Chapter 242: Hwi Is Hungry

The only thing he was not convincing at all at pretending to be was a yandere. If it were Byeol, then perhaps it would be more believable.

Could it also be because Hwi’s Mental Poeer was still in a normal state right now? Perhaps only after his Mental Power dropped to a certain level would the abnormal condition reveal itself?

As for yanderes, when reading novels or watching anime, it was fine to find them cute for a moment. But in real life, it was still better to stay far away. Joo Joowon calmly thought that it seemed he would have to be careful when using Hwi’s [Madness Surge] skill.

Thinking about the description of the [Fervent Embrace] skill, Joo Joowon reached out and pulled the still-weakened Hwi into his arms. When he saw the description of this skill, even though he had no memory of it, he seemed to have vaguely guessed what his Mental Power had done after finding Hwi’s soul.

He had forcibly injected Hwi with some knowledge to help him resist the erosion of the whispers.

After all, if Hwi had already been in an abnormal mental state due to the mutation at that time, then simply trying to persuade him with words obviously would not have been effective anymore. Direct and crude brainwashing would have been more effective.

This might also have been the reason why not even a trace of his Mental Power remained, making it impossible for him to bring the information back to Joo Joowon.

To accomplish something like this, the amount of Mental Power consumed must have been enormous.

Hwi had never been particularly intelligent to begin with. After being bombarded with such a massive amount of information, it was perfectly normal for his perception and understanding to become distorted.

Thinking about it, if there had truly been no other choice, he would not have resorted to such a desperate method. After all, his shallow understanding of the soul could hardly support him in accomplishing something like this. The risk was enormous. With even the slightest mistake, Hwi’s soul might have simply disappeared.

However, even though such consequences had been caused now, after carefully thinking about it, Joo Joowon still felt that this might already have been the best choice among all the possible paths.

The mind needed an anchor. This way, no matter how far it drifted across the "sea," it could always find its way back, turning the situation around at the critical moment when it became lost. And what did Hwi actually care about?

As a cat, the things he normally cared about might have been nothing more than having enough food and being warm.

However, this was not suitable to be used as a mental anchor. Or rather, it was not suitable for Joo Joowon to use as the mental anchor for awakening Hwi, because he did not know what food Hwi liked the most or what he wanted to eat the most.

Once the obsession was not strong enough, it would be very easy for it to be scattered halfway through. It would not be able to withstand the whispers.

It was like those people who usually shouted about losing weight or preparing for graduate school entrance exams. Most of them could not persist for very long, because for them, their obsession with these things was actually not as deep as they imagined. Even if they mentioned them constantly in their daily lives, their actual importance was not that high.

Therefore, Joo Joowon could not possibly gamble on how deeply Hwi was obsessed with food at that time. He could only choose to use his own powerful Mental Power to forcefully impact Hwi’s soul.

Of course, being able to achieve this effect was also because Hwi himself did not have very complicated thoughts, and because he truly had a fairly high Favorability toward Joo Joowon. Only under these conditions could such a situation be achieved.

When a cat’s purring was too close to the ears, it could feel quite deafening. Joo Joowon skillfully stroked the cat, continuously paying attention to Hwi’s status panel. He was somewhat curious about what kind of principle this was. Even an embrace had become a miraculous medicine.

"Meow?!"

Before Joo Joowon could figure it out, Byeol’s disbelieving cry suddenly came from beside his ear.

Joo Joowon turned his head and saw that Byeol’s mismatched eyes were opened extremely wide. He looked at Joo Joowon in disbelief, making him feel as though he had been caught red handed cheating on someone.

Joo Joowon coughed awkwardly, he then sat up from the bed, and reached out to touch Byeol. "I’ve been sleeping for so long. Good Byeol, are you hungry?"

Byeol, whose home had been stolen from him, looked at Joo Joowon in a daze, his expression filled with resentment.

If Hwi had taken the initiative, then fine, but why were you the one who took the initiative?!

"Meow!" Hwi immediately caught the key word and cried out excitedly.

Me, me, me! I’m hungry!

Joo Joowon did not need to guess to know that they were definitely hungry. He had originally planned to simply open some canned food, but after thinking about it, he directly took out two Zombie Core from his spatial waist pouch.

Both of these had dropped from the cat-type Elite Monsters he had killed earlier. They had probably been quite worried while he slept for so long, and he did not know whether their mental conditions were stable either. To prevent the whispers from taking advantage of their weakened state, they both needed to adjust their conditions as quickly as possible.

Byeol had already been able to absorb Zombie Core even before becoming a mutated beast. Now, naturally, this was even less of a problem. Moreover, these were cores from the same species, so they should also be somewhat easier to absorb than cores from other chimeric creatures.

He should change his way of thinking. Right now, even when he ate ordinary food, he had to eat several times more than his previous appetite just to feel slightly full. Naturally, mutated beasts could no longer be viewed from the same perspective as before. They all needed to be fed food with high energy content.