The Monster That Learned to Moan

Eun-chan narrowed his eyes at Seo-ah, whose thoughts were playing across her face so plainly he could practically read them like a subtitle.

Well, well. Look at her.

He'd already covered the basic theory himself. He'd sat through the explanations, and in that short window of time he'd picked up all the foundational knowledge he needed. Maybe it was because Seo-ah had chattered on about awakeners to him so many times over the years, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him, too.

He could just picture how many times she must have rambled on about espers right in front of him — though that little head of hers apparently couldn't recall a single instance of it.

Even if this hadn't been a Human Gate, even if it had been a high-grade one, Seo-ah wouldn't have hesitated to go in. He knew perfectly well how desperately she'd been praying for a partner to appear.

And that partner had turned out to be him. No wonder she was bristling with energy.

Hands stuffed in his pockets, Eun-chan sauntered along at his own leisurely pace.

Not like walking fast does any good with those stubby legs of hers.

"You know anything about Human Gates?"

"Why would I?"

"The gate's grade hasn't even been measured. We have no idea how strong the monsters inside will be, or what kind of traps are waiting."

Seo-ah turned her head and shot him a sidelong glance.

"You do know how to use your ability, right? If something goes wrong, just tap the earpiece in your ear and talk."

"And what exactly will you be doing while I'm fighting?"

"I'll dodge really well."

At that deadpan reply, Eun-chan let out a short sigh. Dodge really well. Sure you will. You couldn't dodge your way out of a paper bag. He knew Seo-ah better than anyone alive.

He'd been stunned when he heard the rumors circulating through the Center, but looking back on her e-book purchase history, nothing about it surprised him at all.

"A high grade means it's dangerous, doesn't it?"

"Probably? But your ability is top-tier too. You're not dying to anything short of the worst."

"Oh, so it's my life on the line here?"

"Don't be dramatic. I meant if you get worn down, I'll just give you guiding and you'll be fine. We're both high-grade, after all."

Seo-ah added that the only reason the two of them had been sent into the Human Gate alone was because they could handle it.

While she talked, Eun-chan clicked his tongue inwardly.

That damn guiding. What kind of guide puts more blind faith in guiding than the esper does?

From what he'd heard, guides were usually the ones reluctant about guiding. Seo-ah was the opposite. You'd almost think she became a guide for the sole purpose of guiding.

Watching her practically buzz with excitement, Eun-chan ran a hand through his hair. This girl is going to be the death of me.

He looked down at Seo-ah, a full head shorter than him, busily turning this way and that as she pressed her scanner against everything in reach.

"Hmm, the wavelength here is a little off."

Seo-ah stopped in her tracks and stared at the readout.

"I think there's something deeper inside."

"Something in there means something for me to kill, I'm guessing."

She nodded vigorously.

"Camera's rolling. Let's head in."

"...Do you not have a single nerve in your body?"

"Hm?"

Seo-ah stopped mid-stride — she'd been marching forward so bravely — and turned around. Faced with an expression devoid of both worry and fear, Eun-chan scratched at his head.

Right. She'd always been simple like this. Seo-ah had been that way since they were kids: never borrowing trouble for things that hadn't happened yet, and when a problem did arise, rather than panicking, she'd calmly work through it one piece at a time.

The problem was that she genuinely intended to go through with the guiding.

Eun-chan had been with plenty of women. He'd had more than his share of relationships. But Seo-ah had never so much as dated — never touched a man in her life. She might have seen a lot, but it had all stopped at fiction. Zero real-world experience.

Is this okay? Is this actually okay?

Following behind her, his mind was a tangled mess.

All that "loser," "degenerate" talk, and she's still dead set on guiding with me. He'd never once regretted his past with women — not a single time in his life. Today was different.

Suddenly, all those bygone days felt like a mistake.

Seo-ah was too busy drinking in the gate's interior to think of anything else. What grade could it be? At the very least, it had to be A-rank.

She'd earned her way into a Human Gate — the payoff had to match.

My first gate entry. She did her best to smother her pounding heart. It was a shame her partner had to be her childhood friend, the self-proclaimed pervert Eun-chan, but it beat being bolted to a desk in the office with zero matches to her name.

Guiding was a responsibility that came with being a guide, and she was fully resolved to fulfill it. No — resolved didn't even cover it. She was overflowing.

"Entering the gate now. The wavelengths are unstable — we suspect a monster presence inside."

Seo-ah reported their situation over the radio. As they pushed deeper, every step she took left a sticky fluid clinging to her soles.

"...What is this?"

She bent down to look at the floor. Fluorescent matter? A slimy, viscous liquid that gave off a faint glow even in the dark. When she pressed down with her foot to peel it off, a sound rose up. "Ggoohk."

Hearing it, Eun-chan turned around with a look of pure disgust on his face.

"Hey, that just now — I think I heard something weird—"

Ggoohk. Ggu, ggoohk. Ggoo-huuk.

Seo-ah kept pressing down with her foot, ear cocked toward the sounds rising from the fluid on the floor.

"You hearing this too? I think it's connected to the monster somehow."

Huuk, huu-uk.

"...I don't think you're supposed to keep stimulating it like that."

"You think?"

Even as she answered Eun-chan, Seo-ah kept squishing the fluid underfoot.

Hoop! Huuk! Ggoouk! Ggoo-huuk!

It's like touching one of those slime monsters. Sticky, sure, but it springs right back into shape. Great elasticity, too.

Ggoooouk—. The longer she pressed, the stranger the sound got. And it was, bizarrely, addictive — she found herself stomping on it again and again.

Almost like the monster's the one... feeling it.

Wait. The monster?

Hardly had the thought formed when the sticky fluid coiled up around her ankle.

Her body shot upward, and there she was, dangling in midair, upside down.

"Wha—"

Clutching her scanner and radio tight to her chest, Seo-ah's eyes went perfectly round. Her vision flipped, and the blood rushed to her head.

"A-rank monster! Kang Eun-chan, combat stance!"

The instant she shouted, Eun-chan unleashed his ability. It wasn't second nature to him yet, but he'd always known how to use his body, so it came easier than it should have.

Space warped in the blink of an eye, and a chunk of the monster's body sheared away. The tentacle gripping Seo-ah was severed, and the creature writhed in agony, letting out a piercing shriek.

"Hnnghaaang!"

Startled by the utterly unexpected moan, both Seo-ah and Eun-chan flinched. With the tentacle cut, Seo-ah nearly plummeted straight into the floor.

A heartbeat before impact, Eun-chan snatched her out of the air with lightning reflexes. The strange monster, the one making those noises, extended several tentacles and latched onto the two of them.

When Eun-chan grabbed a tentacle and tore it off by brute force, a chorus of "Hngh! Aang!" — whimpering, moaning — spread through the gate.

"I think it's mimicking."

"Mimicking?"

"Some monsters imitate humans — they produce voices and behave based on what they've witnessed firsthand."

"But those aren't even combat sounds. Of all things to imitate, it picks that?"

"If a monster watched guides doing guiding after a fight in some gate, it's not exactly strange, is it?"

How can she be so calm about this? Eun-chan frowned, dumbfounded by the stream of explanations pouring out of her.

Seo-ah watched the tentacles multiplying. Hmm. We really shouldn't leave that thing as is.

"We should kill that monster fast. Otherwise the same thing might happen to us."

"What do you mean, 'the same thing'?"

"I mean we end up as moaning monsters, trapped in this gate for the rest of eternity."

Only then did Eun-chan snap back to his senses, cranking his power up. Seo-ah activated her own ability so he could push his further — core synchronization with an esper. The very ability that had earned her such extravagant treatment at the Center.

Through core synchronization, she suppressed the energy nucleus at the heart of an esper's power output, keeping it from spiraling into rampage while letting him draw out even greater strength.

Simply put, it was a power that tuned an esper's body and condition to their absolute peak.

Eun-chan registered immediately that his body felt different from usual, and moved without hesitation.

Held against Eun-chan's chest, Seo-ah watched him carve through the monster. Maybe it was being cradled against that solid chest, but she felt incredibly secure. His forearms, hardened by years of consistent training, looked sturdy enough to carry her one-armed without so much as a tremor.

But as the fight dragged on, even Eun-chan began to tire. Beads of sweat gathered at his jaw, hung there, then dropped one by one, and his disheveled hair slowly grew damp.

Seo-ah already knew how to dispose of this particular monster.

She hadn't spent that year doing nothing but killing time and pushing administrative paperwork. She'd studied every monster discovered to date — their profiles, gate grades, and exactly how each category was supposed to be dealt with.

Studying was the one thing she'd always been confident in, and she'd crammed the entire vast body of knowledge into her head. The reason she hadn't told Eun-chan any of it was simple.

Having come all this way into a gate, she was dead set on making the guiding happen somehow. That was it. That was the whole reason.

And just as she intended, Eun-chan — a man with no flexibility and no clever shortcuts in him — kept using his ability, and the overload numbers were creeping steadily upward.

The relentless waves of monsters burst apart under his power, spraying fluid everywhere. To avoid getting splattered, Seo-ah tucked herself snugly inside his shirt, against his chest.