A lesser-known brand’s identity-less bread, a perfect embodiment of delectable rebellion.
A satisfying life filled with lumps of bread and unidentified processed meat instead of rice for lunch.
Three hours later, after finishing the seventh period, heading back home.
Tap, tap, tap, sending a message to Siyeon through a messenger app by touching my smartphone screen.
[I’m on my way home]
[Is there anything you want to eat?]
[I’ll stop by the mart to get some ingredients.]
“Who are you chatting with?”
While I was walking and staring at my phone, tapping the screen, Tae Hyun’s question rang out.
What word could best describe my relationship with Siyeon? I pondered for a moment.
I looked up to see his face, then lowered my head back to the smartphone and replied.
“Younger sibling.”
Though honestly, it felt more like a daughter, but since that’s biologically impossible and would seem odd, I went with ‘younger sibling’ as a reasonable answer.
“Oh? You have a younger sibling? How old?”
Tae Hyun showed interest upon hearing I had a younger sibling and then asked how old she was.
Maybe because he’s an only child, he seems to imagine a younger sibling as a tiny tot half his height…
“Same age.”
I decisively shattered that fantasy with two simple words.
He looked around as if sensing something strange and asked again.
“But aren’t you going back with your younger sibling?”
Assuming we attended the same school, Tae Hyun questioned why we weren’t going back together.
Does he think all siblings of the same age must attend the same school?
Well, that does make management easier…
But regardless of that, it wasn’t the case right now, so I casually responded as if it were obvious.
“We go to different schools, so there’s no reason to go back together.”
“Oh, was it a different school?”
Ding! At that moment, my smartphone vibrated.
Other chatroom notifications were set to mute.
The only active notification was either an advertisement or a message from Siyeon.
[Me]
[Tteokbokki]
[I want to eat it.]
After receiving those short messages in succession, I replied shortly, “Got it,” and turned to walk toward the mart.
“Okay, I’ll stop by the mart.”
“See you tomorrow, bye-”
“Bye-”
After a light farewell, I headed straight to the mart.
The tteokbokki Siyeon usually eats was originally from a snack shop at the end of the market, but it shut down about a year ago.
For now, reality was to gather the ingredients from stores and make it myself.
But honestly, this way is cheaper.
Buying a ten-thousand-won franchise or market tteokbokki will yield enough to fill you up with various added ingredients.
‘400 grams of tteokbokki rice cakes, one pack of fish cakes for 1900 won…’
At that time, as Mari was busy selecting today’s tteokbokki ingredients.
Meanwhile, on the monster ship, the day’s “sacrifice”… I mean, the monster heading toward the black zone was being picked.
However, there was a vibe that felt different from usual.
“Monsters gather for black zone bread—”
“Ugh, I really hate this.”
Whenever the black zone was mentioned, the monsters would freak out.
Medic Tentacle, the head medic in the recovery room, brought some hopeful news to the monsters.
A ray of mercy from Sun, the symbol of terror and master of torture.
As long as they adhered to a few rules, there would be no dreadful death.
Having adapted to this after a few days, the monsters treated the black zone as just another ordinary workplace.
However, there was nothing less fun than watching a game where you already knew the outcome.
The fact they were already heading for a loss distinguished them from other regions.
“If you don’t do it, it’s bad, rock, paper, scissors!”
A game related to betting on Earth was currently trending among the monsters.
It originated from a combatant who mistook “two sets” for “two days,” resulting in an assignment handed to the monsters.
At least to avoid issues in information dissemination, they were told to brush up on Earth’s culture, even if it was just skimming the surface.
Now, the monsters had managed to tell the difference between the terms “set” and “day” to avoid repeating the past mistake.
In the meantime, Earth’s cultures had unknowingly spread among the monsters.
However, since they were primarily structured around human standards of play…
“No way, this guy has no fingers.”
Considering it in human terms, it was a monster with rounded hands but no fingers.
“Isn’t rock and scissors the same?”
In other cases, monsters with only two fingers would mess it all up.
In the end, it turned into a lottery-like situation for selecting victims for the black zone.
Though called a lottery, it was essentially a monster-style modified lottery.
Here, it was conducted under the name ‘X lottery’.
“Okay, choose, choose! Who will be the next unfortunate one?”
Pieces of space debris scattered across the floor of the cabin.
In a ship lacking toys, even this became a form of entertainment.
Metal scraps that were collected among the things that bumped into the ship were being used effectively by the monsters.
If you flipped a metal piece and revealed an X shape, you’d be chosen for the black zone.
If there were no visible markings on the trash, it meant survival, a simple lottery.
There were a total of 16 pieces of space debris matched to the number of monsters.
The order of picking was also determined by betting, so the monster who chose first had an advantage in probability.
A one-in-sixteen chance… roughly 6.25 percent.
If you tried once, it was unlikely someone would hit.
The watching monsters thought, “Of course, no one would win,” just at that moment.
“Right here!”
An X mark popping out from the flipped debris.
The monster who had just flipped the space junk widened its eyes in shock.
A moment of silence followed.
An expression mixed with disbelief and bewilderment about the absurdity.
“Pwahaha!”
“Wow, look at that luck.”
“Phew.”
The monsters burst into laughter and mockery at this unexpected situation, and the other fifteen monsters standing behind breathed a sigh of relief.
Such occurrences were rare, landing on a single-digit probability.
The reactions of monsters or humans who fell victim to such odds were similar.
Fuming, the monster denied the reality.
“D-don’t mess with me! This is all part of Earth’s… hidden camera, right?!”
“Really, just terrible luck.”
“Th-that’s impossible! There must be all X marks!”
The monster frantically flipped through the scattered space debris, yet no X marks appeared.
Rolling helplessly on the floor was the very first piece of space junk marked with an X that had been flipped.
At that moment, nothing could be worse than that for the monster.
“Ughhh—!!”
The monster kicked the marked space junk with its three-pronged reptilian foot, regardless of any pain in its body.
Thus, once the monster destined for the black zone was decided, a conversation among monsters trying to live their best began.
“By the way, has anyone recently fought a magical girl and won?”
Monsters who had been struggling to achieve results against magical girls lately.
Even Sun was undoubtedly unbeatable, and reports of their appearances were frequent worldwide, yet they had no proper achievements to speak of.
However, to say they had never defeated a magical girl would be a lie.
“There must be one, the one from… that country called China.”
One monster casually brought up the topic while they were chatting.
The other monster seemed to recall and continued the conversation.
“Ah… that happened, but doesn’t that one feel ambiguous to say it was a win for us?”
“True, right? The public security… or whatever, captured the magical girl while we were fighting.”
“Plus, it seems after the magical girl got captured, that one ended up crushed under some strange steel… tank? or something.”
Once upon a time, they did manage to win, but it felt like a victory that left a nasty taste.
Not even a magical girl, but a monster that ended up dead at the hands of the country’s own military.
While magical girls are magical girls, huge steel weapons that are beyond most monsters were a problem as well.
If a monster died at the hands of a magical girl, it wouldn’t be that embarrassing.
Dying to a weapon, however, wasn’t something to scoff at.
“Hey, you guys should have experienced that, huh?”
“Yeah, cut by a gun-wielding civilian.”
A monster killed by a civilian was the best kind of mockery on the ship.
The two monsters overhearing that conversation recalled the mention of civilians…
“Oh! I wonder how that one is doing?”
“Who?”
“Come on, you know…the one who hid well.”
Remembering the fellow monster who had been dispatched to Earth as an informant around a year ago, they began to change the subject.
Their fellow monster had such a weak presence that even when detected, it could readily erase its traces.
It hadn’t returned to the recovery room even once, indicating that it was probably living among humans.
That fellow, who had completely transformed to mimic Earth life—adjusting their physical abilities to match humans and swaggering out of the ship—was nowhere to be heard from.
“Maybe it’s comfortably perched in some high-ranking office?”
“Could be! Ugh, I envy not having to be deployed.”
Around the time those two monsters sighed while recalling their old comrade…
The comrade they mentioned was facing a problem that none of the ship’s former comrades could have imagined.
“Your name is Inja Chunsik.”
“W-what?”
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