I Became an Evolving Space Monster - Chapter 167

Ep. 167

–

“…Dad, aren’t you busy today?”

“This dad prepared to go somewhere special with our cutie today.”

“A special place?”

“huh. “I’m going straight to Mom’s filming set.”

“wow! really? “Oh, but mom told me not to come.”

“This time, let’s throw a surprise party for mom. how is it?”

“Hehe, sounds fun! “I’m going!”

“Someone help me!” “My child was pinned under the car!”

“It’s dangerous because the engine is on fire! “Go away!”

“■■ Hey! no!”

“If you hadn’t taken me that day, this wouldn’t have happened!”

“Is that what you’re going to say to me now? Do you know who pays for expensive treatment?”

“Huh, treatment expenses? “You don’t even care about kids.”

“Ugh! teacher! Please change my seat! “His body stinks!”

“Hey, isn’t there a strange smell coming from somewhere?”

“Wow. “There’s a peeling monster passing by.”

“■■ Hey, is it okay if you don’t come to school just because you’re not feeling well? “Don’t you think you need to change yourself instead of just hoping for your friends’ understanding?”

“Fuck, did I just see a monster?”

“me too. Wow, I thought today was Halloween.”

“Poor. “If I end up like that, I’d rather bite my tongue and die.”

Poor.

It’s disgusting.

Why live?

monster.

–

｢Huh?｣

When I opened my eyes, slightly cool yet humid air greeted me. As my dormant senses were activated, I felt lukewarm liquid flowing on the floor.

‘dream.’

Since falling into this world, I have rarely had a dream. At most, it’s just a fantasy of evolving or using the transcendence system.

‘Is it because of a memory I saw a while ago?’

A childhood memory that I saw when I moved on to the second stage of transcendence.

The days I was in the intensive care unit because of burns. It was something from the past that I didn’t want to remember.

‘phew.’

I had forgotten about it recently, but when I think about things in the real world, I feel disturbed.

Ascension, the next step after the Eucharist.

Although it is not certain, it is highly likely that if you reach Ascension, you will be given the means to leave this world.

I’m not the only one who thought that. The Heavenly Mother said that players who came before me had similar goals.

‘Although everything failed.’

In the aftermath of the failure, the number one player died, and the remaining players split up to find new goals. The seeds of the conflict that began like that have reached the present.

‘It’s the ending.’

I can’t imagine how difficult it would be if you couldn’t even clear it in first place.

Even in the original game, Ascension was notorious for its killer difficulty. Unlike other stages of evolution, ascension was not the end when all conditions were met.

final battle. There is a final test given by the being who holds the world’s secrets, and you must pass that test to ascend to heaven. It’s not that there are players among Aimorphs who have met the conditions for ascension, but I am the only one among them who has succeeded.

‘If it were the same difficulty level as the game, other players would have cleared it first.’

The fact that I wasn’t able to do so means that there were changes that I didn’t know about.

However, I have no intention of giving up midway. I have become an Amorph Ranker, something everyone said was impossible. If higher rankers than me fail, I just have to prepare better than them.

‘But…’

I slightly raised my body.

Then the kids near me started tossing and turning. No. 26 Aadhai The three Mothers of Heaven were sleeping together in an underground space that had turned into a shallow swamp.

‘What will happen to this place if I leave?’

Let alone the cause or process of falling into this world.

I don’t think that this world will disappear or collapse if I disappear. We have come too far to think that we have fallen into a virtual game world. It would be reasonable to see this as something new with a similar form to the space survival universe.

All the experiences I have had have reality. That fact disturbs me.

‘It would be really sad to break up with those guys.’

The longer you stay in this world, the deeper your emotions become. Heavenly Mother, who arrived about 10 years earlier than me, even got married.

It was clear that the feelings I had for those guys were not love, but at least they were deep affection. A special feeling I haven’t had since childhood.

‘…Plus, there are some things I’m worried about.’

Will No. 26 and Aadhai be able to get along without me?

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about wanting to get along well and hoping that we are not doing well.

In the former case, it is a kind of pure wish for them to live and enjoy the life they have been given to the end.

On the other hand, the latter….

‘It’s a twisted desire.’

A messy feeling that makes me want to feel sad, remember, and feel lonely knowing that I am not there.

‘Tsk.’

There’s still a long way to go to ascension, so it’s already a useless thought.

I woke up from a damn dream and I feel so distraught that I need to get to work.

‘Does the nest temperature still seem a bit cold?’

The underground space, which had nothing but dirt and ice, was transformed into a completely different environment by my touch. This was thanks to two of the nest-related traits, ‘creating a swamp’ and ‘master of the environment’.

These are all characteristics acquired while touring the swamp before ascending to the second level of transcendence.

‘Both of them were useless traits in the game, but they are used like this.’

Swamp creation, as the name suggests, is a trait that creates a swamp in the nest. It is difficult to use alone and is only worth using in combination with the characteristic of spreading poison or germs.

It can be used as before when space bacteria were spread in the sewers of the T&C Special Trade Center. Of course, there are many powerful healing techniques and equipment in the game, so it is difficult to show that level of impact.

‘At least the creation of the swamp was used to apply a debuff.’

Despite its grandiose name, Environment Master was a trait that was not very helpful in the game.

‘The effect overlaps with the nest.’

The effect of this trait is to change the environment on the nest to what you want. It is of no use to Amorphs, who can manipulate the surrounding environment through their nests.

Aimorph’s nest has the effect of creating an environment useful for Aimorph’s survival. It has beneficial effects such as increasing healing power or replenishing lost energy.

On the other hand, the ruler of the environment does not provide any benefits other than changing the temperature or the surrounding scenery.

‘I never thought such characteristics could be used for something like this.’

I kept it because I thought it could be used as a material for transcendence, like a supernatural power organ, but it ended up being useful in unexpected places.

Thanks to the nature of the environment, the temperature in the underground space has been lowered to the point where it feels cool. You might think that the ceiling and walls would melt if that happens, but this was solved thanks to the slime that is the material for the nest.

Nests built within a 100m radius blocked heat, preventing the ice from melting and maintaining a cool temperature inside.

And the swamp on top of it. If the light reaches here, you will be able to see steam rising over the swamp.

‘Heat release and swamp creation. I’m probably the first person to write this together.’

As it lay on the swampy area above the nest and slowly dissipated heat, it literally turned into a mud water hot spring. Thanks to this, Aadhai and Heavenly Mother, who were prone to cold, were able to sleep comfortably.

‘When I think about it, all the characteristics I didn’t use, including my psychic powers, are being rediscovered one by one.’

I thought that among Amorph players, there was no one who played as diversely as me, but I have to reflect on this.

I still have a lot to learn.

With that thought in mind, I adjusted the temperature I was emitting. As the heat generated from the body became stronger, the temperature of the swamp rose accordingly.

“Big baby? What are you doing?」

[Zuzzuzu zuzuzuzu (sorry. I woke you up)]

No. 26 sent a wave as if it felt my movement through the flow of the waves. I stopped dissipating heat and reached out to pet him.

[Zuzzuzu zuzu zu (don’t worry, sleep)]

｢Aren’t you sleepy, big baby? Then, I’ll let you sleep!”

Before I could say no, he hugged my head with his big body.

The 10m-sized balloon was less than half the size of my body, but it had no difficulty in serving as a pillow.

‘This is another strange feeling.’

Until now, he’s climbed on my head, but I’ve never climbed on top of him.

Still, is it thanks to his body maintaining a moderately cold temperature?

“Sleep well, big baby.”

I closed my eyes, feeling some comfort.

–

Megacorp’s Noble Capitals have colony planets all over the universe.

Some planets are strategic locations that other powers are eagerly targeting, while others are not well-known.

The Eugene family also owns numerous planets. This is to obtain materials needed for genetic modification or creating Hulk mutants.

Among those planets, there is one with no name.

This is a planet that Akira Eugene discovered during his own exploration in the past, and is not recorded on the ship maps shared by many powers.

On that unnamed planet is the nest of the space dragon Gallagon.

That cold, frozen planet was the only source of Gallagon genes.

However, since none of the Gallagons were not vicious, they had to risk their lives to enter the planet. It was a place so harsh that for every 100 people, it was hard to believe that only 1 person would be able to get out.

Risky and precious.

For those two reasons, only a very few people within the Eugene family know the location of this planet.

And Vision Eugene was one of the very few who knew the location of the planet.

This was the source of the Gallagon genes that entered her body in the first place, so she couldn’t have known.

But the reason she knows how dangerous this place is is not just because of her genes.

She is the only Noble Capital other than Akira Yujin who has been here in person.

Because on this planet, Gallagon eggs were stolen and the mutant Blue Gallagon was captured.

At that time, her forces suffered tremendous damage from the pursuing Gallagons. Although she is now a clone, she retains most of the original’s memories. I never dreamed that I would come here again, because I know very well how scary an angry Gallagon can be.

Now she has set foot on this planet inhabited by Gallagons again.

“…It looks like he’s gone.”

Sihyeon, who was wearing the White Maiden, a special reinforced suit, slowly woke up from the snow. The people hiding around heard her words and stood up one by one.

Her subordinates wore specially designed reinforced suits because the power source could freeze in an instant if they wore regular reinforced suits.

The reinforced suit is white like snow and thick, resembling a spacesuit. It is equipment used when exploring volcanic planets or ice planets like today. In addition to that, all of the communication equipment, weapons, etc. have been specially treated to prevent them from freezing.

Lyla Chamberlain, who, like the others, had painted her exterior white with camouflage paint, approached Sihyeon.

“The Gallagons seem to be quite diligent. “Do you really walk around like that often?”

“No. Not like that. “Except when hunting, they mostly stay in the nest.”

All of the crew members who landed on the planet had to quickly hide because White Gallagon suddenly appeared a while ago.

“I’m glad the flagship didn’t land. If that were the case, the exploration would have ended three days ago.”

Sihyeon’s flagship arrived at the unnamed planet three days ago.

As Lila said, Si-hyeon came in via a transport ship instead of landing on the planet on the flagship.

The gigantic size of the flagship made it a deliberate choice because it could easily be discovered by Gallagon and could require external support.

But looking at the situation, that decision turned out to be beneficial.

‘Strange. I don’t normally move around that often.’

The top predator on this planet is Gallagon, but there are also many creatures with as much strength as them. White Gallagon has a mission to protect the nest from powerful enemies.

It was clearly strange behavior for it to keep leaving the nest even though it wasn’t hunting.

“Captain Nern. “You said you buried the relics in those mountains, right?”

“That’s right. “Please give me a map.”

Sihyeon handed a small computer pad to Nern, a middle-aged cultist with yak horns.

He was the former captain of the imperial carrier ‘Judge of Damos 08’, but after losing his ship and his men to a being called the ‘Three-Headed Demon’, he came to this planet to seek revenge.

Unusually for a cult, he skillfully manipulated human tools and marked a red dot at a certain point on the mountain range represented on the map.

“It was buried here.”

“It’s a bit far away.”

“But going this way will take less time.”

“I don’t recommend going in this direction. Because White Gallagon may fly again.”

Both Nern and Laila have a point.

“Why not go across that plain instead?” “I don’t think it will take long.”

“That’s difficult. “There is a dangerous monster on the ‘Ice Plain’ side.”

A very powerful beast lives in the underground space of the place Lila pointed to with her mechanical hand. When I came in before, about 100 of my soldiers died because of him.

He did not die while fighting Gallagon, but he lost many of his subordinates to a completely unexpected being, so he could not forget them.

‘If he’s still alive, it’s dangerous to go there.’

“I can’t help it. “Even if I have to turn around a bit, I will take a safe route.”

Si-hyeon doesn’t have much time, but if she fails here, Min-seok on the flagship will no longer trust her.

‘I still need his trust.’

When she looked up from the map, she was staring straight ahead.

A black barrier stretches across the horizon. On one of the peaks of that mountain range lies the artifact she seeks.