UCPA Chapter 18: Violence

Chapter 18: Violence

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: PlumSauce

 

Dark creatures or supernatural species often find clansmen to rely on for survival, live in seclusion within human society, and enjoy modern life while avoiding revealing their identity.

John came from such a family. Apart from the fact that his entire family were vampires, they were no different from ordinary human families. Sir Kimplin and Burton were also like this: they live together with two Clade dogs. This kind of life may last forever.

John believed that most dark creatures would be like his parents, like the headless knight and Burton, relying on each other. But he was wrong. There were always some guys who were unwilling to be lonely and went around looking for trouble.

Take today, for example: it was John and Corac’s fourth visit to the Farrs’ house where a “couple” lived. They repeatedly called to report that the other had committed domestic violence. 

The first time they were called, the two partners saw two beautiful women: a brown-skinned Samoan girl and a tall Nordic girl with light blonde hair. Both had bruises on their faces and arms, each sitting on either end of the couch, ignoring the other.

The second time, there were two strong men who were beating each other on the lawn, like a scene from the Roman Coliseum. The brown-skinned man looked like a ferocious panther, and the light blond lad bared his muscular arms, his long hair cascading down his shoulders, looking like a Viking.

The third time, the caller was the blonde girl. By the time Coraci and John arrived, two strong men had just crashed through the wooden door and had rolled down the steps to the feet of the two partners.

“They’re Bewildering Monsters.” After seeing the Bewildering Monster for the first time, Coraci explained to John, “These creatures have only one gender, and their surface appearance may be male or female. When in a calm state, they are always female; once they get too agitated or angry, they become extremely strong males.”

John asked Coraci, “So how do they reproduce?”

Coraci said, “They can’t reproduce on their own. Bewildering Monsters traditionally need to have sex with human women to reproduce. Their offspring are either ordinary humans or Bewildering Monsters–hybrids are impossible. And the Farrs…” Coraci looked at the “couple’s” profile. “They fell in love, decided to give up their right to have offspring with humans, and live together as a couple.”

“Wait!” John realized a very bad problem. “They can only have offspring with human women? In other words, they must be male in appearance when sleeping together?”

“That’s right. Because they become men when they are angry and ‘excited’, they can’t control themselves. Even with medical means, they can’t conceive because they’re not really female humans. Bewildering Monsters have only one gender.”

Usually the partners were female in appearance, and the neighbors had always thought that there were two women living in the house. Probably none of the neighbors would have known that the “female” lovers, who had entered into a civil partnership, would go to work during the day, have dinner together in the evening, and then take on the form of two tall, muscular men in their bedroom at night to continue “communicating” their love. 

Now, Coraci and John showed up for the fourth time, just in time to stop them from beating each other up.

Back inside the house, the two Bewildering Monsters were still angry: their sturdy pecs rippling slightly as they panted, glaring at each other menacingly, sweat running across the bulging veins of their foreheads, their thick biceps twitching vaguely, ready to strike. John felt that he wasn’t here to mediate a family conflict but to watch a WWE show¹.

Coraci walked up to the bruisers and gently and thoughtfully guided them until they calmed down… In front of the two mountain-like Bewildering Monsters, Coraci looked incredibly fragile from behind in his dress shirt and suit pants. John kept worrying that if either man lost their temper, they would hurt Coraci, so he remained silently on guard.

John was a vampire. Although he was a head shorter than the male form of the Bewildering Monster, if it came to speed and strength, he could easily beat them. What he feared did not happen. The Bewildering Monsters respected Coraci and gradually calmed down.

The brown-skinned man stroked his pecs, took a few deep breaths, and turned back into a brown-skinned girl. Then, remaining topless, she wore loose lounge pants as she made coffee.

With a show of sadness, the young Viking covered his face as his thick, downy blond arms wrapped around Coraci. He bent down, burying his face in Coraci’s neck.

Coraci turned his head toward John and mouthed “it’s your turn next time”. By the time he turned back around, the “Viking” had changed back into a blonde girl, half a head shorter than Coraci.

The Samoan girl was named Monin Farr and the Nordic girl was Nate Farr. They had randomly chosen their names: one was for Morning (Monin) and the other was for Night (Nate). Their Bewildering Monster names were hard to pronounce, hence the human names.

“What is it this time?” Coraci asked after both “girls” had calmed down (and put on their tops). “Is it a problem with positions in bed again? Or did Nate refuse to mow the lawn again?”

John almost choked on his own saliva, not expecting Coraci to be so direct.

“No,” said the brown-skinned Monin. “The impetus for this fight was you, Mr. Coraci…”

Nate dried his tears and added, “Actually, it had nothing to do with you, exactly, but it had to do with Stairway to Hell.”

Stairway to Hell was one of Coraci’s published novels. It told the story of five people from different professions on different floors of an office building who accidentally boarded an elevator that began an endless descent. When the door opened, it was the lowest level of a brutal, hellish world, filled with horrific creatures. They had to search level by level for a specific item before they could return to the elevator car, which would then recover its upward movement, carrying them back to the world above.

John had also read this story. He had once asked Coraci whether he had really seen Hell. At the time, Coraci said, “How could I have seen it? I’m not Constantine². But because I hate elevators, I’m especially good at describing horror fantasies related to elevators.”

John knew Coraci must hate elevators even more now — the previous few times he went to the Association’s branch, Coraci kept taking deep breaths when he rode the elevator.

“What’s wrong with this novel?” Coraci asked.

The two Bewildering Monsters looked at each other for a moment. Nate said, in a slightly apologetic tone, “Actually, Stairway to Hell wasn’t the cause of the fight but the trigger. We were discussing the story that day, and Monin and I ended up having a bit of an argument.”

“Nate thought that the tenth-floor phone operator didn’t love the seventeenth-floor sales manager, and that what really moved him was the bone-winged demon he met in Hell,” Monin said.

“Isn’t that what happened? The bone-winged demon even slaughtered its own kind for their sake! And the sales manager was negative about everything…”

“But the phone operator and the sales manager swore to each other that they would leave together…”

Coraci lowered his head to sip his coffee and glanced awkwardly at John, whose mouth was open like he had eaten a tennis ball.

“You two… I have to remind you,” Coraci said, “that the sales manager and the phone operator did swear to each other, but they swore something along the lines of, ‘Neither of us can give up, we’re going to get the hell out of here. When we’ve returned home, I’m going to visit my old grandmother, and you can bring your daughter over to my house for pie…'”

“I know! That’s the part!” Monin exclaimed excitedly. “‘Through despair, they looked deeply into each other’s eyes, then hugged tightly and turned at the same time to face this long corridor full of sharp teeth and tongues’… Oh my god, I’m going to cry, but… But Nate actually said that the bone-winged demon was the one the phone operator was destined for…”

John covered his eyes with one hand and said sullenly, “God, that ‘long corridor of teeth’ scared the hell out of me. How can you guys read it so happily? And care about their relationship problems?”

This was how he truly felt when he read the story. When he finished, Coraci gave him a look that said, “Is it really that scary?” Then he turned to the two Bewildering Monsters and said with difficulty, “You two, I should remind you that no matter how you interpret the relationship between the two characters, in the end they actually died…”

“Ha, that’s okay,” Nate said with a twinkle in his eye. “That’s why I said that in the end, the phone operator’s soul will return to the demon! The sales manager will go to Heaven, and because of some dark past, the phone operator will go to Hell…”

“Mr. Coraci didn’t write that at all! This is simply your unauthorized speculation!” Monin shouted.

“It didn’t need to be specifically written out — it’s common sense!”

Seeing that they might turn into muscular men again, Coraci hurriedly intervened to stop them. “Don’t argue in front of the author, okay? You can do whatever you want to my characters, I don’t mind… But why are you beating each other up over a fictional novel?”

“No, not over a novel,” Monin said hurriedly. “As Nate said earlier, the novel wasn’t the direct cause but the trigger. After that argument, we had a cold war for a while, and finally decided to put aside our differences and go to Phosphor³ to have some fun and chase away the unpleasantness between us. Mr. Coraci, are you familiar with Phosphor? It’s a midnight club with a lot of our people.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of that establishment.” Coraci knew that the owner of the club was a Bewildering Monster with a human wife. Many of their regulars were Bewildering Monsters as well as various supernatural species. Phosphor only admits couples, though it doesn’t restrict based on gender.

“In the club, we had a misunderstanding,” Nate frowned. “We saw a bone-winged demon in Phosphor. I didn’t think I could really meet a bone-winged demon! You know, I really like that character in the novel… Of course, I know that the one in the club is not the same as the one in the novel. I was curious and went over to talk to him, we chatted a little more, and then Monin actually got jealous…”

“You were sitting on his lap! And you were playing flirtatious games with the bartender!” Monin shouted angrily.

“I tried to explain to you several times, but you wouldn’t listen properly!” Nate yelled back at her. “Just let me finish my explanation today in front of Mr. Coraci and his partner! Okay?”

Hearing this, Coraci and John silently looked at each other. They both knew that mortal-born demons were not uncommon, but the presence of Abyssal demons in the city was usually not a good thing. The bone-winged demons were inevitably Abyssal demons.

Nate was able to “talk” to him and even “sit on his lap”. No matter how you look at it, that wasn’t normal.

Nate continued, “At first, I just politely exchanged a few words with the demon. I noticed that he was standing beside a young man in a bartender’s outfit whose expression was very bad. After, when I went to the bathroom to fix my makeup, that bartender actually followed me in. He said he was also a demon, but a mortal-born species, and he wanted me to do him a favor.

“The mortal-born demon said that the bone-winged one was restricting his freedom. He carried a brand from the bone-winged demon and could no longer escape being tracked. He wanted me to help him temporarily attract the bone-winged’s attention, so that he could have a chance to remove the brand and escape. He said it very earnestly, so I decided to help him since I was a stranger to them anyway…”

Coraci shook his head gently at her. “Geez, if the bone-winged demon wasn’t an impostor, you really shouldn’t have done that. Real bone-winged demons are lord level, and pissing them off is not at all fun.”

“The bone-winged demon you wrote was pretty charming…” Nate muttered.

“That’s a fictional novel!”

Hearing this, Monin, who had thought her lover had cheated on her, finally understood the truth. She sidled up to Nate apologetically, and the two began to whisper intimately again.

“So… What about the phone number that mortal-born demon gave you?” Monin asked carefully.

Nate got up and took out a sticky note from the small tray where she kept her keys.

“I saw the bartender again just before we were about to leave Phosphor. A few steps behind him was the bone-winged demon, so maybe he failed… With the crowds and music of the bar as cover, the mortal-born demon slipped me this note. I’m not sure if it’s his phone number.”

Coraci took it, looked at it, and handed it to John. “Look, does the number look familiar?”

“That’s your cell phone number!” John recognized it right away.

Coraci’s phone number was not on the Association’s website. A few years ago, when the Association’s website and messaging system were still underdeveloped, Coraci left his number with some dark creatures, asking them to contact him if needed.

At that time, he had left the phone number of his surface identity: Deville Coraci, author. Coraci thought that either the mortal-born demon knew him or he knew someone who knew him.

After temporarily settling the dispute between the Bewildering Monsters, Coraci and John left by car. “I’ll give Liz a call. Hopefully they’ll both want to come.”

John didn’t understand. “Why call Liz?”

“Because Liz understands people better than Carolyn…”

“No, I mean, why them?”

Coraci shrugged, “Because I don’t want to call Smith. We’re already separated and I don’t want it to get all ambiguous…”

“I still don’t get it.” John didn’t know what Coraci was planning.

“We might have to check out Phosphor,” Coraci said.

John nodded his head; this, he approved.

“Oh! I see. There are a lot of dangerous creatures inside Phosphor, so it’s safer to take the exorcist and hunter with us…”

Coraci laughed helplessly. “Phosphor operates legally and nothing has happened there. I mean, what we need most is not hunters, but girls who are willing to help.”

John still looked puzzled. Coraci said, “They only admit couples. When entering, you need to kiss as proof. Carolyn and I have posed as a couple on previous missions, and it’s no problem for us to touch our lips for show. Otherwise… when both of us enter, we have to kiss first.”

John looked dumbfounded and had no reply. Once again, he was glad there was no mind-reading shapeshifter around at the moment — because he had already pictured himself and Coraci kissing.

 

From The Unthreatening Creature Protection Association’s Guide to Unscientific Monsters:

Bewildering Monsters

A species with only one gender. They are always female, but when excited or angry, they temporarily transform into muscular males. This is a fun exploration of a one-gender species, contrasting with the six-gender concept.

Monin Farr and Nate Farr are a pair of Bewildering Monsters. Technically, they could be considered a same-sex couple — either male-male or female-female.

Bewildering Monsters are a human subspecies, closely related to skin-walkers (not shapeshifters!). Their entire species has only one gender. To reproduce, they must pair with human women. Children from such unions are either fully human or fully Bewildering Monster — no hybrids occur.

Gender and Appearance:

At birth and in daily life, Bewildering Monsters always appear as human females. Their human features reflect their human mother’s ethnicity. When experiencing extreme emotions, they automatically transform into muscular human males. Their racial characteristics remain consistent through the transformation.

Conditions for Transformation:

Strong emotions trigger the male transformation. This includes anger, sexual arousal, or intense fear. Ordinary emotions — like being startled by a loud noise — do not trigger it; the full-body emotional state must be present. After the heightened emotion subsides, they do not immediately revert; the male form generally persists for 10–20 minutes before returning to the female form.

Romantic Behavior:

If Bewildering Monsters pair with one another, it is always “same-sex”: in public, they appear as a female couple; in private, they are male-male. Even under extreme circumstances, they rarely engage in heterosexual activity, as fear or anger can trigger the male transformation. Generally, Bewildering Monsters are passionate and kind-hearted. They may be quick to emotional extremes but are rarely harmful to others.

Reproductive Traits:

The female body of a Bewildering Monster is infertile; even artificial insemination cannot make them a mother. While they can reproduce with humans, they cannot reproduce with other supernatural species. (For comparison: shapeshifters can interbreed with humans, but not with Bewildering Monsters.)

Some human women form couples with Bewildering Monsters, appearing to be lesbian partnerships, though the human partner is not actually homosexual, as the Bewildering Monster presents as male during private interactions. Similarly, some human men pair with Bewildering Monsters, appearing as traditional couples while the monster assumes a masculine form in private.

A nearly thousand-year-old bloodkin psychologist studied this phenomenon, concluding that humans involved with Bewildering Monsters tend to exhibit bisexual tendencies.

 

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