“Catdog! Hey, Catdog!”
The one who broke Catdog’s peaceful nap was none other than Beom Do-il’s noisy voice.
Do-il barged into Kang Chi-yu’s room without even knocking, flinging the door open and waking Catdog, who had been fast asleep on the bed.
“Weren’t you bored all by yourself?”
[Grooo…]
Catdog simply lifted its head and blinked at him lazily.
“Come on, let’s play. Chororo— chororo—”
Though the door was wide open, Do-il didn’t step inside—perhaps out of some respect for the room’s owner. Instead, he stood at the doorway, making strange cooing sounds with his mouth and gesturing for Catdog to come out.
“Why isn’t it coming?”
Jun-hyung poked his head around the corner, glanced at Catdog, and asked.
“Guess it doesn’t feel like it.”
“Maybe it’s ‘cause Chi-yu’s not here. Just leave it—it probably doesn’t want to come out.”
As Jun-hyung turned away and headed toward the living room sofa with a cool shrug, Do-il smacked his lips and called out to Catdog again.
“Alright, I’ll leave the door open. If you get bored, come out and play with oppa, okay?”
As he turned toward the living room, Jun-hyung, still playing his mobile game, let out a chuckle and asked,
“How do you even know if it’s a girl? Why call yourself oppa?”
“She is a girl.”
“Yeah? And how do you know that?”
“She’s pretty. Pretty ones are always girls. Well, except for humans, obviously.”
“Ha.”
“…Wait, do mutant beasts even have sexes?”
Do-il tilted his head in confusion.
Catdog, like most mutant beasts, was sexless—neither male nor female.
That same creature, who hadn’t budged for Do-il, suddenly flapped its tiny wings wildly and darted out the door the moment Yoon Do-jae appeared.
Whether it picked up his scent or something else, the second Yoon Do-jae and Min Yu-hyun teleported in, Catdog launched into action.
Seeing that, Do-il cried betrayal, ranting about how the thing hadn’t even twitched for him.
“Wow. This is blatant favoritism.”
“They must’ve gotten pretty close. Didn’t he say they slept together yesterday?”
Min Yu-hyun watched Catdog panting eagerly at Do-jae’s feet and spoke with amusement.
“What? Slept with her?! When? Why? How??”
Do-il fired off questions in rapid succession.
Yu-hyun gave a rough summary of what he knew about the previous day. Meanwhile, Yoon Do-jae crouched down to gently stroke Catdog’s head, his voice oddly tender as he asked if it was hungry, or what it wanted to eat.
It was a surprisingly gentle tone—one that didn’t match his usual blank expression at all.
***
Because they started work the latest, Tae-oh and Chi-yu also returned the latest. When they walked into the apartment, both froze in confusion at the sight of the living room table buried under a mountain of snacks.
It looked like most of those snacks had already ended up inside Catdog.
As the creature soared toward Chi-yu in greeting, its belly was visibly bloated.
“Did you have fun while we were gone?”
[Kkueeng— kkueng— HSSSS!]
Catdog rubbed its face affectionately against Chi-yu’s hand but didn’t forget to hiss fiercely at Hyun Tae-oh, who stood right next to him.
Just like that, it switched modes in an instant. Tae-oh grabbed it by the scruff and gave it a playful shake.
The others lounging on the sofa laughed, saying those two were natural enemies.
The camera directors were delighted, too. Catdog’s presence gave them more relaxed, natural footage than they’d hoped for.
“Why’d you feed it so much, though?”
Chi-yu asked, worried, staring at Catdog’s ballooned belly.
Still playing his game, Lee Jun-hyung replied without even looking up.
“It just kept eating.”
“At first I thought it was weird—looks like a cat but makes pig noises. Turns out it eats like a pig, too.”
Do-il added with a laugh.
“Doesn’t seem like there’s anything to worry about,” said Min Yu-hyun calmly, arms crossed. “It spits out anything it doesn’t like, and even throws up when it’s full.”
Yoon Do-jae nodded. “It hit its limit. Doesn’t eat anything now—just spits it all back out.”
Relieved by that, Chi-yu nodded too.
Tae-oh placed a hand on Chi-yu’s shoulder and shoved Catdog’s face aside, its tiny wings still flapping furiously in front of them.
“Here. Take this thing. We’ve got somewhere to be.”
He hadn’t forgotten the promise they made earlier.
Neither had Chi-yu.
In fact, he might’ve been more eager than Tae-oh.
Even during work, the memory of that deep, breath-stealing kiss had left his body aching, desperate for more.
Catdog bit down lightly on Tae-oh’s finger as he pushed its face away. Tae-oh, unbothered by the harmless nibbling, dramatically flailed his hand and groaned for show.
“Ow.”
Catdog clung to his finger, chewing away as it dangled in the air—prompting another round of laughter from the room.
***
Yoon Do-jae and Min Yu-hyun only discovered the Central Bureau and the research lab’s involvement with Catdog by sheer accident.
After finishing work, they headed to the Bureau Chief’s office without the cameras.
They were trying to report an incident where a mutant beast had briefly appeared and disappeared in Do-jae’s assigned zone.
Multiple attempts to contact through the mic had failed, so they’d decided to go in person.
Because the matter could be classified, they’d asked the camera crew to delete all related footage before coming.
They couldn’t teleport directly into the Bureau Chief’s office, so they arrived just outside the door.
Later, both would agree—teleporting outside rather than inside was the right choice.
Just as Yu-hyun raised his hand to knock, a voice from within spoke Kang Chi-yu’s name. He froze mid-motion.
The conversation inside was about Kang Chi-yu and a test subject. From context, both men quickly deduced that the subject in question was Catdog.
—That test subject’s stuck to Guide Kang Chi-yu ever since it escaped the lab. That’s right. So we need to isolate just those two—Guide Kang Chi-yu and the subject.
The Bureau Chief’s voice was clear as day.
Yu-hyun and Do-jae exchanged a glance.
—Separating Hyun Tae-oh isn’t hard. Just cite classified reasons, send him far away with Min Yu-hyun.
Yu-hyun’s brow twitched.
Do-jae’s face hardened.
—No, wait—hah. Hell. Who could’ve guessed the subject would Mark him? Not even the lab director expected that. They said it’s not a failure. It successfully absorbed Kang Chi-yu’s Rampage Recovery, reverted to its original form… Yeah. That’s what matters now. So to verify, we need to separate the Guide and the subject—
Before the sentence could finish, Do-jae grabbed Yu-hyun’s arm and teleported them both away in an instant.
Right after they vanished, the Bureau Chief’s secretary turned the corner.
Quick thinking, as always.
“What the hell?! We didn’t get to hear the rest!”
“Someone was coming.”
“…You heard it too, right? That Catdog’s the test subject.”
At Yu-hyun’s words, Do-jae nodded.
“They mentioned a ‘true form.’ Sounds like they turned a cat into a mutant beast.”
“Why the hell would they do that…?”
Do-jae muttered with a scowl.
As someone who took real pride in working for the Central Bureau, the idea that the Bureau and the lab had joined forces to turn a living being into a beast—it made his stomach turn.
And the moment the Bureau Chief used the word test subject, all those dreadful suspicions edged closer to reality.
Yu-hyun’s next words solidified that fear.
“I’ve suspected something ever since the Black Gate incident. There’s definitely something going on between the Bureau and the lab.”
“……”
“They’re trying to get something from Kang Chi-yu. I just don’t know what.”
Yu-hyun rubbed his chin, lost in thought.
Do-jae looked over.
“What could they possibly want from Guide Kang Chi-yu?”
Yu-hyun met his eyes.
“Back during the Black Gate, I wasn’t sure. But now I’m almost convinced—it’s his ability to stabilize wavelengths and recover Rampage at the same time.”
“And the Bureau and lab are trying to exploit that?”
“No clue how. I talked with Hyun Tae-oh briefly, and even he said something feels off lately.”
“……”
“The sudden rise in mutant beasts, turning a cat into one through experiments—it all fits.”
“Tell me everything.”
Do-jae’s voice was grave.
Yu-hyun relayed the conversation he’d had with Hyun Tae-oh not long ago.
“Tae-oh suspects the recent mutant beasts aren’t coming from gates or wild habitats.”
“…Based on what?”
“Well, you’ve fought them too. Tae-oh said the Ridune levels in these newer beasts feel way lower than normal.”
“…Yeah. But there’s always been differences—between gate creatures and ones from habitats.”
“Right, but Tae-oh says the gap now is too big to ignore.”
Do-jae’s expression stiffened.
Now that he thought about it—it was true.
There were always Ridune discrepancies depending on where beasts appeared, but lately, some of these mutants weren’t listed in the Beast Codex, and their Ridune levels were suspiciously low.
He hadn’t thought much of it at the time.
But the fact that Tae-oh had immediately caught on—and then gone a step further to suggest these beasts were man-made—was chilling.
Maybe that’s what made him SS-rank.
Or maybe it was because he’d grown up confronting mutant beasts like most kids dealt with neighbors.
“Should we inform Esper Hyun Tae-oh?”
Do-jae asked, his voice low with concern.
“Yeah. Especially with what the Bureau Chief said earlier.”
“They’re filming at the dorm right now. We should call him somewhere private.”
“You go get him. Where even are we, anyway?”
Yu-hyun finally looked around.
Do-jae gave a sheepish squint.
“My place.”
