Chapter 39: Sun and the Sokcho Black Zone: A Monster’s Truce

Free fried chicken after a late afternoon, watching the sky grow darker.

Lying on the living room carpet, helping Sion with her summer homework on the first day in Sokcho.

Maybe it was the thought of going straight to the beach tomorrow?

She’s more obediently doing her homework than usual.

She rarely asks the same thing twice when I explain, so I wonder if Sion is actually pretty smart.

The last math problem for today.

“All done!”

“Well done!”

The moment she finished it.

I praised her enthusiastically with playful seal claps.

Sion, joining in, tried clapping too, but her hands didn’t meet properly, making little sound.

Watching her awkwardness with affection, I gathered up her scattered diary and homework and neatly packed them back into her well-organized bag.

Dinner’s done, homework’s done for the day.

Even though Sion still seemed full of energy, it was about the time she’d normally be asleep if we were at home.

I nudged her gently, guiding her toward the second floor where the bed was.

“Time to sleep now.”

“I’m not sleepy…”

Shaking her head, claiming she wasn’t sleepy, but that was surely because of the unfamiliar place and the excitement of the trip.

“If you want to go to the beach early tomorrow, you need to sleep now. You do want to go to the beach, right?”

“…”

Her soft resistance was easily overpowered by my firm tone, along with a little bait, leveraging her own desire to fall asleep.

If I left her until she really felt tired, she’d be waking up around noon, with her sleep schedule totally thrown off.

One person suffering from this was more than enough.

‘Wow, nice room.’

Except for the first time when we explored it, it was the first time I went up to the second floor.

From up here, you could see the night sea outside the window.

Clearly, they’d spent quite a bit of money on this resort—no wonder politicians come here to vacation.

Entering the room, I saw a bed spacious enough for both of us, maybe even three or four people to lie on.

This one bed probably cost more than our two bunk beds combined.

After making sure Sion was in bed, I tiptoed over and turned off the light.

“Aren’t you sleeping with me?”

Just as I was about to leave the room, I heard Sion’s voice from behind.

A little awkward, as we usually sleep in the same room, but this was a new experience.

“There’s only one bed here.”

“But it’s big….”

“It’s okay, really.”

For Sion, who wasn’t yet used to sleeping apart, I left the door half open to let some light from outside stream in and came out.

She might feel a little lonely, but I had my own task to handle.

“Marie, Marie.”

“Is it up?”

“Yes, and this time, we’re sure of the direction.”

Barely stepping out of the room, I was pulled aside by the bear.

The task at hand was directly related to the daily monster occurrence rate in Sokcho.

The distribution rate was 50% for one appearance, 34% for two, and 13% for three or more.

There was a 3% chance of no monster at all, so even seeing one a day was lucky.

This was the story of a place, often visited by monsters more than twice a day, as if it were a popular hotspot.

“Isn’t it enough that Gangwon Province has a lot of soldiers? Why do so many monsters come here too?”

“Where is it?”

“It’s in the opposite direction,” replied the bear-like companion, pointing to the other side, suggesting that this time the disturbance was not on the beach but right in the middle of the city.

“Sun.”

Stepping out onto the terrace, where no one was watching, I muttered the single word transformation spell. I had already informed the mascot at Siyeon’s place not to raise an alarm even if a monster appeared. With a short leap from the terrace, I launched myself into the night sky over Sokcho.

Under the faint starlight, my red-glowing staff shimmered like a red giant star.

“You… you… you-you-you… you-you…!”

Following the bear’s directions, I arrived downtown, where a grotesque humanoid monster stood, looking as if a whole fish had been stuck over its head. The creature, with its fishy mouth opening and closing, pointed a finger at me but couldn’t manage to speak.

It reminded me of those unpleasant fish-men designs from ocean regions in online games.

“This area should be under Venus’s jurisdiction…!”

“Yeah, yeah. You seem to know who I am at least, but how about you move that blasphemous finger first?”

“Hup.”

When I slapped the heart-shaped ornament on my staff against my palm, telling it to move its finger, the monster realized its mistake and quickly straightened up.

Sure, I get paid for this, but having to deal with this two or three times a day is a bit much. It seems like I’ve become quite famous among the monsters, so I decided to use a little trick to get some peace for two weeks.

With a final slap of the heart ornament, I opened my mouth.

“Monster friend, you have a very important choice to make.”

“W-what is it, Sun?”

“It’s directly related to your life or death… a very important matter indeed.”

At those words, the fish’s gaping mouth closed, and its gills flared. Now, it would answer carefully.

“After you die, can you go back and tell your comrades something?”

“Yes! That’s why no one wants to go to the ‘black zone’ where Sun is! They end up mentally broken and can’t return to combat!”

“Oh.”

Faced with the fear of death, the monster readily offered more information than I had even asked for. As expected from a fish-head, it spilled everything without thinking.

So, they call this place the ‘black zone’? And it seems my approach to dealing with them was spot-on.

“I promise you a painless death.”

“R-really?!”

The fish’s eyes, attached to the sides of its head, widened, as if to confirm my sincerity. Of course, it wouldn’t come for free.

“But there’s a condition.”

“W-what is it, this merciful one?! I will sell everything except information about my comrades!”

“No, no. That won’t be necessary.”

Seeing the enthusiastic creature, willing to tell me even more than I needed, I waved my hand, signaling that wasn’t required.

For two weeks, can they treat an informant who is making things easier for them so harshly? However, it seems that this group of monsters is slow in receiving information from Earth, and despite the first victim, replacements are coming in fast.

“I plan to stay here for the next two weeks.”

“Ah, yes.”

This was information that should never be told to a monster. But if the monsters disappear altogether, I’d be out of a job. I’m a selfish human who wants to do less work while still getting paid. This method of negotiating with monsters, demanding a reasonable limit, might be the first of its kind on Earth.

Principles are principles, but money is money. Principles don’t buy you chicken.

“I get less busy, you have fewer victims… It’d be nice if we could come to some agreement, don’t you think?”

“Huh? Um?”

As I lightly patted its shoulder in an oddly figurative way, it tilted its entire face, unable to comprehend. The monster—looking like a fish head—just couldn’t understand.

“So… for the next two weeks, treat this place like that ‘black zone’ you guys talk about. Got it?”

“Oh…! Understood!”

“Good, good. Now, stand over there and close your eyes tightly. It’s going to hurt to look.”

As Sun’s staff clicked and transformed into a form of incineration, the monster, Gulpi, whose face looked like a fish, tightly shut its eyes as she instructed. In an instant, flames burst out, engulfing the monster. The heat spread so quickly that the asphalt below melted into a small pond. The stench of burning fish and melting asphalt blended into a horrifying smell unlike anything of this world.

As Sun promised, without pain, Gulpi suddenly awoke in a recovery pod without any mental trauma. Seeing the combatant emerge from the recovery device, Medic Tentacle spoke to him out of curiosity.

“Oh, are you alright?”

“Be… bi…”

Like someone who had gone mad, the monster could only mutter a single, disconnected syllable. Medic Tentacle, thinking the appearance was only deceiving, tilted his head.

“BiSAAAAANG! BiSAAAAANG!”

Suddenly, Gulpi shot up from the recovery device and dashed out of the recovery room, screaming at the top of his lungs. Medic Tentacle, taken aback by the unprecedented behavior, shouted so all the other monsters in the recovery room could hear.

“Get him!!!”

“What the hell, crazy!”

In no time, Gulpi was dragged back by the other monsters in the recovery room. Just before being forcibly thrown into the intensive care unit, he relayed the message Sun had given him. For the next two weeks, the area where Gulpi had been, specifically Sokcho, was to be treated as a black zone. Gulpi had been spared from a painful death on the condition that he delivered this message.

The message, somehow, was relayed to the monster transmission office just before the next victim appeared.

“If that’s true, we have to treat that area as a black zone for a while.”

The gatekeeper, a high-ranking official in the transmission office, immediately started adjusting the map’s color scheme upon hearing the story. One of the monsters in charge of the transmission office tilted his head in confusion after hearing this.

“By the way, in human terms, how long would 2 weeks be in our time? It seems to refer to a period of time, but…”

“Hmm… Well, we do know that the number ‘2’ refers to a certain quantity in their concept.”

That was true.

The monsters still didn’t fully understand many things about humans.

One of the biggest gaps was in their concept of time.

This discrepancy was significant.

“Then, shall we set this area as the black zone for about 2 *setre* worth of time? Staying here shouldn’t feel too short, right?”

“Hmm, let’s do that.”

The Gatekeeper nodded in agreement with the idea from his subordinate monster.

Two *setre*.

In human terms, that would be about 4 months and 12 days.

In the actual passage of human time, 2 weeks would pass.

They had just decided the fate of a monster, one who would be dispatched to the region where Sun would return, essentially sentencing it to sacrifice.

Author’s note (Afterword)

My fever went up to 39 degrees… so I’m going to sleep.

Had a rough day yesterday suddenly.

See you in the next chapter!