I Became the Drug-Addicted Childhood Friend

Translator: Elisia

Editor/Proofreader: SemiPickle

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I’m out of my mind.

But I still believe I’m human.

Unless they plan to strip all the rights of people who have lost their sanity.

Isn’t it too much to be treated worse than a stray dog?

A dog.

A dog would be better.

Didn’t everyone raise a dog at least once when they were young?

Is there anyone willing to raise a Seo-Ah?

Oh, wait, I was a dog without a leash.

But one of those dogs that still wears a collar.

I remembered trying to raise one and failing.

It seems to be something like that.

If you ask whether dogs handle explosives, the answer is yes.

It explodes.

The whole building gets blown away.

The tuna cans on top fall straight down.

[37%]

There wasn’t much resistance.

Cheon Yoo-Hwa was using her skill to protect Han Si-Hoo.

Thud.

Something fell.

I wasn’t hurt because my body was enhanced.

Surrounding myself with mana hardened my body.

Once, I disabled it and got pierced by a sword.

The barrier must always remain active.

Explosions work in a similar way.

Rather than forming offensive spikes, you create spheres.

When you recklessly expand the size of a sphere made of mana, everything nearby blows up.

Seeing them bring in special vehicles to capture me, I thought.

Maybe I’m quite strong.

It’s no different from a boss raid.

If so, doesn’t that make me at least a mid-boss?

Then I should be able to attack like a boss monster.

They’ll allow that much, right?

It’s only fair.

A dog.

A wolf.

No, whatever it is.

I feel like I’ve become a similar kind of monster.

A creature with only a human-like shape.

To stop a dog from escaping, you tie it up.

Stake it down and fasten the leash.

A hammer?

That looks good.

“How about a giant hammer?”

If I’m making a weapon, it should be massive.

No matter how big it gets, I won’t feel the weight anyway.

Let’s make a hammer.

The hammerhead grew as large as a building, but the handle was relatively thin.

F = M * A.

Force equals mass times acceleration.

Here, mass is replaced by mana.

It’s a world that defies understanding.

That’s just how it is in a novel-like setting.

All the laws of physics are twisted.

I strike down with the hammer.

Bang!

Crash, crash, crash…

The debris of the collapsed building is smashed even further.

Shards fly everywhere.

Cheon Yoo-Hwa is nowhere in sight.

Ah, there she is.

Did she increase the distance while I wasn’t looking?

She doesn’t seem to be attacking recklessly.

“I won’t let it end like last time.”

Rena must be nearby.

Which means someone could appear behind me at any moment.

Disable the barrier, and they’ll pierce straight through.

Pierce, pierce, pierce.

The smell of blood was hard to endure.

[57%]

I’d been stabbed by a sword before.

That’s right.

There’s no weapon as effective as that.

“This time, it’s an incredibly big sword.”

Instead of a hammer, I made a colossal sword.

The blade was disproportionately large compared to the handle.

I swung it.

Boom, boom, boom, boom!

Air resistance meant nothing.

It tore through space itself.

“…This kind of thing shouldn’t even be possible.”

Where the massive sword had passed, only ruins remained.

All the existing structures turned to dust.

Rather than a sword, it resembled a giant black rectangular prism.

And I swung it again.

This wasn’t the kind of attack a little ice could do anything about.

Cheon Yoo-Hwa probably realized that and stayed far away.

Maybe she has a movement skill.

Bang!

A shockwave erupted.

[68%]

“My head. Feels. Strange.”

Because of the intense shockwave?

No.

The drug’s effects were wearing off.

The effects of the drug seemed to be fading.

This distinct, unpleasant sensation.

“Time, time. How much time is left?”

Well, there’s no way to use this power indefinitely.

I’ve accumulated about a thousand hours of drug effects so far, and that’s why I’ve lasted this long.

The feeling was terrible.

The emergency drug in my pocket?

It wasn’t there.

“Time?”

[68%]

Show me the timer.

I don’t know why my status window is so limited in functionality.

For some reason, the ringing in my ears was getting worse.

A wave of discomfort crept up my body.

I needed to resolve this quickly.

I slammed the weapon down.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was swinging it of my own will.

Why was I even swinging the sword?

To become normal again.

Somehow, swinging it wildly seems to increase the percentage.

[74%]

Starlight sparkled.

And it gradually grew bigger.

Beams of light, fired from the horizon, came rushing toward me.

They weren’t meteors but missiles or magic.

I was the only one who could take hits from such weapons.

That’s why they kept their distance.

So they wouldn’t get hit while attacking me.

“…What did I do wrong…”

Boom! Boom!

I raised a mana shield to block it.

It wasn’t so much a shield as it was a dome.

This is why they don’t rely on modern weapons much.

They spend a fortune to fire these weapons, only for someone like me to block them so easily.

Bang.

At this point, I was sure my eardrums were completely shot.

I could feel the shockwaves, but I couldn’t hear any sound.

If a normal person had been hit by this, or even a tank, they’d have been vaporized.

I couldn’t understand why they were so desperate to kill me.

-You’ve almost used up the drug.

I recalled my last conversation with the doctor.

-Unfortunately…

-If it was going to work, it would’ve worked long ago.

-This is the end.

-It’s my fault for underestimating Miss Seo-Ah.

-If I had provided pure liquid from the start, it wouldn’t have failed.

“It didn’t fail.”

I didn’t know what it was, but it couldn’t fail.

Whatever the doctor intended.

I couldn’t be left as a failure.

That was the one thing I couldn’t allow.

Please, give me a reason to live.

Tell me I’ve lived a life that mattered in some way.

Don’t say I used the drug for something meaningless.

Let me believe I became this way for something worthwhile.

-You’ve worked hard, Miss Seo-Ah. What comes next is…

And when I came to, I had killed the doctor.

Though I had a feeling he was still alive somewhere.

***

A concentrated barrage.

The bombardment continued one after another.

Through the thick smoke, a black sphere emerged.

“That seems to be the source of the monster outbreak.”

“What… is that thing?”

The trace left by a massive mana construct brushing past.

The area, already in ruins, had become even more devastated.

“Don’t get too close. We’ll just provide support from a distance. The Awakeners will handle the rest.”

“Those people fighting over there…”

“They must be Awakeners who arrived earlier. In any case, we maintain our distance.”

The black sphere seemed undamaged.

Holding out until the Awakeners arrived had become the military’s standard tactic.

But there wasn’t much else they could do.

When a monster was this powerful, it was more efficient to let the Awakeners handle it.

“Did you see the attack earlier? Swinging a sword the size of a building.”

“Yes.”

I didn’t want to get anywhere near that.

“To pull something like that off, it’d take strength equivalent to launching a rocket. The main body looks human-shaped, but it’s definitely not human.”

“Recently, there seem to be more humanoid monsters.”

“Ah, you know… this is near a testing site, right?”

“I heard it was an experimental zone.”

A place where the government experiments on monsters.

“They say they capture a few Awakeners and experiment on them too.”

“That actually happens?”

“It does.”

And then silence.

They waited for the next order to fire the shells.

“Then that thing… is it from the testing site too?”

“With all the incidents near experimental zones lately, anyone paying attention knows. I’ve seen them transporting monsters in vehicles… and that thing isn’t human.”

“I didn’t realize the government would go this far.”

“That’s why these days, mediocre Awakeners hide the fact that they’re Awakeners.”

“Do they?”

“Yeah. It’s much better that way. Imagine enrolling in the Academy without backing. Then you’d be the first sent to fight in places like this. Even grown adults get summoned to fight all over the place.”

There were times when being an Awakener seemed enviable, but not always.

Being exploited under the pretense of being humanity’s only hope felt excessive.

“Still, it’s kind of like being the protagonist of a novel or a comic. Isn’t that cool?”

“Only to get dragged into experiments. That’s a different genre altogether. It’s not about heroes saving the day…”

“Oh, looks like the Awakeners have arrived.”

Awakeners moved alongside military forces.

I heard that even Academy professors were among them.

Apparently, their students had borrowed vehicles for the mission.

“They’ll figure it out.”

“Whoa, is that summoning magic?”

Massive hands emerged from the ground, attempting to crush the black sphere.

It looked as if they were trying to pin it into the concrete floor.

“A monster, truly a monster.”

The battle had transcended human understanding.

For a mere soldier, just standing guard was enough.

“Whoa… are those lasers? They’re not coming our way, are they?”

“More like spikes?”

The massive hands were pierced and shattered by the black spikes.

From a distance, the battle seemed almost like entertainment.

But the potential threat to my life made it hard to truly enjoy.

“Whoa, more are coming out. How many arms does that thing have?”

Four or five arms rose from the ground, trying to crush the black sphere.

Looking through a telescope, the scene felt even more vivid.

“What is that… giant plants? Ice? There’s so much going on.”

“Yes, indeed.”

Huge tree trunks sprouted, as if they were about to turn the concrete into a forest.

If someone could do something that spectacular, they were surely a skilled Awakener.

“But I’ve got a bad feeling. Usually, breaking something like that forcibly causes trouble.”

“You mean that black sphere?”

Now lightning was striking from the sky.

Lights of various sizes sparkled.

A storm accompanied by numerous spells raged on.

Even from a distance, the deafening explosions were audible.

“In games, when you fight a boss…”

“Yes?”

“There’s always a second phase. You think it’s over, but it turns out to be just the beginning.”

“Don’t jinx it. I don’t know what that thing is… but it’ll be fine, right?”

The soldier let out a nervous laugh.

“Most likely, we can capture it. The government said to hand it over after capture. Well… it’s none of our business.”

It really wasn’t their concern.

After all, they couldn’t possibly get involved in battles between monsters like that.