He was known as Woodpecker, though even he no longer remembered how he had acquired the nickname. Everyone who knew the reason was dead.
Some had slowly dissolved inside the stomach of test subject XSF-H037-C. Others had been torn apart. Had their organs sucked out. Their brains devoured. Their bodies crushed.
Or... or... or...
Woodpecker had once believed he knew every possible way a person could die.
That belief had been nothing but arrogance.
Then a voice abruptly dragged him back to the present.
“Ah. His eyelid twitched.”
The voice was high-pitched, almost musical.
Barely managing to open his eyes, he saw a young blonde woman—or rather, a girl—peering down at him. She looked especially young because of the charming freckles scattered across her right cheek. Under ordinary circumstances, Woodpecker might even have found them cute.
But after being slowly digested by stomach acid, his sanity had dissolved along with his body.
Only the orders crackling through the static of a radio remained in his mind. Everything else was slipping away like water through his fingers.
More soldier than man now, Woodpecker struggled to raise his half-melted eyelids. Blinding light flooded his vision, followed by a searing pain deep inside him—different from the agony of being dissolved, but no less unbearable.
“Ugh...”
His mind, which he had believed emptied of everything but orders, twisted beneath fresh waves of pain and rage. Each new spasm struck like lightning, briefly illuminating the chaos within.
“What if he dies like this?”
“Wouldn’t it still count as self-defense? I mean, we nearly died too. Willy’s leg should be proof enough, right?”
Christina and Airi whispered urgently nearby. The soldier was clearly in critical condition.
Johan raised a finger to his lips.
“Shh. Let’s ask him first.”
He crouched before the tightly bound soldier, the skewer still protruding from his side. His piercing blue eyes searched the man’s face.
“Why are you doing this? Why drag us here instead of simply killing us?”
It was difficult to believe that all of this had been done merely for sadistic pleasure.
Johan’s direct question seemed to cut through the soldier’s mental fog, pulling the truth from a mind drowning in commands, agony, and fury.
“You’re bait!” the soldier shouted. “All of you!”
“Bait?”
William echoed the word.
Even after someone had tried to wipe the blood from his face, dark streaks still clung to his skin, making his expression look particularly grim.
Amused by their reaction, the soldier burst into laughter. His entire body trembled with delight.
“Yes, bait! Creatures from beyond our world prefer their humans alive! Corpses won’t do. But—ah, there’s no time. I have to bring it back... quickly! I’m the only one left. I have to return it to the laboratory. And all of you should be willing to sacrifice yourselves for your country. Hurry! If it gets away, it’ll wreak havoc!”
His laughter grew increasingly frantic. Tears streamed down his cheeks as his expression lurched wildly between hysteria and delight.
Johan’s eyes met Seojun’s.
In the dim room, Seojun’s eyes seemed so bright they almost gave off a light of their own.
“Tango, samba, or fan dance,” Seojun murmured. “Choose how you want to die.”
“Hold on. You can’t make a decision like that on a whim. This requires careful consideration.”
Johan spoke with perfect seriousness, as though they were engaged in a genuine life-or-death debate.
Unimpressed, Seojun turned away with an irritated click of his tongue.
“Of course. Take all the time you need. Think it over until you’re old and gray.”
Their weak attempt at humor did little to dispel the oppressive atmosphere.
The dormitory showed its age both inside and out. Icy wind rattled the windowpanes in their warped frames, while the dust-coated wooden floorboards groaned ominously beneath every step. The smells of blood and dust mingled in the air, forming an almost tangible sense of dread.
Although they had restrained the soldier, they were far from safe.
Monsters and murderers lurked outside in the darkness. They had no means of contacting the outside world, and every escape route had been cut off. Relief was a luxury none of them could afford.
In the heavy silence that followed, the soldier’s eyes darted restlessly beneath his partially melted eyelids, concealing whatever emotion lay behind them.
“Securing XSF-H037-C is a matter of national importance. Think about it, all of you. This is your chance to prove your patriotism—to fulfill your duty to your country!”
“XSF... what was it again?” Airi asked. “How are you even supposed to pronounce that? Is that the monster’s name? Huh. I was pretty sure its name was Audrey.”
Her attempt to lighten the mood was edged with sarcasm.
“What if the government hypnotizes all of us after this?” Christina whispered.
A shiver ran through Airi. She rubbed her arms as though trying to ward off a sudden chill.
“Hey, stop it, Tina! Don’t even joke about that. God, if it weren’t for Bobby, we wouldn’t even know a name like Audrey!”
Her voice rose in frustration as she rubbed her aching waist, plainly irritated by the pain in her side.
Seojun, meanwhile, stared at her in disbelief.
Of all people, Bobby apparently shared his taste in names.
That was something Seojun would have preferred never to learn.
“Right,” Johan said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “And we’re already doing our patriotic duty by staying healthy, obeying the law, and paying our taxes.”
He glanced at the visibly shivering Airi, then casually flicked the handle of the skewer with his index finger.
The soldier groaned. His eyes rolled beneath his melted eyelids.
Johan continued his interrogation.
“XSF-H037-C. That’s a remarkably modern name for a monster, isn’t it? Does it stand for something? It sounds like an acronym.”
“...”
Skewered through the side and writhing in agony, the soldier could do little more than stare back at Johan. His eyes were clouded and unfocused.
Yet unbeknownst to the others gathered in the crumbling dormitory, something deeper flickered within them.
Despite the pain, the soldier fixed Johan with an unnerving intensity.
It was neither anger nor [N O V E L I G H T] fear.
It was hope.
Seojun recognized the expression immediately. It was the same look he himself often directed at Christina.
“Yes. It’s an acronym,” the soldier said. “The thirty-seventh life form summoned by human beings. And the doctor assigned it a danger level of C. Only C!”
He laughed madly.
His body convulsed in irregular spasms, causing his exposed entrails to bulge through the wound in his side.
“So if all of you cooperate, we can capture it. Right? You owe your country that much. It’s a sacrifice every citizen should be prepared to make.”
“What about our freedom and human rights?” Airi shouted. Her aching back did nothing to lessen the indignation in her voice. “Or are those just empty words you’ve already sold off?”
William tried to calm her, sensing the rising tension.
Instead of continuing her tirade, Airi simply raised both middle fingers at the soldier.
Seojun, for his part, had little interest in the monster’s tragic origin story.
Still, he understood that in horror films, learning what had happened in the past was often the key to surviving the terror of the present.
He edged subtly closer to Johan. There was a peculiar sense of security in standing beside his broad frame and solid muscles.
“So this XXF thing...” Seojun began. “How did it end up here at the Hamon campsite? This place doesn’t exactly look like a quarantine facility for monsters.”
The soldier’s gaze shifted from Johan to Seojun. His disfigured lips struggled to form the words.
“If I tell you, will you help me?”
“We’ll consider it.”
They needed information if they were going to defeat the monster.
They had no intention of serving as live bait, as the soldier intended, but there was no harm in hearing him out.
“Jun.”
Johan spoke softly as he reached out and gently took Seojun’s hand. His brow furrowed, and his lips tightened as he said his name.
Making sure the soldier could not see, Seojun quickly traced a single word across Johan’s back with his finger.
Lie.
The message was brief, but he was certain Johan would understand.
Johan’s expression did not change. He merely glanced sideways, giving Seojun no indication of whether he had understood.
Seojun was considering writing it again when the soldier broke the silence with a chuckle.
“We were transporting XSF-H037-C to a new facility as part of an experiment. It was a top-secret operation. Our unit was the only one assigned to it.”
“A new facility?” Airi said. “Wait—no. Don’t tell me. I seriously don’t want to know.”
Her face had gone pale.
She clapped both hands over her ears and shook her head violently, as though she could physically repel the information.
Sensing her distress, William reached out and took her hand, offering silent comfort.
The more they learned, the more they wondered whether they would eventually be taken to some government facility and have their memories erased.
The soldier’s laughter echoed through the room. He wheezed for breath, then continued.
“We were only passing through this area... yes, just passing through. Then the driver suddenly shouted, ‘There’s a guinea pig running in front of the vehicle!’ Can you believe it? A guinea pig outrunning a car?”
He began to laugh again.
“That idiot must’ve been distracted by the lovebirds having sex by the roadside. And all of us paid the price. The vehicle overturned, and XSF-H037-C broke free of its restraints!”
“...”
Silence descended over the dormitory, broken only by the soldier’s ragged breathing.
The residents of Wraithwood Warren were speechless.
Seojun found himself thinking about the legendary guinea pig said to live there.
Was Cynthia’s pet truly nothing more than an ordinary guinea pig?
Of course, that was hardly the most pressing issue.
Silver had also mentioned seeing a military truck earlier that day.
Everyone had their own reasons for remaining silent, but the soldier seemed determined to continue despite his labored breathing.
“It was strange. C-completely impossible. It should’ve been immobilized by the control drugs we administered. But XSF-H037-C started moving. Then it began devouring us. Like I said, it has a taste for the living... living... living...”
The anger that had briefly sharpened the soldier’s voice faded, and he slipped back into delirium.
His speech grew increasingly slurred, though he appeared oblivious to his own mental collapse.
“It devoured cuckoos, sparrows, and finches. It consumed everything in its path. Its stomach was strangely warm, but the lake was freezing. I was inside it, dissolving among my dead comrades, buried deep within its flesh while the filthy lake water seeped in... Hehehe.”
His unfocused eyes trembled.
“I thought that was the end. I thought I would die with them. I was dissolving, but then, by some miracle, it spat me out. This is our collective resolve. I must complete the mission. When I came out, I saw the lake. The lake was...”
His speech dissolved into incoherent muttering, but the general sequence of events was clear.
The military had been conducting a covert operation to relocate the alien life form XSF-H037-C, which had been used in an experiment.
Because of the driver’s mistake, the transport vehicle overturned and the soldiers inside were incapacitated. XSF-H037-C escaped its restraints and began preying on them.
Despite the control drugs in its system, the creature remained highly active. It eventually entered the lake.
As the group pieced the story together, the color drained from their faces.
“Wait,” Airi said. “Does that mean the monster was already in the lake when we were swimming?”
Christina, William, and Johan all grimaced.
Although Seojun had not been with them at the lake, even he shuddered at the thought.
Golden’s eyes widened in belated realization.
“That must’ve been the truck Silver saw!”
Christina bit her lower lip thoughtfully.
“Wait. Something about this doesn’t make sense.”
She spoke cautiously, keeping enough distance to remain outside the soldier’s immediate reach.
Her beautiful golden hair was tangled, and grime stained her pale skin. Even so, her eyes remained clear and resolute.
“Even if the operation was classified, once contact was lost during the transport of something this dangerous, shouldn’t reinforcements have been sent? Or at least another military unit?”
It was a perfectly reasonable question.
The soldier responded by bursting into laughter. Blood sprayed from his mouth before he managed to mumble through his mangled lips.
“I already told you, didn’t I? It was a classified operation. A secret plan devised by the doctor himself!”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Christina pressed.
“Let it go, Christina,” Johan said. “A monster like that is practically a catastrophic-level threat, yet none of the residents of Wraithwood Warren know anything about it. In other words, this operation was so secret that it couldn’t be properly disclosed even within the government. The public weren’t the only ones kept in the dark.”
He placed a reassuring hand on Christina’s shoulder and gently shook his head.
Then his eyes narrowed.
His expression hardened as he looked down at the soldier, his mind racing through the possibilities.
“They may have been caught up in an internal power struggle. Or perhaps there was some other reason they couldn’t establish a proper communications network. Otherwise, it’s impossible to imagine them leaving such an unpredictable and monstrous creature unattended for more than a day.”
The creature had already devoured dozens of people.
Had the authorities known that such a dangerous life form was loose, the entire area should have been crawling with soldiers, vehicles, and emergency personnel.
It should not have been this eerily quiet.
The hopelessness of their situation finally became too much for Airi. She grabbed fistfuls of her hair in frustration.
“Ugh! Why the hell did we have to get dragged into this nightmare?!”