Becoming a Monster

Chapter 661: Chapter 660: Then So Be It

Arachne had forgotten much of her earlier life. The faces of most of the humans Noah had been around back then were almost a blur.

Before gaining the intelligence she possessed now, there had been even less reason to care.

Back then, there had rarely been a reason to distinguish one human from another. But to her, their differences hardly mattered, because in the end, whether they were weak or strong, they were still food.

Still, she remembered one group of food being around Noah more often than she liked.

These humans constantly found ways to upset Noah, even when they were protected by him.

She never forgot that when they were around, Noah experienced the most emotional conflict. When they were around, other humans always ended up attacking him.

And now that was happening once again.

The moment Arachne recognized one of those humans among the army, something inside her reacted far more violently than she expected.

Arachne wanted her dead.

“What’s wrong?”

Noah’s voice pulled Arachne’s attention away from the shared vision, turning towards him to answer.

Yet the moment she tried, some of her anger gave way to confusion.

How was she supposed to explain who the woman was?

Back then, Arachne hadn’t known her name. There had been no reason to learn it. She recognized the woman’s face and the group she had been part of, but at the time, Arachne hadn’t considered her important enough to remember anything else about her.

After a few moments of silence, Arachne could only give Noah the one description she actually remembered.

“One of your food is coming.”

“Food?” Noah’s expression changed into one of contemplation.

He immediately caught on to what she meant by food, but considering Arachne had once viewed nearly every human that way, it did little to help him understand who she was referring to.

Was it someone from the group they had saved after coming to this world? The woman Amara, who was tied to Anubis? Or was Arachne referring to someone from his original world?

The longer Noah struggled to narrow down the possibilities, the more frustrated Arachne became. She clearly knew who she was trying to describe, but without a name, she couldn’t say much that would make Noah understand.

Eventually, Arachne seemed to have had enough. Her gaze snapped toward Ailetta before one of her hands rose to point directly at her.

“She was with her before she became one of us.”

Noah’s gaze immediately narrowed, while Ailetta’s expression changed as they both understood which group Arachne was referring to.

Only one group could be the one Arachne meant now, and if one of them was among the humans marching toward his territory, Noah couldn’t help but reach the same conclusion Arachne had.

They were here to kill him.

At first, Noah wondered if whoever Arachne had seen might’ve joined the expedition without knowing he was here, but he quickly dismissed the possibility. They had already encountered Fenrir outside the forest, and there was no way they could know Fenrir was here without realizing Noah couldn’t be far away.

Which meant they knew.

Even after everything Noah had done for them, apparently they still couldn’t look past the fact that he was a monster.

Or rather, a devil.

“Who’s the real devil here?” Noah openly mocked.

They could call him a monster or a devil as much as they wanted, but Noah couldn’t understand how that somehow made what they were doing any better. He had protected them when he had no reason to, and whether they liked what he had become or not, he was still one of the reasons they were alive in the first place.

Yet apparently, that meant little when compared to the fact that he was no longer human.

The thought left Noah feeling somewhat out of place, because only now did he realize how naive he might’ve been.

Only a few days ago, he had stopped Ailetta from going out of her way to kill her old friends. Not all of them, of course. There were plenty among that group Noah wouldn’t have cared about if Ailetta decided to kill them, but there were four he had believed were different.

Jasmine, Bailey, Alicia, and Isabelle.

Despite everything that had happened between them, Noah still remembered how close those four had once been to Ailetta, and more importantly, he hadn’t believed they were as bad as the other humans who had turned against him simply because of what he had become.

Apparently, Noah might’ve been more naive than he realized.

If Arachne recognized the woman, then it could only be one of those four. And regardless of which one it was, they had all remained close enough to one another that Noah found it difficult to believe one of them could join an army coming to kill him without the others knowing anything about it.

That didn’t necessarily mean the remaining three were here as well, but Noah could no longer give them the same benefit of the doubt he had only a few days ago.

Noah took a deep breath without saying anything. He didn’t realize this wouldve affected him so much.

He needed to know; he had to know if the others wanted to kill him too.

If he found out that they did… He promised that he would make them all pay.

Forget fortifying his home so he could live in peace.

If they were so ungrateful for the lives he had gone out of his way to save, then Noah would personally take those lives away from them.

He would hunt down every last one of them.

It didn’t matter where they went or how far they tried to run. If they used the life he helped preserve to come after him, then he would make sure there wasn’t another chance waiting for them afterward.

Killing them wouldn’t be enough.

Noah would devour their souls himself.

Whatever came after death in this world, whether it was reincarnation or something else entirely, he would make sure they never got the opportunity to experience it.

And after that, he would finally cut away any trace of hope that there were any good humans in the world.

Ailetta, however, was taking the possibility that one of her old friends was approaching considerably better than Noah was. Rather than being disturbed by the revelation, she found it increasingly difficult to contain the excitement building within her.

Of course, Ailetta understood why Noah was taking the news so poorly. In fact, it was because she understood what their betrayal meant to him that her excitement only continued to grow.

This might finally be the opportunity she had been waiting for.

Noah had been the only thing standing in the way before, but after seeing how strongly he reacted to the possibility that one of them had willingly come here to kill him, Ailetta doubted even he would try to stop her now.

She didn’t particularly care which of her old friends Arachne had seen. Regardless of who it was, Ailetta only hoped that she would be the one to finish them off.

And if devouring one of them wasn’t enough, then perhaps this time Noah wouldn’t even object to her devouring all of her old friends.

“Noah.” Ailetta’s eyes sparkled as she drew his attention. “You wouldn’t care if I took care of her then, would you?”

Noah quickly withdrew from his own thoughts. His feelings toward those four had already grown cold enough that he barely reacted to her question.

“I want her alive first… You understand why, right?”

Ailetta didn’t mind his cold stare. Of course she understood. Before satisfying her own selfish desires, she knew Noah needed to find out exactly why one of them was here and, more importantly, whether the others had made the same choice.

Waiting a little longer hardly bothered her when Noah’s answer had already given her what she wanted.

He hadn’t told her not to kill them.

Ailetta’s smile grew slightly as she nodded. “I’ll bring her to you.”

Noah stared at her for another moment, almost as if making sure she understood what alive meant before turning his attention back toward Arachne.

Ailetta, however, continued smiling as she imagined which of her old friends might be waiting for her.

‘Soon, very soon I’ll be able to set you free from this world… my weak self.’

Ailetta smiled even more when she felt a slight stir within her own soul. It was a fluctuation that she hadn’t felt since the first time she became a monster and seen her old friends.

Although that part of her had been completely silent since then, feeling it again made Ailetta certain her old self was still inside her, separate from her current soul.

It also made her even more confident that she had been right about what was keeping it there.

After everything that had happened since then, it was only now, when one of her old friends appeared again, that her old self finally showed some kind of reaction.

If they could still affect that part of her enough to make it reveal itself, then Ailetta could only assume the connection between them was also what prevented it from disappearing completely.

And if that was true, then she was finally going to have the chance to prove it.

Ailetta could already feel herself becoming impatient. She no longer cared which one Arachne had seen.

She just wanted to devour her.