In the late afternoon, after eating free chicken nuggets, I looked at the darkening sky.
Lying on the carpet of the living room, I was helping Shiyeon with her vacation homework on the first day in Sokcho.
Could it be because I was thinking about heading straight to the beach tomorrow?
She was working on her homework more obediently than usual.
When I teach her, she almost never asks the same question again, so I wondered if Shiyeon might actually be quite smart.
The last math problem for today.
“I’m all done!”
“Well done—”
At that moment she finished it.
Cheering her on with a round of applause, I clapped my hands together.
Although Shiyeon joined in the applause, her hands didn’t quite meet, making a small sound.
I watched her adorable clumsiness and gathered the diary and homework that were scattered around, putting them neatly in the bag that was already organized.
Dinner was done, and today’s vacation homework was finished.
Although Shiyeon still looked energetic, it was already time to sleep if we were at home.
I nudged her to head up to the second floor where the bed was.
“It’s time to sleep now.”
“I’m not sleepy….”
Even though she shook her head, claiming she wasn’t sleepy, it was clearly due to the excitement of a new place and the trip.
“If we want to go to the beach early tomorrow, we need to sleep now. Don’t you want to go to the beach?”
“Yeah….”
I laid the groundwork to force her to sleep, linking her passive protests with an adult’s authoritative tone and what she herself wanted.
If I left her to actually get sleepy, it was inevitable that her sleep cycle would break, waking up well past noon.
This suffering was more than enough for one person.
“Wow, this room is nice.”
The second floor was the first place I had gone up to after the initial exploration.
From the second floor, I could see the night sea outside the window.
As expected from a place where politicians visit, it seemed they had poured a lot of money into the resort facilities.
Entering the second-floor room, I saw a bed spacious enough for both of us, or even three or four people to lie down.
With a size like this, that one bed must be more expensive than our combined bunk beds, right?
After confirming that Shiyeon had gotten into the bed, I stood on my tiptoes and turned off the light.
“Aren’t you going to sleep with me?”
Just as I was about to open the door and leave, Shiyeon’s voice came from behind.
Given that we had to sleep in separate rooms unlike usual, it might be a bit awkward, but it was also an experience.
“There’s only one bed here.”
“It’s spacious….”
“It’s okay, it’s okay.”
For Shiyeon, who wasn’t used to sleeping far away from me yet, I left the door half open to let some light from outside in.
She might feel lonely on her own, but I had my own things to do.
“Mary, Mary.”
“Are you there?”
“Yes, this time the direction is clear.”
As soon as I stepped out of the room, Gomtaengi tugged at my side.
What needed to be done was connected to the daily monster appearance rate in Sokcho.
The distribution rate of daily monster appearances was 50% for one occurrence, 34% for two, and 13% for three or more.
A 0% appearance rate was 3%, so it was fortunate if a monster showed up once a day.
It was said that monsters would casually show up more than twice a day in a so-called hot place.
I wondered why there had to be so many monsters around, as if having just a lot of soldiers in Gangwon Province was not enough.
“Where is it?”
“The opposite direction over there.”
This time it seemed like it was in the middle of downtown, not by the beach, as Gomtaengi pointed towards the terrace behind.
“Sun.”
After stepping out to the terrace where no one was watching, I muttered a phrase of transformation.
I had already warned Shiyeon’s mascot not to alert her if a monster showed up.
With a small jump on the terrace, I launched myself into the night sky of Sokcho.
The night sky twinkled with faint starlight, while my glowing cane shone like a red giant star.
“You, you, you-you-you, you!”
Guided by Gomtaengi, I arrived in downtown.
There stood a grotesque humanoid monster that looked like it had a fish completely flipped upside down on its head.
The creature, with its fishy mouth flapping, pointed a finger at me, unable to utter a sound.
There had been such an unpleasantly designed merfolk in an online game’s ocean area as well.
“This… this place was definitely Venus’s territory!”
“Yeah, yeah, you seem to know who it is… so remove that disrespectful finger.”
“Ugh.”
As I commanded it to put its finger down while slapping the heart decoration on my hot cane, the monster quickly corrected its posture upon realizing its rudeness.
It was apparent that it was being paid for the work, but it would be troublesome if it showed up two or three times a day.
It seemed to have become somewhat famous among monsters, so I decided to use a loophole to make things easier for the next two weeks.
At the moment I slapped the last heart decoration onto my palm, I spoke up.
“Monster friend, you have a very important choice to make.”
“Wh-what is it, Sun?”
“It’s about something very critical tied directly to your life….”
Upon hearing that, the creature’s mouth snapped shut, and its gills began to flutter.
From now on, the monster would respond carefully.
“You can return after dying and let your companions know something, right?”
“Yes! So, the ‘Black Zone’ where you are, no one wants to go there! Because they become mentally unstable and can’t return as combatants!”
“Oh.”
In the face of the fear of death, this monster friend seemed willing to impart a dozen secrets for each question asked.
As expected from a fish head, it spoke freely and thoughtlessly.
By the way, it seemed the place where we lived was called the ‘Black Zone’.
And it turned out that the method to eliminate torture was indeed correct.
“I promise you a comfortable death.”
“Are, are you serious!”
The eyes mounted next to the fish’s head widened as if asking whether I was serious.
Of course, it wouldn’t come for free.
“However, there’s a condition.”
“Wh-what is it, you Kyu-Pirett! I’ll sell everything except for my companion’s information!”
“No, no, that’s not necessary.”
I waved my hand, rejecting the need to know everything despite the monster’s eagerness to tell everything in return.
Could I treat the information delivery of a monster that would make things easier for us over the next two weeks harshly?
However, it seemed this group of monsters was slow to receive information from Earth, as demonstrated by how quickly replacements were being filled after the first victim.
“I plan to stay here for two weeks.”
“Oh, okay.”
Originally, this was information that should not have been shared with the monster.
However, if the monsters disappeared entirely, there would be jobless individuals; I was a selfish human wanting to receive full pay while doing less work.
This method of demanding a reasonable line from a monster might be the first in history on Earth.
Beliefs were beliefs, and money was money.
Beliefs wouldn’t feed you chicken.
“I’ll be less busy, and you’ll have fewer victims… as long as we reach an agreement, it’ll be quite convenient, right?”
“Yes, eh?”
As I metaphorically patted its shoulder, it tilted its face, not understanding the meaning.
As expected of a fish head, the monster couldn’t comprehend.
“So… treat this place as the ‘Black Zone’ you all speak of for the next two weeks, got it?”
“Ah…! Understood!”
“Alright, alright. Then step forward; it will be painful to watch, so close your eyes tight.”
As soon as I heard a clank while transforming my cane into a burning form.
The monster, Kyu-Pirett, which looked like it had a fish for a face, squeezed its eyes shut as it followed my order.
In an instant, the flames erupted, enveloping the monster.
For that brief moment, the heat that spread around caused the asphalt to pool like a small pond.
The smell of burning fish mixed with the odor of melting asphalt, creating a horrific scent that did not belong in this world.
As promised, with no pain, Kyu-Pirett opened its eyes wide in recovery with no mental trauma whatsoever.
Seeing the combatant emerging from the recovery device, Medik Tenkl found it interesting and spoke first.
“Oh, are you okay?”
“Bi… bi….”
The monster could only mutter a phrase, acting as if it had gone insane.
Medik Tenkl thought, ‘Is it only its appearance that’s okay?’ as it tilted its head.
“Bi-Saaaaan! Bi-Saaaaan!”
Kyu-Pirett jumped up from the recovery device, rushing out of the recovery room while yelling loudly.
Medik Tenkl was greatly surprised by the unprecedented behavior pattern.
It seemed clear at a glance that Kyu-Pirett needed to be put into intensive care, and it shouted to the other monsters in the recovery room so they could hear.
“Catch that thing!!!”
“What the, crazy!”
Not long after, Kyu-Pirett was caught by the recovery room monsters and dragged back.
Just before being forcibly placed into intensive care, it relayed the message it received from Sun to them.
For two weeks, the monster Kyu-Pirett would stay in the region it visited.
From the monster’s perspective, Sokcho, which was originally a green zone, should be treated as a black zone.
Not killing Kyu-Pirett painfully was something done conditionally to relay that information.
The tale reached the monster transmission room just before the next victim appeared.
“If that’s true, we need to treat that region as a black zone for the time being.”
Upon hearing that, the gatekeeper, an officer in the transmission room, immediately began to modify the map’s color.
One of the managing monsters in the transmission room tilted its head upon hearing his remark.
“However, how much time does two weeks correspond to in human pronunciation? It seems to refer to a duration….”
“Hmm… for now, I know that the pronunciation of ‘two’ corresponds to the degree of numbers in our concept.”
Indeed.
The monsters still misunderstood many aspects of humans.
Among them was the concept of time.
This gap was quite significant.
“Then, how about we set it as a ‘Setre’ for two weeks? It wouldn’t be too short either, considering that they said they would remain.”
“Um, let’s do that.”
The gatekeeper nodded at the brilliant suggestion from the subordinate monster.
Two Setre.
In human terms, this corresponded to a period of four months and twelve days.
In reality, within two weeks from the human perspective, the sacrifice of a monster to be dispatched to the region Sun would return to was essentially decided by them.
