Beggars.
One day.
Routine.
Life.
“Mr. Uchan, you’ve been very quiet lately?”
“Uchan. Doesn’t working all the time get tiring?”
“Tsk. That guy has no feelings. He just does his work and disappears.”
Unfriendly gazes.
Monotonous actions.
A job like a machine.
That’s how every day goes.
The reason is simple.
400 million won in private loans.
2.1 billion won in interest.
Rock-bottom credit rating.
Without knowing anything about it, I became a debtor by signing a guarantee contract for my parents, who were gamblers, leaving behind a fortune of debts. And today, I am still being squeezed by this bitter life.
A cup of coffee is a luxury.
I’ve become the disposable item society wants me to be, yet the debt keeps piling up.
Business.
Stocks.
Ways to make money grow.
I don’t know any of that stuff. At the time when I should have learned such things, I became a worker.
I realized early on.
A future where I only work forever.
But that doesn’t mean I want to die.
It’s just that I don’t want to live like this.
I want to rest a bit.
I want to stay still.
I want to remain as I am.
…so.
It was a day when I was sulking alone.
Just like always, an utterly ordinary day, I experienced something surreal.
###
“Payphone booth?…”
While heading home after work.
There it was, literally, a payphone booth.
It was strange.
It’s 2033 now.
With the development of portable devices, street payphones have long since disappeared. Yet, one stood there before me.
This spot used to be empty.
So, it appeared suddenly today.
Did someone install it overnight?
Suddenly,
a ghost story I’d seen online came to mind.
If you answer a discontinued mysterious payphone, you’ll be kidnapped and disappear.
“…How amusing…”
Saying that, I quickened my pace.
Because it couldn’t possibly be real.
Walking past the phone booth toward my basement home—
Ding-dong-dong-dong!!!
“………”
I turned my head.
The random ringing of the telephone.
Ding-dong-dong-dong!!!!
It kept ringing as if urging me to pick it up.
…An ominous sign.
A payphone booth that suddenly appeared.
And a phone ringing right as I passed by.
No matter how you look at it, it’s a situation straight out of a ghost story.
It wasn’t a hidden camera or a movie shoot. There were no suspicious people around.
Ding-dong-dong-dong!!!
“………”
I didn’t ponder long.
Swish.
Click.
I entered the booth and picked up the phone.
It was pure arrogance.
Because it couldn’t possibly be real.
Even if it was, it wouldn’t matter.
“Who is this?”
[……Gotcha.]
A male voice.
Of course.
Was it a prank call?
“What do you mean by that?”
[Voice phishing.]
“………?”
[You’ve been kidnapped.]
Out of nowhere.
At the same moment,
Psshhhhh!!!!~
Smoke filled the phone booth. In an instant, my vision began to blur.
And then, losing consciousness and collapsing—
Swoosh!!!-
The entire phone booth vanished from the street. People walking by seemed not to notice a thing.
The ghost story became reality.
For some unknown reason, I became an experimental subject.
How many days have passed?
How many years?
Now, I can no longer tell.
It was horrifying.
Hard to describe.
When I first opened my eyes, I was on what looked like an experimental device from a futuristic movie, restrained while small robots flew around injecting various drugs into me, disassembling my body for experiments.
I screamed in agony.
I really thought I was going to die.
Strangely, I didn’t.
The robot emitted an incomprehensible light, which transformed beautifully like a magic circle before flashing and taking away both my pain and vision.
Was it science?
Or magic?
Maybe both?
Still, I don’t know.
Then, my hearing faded.
The smell of gunpowder permeated until my sense of smell disappeared.
My tactile senses seemed paralyzed by intense pain.
All five senses were taken from me.
I was scared and terrified.
I wanted to die but couldn’t.
I realized I was going insane, yet I remained lucid enough to feel despair. I had no idea what kind of experiment was being conducted. In the pitch-black fear, I sensed an indeterminate flow of time.
Time is inevitable.
Whether you live or die, eventually the next second will come.
Yet paradoxically, without my five senses, I couldn’t perceive time.
Had a minute passed?
Had ten thousand years gone by?
Ultimately, I couldn’t tell.
I briefly recalled scraps of scientific knowledge.
I must be in the fourth dimension now.
Since the time axis is distorted.
And space doesn’t exist either.
As long as my sanity holds, these absurd thoughts continue.
Out of fear,
I escaped into imagination.
I’m a successful technician.
A tycoon who succeeded in business.
A devoted father with a good partner.
A son with loving parents.
But then,
What is this?
The unbearable loneliness makes the fear fade. Anger arose, but I didn’t know who to vent it at, so I was confused.
Anyone would do.
I wish someone could comfort me.
I wish someone could reach out their hand.
…
Having no senses.
Discernment fades.
A minute feels like ten thousand years.
Ten thousand years feel like a minute.
Ultimately, I cannot tell.
I briefly recalled scraps of…
Ah,
Where did I leave off?
I’m bored.
I regret it.
Thinking I just wanted to rest quietly.
Thinking I wanted to stay still like this.
Was that bravado?
Swish~
Suddenly, one sensation awakened.
Ah.
A refreshing feeling.
The feeling of quenching thirst.
A sense of fullness spreading throughout my body began.
After such a long wait,
Change has arrived.
I applied some scraps of scientific knowledge.
I focused on the new sensation.
The more I focus, the clearer it becomes.
On the sensation itself.
Let me cherish this.
I regained three senses.
Touch.
Taste.
And hearing.
At this point, a voice reached me.
“I can’t figure it out. No matter what I give it, it perfectly absorbs everything. What changed when I started feeding it different things?”
An unfamiliar language.
Yet, I understood it perfectly.
Apparently, they’re calling me a plant.
“Alright. Let’s push this further.”
Right after hearing those words,
Paaah!~
I felt something strange.
The man injected something into me.
I’m being filled with something.
My body is changing.
I’m growing.
What happens next?
Who is the owner of that voice?
I calmly recalled the past.
I still remember the smug voice I heard at the payphone.
This is the person who made me like this. Realizing that, the desire to kill consumed my nerves one by one.
I endured it for a long time.
A new sensation emerged.
This is definitely vision, but I can see everything around me as if sensing it all.
The system for receiving light is different.
It feels like my whole body has become an eye.
I can see everything.
By this perception, I confirm that I no longer have a human form. Surprisingly, I’ve taken the shape of a plant branch about the size of a palm.
In the vast laboratory.
The floor covered with black soil.
I’m growing there.
I really am a plant.
Surprisingly, I feel little emotion. Since the moment in the phone booth, reality has felt distant. After enduring immense pain once, everything becomes numb.
“Why isn’t it growing bigger?”
Someone entered the room.
A young man with black hair wearing a lab coat.
He looked like an average handsome human.
A familiar voice. The one who stole my freedom and bestowed suffering. The enemy who killed the human me and turned me into a plant.
I want to kill him immediately.
However, I sense an overwhelming power.
This is another new sensation.
Instinctively, I understand.
Strong.
The man can easily burst a human with just a finger.
He stares at me while deep in thought.
Soon,
“This is all for naught. There’s nothing I can do.”
He sprinkled several substances on me.
An unidentified black substance.
Blood filled with powerful energy.
Unknown bone powder.
This is….
Feels good.
I absorb it all through my body.
Better than the feeling when I first regained my senses. It’s so good, I might go crazy. If I had a human body, my eyes might roll back and my mouth might twist uncontrollably.
This is a drug.
And noticeable changes begin.
“The results exceed expectations.”
The man exclaims in amazement.
One week.
That’s how long it took me to grow large enough to fill the entire room.
And I gained a new ability.
I can move.
I can promote growth in specific directions, extend and contract my branches to move, or even uproot myself.
“You wonder how far you’ll grow, don’t you?”
The man marvels at my growth rate.
An incredible evolutionary speed, he says.
Then, he takes a sample of one of my branches.
“Come to think of it, you absorbed nutrients through your branches too, didn’t you? What a fascinating plant indeed.”
I can feel part of my body being cut off, but it doesn’t hurt. My senses have all changed since becoming a plant.
Willingly, I offer part of my body.
I need to grow more.
Let him believe I’m just a plant.
Let me consume the drugs he gives for now.
Until I’m confident I can win.
Growth and control.
Now I can fully manage it.
If I weren’t confined here, I could move freely.
So, I feel regretful.
Despite absorbing abundant mana and unknown substances that might have been someone’s corpse, growing this big, I still can’t defeat him.
How much longer do I have to pretend to be just a plant?
I simply wish to go outside.
I yearn for freedom.
Naturally, no one listens.
So, I grew tired of staying still.
Swish.
I extended a branch.
There are four cameras monitoring this room. Naturally, I blocked three by pretending to grow normally, and I just now blocked the last one.
The man regularly checks on me. It will take a few more hours for him to return.
If I move now, this is my chance.
The ventilation duct in the ceiling where air circulates.
I inserted a thin branch into it.
Zzzrrrkkk~
Through the duct, a thin branch stretched long. As my volume increased, I could feel the branch weakening, but it wasn’t a major issue.
I extended thin branches into all the rooms connected by the duct to explore.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an exit.
Machines purifying the air were installed throughout the ducts, and the labs were only connected via these passages, making escape impossible.
Zzzrrrrkkk~
The branch reached the end of the duct.
The structure of the building formed in my mind.
On either side of a single corridor, there were similar labs and experimental subjects like the one I was confined in.
I could see everything through the extended branch’s perspective.
I briefly observed the other experimental subjects.
Creatures locked in each room.
Experimental subjects in situations like mine.
Some had mutated bodies.
Some lacked them.
Some had too many.
They turned into monsters.
Into plants.
Into objects.
What kind of experiments did they undergo?
It’s frightening to even guess.
Additionally, they all possessed unknown mysterious powers, but most were weaker than me and had gone mad due to experimentation.
Their focus was lost.
Many were already dead.
Others were broken like dolls.
I couldn’t find anyone in their right mind.
Except for one.
“A girl?”
A large pair of weary eyes.
Beautiful silver hair.
A girl seated on a chair bound by shining magic circles and special metal chains.
She’s an unusual experimental subject.
I sense great power.
Moreover, the cameras in her room were broken, and the sturdy walls were dented.
Perhaps traces of violent resistance against the experiments.
If someone with this much strength could stand up to the man, maybe she could fight him.
The problem is, she looks quite exhausted.
Tap.
I lowered a thin branch onto the girl’s shoulder.
“…Hmph. What’s this now?”
Annoyance.
Weary irritation.
An angry voice.
Even with brief contact, the girl showed significant dissatisfaction. However, she could barely move due to the invisible force from the chair and magic circle pressing down on her.
This might be useful.
[You… who are you?]
Startled by the sudden voice echoing in my mind, I retracted the branch from the girl.
Then she smirked.
“Huh? You can hear me? I saw you twitch just now. Who are you?”
“………”
Regrettably, I cannot speak.
The girl frowned, realizing this.
“Do you understand me? Hmph, damn. If you can’t comprehend, try touching me again with your branch. Then we can communicate. Or… do you not understand this either? Ah, damn, this is frustrating.”
I understand. Since becoming a plant, unknown languages have become as comprehensible as the ones I originally knew.
Just,
I thought for a moment.
The girl possesses great power and might even be able to stand against the man.
At least, that’s how it feels to me.
However, she’s completely restrained.
Physically reaching her limit.
Simply put, she’s dying.
This way, she won’t be of much use.
I cleanly gave up.
Instead,
Thud!!
“Guh!?…….”
I sharpened one end of a branch and plunged it deep into the woman’s body.
Bright red blood.
I can feel it.
It’s sweet.
An absurdly powerful energy is being absorbed.
Ah.
I can’t hold back.
Like this-
[You bastard!! Stop it NOW!!?]
I flinched.
Once again, telepathy echoed in my mind.
I figured it out.
As she said, when our bodies touch, we can exchange meanings beyond language.
But that’s all.
Not intimidating.
Thud!!*
“Aaaaaah!!!?”
Just a little more.
“Just a little more.”
[You insane bastard!!?]
Found food by accident.
My drug.
Let’s delay conversation for a moment.
Let me take a little more.
