, the main reason I wanted to come here was to check out the restricted section, haha…”

Pulling himself back to the present, Damon nodded and followed Kai into the elevator. He swiped the access card and waited as the elevator slowly descended.

When they arrived and the elevator doors opened, the sight in front of them left both of them speechless.

There were fresh corpses everywhere—they didn’t look like they’d been dead long, and all of them were headless. In the hand of one corpse that looked like a girl’s, there was a phone with a case featuring one of Kai’s most popular photos. Damon could clearly feel the person beside him sink into a low mood. He fell silent for a moment, then stepped out of the elevator first.

He probably needed a minute to process this.

As Damon walked forward alone, he suddenly heard the clink of chains—jingling and clanging, as if coming from a distant corridor. He was about to go check it out when a hand suddenly reached from behind, grabbed the back of his collar, and pressed him against the wall. His mouth was covered too.

“Mmm!”

Kai’s expression was grim. He held Damon tightly against the wall and focused intently on the sound of the chains. Damon tried to break free, but realized that Kai’s strength had gradually started to surpass his at some point—at least in this moment, he couldn’t get away. Desperate to be free, he acted on impulse and bit Kai’s hand.

“ hiss! …Easy, that hurts!” Kai whispered in complaint. Seeing Damon’s “what the hell are you doing” expression, he had no choice but to explain, “That chain sound belongs to the executive who runs the prisons… He came here for inspections before. I’d never forget the sound of his footsteps—this is definitely him.”

“Sorry, man, but you can’t let him see you,” He adjusted his position slightly to make Damon more comfortable, and at the same time removed his hand from Damon’s mouth. “…Who knows what he’d do to you.”

“…That still doesn’t mean you have to do it so suddenly!” Damon’s chest burned with anger. He whispered, “I thought it was an ambush…”

“Clang!”

Both of them tensed up instantly. The sound was getting closer, and with it came the sound of footsteps running from all directions. They’d already concluded that someone had settled here again, so that wasn’t a big problem—but the fact that the executive was here… Judging by Kai’s reaction, Damon guessed the executive was probably like the manager on his side—a culprit behind all the tragedy.

“Clang! Clang!”

The sound drew nearer, and at the same time, there were people murmuring all around, speaking in a language Damon couldn’t understand… Kai’s expression was unreadable, as if he was struggling with something. Just as the clink of chains echoed from about three hallways away, he suddenly pushed Damon into a utility closet nearby and locked the door from the outside.

“Hey! Kai! What are you doing, you idiot!”

“Sorry,” Kai’s voice came muffled through the door. “I can’t let him see you. Wait here—I’ll handle this.”

“Are you stupid?!” Damon was truly angry this time. “Don’t you know you’re bad at close - range combat?! I’m not gonna suddenly lose control or anything—stop being an idiot and going alone!”

“Hey, that’s harsh. My combat skills have improved, okay?” Kai let out a forced laugh, then took a deep breath—as if saying a final goodbye to someone. “Damon, wait for me. I’ll be fine.”

Then came the sound of footsteps fading away. Damon stood there in a daze, holding a piece of paper Kai had stuffed into his hand when he pushed him into the closet. It had a simple word translation list on it, along with a key.

“…If you were gonna give me the key, why lock the door in the first place…” He didn’t know what to say, so he just sighed. He inserted the key into the lock and tried it—it fit perfectly. Kai had probably guessed he wouldn’t just sit around and do nothing, that he’d sneak out to check on him, so he’d given him the key in advance.

The thought of Kai facing that executive alone made his heart race with anxiety. He guessed Kai had wanted him to go straight to the library to get the book, but for some reason, Damon suddenly thought of how Kai had run to find him at the zoo without a second thought. He gritted his teeth, waited for ten minutes, then threw open the door and ran in the direction Kai’s footsteps had gone.

Please don’t do anything stupid… he thought to himself. Don’t make me face your thousands of fans alone to explain what happened to you…

 

———

 

“ Why are they going on another emergency mission again?” Diana asked, looking at the message Tozu had sent in the group chat. “Have you heard anything about it?”

“No,” Eva turned the page of her math textbook. “They’ve been running around because of that evil god stuff lately.”

Diana pressed her lips together. “I know, but something feels off. Eden’s supposed to be a long - term project, and no one told us Damon and Kai are key members of the mission… It feels like we were just called here and then left hanging.”

“…” Eva fell silent too. She’d noticed the same thing, but she didn’t want to ask Tozu. Who knew what kind of answer he’d give?

Just as the atmosphere turned quiet again, the dorm doorbell rang. Diana slipped on her slippers and went to answer it. Standing outside was Eloise “Swan,” another frontline assassin in their organization, famous for her swordsmanship.

“Eva, Diana, Tozu’s looking for you two,” Eloise’s voice was gentle but firm. That was probably why everyone liked listening to her—she gave people confidence and strength.

“Huh?” Diana was shocked. “What does he want us for now? Did something happen to Kai and Damon?”

“No,” Eloise shook her head. “It’s about your new mission assignment. It has to do with investigating that popular AI technology company recently. There are rumors they’re using humans to modify androids. For some reason, this fell into Tozu’s hands, and he wants to send you two to check it out…”

Before Diana could respond, there was a “clatter” from inside the dorm. She turned around and saw that the pen Eva had been using to work on formulas had fallen to the floor. Eva bent down to pick it up and continued writing as if nothing had happened.

But Diana could tell from her back—after hearing the news, Eva was clearly distracted by something.

Notes:

Good news, good news! The Diava storyline is finally starting too! It won’t take up too much space in the main plot, but after this story ends, there will be a long - form side story dedicated to Diana and Eva’s relationship, hehehe (*≧ω≦)

And please rest assured, there will be no angst. Trust in Kai’s strength in this story ( ）

This chapter tied up a lot of loose ends—even some that I thought I’d never be able to wrap up earlier, but I did it! I’m amazing ( ﾟ∀。)