Screw-chan struck the door with her usual flair, and for what felt like the hundredth time, we moved forward—only this time, we didn't find another corridor or a room full of guards. Instead, we stepped into open air. I blinked. My eyes adjusted to the sudden sunlight as we emerged into… a forest?
"Where is this?" I muttered to myself, scanning the surroundings.
Tall trees loomed over us, their leaves swaying gently in the breeze. Grass covered the ground, soft underfoot, and flowers dotted the landscape. It was a jarring contrast to the sterile, metallic halls we had just escaped from.
"This is a forest, Master!" Screw-chan declared with way too much enthusiasm.
I gave her a sideways glance. "Yeah, I can see that," I replied with a little more sarcasm slipping into my voice than I intended.
We stood there for a moment, both of us trying to make sense of where we were. The place seemed unnaturally quiet, like the world itself was holding its breath. Something didn't feel right. I knew better than to trust the calm—it was the kind of calm that came before a storm. I wasn't sure if we were truly safe yet.
I took a deep breath. "Okay, let's figure out where the hell we are. Any idea where we go from here, Screw-chan?"
She put a finger to her chin in a cutesy thinking pose. "Nope! But I'm ready to drill anything in our way!"
I groaned. Of course she didn't know. "Great. Just great."
We walked.
It felt like hours have passed.
I wondered why I haven't met another Stranger yet… It wasn't that I was looking forward to engage in a fight with Stranger Abilities. I sighed. I reprimanded myself, oh man, "I just killed a lot of people with my Stranger Ability, didn't I?"
There was something wrong with me.
Was it because of the weird thing they did with me? Or was it because of the truck?
"Screw-chan, why did you kill those people back in the facility?"
"Because they are a threat to you, duh…"
Hmmm… it was either she was influenced by my subconscious or maybe Stranger Abilities had consciousness of their own.
Screw-chan looked at me with teary eyes.
"Did I do something wrong, Master?"
We kept walking. It felt like hours had passed.
The trees looked identical, and there was no sign of civilization. I wondered why we hadn't encountered another Stranger yet. Not that I was itching for a fight with someone who had powers like I did. But… it was odd, almost too quiet.
I sighed and shook my head. "I just killed a lot of people with my Stranger Ability, didn't I?" The thought hit me harder than I expected. There was definitely something wrong with me. Was it because of the weird experiments they did? Or was it because of the truck? I couldn't remember much from that day.
"Screw-chan, why did you kill those people back in the facility?" I asked, my voice low.
Yeah, I was glad I escaped, but… murder being too easy wasn't an encouraging thought.
Screw-chan skipped a few paces ahead, then turned around, her expression bright but innocent, like a child who didn't understand why she'd been scolded. "Because they were a threat to you, duh…"
Her answer seemed so simple, so final. But it distressed me. Was she influenced by my subconscious? Or did Stranger Abilities have a mind of their own?
She suddenly stopped, her dark eyes wide and teary. "Did I do something wrong, Master?"
I paused, feeling a pang of guilt as I looked at her. Screw-chan wasn't just some tool I summoned. She was… well, she was something more. "No," I said, trying to keep my tone soft. "You didn't do anything wrong. It's just—this whole situation, it's messed up." I wasn't sure who I was trying to convince—her or myself.
There was a soft clicking of something—
The cold metal of the gun was suddenly pressed against my temple. My heart pounded, but I forced myself to stay still. I had no idea how Caspar had found me, let alone snuck up on me, but here he was—one step ahead.
"Had your fun yet?" he asked, his voice was calm and almost mocking.
Screw-chan, who had been confidently tearing through enemies just moments ago, stood frozen, her fists clenched but unable to act with the gun pointed at my head.
"Caspar…" I hissed, turning my head slightly to meet his gaze. My blood boiled with anger, all the frustration and confusion bubbling to the surface. "Tell me. What did you do to me? Wiping my memories again and again. Interrogating me with the same thing over and over—"
"Shut up," he cut me off, his tone cold and authoritative. His grip on the gun didn't waver.
I gritted my teeth, but I shut up. What choice did I have? Every inch of me wanted to rip the gun out of his hand, but I knew better. Caspar would pull the trigger faster than I could do anything.
"You think this is a game?" he asked, leaning in closer, his breath cold against my skin. "It was part of the recruitment process. The DFO needed its Strangers, its Special Agents… Do you know how Strangers are created? Through Cryptid encounters and continuous exposure to Stranger things."
It hit me. "The people back there… in those glass prisons… they were Level 2s like me."
Caspar said nothing, but his silence was more than enough. My stomach churned. Those people weren't prisoners in the normal sense—they were test subjects. Just like I had been. My mind spun, thinking back to the levels Caspar had explained.
Level 0. People with Stranger potential but still mostly mortal.
Level 1. People who survived a Cryptid encounter.
Level 2. People who manifested Extrasensory Perception.
"The interrogation process wasn't really interrogation, was it?" I said, my voice unsteady. "It was a clever brainwashing trick. And that power testing with the machine—it was mind-wiping tech, wasn't it? Oh god, this is dark." I let out a bitter laugh.
"Congratulations on reaching Level 3, by the way," he said with a smirk, glancing at Screw-chan. "Looks like you're a Conjurer… that's one powerful summon. I wonder what your restrictions are."
Level 3. Probably people whose Extrasensory Perception became strong enough to manifest a Stranger Ability.
"You aren't killing me. Why?"
Caspar's smirk deepened, like I'd just stumbled onto the punchline of a joke only he knew the setup to.
"You're catching on, finally," he said, almost like he was proud of me. His grip on the gun stayed steady, but his voice took on a patronizing edge. "It's not just about finding Strangers. It's about shaping them. The DFO doesn't have time to wait for natural evolution. They push it. Accelerate it."
Was he recruiting me? After everything I'd done?
I slowly turned to face him, pressing my forehead against the cold barrel of his gun. My voice, as flat as ever, cut through the tension. "Do you remember when I said I didn't care much for my life? Maybe, at some point during the mind-wipe, I shared my bleak little dream of dying at forty or something…"
"You're crazy…" Caspar muttered, eyes narrowing.
"You don't know that. Maybe I'm saner than you." I paused, letting the words sink in before continuing. "We eat, live, procreate, and feel. Rinse and repeat. And then we die. Isn't that boring? No. The more accurate word is 'pointless,' isn't it? Think about it. The Sun will die someday. The Earth might perish even earlier. Who knows? Maybe we'll kickstart an apocalypse at some point. So what's the point? Why not just die now? Shoot me. Do me a favor and shoot me now."
I smiled, daring him.
Caspar's smirk faltered for a second. He wasn't expecting this. He thought he had me figured out, but here I was, handing him a loaded question along with my life.
For a moment, the room felt still, like the universe was holding its breath. I could see him weighing his options. Pull the trigger? Walk away? Or maybe, just maybe, he was considering that I had a point.
I kept smiling. I wasn't bluffing.
Screw-chan began chanting in a sing-song voice, "Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!"
Caspar didn't shoot.
No, to be more accurate, he couldn't shoot. The gun exploded in a burst of light, and when I looked at it again, there were cartoonish hearts floating in the air as it transformed into a humanoid female. She had long dark hair, a black leather jacket, and wild proportions like Screw-chan. But unlike Screw-chan, this one was completely emotionless, no hint of a personality sparking from her. Maybe the 'charge' I put into her was weaker.
"Bang," she said flatly, raising her finger like a gun.
Caspar dropped to the ground, a fresh wound on his leg where she'd shot him.
I couldn't let him die. I grabbed him by the throat, my muscles—built up from endless exercises in that glass prison—didn't betray me. I shoved him against a tree.
"Truth is… I really have to thank the DFO," I said, my voice darkening. "For showing me that living isn't pointless after all. These powers… I think I could get used to them. Maybe deep inside, I've always had this dark side of me, which is pretty irritating. I always thought I was a good guy." I tightened my grip on his throat. "But do you know what irritates me more? The fact that something like the DFO exists."
I looked over at the transformed gun. "Shoot his other leg, Gun."
Without hesitation, the humanoid gun raised her finger gun and fired, hitting Caspar's other leg.
The gun girl dissolved into motes of light, little cartoonish hearts drifting in the air before disappearing completely. The gun vanished too, leaving nothing behind. It seemed like my power had a limit, and once that charge was drained, the charged item vanished with it. If Screw-chan disappeared the same way, I wasn't sure she'd return. That thought weighed on me. I felt bad... like I was losing something more than just a weapon.
"Your power is touch-based," Caspar rasped, his voice strained but steady.
"Yeah, very astute," I shot back, dripping with sarcasm. I knelt down beside him, tilting my head. "Tell me what held you up? Tell me when the reinforcements are coming. They're kind of slow, which is not what I expected from a shadowy organization."
Caspar gritted his teeth, sweat beading on his forehead from the pain. "They'll come… sooner than you think. They're already tracking us."
I glanced around, feeling the weight of his words settle in. "Really? You'd think a secret agency would be faster."
"They're not sloppy," he said, eyes flickering with something between anger and amusement. "They've been watching since you escaped the glass prison. Testing you… even now."
I narrowed my eyes. "Testing me?"
Caspar let out a grim chuckle. "This was never about capturing you. It's about seeing what you'll do when cornered."
I stood up slowly, while Screw-chan walked to Caspar.
I might just be a convenience store clerk, but I was smarter than that. It wasn't my fault that college hadn't really been for me. Screw-chan held Caspar steady, ensuring he wouldn't vanish on me again. His powers allowed him to become invisible, and I couldn't take any chances. I recalled the types of Strangers: Believer, Deceiver, Conjurer, Traveler, Sorcerer, and Researcher. By any definition, Caspar was probably a Deceiver. He'd called me a Conjurer, which felt right in that twisted context.
"What do you think of me, Caspar?" I asked with a steady voice. "A joke? They sent a reinforcement here already… that's you. I write novels as a passion, so don't look down on my imagination."
He snorted, though I could see the gears turning in his head.
"Let me share my hypotheses," I said, glancing at my knife and catching my own reflection in the blade. "This forest has always been weird. There could be many reasons why only a single Stranger was sent here to suppress a loose subject like me: your confidence in your ability, the possibility that something more urgent is happening elsewhere where Stranger resources are more required, or maybe this place is some kind of infinite labyrinth I wouldn't be able to escape from in the first place. Hell, for all I care, whatever shadowy organization you work for might be under attack. The point is… what does it mean that they only sent a single Stranger after me?"
Caspar's expression shifted, surprise flickering in his eyes. "You've thought all this through?"
Caspar's expression shifted, a flicker of surprise crossing his face. "You've thought all this through?"
"Not really, more like spontaneous thinking," I sighed. "But the 'why' doesn't matter as much as 'what' it proves. Let's break it down."
I held up a finger. "First, a reinforcement was already sent. You. Meaning it's going to take some time for them to send another one."
Caspar didn't respond, his gaze sharpening as I continued.
"Second, I've already suppressed you, the 'reinforcement,' which gives me an opportunity to extract information from you. The problem? You might feed me false information."
He stayed silent, well, whatever…
"Third," I said, looking him dead in the eye, "the way you tried to mislead me earlier shows you're buying time. Which confirms fact number one—that it's going to be a while before anyone else shows up."
Caspar's jaw tightened, his silence growing more telling.
"Fourth, and this is where things get interesting," I said, pacing slowly. "There's a possibility that there's no kill order on me, at least not yet. You didn't go for the kill immediately, which allowed me to subdue you. That's odd, especially since the guards back at the facility were more than happy to try and take me out."
Caspar's eyes darkened, but he still didn't speak.
"And fifth," I finished, "judging by how calm you've been this whole time, I'm guessing you've got a trump card you haven't played yet. Maybe it's a power, or maybe there's some kind of protocol stopping you from acting just yet. Either way, it's irrelevant."
I crossed my arms, studying his reaction. "So what now, Caspar? You've got a choice. You can keep trying to play the role of the clever Deceiver, or we can have a real conversation."
Caspar's smirk returned, faint but visible. "You're a quick study, I'll give you that. But you're right—I'm buying time. The DFO doesn't want you dead. At least, not yet. Strangers are too valuable to them. But that doesn't mean they won't kill you if you become too much of a problem."
I tilted my head, intrigued. "So I'm valuable enough that they let me live after slaughtering those guards…" Technically, it was Screw-chan who did the slaughtering, but I wasn't about to split hairs.
Caspar leaned back more comfortably against the tree, his voice almost casual. "Mundane personnel are just a bit more expensive than luxury-bred dogs. The ones you—well, your summon—slaughtered? They were specialized combat officers, but on vacation. They took this post because the work was supposed to be easy. But they knew how dangerous a Stranger could be, which is why they didn't hold back when trying to kill you."
He glanced at me, as if gauging my reaction. "But even a newbie Stranger like you managed to wipe them out. It didn't help that they were under-geared, thanks to budget cuts."
I blinked. Wow. That was… unexpected.
"So, I basically killed a bunch of off-duty officers because the organization cheaped out on gear?" I asked, trying to process the absurdity of it all. "And they weren't even in full combat mode?"
Caspar nodded, a slight smirk tugging at his lips. "Pretty much."
I couldn't help but laugh, though it came out more incredulous than amused. "And here I thought I'd done something impressive."
"To be fair," Caspar said, "you still managed to take them out, which means you're stronger than you think. Even unprepared, those officers were trained to deal with Strangers. They underestimated you, sure, but that doesn't mean you aren't dangerous."
I stared at him for a moment, letting his words sink in. The DFO didn't care about the lives I'd taken. To them, those guards were expendable, just another cost of doing business. But to me, it was a reminder that this was real.
"Tell me about this place," I demanded, eyes narrowing as I tried to piece everything together.
Caspar, strangely cooperative, responded without hesitation. "We are inside a Cryptid codenamed Eden."
My stomach twisted.
What the fuck?
Something named after a mythological paradise was bound to be bad news.
Caspar went on, seemingly enjoying my growing unease. "This place won't allow you to leave. It's one of the DFO's most secure facilities."
Of course it is, I thought bitterly. That explained why he was being so cooperative—he knew I wasn't getting out of here. He had no reason to rush or try to kill me; as far as the DFO was concerned, I wasn't a 'time-sensitive' problem. I was already trapped in their perfect little cage.
"So, this entire place is a living, breathing Cryptid?" I asked, trying to keep the disbelief out of my voice. The idea of being inside something alive was both mind-boggling and terrifying.
Caspar nodded. "More or less. Eden's one of the oldest Cryptids we've discovered. It doesn't move in the traditional sense, but it bends space around it. You could walk in circles for days and never reach the edge, because there is no edge."
"Why build a base here, then?" I pressed, trying to unravel the logic behind the DFO's decision to set up shop inside a living cryptid. "There has to be a way to move around."
Caspar leaned back, settling into the twisted logic of the situation like it was a comfortable chair. "This place never runs out of resources—fruit, water, even gold. An old research team tried to create a magical gold vein here, and the cryptid integrated it into itself. Can you imagine that? Gold that is easy to gather and never running out? So, of course, the DFO saw the opportunity. The security here is top-notch, and its main guardian is the cryptid itself."
He was explaining it convincingly, painting a picture of a self-sustaining paradise with infinite resources. But none of that was what I cared about.
"That's not what I want to know," I interrupted, my voice sharper than I intended. "I want to know where the exit is."
Caspar's smirk returned, though it was less mocking this time and more... resigned. "A door opens here once a year. The timing is random, has to be divined. Only the DFO's upper brass know when and where it'll appear."
My heart sank. Once a year? Random? That meant the only way out of here was entirely beyond my control, dictated by the whims of the DFO and whatever cryptic method they used to divine the opening of the door. I had no intention of waiting around for a full year, hoping I'd catch a lucky break. I wasn't that patient.