I Don't Like This Esper - Chapter 166

“Wh-What is it……?”

The bride must have sensed something again with her unusually sharp intuition, because she watched Kim Soo-Jeong’s movements with a deeply worried expression.

Kim Soo-Jeong pressed a finger to her lips, warning her not to make a sound. The bride hurriedly closed her mouth.

‘It’s following me…….’

Kim Soo-Jeong hung the dress on a coat hook inside the cabinet. Then, as though luring the insect inside, she deliberately left the door slightly open.

Fortunately, the cabinet could be locked from the outside, so Kim Soo-Jeong used a pair of wooden chopsticks she found inside to keep a small gap open.

The insect did not approach the opening. Instead, it continued circling near the cabinet.

‘It must function like a reconnaissance spy robot…….’

It gave off none of the behavior or presence typical of a living creature. It seemed to do nothing but mechanically repeat the task assigned to it.

Kim Soo-Jeong could not even begin to guess how powerful the person controlling such an insect might be.

In particular, she had spent a long time following an Esper-only community devoted to interpreting system messages. That made her recall a post analyzing the phenomenon in which certain characters in system messages sometimes appeared corrupted, which only made her more nervous.

The community said…… that when a system message displays characters that look like an error, it isn’t actually an error. It’s a kind of rank restriction that can only be understood by those above a certain level.

According to the person who wrote the post, there had been descriptions they could not read properly while they were C-Class. But after advancing to B-Class, the corrupted strings changed enough for them to interpret parts of the message.

They also claimed that a friend of theirs was A-Class and had received a similar message, but several important words had been displayed correctly, allowing the friend to explain the exact meaning to them.

Kim Soo-Jeong had found the theory plausible at the time. If so, the corrupted phrase in the scent insect’s description—[A parasitic insect born from the will of ‘#&$&’]—likely meant that some being beyond the scope of her abilities had created that insect.

‘It may be an opponent I can’t confront head-on.’

If they were being pursued by such an opponent, simply changing clothes would not solve the problem. Kim Soo-Jeong instinctively knew that this was where they had to make their stand.

It was then that, as if responding to her realization, Lee Hana’s eyes slowly opened. She had been sleeping fitfully, groaning as though she were ill, and her gaze was still clouded with drowsiness.

“Unnie…….”

“You’re awake?”

“Dangerous…… It’s dangerous…….”

As soon as Lee Hana awakened, she struggled to speak as though burning with fever.

Kim Soo-Jeong got the impression that Lee Hana was desperately fighting to survive, even resisting the narcoleptic backlash caused by using her skill.

“We have to run…….”

“I know. But a tracking skill has already locked onto us.”

Perhaps because Lee Hana was a higher-class Esper than Kim Soo-Jeong, she quickly noticed the insect circling nearby when Kim Soo-Jeong pointed it out.

“Th-That thing…….”

Lee Hana became so anxious that she looked ready to burst into tears.

Kim Soo-Jeong quickly realized that Lee Hana was not afraid of the insect itself, but of the “something” the insect was summoning. It was also the part Kim Soo-Jeong feared and guarded against the most.

“What do you think? Can we handle it?”

“W-We have to run…….”

“Even if we run like this, it’ll catch us before long. You know that too.”

Frustrated, Kim Soo-Jeong spoke as if pressing her for an answer, and Lee Hana lowered her head deeply.

Lee Hana bit her lower lip at Kim Soo-Jeong’s words. It was not because she was offended.

Just as Kim Soo-Jeong had said, Lee Hana knew that her assessment was correct. At the same time, she could feel the warning from her danger-detection skill gradually weakening.

That change gave her a hopeful feeling that following Kim Soo-Jeong’s suggestion might reduce the risk of the catastrophe awaiting them.

However, Lee Hana had no idea how their exhausted and weakened group could possibly overcome such a powerful enemy.

‘I can’t think of anything…….’

Moreover, Lee Hana was still struggling against the side effects of her skill, making it difficult even to summon the concentration needed to connect one thought to the next.

But then the insect Kim Soo-Jeong had pointed out, along with the place where it was circling, suddenly entered her vision as clearly as a bolt of lightning.

There were traces of Kim Soo-Jeong having rummaged recklessly through the cabinet earlier to make enough room for the three of them. Among the scattered items, Lee Hana spotted a familiar spray-can-shaped item.

“Unnie, those…… aren’t those monster repellents?”

“What?”

Kim Soo-Jeong, momentarily confused, found the cans Lee Hana was pointing at. There really was an entire box filled with monster repellent.

In truth, monster repellent was useless against truly aggressive monsters. However, it had some deterrent effect against small, venomous monsters such as insects. Most importantly, ordinary people could use it, so many households kept it among their emergency medicine or self-defense supplies.

“You want to use this to drive that insect away?”

Kim Soo-Jeong asked skeptically as she looked at the monster repellent.

But Lee Hana shook her head.

“No. I was thinking…… what if we used them as a booby trap? You can detonate them remotely, Unnie …….”

Kim Soo-Jeong looked surprised at Lee Hana’s suggestion. Since the enemy would soon arrive, the plan was to lure it into lowering its guard and launch a surprise attack.

Lee Hana continued while looking at the spray cans.

“Of course, exploding one or two probably won’t be enough. But if we gather more items, I think we can combine them into something useful.”

“……All right. Good. Let’s do it.”

And so, when Kim Seo-Hyung approached the cabinet, Kim Soo-Jeong—who had been hiding and waiting among the pipes above it—used her telekinesis and several flammable items to create a powerful explosion.

[Kyaaaaaagh!]

Although Kim Soo-Jeong was within the cabinet’s blast radius, she protected her body with telekinesis while watching what happened below.

Then she was horrified when she saw the monster that had approached almost immediately after they finished preparing the trap.

‘It’s obviously a monster, but having a familiar face attached to it makes it even more disgusting…….’

Lee Hana had already told her that the people who had left first were the ones who had killed the others and caused this entire disaster.

In other words, the people who had turned into monsters had probably already murdered the wedding guests gathered in the shelter—or committed acts just as terrible.

It was a horrifying deed that Kim Soo-Jeong could not understand.

Kim Soo-Jeong was far from being driven by an overwhelming sense of justice, but she had cold and merciless standards when it came to those who crossed the line. Therefore, she felt no hesitation whatsoever about resolving to kill the monster with a human face.

‘Its eyes were definitely damaged.’

Lee Hana’s plan had succeeded. The monster repellents had exploded simultaneously, leaving the unidentified monster with severe burns across its face.

For an ordinary person, the injuries would have been severe enough to endanger their life. However, with a monster’s unique regenerative ability, it merely staggered while clutching its face, never giving her an opportunity to finish it off completely.

‘I still can’t approach it…….’

Kim Soo-Jeong might have been low-class, but she was an Esper who had extensively studied her ability and its limitations.

The reason Lee Hana respected and followed Kim Soo-Jeong as her senior and called her “Unnie,” despite Kim Soo-Jeong being lower-class than her, was not only because of Kim Soo-Jeong’s coolheaded and composed personality. Her ability to make judgments that maximized the usefulness of her power also played a major part.

Although the opponent was staggering and exposing numerous weaknesses, Kim Soo-Jeong knew that approaching carelessly would be suicide, so she continued holding her breath and remaining hidden.

[I’ll kill you……!]

Soon, in place of the insect that had melted away in the explosion, another kind of monster began to emerge.

Kim Soo-Jeong pressed her lips together as she watched transparent, egg-like lumps bulge along the spine of the gray-skinned fish-man’s bare back, tearing through living flesh as they emerged.

After a putrid, fishy stench that felt as though it were rotting her nose and the horrifying sounds of flesh and blood bursting apart, centipede-like insects formed from the fish-man’s spine. They raised their heads and began wriggling.

[Find them…….]

At the fish-man’s command, the centipedes raised their antennae sharply and began spinning in circles.

Kim Soo-Jeong stared intently at the centipedes.

[Cursed Gray Centipede

A parasitic insect born from the will of ‘#&$&.’ It tracks living creatures and hunts them by injecting venom through swift bites.]

Just as she finished reading the third line of the description, one of the centipedes suddenly raised its head and released a sharp—

Screech!

Kim Soo-Jeong instinctively realized that the centipede had found her. Unleashing her telekinesis to its fullest extent, she immediately moved away from her position.