Chapter 37: Your Gentle Despair (3)

One monster, two monsters, three monsters—

I hummed to the despairing energy emitted by the monsters that filled the hallway.

I didn’t think the despairing energy that monsters possessed would be very exciting, but seeing them all gathered together like this made me feel excited for no reason.

“Where do you think we should go?”

Grumble-

“Oh, seeing as how despair is all over this side, I guess humans will gather there?

Yeah, well… Okay.”

I wasn’t looking for humans in despair, but if I was passing through, I thought it wouldn’t be bad to get a taste of despair and go.

Okay, then let’s open the door.

Thump, thump, thump, gurgle, gurgle,

“You need help? Seriously, if I keep getting help from others, I’ll eventually not be able to do it on my own?”

The biggest problem was that I didn’t want to use my strength, but couldn’t waste my energy of despair on just breaking down a door.

As if they were convinced by my not-so-persuasive persuasion, the monsters began to pound on the door diligently.

Squeak, squeak.

The monster let out a sound as if it was pleased with itself, having broken down the door with its own strength.

Well, let’s go inside now.

It seemed like this place was a shelter or something, but with the door wide open like this, it couldn’t be called a shelter anymore.

“It’s a monster.”

“What’s that in front of us? Is it a humanoid monster? But I don’t remember making such an inefficient thing…”

“Did that guy release the test subjects?”

I opened the door with great anticipation, but inside were only humans with floating eyes.

Like mad scientists obsessed with research.

The doctor was fun to tease, but those things weren’t fun or touching.

I thought you’d all be huddled together in despair…”

No, no.

You definitely felt great despair when you came here.

I wiped the smile off my face and looked at the old men, and a strange tension appeared on their faces.

They’re hiding it.

“It’s fun, really fun.”

Grumble-

As I nodded and made a nod, the monsters huddled behind me began to enter the shelter one by one.

It felt like I was the boss of some dark organization.

As the monsters swarmed in, I looked around furtively at the humans who began to retreat.

This shelter is an illusion; the real thing is nearby…”

In a cursory manner, just the despair that I feel is so sweet, so what if I could eat that despair myself?

Wouldn’t it be the ultimate in human despair?

I giggled and turned my head toward the direction that despair was pointing at.

This is it.

Boom-boom-boom-!!!

“…”

It’s solid.

Several monsters rushed in and pounded on the wall, but there wasn’t a single scratch on it.

At this rate, I wouldn’t be able to break it even if I kept pounding until I died of old age, right?

I stared blankly at the monsters pounding on the wall and let out a deep sigh.

“There’s nothing I can do.”

I had planned not to use this.

I glanced at the researchers staring at me as I stepped forward and slowly exhaled.

Well, since I could stop trying so hard to suppress my despair, I guess I could say it was good.

Woof-

“That’s—”

“Couldn’t it be the same kind as a magical girl—”

“So the despair circuit actually exists…?”

As I slowly started to rotate the despair circuit, sighs erupted from those around me.

It was as if I had made the discovery of the century.

The researcher-like gaze was a bonus.

…Is the despair circuit that great?

In the original work, only Apocalypse had a despair circuit.

I thought I had shown him something useless, but now that I realized that it would be meaningless to see me, I slowly raised the corners of my mouth.

The pulse of life felt as the despair circuit moved.

The eyes of the researchers around me began to grow wider at the movement that made me feel alive.

Ah, ah, ahh…

“I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, uh, uh…”

At that moment, along with the final words that burst out, the humans in the place started to spurt blood from every orifice in their bodies.

I never thought it would be this bad.

The humans last time only had a mental breakdown, and they had held out for quite some time, so I thought it would end in a similar situation this time.

I was just trying to scare the humans in the secret shelter and suck out a little bit of their despair.

It was too bad.

I had wondered what the despair of humans who had aged and been through a lot of hardships would taste like, but it had suddenly become like this.

I let out a deep sigh and swung my arm, and the wall that had not moved no matter how much the monsters beat it easily collapsed.

In order not to repeat the mistake I had made before, I collapsed the wall and stopped the rotation of the despair circuit at the same time, and I felt a strong sense of exhaustion in my body.

“He, heek…”

“They’re about the same age as me..?”

“Isn’t that girl a magical girl or something? If not, there’s no way she could break down the walls of the evacuation room.”

“Of course, monsters don’t look like that.”

It was a good thing I told the monsters to retreat before I broke down the walls.

If there were monsters next to me, they would all scream and make a scene.

When I gave the monsters a look as they tried to enter the evacuation room, they all hesitated and started to disperse.

‘They’re definitely waiting nearby or secretly following me, tsk.’

I tried to shake off the monsters that were following me, but every time I said that, they pretended to leave me and secretly wandered around.

Look, they’re still huddled together in a place I thought they couldn’t see.

“Hey, are you here to save us…?”

I blinked blankly at a human who asked cautiously.

Are you here to save us?

I broke down the door, so there’s no way they’d come to save us.

But it seemed like that wasn’t what was important to the people inside.

“Now that I look at them, they’re all just kids.

They ranged from runny noses to high school students, but if there was one thing they had in common, it was that none of them looked like adults.

Could it be that they were their own children and hid them in a place like this?

“No, no. That can’t be true.

If that were the case, those people wouldn’t have been wearing clothes that felt similar to the ones I wore at the doctor’s lab.

I thought these guys had at least a modicum of humanity left.

I clicked my tongue internally as I looked at the dead people who had drained all their blood from their bodies.

“H, Hiyak?!”

“Wow, aren’t they dangerous people? They were fine until we locked them up…”

“No. They were on the verge of death when I arrived.”

I calmly replied as I watched them screaming outside the evacuation room.

It wasn’t exactly a lie.

Anyone could tell that they were old people who would die today or tomorrow.

“Thank you for saving me.”

“I was just doing what I had to do.”

I did what I had to do.

It was a monster’s job to find humans who were hiding while pouring out despair.

By the way, since I thought I came to save them, their despair was gradually decreasing.

No, it wasn’t just their despair decreasing, but their hope—ugh.

“I can’t trust him.”

“That’s right, I can’t trust him either…”

“Isn’t he a strange guy? Did the monster send him…?”

However, if there’s hope, there’s also despair.

It wasn’t deep despair, but the despair that came from the anxiety that I might not be the one who came to save them was quite delicious.

What would happen if I suddenly changed here?

The humans who had hope when they saw me might instantly fall into despair or something.

‘That might be a little gourmet… Giving and then taking away was originally the most fun.

If that was hope, it was even more so.

“No, no. Let’s not do that.

Giving and then taking away is a vicious act that only a doctor would do.”

I imagined the humans being betrayed and despairing, and laughed inside, but then I realized that was what the doctor had done to me, so I quickly changed my mind.

I can’t become the same monster as the doctor.

Oh, right.

“Follow me, everyone. I know a path without monsters.”

In fact, I was just giving the monsters a hint to get out of the way, but that alone would have been enough to fool these humans.

No, when I thought about it again, I wasn’t fooling them in the first place.

I hadn’t really lied, so I decided to be confident.

*How can we believe that? Are you trying to take us to the doctor?”

I was listening to what he was saying, and it seemed like he thought of me as a lackey of that squinty-eyed guy.

Of course, I was walking around the underground lab full of monsters, so it was understandable that he would misunderstand me like that.

Yes, yes, our little human is really suspicious.

Since the monster I was called was quite a considerate monster, I decided to say a few warm words to the little human.

“Then you stay here.”

The other person’s face turned pale at the words spoken in a soft voice.

Even though he said that, it seemed like he didn’t want to stay here any longer.