"Do you think I'm a security guard who went for a walk in the sewer after dinner and beat them up?"

Li Wu asked rhetorically.

Ryoko stared at him without speaking.

The two stared at each other for a while, and finally Li Wu added: "So far, it is definitely not friendly. ”

Probably thinking that her question sounded a bit redundant, Ryoko pulled a chair and sat down and explained, "I just wanted to talk like this because I saw you fighting them, but I was still not relieved until I heard a clear answer." ”

Obviously ran faster than a rabbit before.

Li Wu sat down while sneering: "So you're not human?" ”

He chose this fact, which he already knew, to ask.

Ryoko hesitated for a long time before raising her right hand and turning it into a cloud of indigo-blue viscous liquid.

"I'm not, but how do you still think of me after seeing yesterday's picture? What does my image in the class look like to you? ”

She was still angry as she spoke.

"I can see who you really are, so you can think of this as a special ability. So from the first day of school, I knew you weren't human. ”

Li Wu calmly explained, "Why were you there last night? ”

Ryoko Aoki had obviously not digested the first half of his sentence, and her face changed color in a physical sense in shock.

"That is—I was exposed from the start?"

She clutched her head in frustration, frustrated into a ball of blue soft body like a wild mallet snake, "Then what is my disguise, what is the reason for the cafe's fear after that day?!" ”

"I don't understand, why are you so afraid of letting people know that you're not human?"

Li Wu is no longer the self who has just stepped into the anomalous world.

After all kinds of events, he has come to understand how colorful the world is beneath the surface, and countless otherworldly beings from different worldviews are crowded under the filter of daily life.

"If you haven't done something terrible that will be targeted, there's no need to hide it so tightly, right?"

Even if she is as timid as Airisa, she doesn't have a particularly big reaction after he and Hoshikawa Aoi know that she is a vampire, on the other hand, Ryoko Aoki, even her good sister Yui Hirata thinks she is a pure human.

"Why, you ask...... This is actually related to the previous question. ”

Ryoko, who had calmed down, said, "Actually, that sewer used to be my home. ”

Ryoko Aoki a long time ago didn't have this human name, and she didn't even have the intelligence to talk like this.

It is just an amorphous mass of protoplasm that derives a vicious appearance according to its environment, hunting small creatures such as rats, and becoming the lord of the sewers of Uchiko Street in Hanayamachi.

It's a sewer, but it's a lord!

This nourishing life may continue until after the extinction of human civilization, until an unexpected visitor arrives.

On a night when the rain washed over the manhole cover, a foreign object fell into the gutter below.

Yes, it is an incomprehensible foreign substance to the protoplasm, which only exists instinctively, like a single-celled organism.

She is much larger than the rats she often preys on, and can use her invisible organs to catch what is supposed to be her own ration, and emit a scorching light to transform it into another form and eat it.

Sensing the danger, the protoplasm did not rashly choose to attack, but simply hid in the dark to observe.

Through experiments on mice, it has developed a preliminary idea of what it means to be injured or near-dead.

In its view, the object was in a near-death state, with blood pouring out of the massive wound on its waist, staining the water red.

I secretly tasted the protoplasm and thought it tasted very good.

It was determined to find a way to eat the foreign object that had invaded its territory.

The way is to wait for her to die violently!

But it waited for a long time, and although the foreign body was lying there bleeding all the time, it was still eating its own mouse, and it was in good spirits.

This is too much of a bully for the lord.

The protoplasm, which felt that its food reserves were about to be eaten up, could not bear it anymore, and finally pounced out of the darkness with teeth and claws.

Then he was caught.

An invisible force restrained it, and it was carried in front of a foreign object like a puddle of water.

One of her organs vibrates at a specific frequency, causing fluctuations in the air.

It wasn't until after the foreign body died that it understood the meaning of the fluctuations.

"What a cute little one! Are there slimes in the sewers? I thought it was all made up of games. ”

This is the first encounter between an android and a sewer monster who also has no name, but is known as Subject 032.

After that, the unfortunate captive Protoplasm listened to her babbling for a long time, half-forcedly.

Most of the words have been forgotten, and a small part will not be understood until later.

She talks about her life in an underground building, her daily prayers with her siblings, the singing of hymns together, and her boredom in watching Yoko's concerts.

"Do you know Yoko? You don't know, do you? After all, I can only live here, and it's quite pitiful to think about. ”

She lifted a dumbbell and swayed up and down with invisible force on the protoplasm that had shrunk into a small ball.

"She's an idol, do you know what an idol is? I don't really understand it, but I've heard that it's something that makes people laugh...... Although Uncle Akamatsu has always insisted that they are all liars and should not be shown to us. ”

"Then I escaped, and I'm probably going to die now."

Subject 032 smiled, "According to the teacher, I don't seem to have the ability to fear death, and that's fine." I just wanted to watch Yoko's performance at the scene, but it's a pity. ”

Protoplasm does not understand what regret is.

It only felt that the power that bound it was getting weaker and weaker, and the light of the day was completely dissipated when it entered the dark underground.

It landed on a companion with whom it had spent the night, and found that the other party was no longer making annoying noises.

It's wonderful, and its rough thinking circuits know that the amount of flesh in foreign bodies is far greater than that of rats.

As a result, the amorphous mucus envelops the human body that has stopped breathing, because the difference in volume can only eat a small half.

It only ate half of it, as more foreign objects broke in and scared it back into the shadows.

But that amount was enough for the birth of "Ryoko Aoki".

The story ends abruptly here, like a horror movie without a sequel.

"Then I realized where my talent was, and for the first time I had an intelligence that could think vaguely, and a considerable part of her memory flowed into my mind, and even the name Ryoko Aoki was a combination of the two words she had mentioned, Akamatsu and Yoko."

The blonde girl has a delicate face and calmly ends her narrative from a third perspective, without the slightest hint of inhumanity.

Thanks to book friends 20220407023902531, Zhang Ruizhou, Omachi Kai, JGreenwich, Pig Bay's spy, and Painted Color is Empty Reward

(End of chapter)