Chapter 132

The girl shields her eyes with her hand.

At the very end, grabbing a crowbar as a weapon—how orthodox.

After that, she squats down, picks up the nail again, and walks toward me.

Ah, that I won’t forget. When she approached, the memories of the warrior inside me said there wasn’t a single flaw in her technique—at least not at the girl’s level. It was truly terrifying.

“Is the 25-foot monster throwing a tantrum because it doesn’t want to go home?”

Right now, in my faded memory, something flashes like a supernova explosion. What did you just say? Speak up! Such a violent brilliance… Why are you fixated on mere units? This memory…

“It’s impossible to move down below, and it’s endlessly cold. All I can do is gaze silently at the lights in the night sky. I barely made it out, so I don’t want to go back.”

While pretending not to notice the flashing memory, I stick to the plain facts. The advantage of telling the truth is clear: no one has ever dismissed my words until now.

Plus, it’s convenient.

If you lack intelligence, it’s better not to lie.

Of course, omitting some truths still allows for adjustments!

“Huh, were you locked up in some kind of box or something?”

“It was spacious.”

An endless, perfectly flat plane stretched infinitely.

With an extremely skeptical look, she steps closer to me. My warrior instincts warn me: if things go south, she’ll drive that nail in and hammer it with the crowbar.

Aggressive, huh?

Are you really special ops or something?

According to Sahaquin-side memories, they only kidnapped citizens and tourists from nearby villages anyway.

“Should I crush you like I did with the corpse earlier? Or are you scared of what you saw?”

For some reason, she lifts the nail to examine it closely. There’s an odd pattern engraved on its head. From Sahaquin-side memories, it seems like this might be some divine artifact of this world.

They say if you’re pierced by it, your magic power completely shuts down, causing you to drown on land. Well, given that the original form was aquatic and adapted explosively to survive on land, it’s not strange.

Anyway, let’s answer the question.

“That person was already dead, so I did it to obtain their warmth. I don’t want to harm living beings unless they attack me first.”

And I wonder if I’d die if I were stabbed by this nail. After all, I can’t use magic in any body I inhabit anyway.

The girl ponders deeply.

Then, raising her head, she looks at my face and asks.

“Do you eat people?”

“No. Until recently, I was human too.”

All I gain is warmth; I copy memories rather than steal them.

I’ve never absorbed matter into my body to decompose and assimilate it, so I haven’t eaten anyone. Not yet.

If obtaining warmth required it, I wouldn’t hesitate—but since it doesn’t, there’s no point.

The girl blinks her eyes.

Well, it’s understandable to find it weird that a giant used to be human.

“So, you mean this isn’t your original body?”

“Yes. This is the first time I’ve entered such a vessel.”

That’s when her sharp gaze locks onto mine. Did I slip up?

“A vessel, huh? So, last time you entered a human body, right?”

Damn, slipped up.

Are you a detective or something?

Moreover, she subtly adjusts her stance so she can quickly drive the nail in.

This nail and crowbar originally belong to Sahaquin, but she must have just started using them yesterday evening at the earliest.

Wait, isn’t it strange that a girl was captured and managed to dismantle a secret Fishman cult overnight?

Alright, since you asked, I’ll answer.

“Yes. I’ve been summoned twice. First was a cult. The second was another hidden cult within that same group.”

“There’s nothing but cults, huh.”

Only such groups would have the ability to summon someone like me. A monster like me isn’t the type that gets summoned expecting everything to go smoothly.

I squat down, looking at her while glancing around.

A massive dome-shaped building. But it’s smaller than the knowledge given to the vanguard team suggested. They didn’t manage to properly settle, so they lacked the resources to construct according to the blueprint.

So, they resorted to scaling it down.

The problem is that the body summoned here follows the blueprint, and the exit is far too small to get through.

If Daegon had come, he probably would’ve killed everyone involved in designing this.

“I feel trapped here. What should we do?”

Upon hearing my words, the girl looks around.

After checking all the exits leading outside, she gives me a skeptical look.

“The door’s too small.”

“There’s no barrier-free access.”

“Pfft!”

What part of what I said was funny? The girl giggles uncontrollably.

“What, why does a program for socially disadvantaged people pop up here?”

Even saying that…

“Most immigrants are socially disadvantaged, aren’t they?”

What about what I said made her laugh so hard this time? She snickers uncontrollably.

Squatting down, I quietly observe as she eventually stops laughing and stands up.

“What’s your name?”

Name, huh.

“I don’t have one.”

This body I’m in now was cultivated specifically for Daegon to inhabit.

The pinnacle of Daegon biotechnology.

Around me are objects that served as both incubators and breeding tanks. They might look like fish farms on the surface, but those who know will understand.

But this isn’t a perfect body. It’s just a temporary vessel meant to last until I can create a real one after spending time in this world.

That’s why I prepared Choseol’s body, intending to enter her child—but things went awry, and it all fell apart.

“You don’t have a name?”

“Yes. In the previous world, I used the name of the person whose body I inhabited, but this is a manufactured thing.”

“Ah, now I remember hearing monsters talking about their god hatching.”

Checking her knowledge levels.

I thought this was the early 19th century, but their technology might be more advanced than expected. Not just technology, but culturally as well—they’re quite developed.

You don’t start caring about disabled people unless your culture reaches a certain level of advancement.

“But isn’t it surreal that a giant monster like you uses honorifics while I talk casually?”

The fact that she knows the word “surreal” suggests significant artistic development. This isn’t a world where wild hunters roam freely.

It means we live in a world with leisure.

Subtly adjusting my perception of the world’s sophistication, I point at the crowbar with my hand.

“You should show respect to someone wielding a universe-destroying weapon.”

“Huh? This is just a simple crowbar! You’re supposed to point at the nail, right?”

“I don’t know what that is, but it’s dangerous.”

Especially since she used it to obliterate Sahaquin—not just break their heads, but try to wipe them out entirely.

The final step.

She failed.

If Daegon had been alive, he likely would’ve suffered greatly at her hands. Given her determination, there’s also a possibility she would’ve sent him back somehow.

Not everyone is like this superhuman, though.

If that were the case, Sahaquin wouldn’t have chosen humans as their easiest prey to harvest souls and bodies.

“I don’t think a creature over 25 feet tall deserves to be listened to.”

“People fear scorpions, don’t they?”

“Are you calling me a scorpion…?”

She raises the nail and approaches me.

But since she doesn’t look like she wants to kill, I stay still and watch as she tells me this:

“Move aside. There’s something I need to destroy.”

When I step aside, she drives the nail into the ground—right at the center of this dome.

Click-click.

As the machine activates, Daegon’s memories flash.

An emergency self-destruction device, built just in case.

The nail is both an execution tool for heretics and a mass extermination device for when the lair becomes overrun with them.

By the way, heretics are defined as:

Those who seek freedom.

Anyone who rejects bondage and decides to live as an individual is executed.

It’s similar to how an entire battalion might surrender during war.

Religious groups are obsessive about dealing with apostates, because letting them go could lead to leaks.

The problem is that this device doesn’t consider the user at all.

“Why did you drive it in? The whole place is collapsing.”

Indeed, the doors around us begin to crumble. Stone pillars explode inward, blocking escape routes, and water currents pull everything inward, sealing the area.

“Ah, as expected.”

She drops the crowbar with a thud and sits on the floor.

“I don’t want to become like those prisoners. Something feels off…”

As she lifts her blood-stained shirt, revealing the inside.

Where white skin should be, blue scales appear. Near her ribs, gills twitch faintly.

Ah, I see.

Human resources are resources too. Once fully mutated, they undergo brainwashing via hormones and pleasure-inducing substances to increase affinity for their own kind.

“You seem like a victim too. How about dying together?”

That’s how you play it, huh?

“What’s your name, then?”

“My name? Victoria. Why?”

Such a name.

“In this desperate situation, let me ask: Don’t you want to return to your original body? I can promise you a way out of this miserable death. If you truly yearn to return to your family’s embrace in your original form, let’s make a deal.”

And I say this:

“I’ll give myself to you. In exchange, when you finish everything later, you can take everything I possess. How does that sound?”

Victoria stares blankly at me, her expression stiffening before softening slightly.

With water rising to her ankles, she nods.

Hehe.

First Harvester.

Complete.

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