What kind of situation was this to find myself in right after being transmigrated?
Honestly, I would’ve preferred to be thrown into the life of some rich, arrogant trash instead.
At least I’d know how to handle that… but this? There wasn’t a single answer to be found in this mess.
As I sat stuck in a corner and lamenting my fate, a scraping sound broke the silence; it sounded like something dragging against the floor. It was only then that I bothered to glance outside the cell.
“Food. Eat up while you can. There’s not much time left before the next experiment.”
Oh, how thoughtful of you.
I swallowed down the sarcastic remark that almost slipped out and grabbed the bowl that had been pushed through the iron bars.
It looked like porridge, but it was disgustingly unappetizing.
The smell wasn’t any better.
Still, I picked up the spoon sticking out of the bowl and scooped up a mouthful before shoving it into my mouth.
After all, even in the worst situations, you eat first and think later. At least, that was the plan.
But the moment the spoonful entered my mouth, I couldn’t help but spit out the garbage that assaulted my taste buds.
What the hell was this flavor?
Did some lunatic make porridge out of an energy drink?
I pushed the energy-drink-flavored excuse for porridge off to the side, as far into the corner as I could.
There was no way I was eating any more of that garbage.
Afterward, I sat on the edge of the bed and sank into thought.
Since there was nothing to do and plenty of time, I figured I might as well take note of the situation.
I had apparently transmigrated into a novel I assumed to be “Hero Project”.
The body I now inhabited seemed to belong to the final boss and mastermind behind everything.
And the place I was stuck in appeared to be some kind of prison.
Not a single piece of good news in sight.
Still, if there was one glimmer of hope, it was this. If I truly had become the mastermind and final boss, then my chances of escaping this place were very high.
For the story to progress, this body—being both the final boss and the main villain—would inevitably have to break out of here.
Which meant there would likely be an opportunity to escape sometime soon.
“Starting with what I can do seems like the right approach…”
The world of “Hero Project” involved humans with supernatural abilities.
But how exactly did I use those powers?
I tried to recall the abilities of Quaker, the mastermind and final boss I had become.
Control over gravity that was powerful enough to cause localized earthquakes.
He had been so overwhelmingly strong that, until the later stages of the story, the hero couldn’t inflict any meaningful damage on the final boss.
Most ranged attacks were nullified by reversing the direction of gravity, and if anyone got close, their movements were restricted by increased gravitational pressure.
When dealing with those who dared to resist, he didn’t even need to approach. He would simply clench his fist from afar and crush them.
In short, he was one of the most powerful beings in the entire world.
If I possessed the final boss’s body, couldn’t I use that ability to escape from here?
I tried to float my body, reach out to the nearby bowl and imitate a grasping motion, even trying to push it with the back of my hand, but there was no response.
Why couldn’t I use that ability?
In this novel, abilities were supposed to be all innate.
Was it because I was a transmigrator?
After spending quite a while wracking my brain and trying all sorts of nonsense, I gave up on figuring out how to use the ability right away and flopped onto the bed.
I knew there was no time to laze around, but the situation itself was mentally exhausting.
“Status window.”
Ah, nothing appeared.
No sense of fair play at all. None.
In this day and age, how could they not provide me with a status window?
After grumbling to myself about complaints I couldn’t say aloud, I decided to take a break and wait for something to happen.
After all, to gather more information in this situation, I’d need the appearance of someone else. Whether it was a researcher or a guard.
About 30 minutes passed.
When I heard the sound of footsteps approaching from afar, I sat up.
“Number 21. Number 23. Number 26. Get up. It’s experiment time.”
Experiment.
What kind of experiment could it be?
Pretending to blend in with the others by sitting in a corner, I carefully observed the situation outside.
A man in a white coat and two guards stood there.
Seeing the rifles in their hands, I figured causing any trouble in this state would only result in me being riddled with bullet holes.
After running the calculations, I quietly crouched in front of the iron bars and listened closely.
“No…”
“Oh, come now. You should feel honored to participate in this great experiment for the evolution of humanity. Guards.”
At the cold voice of the researcher, I heard the sound of footsteps approaching and the iron bars of the cell creaking open. Then came the scream of someone being dragged out with their protests echoing as they were hauled away.
What kind of experiment would make someone react like that?
Of course, no one would willingly be dragged out regardless of what the experiment was.
When the footsteps came closer, I retreated to the corner again and pretended to be a lifeless wreck.
The sound of sobbing grew distant, accompanied by the fading footsteps.
And the person who had been dragged away didn’t return.
***
Day two of being in this body.
Probably morning.
Wracked with intense hunger, I forced myself to swallow the bland, flavorless porridge, even as it made me gag.
Every time the porridge touched my tongue, I wanted to shudder at its disgusting taste, but survival required enduring this level of discomfort. In the end, I managed to empty the bowl.
Once I get out of here, I swear I’ll shove this garbage down the throat of whoever made it.
Anyway, with the meal done, it was now time to train my abilities.
I put the bowl carelessly on the table and reached out my hand, just like yesterday, to find out the conditions for activating my powers.
The actions that were always described whenever “he” used his abilities.
Maybe the key to activating the powers lay in those gestures.
Of course, given how many mysteries surrounded him, even this could have been a trick.
Still, it was better than doing nothing.
I had no intention of playing the role of a mastermind, but in a world where safety was far from guaranteed, I had to at least figure out how to use my abilities to survive.
With that thought in mind, I began trying various methods.
I waved my hand at the bowl, reached out with both hands and focused intently, I even looked at it with such intensity that my eyes felt like they were going to pop out while I held my arm out.
But the damn bowl didn’t budge even a single millimeter.
Oh, come on.
At this point, it could at least move a little.
If I had been thrown into a world overflowing with superhumans, the least it could do was let me succeed at something this simple.
I swallowed my complaints quietly and stared at the bowl for a moment.
Then, I heard the sound of footsteps in the distance.
Were they coming to collect test subjects again?
I adopted my usual wretch act again and listened to the sounds coming from behind the bars.
“Number 27. Number 31. Number 48.”
Just like yesterday, a researcher’s monotone voice called out numbers without a trace of emotion.
Maybe, just maybe, some useful information would slip from the researcher’s mouth.
Holding onto that faint hope, I crouched by the bars and observed the scene outside.
“This time, it’s quiet.”
“Perhaps they’ve realized there’s no point in resisting.”
“It makes things easier for us. After all, it brings us one step closer to our great research.”
The researchers and guards walked along and started chatting in low voices.
As I listened to their conversation, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
Was there any way to ambush those guys?
If nothing else, even stealing just one of their guns…
But a rebellion wasn’t something I could pull off on my own.
It would be great if the person across from me agreed to cooperate, at least.
In the dim light, I couldn’t see clearly, but would the person curled up in the corner of the room, wrapped in a blanket, even consider helping me?
I stared at the CCTV camera mounted in the corner of the hallway outside the bars and started running scenarios in my head.
Somehow, I’d use the person across from me to distract the guard’s attention.
While they were distracted, I’d steal the guard’s gun, pull the trigger on both the researcher and the guard, take their keys, and free everyone locked up here.
Once they were free, I’d incite them to create chaos, and in the confusion, find a chance to escape.
…The problems were that I needed to gather as much information about this place as possible and that I’d have to kill someone.
Even setting the first issue aside, could I a modern-day person from 21st-century Korea really kill someone?
Could I steel myself to take a life in order to survive in this kind of world?
If someone were to ask me that question, I couldn’t confidently say yes.
However, I had no intention of wasting time in a daze and dying like that.
It was already infuriating enough to be dragged here while living my life peacefully, but dying a pointless death? That would be crossing the line.
Right after the researcher left, I spoke to the person sitting in the cell across from mine, along with today’s other victims.
“Hey, can you hear me?”
“……”
“Hey?”
“Keep your voice down. I can hear you just fine.”
The response was sharp and thin, and almost irritable.
Judging by the youthful tone, it sounded like a girl.
I felt a wave of relief at the fact that someone had responded.
In a space where despair swallowed everything, a voice tinged with emotion could be taken as a sign that they hadn’t given up completely.
“…Kid, don’t you want to get out of here?”
“…I’m not a kid, idiot mister.”
“Idiot?”
“What else do you call someone waving their hands around helplessly because they can’t even use their own abilities?”
Huh, this sarcastic tone… It felt strangely familiar.
I stared intently into the cell across from mine.
There was no real light source inside the cell, so I had to rely on the glow from the corridor to make out the figure, but as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could clearly see the face emerging from beneath the blanket on the other side.
And then, without thinking, I blurted out the identity of the girl in the cell across from me.
“…Seeker?”
She looked a little younger than I remembered, but there was no mistaking it. She had appeared a few times in the illustrations of Hero Project.
Seeker.
The young Seeker was sitting right across from me.
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