I Became the Final Subjugation Target of That Era’s Light Novel

But, couldn’t they think of escaping?

I seriously pondered.

That huge nose, so soft it seems like it could leave this apartment anytime if it put its mind to it. The man had left the door open, and if that nose could go in and out through the back, it must have been able to go outside too.

Did the man have that much food in the fridge?

“…….”

I watched the trembling nose huddled in the corner, not moving at all.

It… doesn’t seem hurt.

But that might just be how it looks on the surface. Even if a person appears fine after bumping their head, they might be bleeding inside.

Above all, after I had seen that nose in the man’s room last time, I wasn’t sure if it had eaten anything proper.

It probably hadn’t been eating well lately. The man had been home more often, and maybe that’s why I hadn’t really heard that nose making sounds.

I looked at the nose and stood up.

I opened the door and went outside.

“Meow?”

As I entered the room, Kurosawa was sitting right in the middle of my blanket, looking up at me.

I grabbed a bowl of cat food from the bag I had set in a corner of the kitchen. It wasn’t Kurosawa’s bowl but a spare rice bowl I had kept.

… I’ll just consider it a waste. No matter how much I wash it, I wouldn’t want to use a bowl that held cat food again.

More than that, I’m not the kind of person to just wash and reuse a bowl that was clearly used for something not human.

I can’t help but wonder if anyone exists in this world who would.

I took the bowl and headed back to Room 204.

At least from the outside, it looked fine; no one would know unless they opened the door. It might affect the seismic stability, but I doubted this apartment was built with earthquake-resistant design in mind.

Did they even properly follow the construction regulations?

Thinking that absentmindedly, I opened the door and walked inside, only to see the nose still huddled in the corner, sniffling.

That’s right. It was still sniffing.

… Is it normal for a nose to sniff?

It seemed to have emotions, but no matter how much it wriggled, that ‘nose’ shape made it hard to truly feel those emotions.

I stepped around the debris of construction materials on the floor and placed the bowl a bit away from the nose.

Sniff sniff.

As if it had caught a whiff of food, the sniffing nose immediately started sniffing again.

After a few steps backward, the nose hesitantly moved toward the bowl.

It carefully pressed its nostrils against the bowl and, sniffing cautiously—

Glug glug.

“…….”

So that’s the sound a nose makes when it eats.

Seeing that huge nostril sucking in the food was a bit grotesque.

If I were to compare it to the most similar sight I’ve seen, it would be like villains doing drugs in movies. Of course, there were no $2 bills for snorting drugs, nor was it a white powder. Just a feeling, that’s all.

I sighed heavily and returned to my room.

Then I took a big garbage bag out of the kitchen and grabbed some cleaning tools, heading back to Room 204.

Sniff sniff. Glug glug.

The nose was still eating. Perhaps because it was sucking food through its nostrils, its eating speed was surprisingly slow for its size.

While the nose was eating, I started to sweep the floor with a broom. Everything that could go into the garbage bag from the torn ceiling was tossed inside, and anything too large was simply propped against the wall.

I made sure to clean up any hazardous debris like the shattered lamp as thoroughly as possible.

And…

“…… Let’s just leave that one.”

I mumbled to myself, looking up at the hole in the ceiling.

It wasn’t just a clean hole we fell through. The styrofoam and plywood inside were bent downwards, and unless some contractor comes to fix it properly, it would just look really ugly and dirty.

But in a situation where there are chopped-up bodies inside the refrigerator, calling in an expert seems out of the question.

Moreover, with the vinyl on the ceiling ripped, the gruesome dark red stains were even more exposed. The thought of looking at them made me feel sick, so I directed my gaze downward again.

Sniff sniff.

The nose was gradually finishing its meal.

Though the room wasn’t completely clean, it was decent enough that I could sit on the floor without worrying about bleeding.

I sat down on the vinyl-covered floor.

Sniff.

The nose, after finishing its meal, started moving its nostrils toward me.

… Um.

I tried to gauge the actual age of that nose as I observed it.

If the whole nose was cut off… meaning the skin around it was also sliced, it was easy to recognize what it was.

So… hmm.

Is it my nose? Is it similar to mine?

Honestly, I wasn’t sure. A human face must be seen as a whole to know who it belongs to, and it would be hard to guess someone’s identity just based on a nose or mouth. Only a parent might be able to pinpoint it.

Sniff sniff.

“Ah, wait a second.”

As the nose began to creep toward me, I quickly jumped backward, almost as if I were leaping while sitting.

The nose, heading toward me, suddenly halted and trembled.

Is it hurt?

But… well, something.

Isn’t it a bit weird to just accept a cockroach getting super friendly with me as a friend? Especially a big cockroach with intelligence similar to a cat?

But that thing isn’t a cockroach, it’s part of a human body.

If it were a hand, perhaps it might have seemed a bit cute. You know, that old movie where there’s a hand that isn’t that off-putting.

The nose, looking as if it had been hurt, slumped down. Just a moment ago, it seemed like it could stand up again, but now it had slumped completely.

Every single action of it could land in the ‘cute’ category. But all those plus factors plummeted to the negatives just because of its appearance.

What… should I do?

I couldn’t think about killing it anymore. I had realized that it wasn’t harmful on its own.

But it was still hard to just accept it.

“…….”

The nose was downcast for a while before suddenly raising its body again. Though when I say raised, it wasn’t like it was standing like a four-legged animal; it was more like the weight that had slumped in the middle had gathered back to take the shape of a nose.

And—

“…… Huh.”

Seeing that shape made me awkwardly rise from my spot. I took a stance ready to flee at any moment.

The reason being, the nose was swelling.

The length of the nose was about the distance from my elbow to my middle finger, but the actual area was bigger than that. The nose is three-dimensional. And since the surrounding flesh was moving together with it, if my sight wasn’t very good, it might just look like a balloon sticking out in the middle.

In other words… the plump part of the nose that could stand straight was slowly swelling, somewhat like a balloon being inflated.

But if you think of that balloon as made of human skin, it fits perfectly.

What is this?

Is it trying to kill me for rejecting it? Some kind of self-detonation?

I had all sorts of thoughts. I quickly turned my gaze to find the knife I had dropped.

And with the knife aimed at the swelling nose, I stealthily moved toward the door.

The nose had almost lost its shape. Instead, it had become something like a skin balloon with a mouth and eyes drawn on it.

No, not ‘drawn,’ perhaps I should say ‘etched’? Or rather, that expression might not fit well either.

There’s this scene in a spy movie where a spy makes a mask by molding a person’s face, and that’s how it looked right now.

To explain more intuitively, it’s like covering a human face with a balloon and then sucking air out from the inside so that it tightly adheres to the face.

And that face was, incredibly, mine.

… Right, it now isn’t just a nose but a face, so it clearly knows it’s me. Though I don’t really want to admit it, that nose does seem to be connected to my bloodline.

At first, the mass that looked like a skin-coated statue of me moved more intricately and mimicked me.

I have no idea how that’s working, but the eye part that mimicked me became like genuine pupils, and the opening within the mouth excellently replicated my teeth and tongue.

And the creepiest part was the hair.

It was as if countless portions of flexibly elastic rubber were plucked with tweezers and stretched upwards. At first, those spikes that looked like porcupine quills kept getting longer until they transformed into actual hair.

…….

But that was it.

Was there not enough material for the skin part? The nose ceased imitating me right at the head.

Then the eye parts looked up at me and smiled crookedly.

Then they came bouncing toward me.

I’ll be proud of myself for not screaming and bolting outside at that moment; that would probably be a memory I cherish.

Strangely enough, while my instincts were screaming at me to run, a part of my rationality was thinking, ‘Well, that’s kind of like me.’

After all, I can make various things with my blood, right?

What Jjapgurasu created through my blood isn’t just a ‘hardened chunk of flesh.’ It had eyes and a mouth, and those parts coexisted with the different textures of leather for the handle and blade of the sword.

It could probably even create things like keys.

So, considering that Jjapgurasu has more abilities than I do, it seems plausible that such a thing is possible.

While I was thinking that, the head that resembled me jumped right into my arms.

Accidentally, I caught that head.

“…….”

Crunch.

I was holding the head in my hands. Fortunately, it didn’t stab into my head or neck, but some hair got caught in the knife and fell off.

“Gah!?”

Why is this thing shrieking as if my scream is its own?

While I seriously contemplated that, I felt blood trickling down.

I looked at the head resembling me in my hands; blood was flowing from the spot where the hair had been cut.

Ah, right. That’s how it is.

Hair is also made of flesh.

I carefully lowered the head down.

I was a bit curious. If I just throw it on the floor as it is, would it flatten again like earlier?

As I hesitated for a moment, the hair that had fallen on the floor began wriggling and instantly moved back toward the head.

Then, it stuck to the skin and immediately fused.

At first, it looked like blood vessels, then slowly faded in color until it simply turned into skin.

“…….”

What should I do about this?

That nose was already quite a sight that would terrify anyone who saw it. I was certainly terrified myself.

But a head wouldn’t be the same.

That head seems normal since it can move, but the flesh looks like a grotesque decoration that you’d find in horror movies.

But the head…

The skin is real skin, and the eyebrows and hair also look completely real. No matter how I think about it, it doesn’t look like just a stretched bit of skin.

But imagine if someone witnessed a head bouncing around like that?

No, it’s not just the head that’s the problem. Even if it slips into a corner, those long strands of hair trailing behind would definitely follow.

Who in the world could hold their pee seeing long black hair crawling up the wall and into the ceiling after I come home?

When I sat down on the floor because my legs felt weak, that head leapt onto my knee, bouncing around with glee.

“…….”

What… should I do about this?

No, more importantly, what’s going on with it? Did it completely forget that just a while ago, I was about to stab it with a knife trying to turn it into some pile of body parts?

…….

But then I thought, it had already been through that experience.

I don’t know what cut it up, but someone had already slashed it and put it in the fridge.

Perhaps it’s mimicking me because it knows there’s something wrong with its body.

…Wait.

I turned my gaze.

There’s a refrigerator in this room. The one filled with what I suspect to be flesh and bones.

Each part neatly cut and thoroughly wrapped in plastic wrap.

But…

Is it even alright to do this?

I pondered the risks of what I was about to do.

There’s a very slim chance that what I’m facing right now might just be a disguise. It could portray itself as completely harmless, just to trick me into creating its body and then suffocate me to death.

But then again, I thought it might just have been regarded as a failed experiment. Of course, I believed that was true for both of us. If things had been different, it wouldn’t have ended up being used in a cult.

Whatever the method might have been, it’s quite likely that the final goal of these kinds of stories involving cults is close to world destruction.

And one can bet that the goal of Kurosawa’s cult was to summon Jjapgurasu to the world, considering my body was an ‘avatar’; its body must have been an ‘avatar’ too.

It failed miserably.

I carefully laid the knife down.

Then, I lifted the head that had jumped onto my lap and placed it on the floor.

“Whoa?”

It looked as if it was curious, making a face showing odd feelings of both creepy and cute.

…Right.

Both the nose and the head looked way too grotesque to keep as pets.

With a deep breath, I stood up and walked to the refrigerator.

I opened it wide.

“Oh!”

As soon as I did that, I heard a noise from behind me.

Thump thump. I heard the sound of it bouncing toward me. There… I think there’s something similar in horror tales, probably that of the “jumping ghost.” Legend says it’s a ghost that, after committing suicide, hangs upside down in the air while thumping its head onto the floor.

“…….”

Ugh, that’s not a helpful thought.

“Ohh! Ohhh!”

While I pondered seriously about that jumping figure behind me, I seriously wondered if this would be… okay?

Judging by how excited it is, though, it seems like this body really belongs to that creature.

Should I give it over?

No, wait, I don’t even want to touch it. While it doesn’t seem alive at all for now, it certainly looks like a severed piece of someone’s body wrapped in clear plastic stacked up neatly.

Considering how it can change its shape, perhaps the appearance really doesn’t matter much.

…No, maybe that’s precisely why it looked so chaotic.

I cautiously extended my hand.

Right, I had already touched it before.

I squished the nose; I should be fine touching the rest of it, right? It looks a bit less livid at least.

But no matter what, grabbing the arms sticking out in unwanted directions feels a little off, so I decided to pick up the section that merely appeared to be a lower leg.

The part that’s just above the foot, having been severed halfway through.

That sounds even creepier when I say it out loud.

I picked it up and headed back toward where the knife was. The head that looked just like me was trailing excitedly behind.

I roughly stabbed the plastic wrap with the knife.

“Oh.”

I must have pushed in too deeply, as blood dripped through the wrapping. …Well, it can’t be helped. I sighed once more and stuck my fingers in, tearing it vertically.

Shlick, shlick, the sound was unpleasant as the plastic wrapped closely to the flesh peeled away.

After forcibly tearing the wrap off, blood flowed on the floor.

It’s a relief that the floor is covered in plastic, so it won’t get stained anywhere.

And—

Lick lick.

…My head was licking the blood.

I ripped off the wrapping—ugh, I really don’t want to. The more I tear it, the more of a human corpse part is revealed.

“Ugh.”

Moreover, as I peeled off the wrapping on the joint, it seemed like the adorned feet were waiting as they moved erratically.

Once I placed them on the floor, the feet crawled toward the head almost instinctively.

“Gya! Gya!”

Seeing the head bounce in excitement was terribly unpleasant.

What a sight—the head and the feet combining wasn’t something I wanted to witness.

It wasn’t precisely the bones and the joints combining; it felt more like two well-formed clumps of clay sticking together and then awkwardly mixing by hand before they returned to their shapes.

Having settled into shape, a neck began to grow.

Thud.

“Gya!”

Although it looked cheerful, with just a thin neck, the head couldn’t balance properly. Watching it roll around, looking at me while it tumbled made me feel oddly disturbed.

Moreover, the thin neck was somehow still connected by my T-shirt.

Still, I managed to suppress my unease and tried to peel that part off, but it just wouldn’t work.

…Is this piece also flesh?

I wiped my face.

With gritted teeth, I stood up, resolved.

I made sure the door was locked once more, and after confirming the curtains were drawn over the window—

I took off my clothes all at once.

*

After that, it was a simple task.

After handling the living corpse that looked like a human several times, my emotions dulled. I sliced open the wraps without too much care and tossed it towards the nose as if I were feeding it.

However, there were still parts I couldn’t adapt to.

Seeing just a body part crawling around on the floor was utterly unimaginable.

Having made an arm only until below the collarbone, and seeing it try to scuttle around, using that very arm for balance—it felt extremely surreal. Given that it hasn’t even created a heart yet.

Moreover, I was sitting there without any clothes at all.

…If I didn’t want to cause issues when seen by others, I needed to put some clothes on right away.

However, once it made it up to the waist, the discomfort dipped sharply. After all, there are people missing their legs in reality.

Once it formed perfectly down to the toes, I was amazed.

“Whoa! Wow! Ohhh!”

Though it could barely speak properly.

…….

I finally put my clothes back on.

As I watched it bounce around the room, I hastily closed the refrigerator.

“Wuu?”

The creature tilted its head while looking at the refrigerator, and I shook my head.

“No.”

“Can I go?”

“No.”

“Wuu.”

Seeing it mimic my expression, it seemed capable of mimicking faces, but it didn’t seem to understand what they meant. It showed signs of joy or pleasure and even tilted its head in curiosity, but it doesn’t seem to comprehend the meaning of socially complex behaviors yet.

That’s probably the case. After all, it likely just got chopped up shortly after being ‘born.’

Yet for now, it didn’t seem like it intended to open the refrigerator and grab a bite.

…Could it be satisfied with its own current body?

“Wait a moment.”

As I went out the door, it expected to follow me, so I told it that.

“Wait?”

“…….”

I gazed blankly at its head tilting, unsure of how to react. For quite a while, I stared until I held its shoulders down to limit its movement.

It understood me. It lowered its body accordingly to sit, and I pointed to the floor again with my finger.

“Wait.”

Though it tilted its head, it didn’t move.

I left the hallway, shut the door, and kept glancing back. It didn’t seem inclined to leave the apartment as if retreating to its corner.

But just in case, I hurriedly dashed back to my room, opened a drawer, and grabbed any clothes I could find. Including underwear.

…Considering putting this on made me sigh again, but I thought it was at least one problem resolved.

Yeah, it’s definitely better than having a huge nose around.

…But, how could I call it something like ‘Nose 2’ instead? What should I name it?

I dashed out again, opened the door, and entered Room 204.

Right in time, there was Kotonē 2 heading out, so I quickly pushed it back inside.

Struggling for nearly an hour with that creature attempting to remove the clothes after putting them on, I managed to finally dress it.

Even with the clothes on, it felt somewhat more tolerable.

As I pondered what name to give it…

“Koko.”

“Koko?”

“Yeah. Your name is ‘Koko.’”

It seemed as though it barely understood me.

I pointed to myself with my finger.

“Kotonē.”

“Kotonē.”

Seeing it mirror me, I shook my head and made its hand point to me instead.

“Kotonē.”

“Kotonē.”

Like a parrot, it followed suit, smiling brightly. Is it fun? Perhaps that’s the first word it’s saying correctly.

I moved its hand, making it point to itself this time.

Then I said, “Koko.”

“Koko.”

Yeah. Your name is Koko. Kurosawa Koko.

…The name? I just derived it from the nose.

Anyway, the people around here wouldn’t know why I named it that.

*

“Sharaaak!”

“Sharaaak!”

“…….”

So, I placed Koko, who was now dressed in clothes, into my room.

As soon as I did, Kuro began to have a little scuffle with Koko.

I figured this wouldn’t really be a true fight.

It just seemed like Kuro was doing something, and Koko was mimicking.

It narrowed its eyes and copied with its two front paws while raising its back paws slightly as if pretending to have a tail, striking a pose like Kuro.

“Hah!”

“Hah!”

Then Kuro’s sounds echoed through the room, which Koko imitated.

Moreover, its hair was now swept up high, just like Kuro.

…It really looks like a cat.

Well, naturally, since it’s mimicking a cat.

Though this might be impossible for a person to pull off.

“……”

I watched the two without stopping them, simply gazing out the window at the distant mountains.

What should I do now?

My arms are getting tired.

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