My Tribrid System: More than a Monster

Chapter 121

”Ray... Ray, what are you? Yo—You are part machine?!”

”...”

The entire room fell into a heavy silence, broken only by the occasional rhythmic beep emanating from the various pieces of machinery scattered around.

Ray blinked several times, desperately trying to maintain his best poker face despite the internal alarm bells ringing in his head.

”Wha—? What do you even mean by that? Of course I’m not part machine. Don’t be ridiculous.”

”Don’t you dare lie to me. I know exactly what I felt,” Van barked, narrowing his tired, weary eyes at his friend.

Ray let out a nervous, strained chuckle.

”I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Kai just blinked at the duo for a few seconds, looking back and forth between them in total confusion.

”What is actually going on here?”

Van didn’t offer a reply, his intense gaze refusing to leave Ray’s body for even a second.

Suddenly, he moved with surprising speed, reaching out to grab Ray’s hand again.

However, with his vastly superior agility, Ray instinctively pulled his limb away, easily dodging Van’s desperate grip.

”See? If you had absolutely nothing to hide, you wouldn’t have reacted with such panic,” Van sneered, his glare intensifying.

Kai cast a sharp, inquisitive glance at the visibly nervous Tribrid.

”Ray, what is the deal? What are you hiding from us?”

Ray quickly averted his friends’ collective gaze, choosing instead to stare intently at the cluttered ground.

”I-I-I’m not hiding anything!”

’Crap. What do I even say now? What was that notification from earlier, and how on earth did Van trigger it?’ Ray’s mind raced as he searched for an exit strategy.

Van didn’t immediately counter or make another move; he simply stared at his friend, the silence stretching out as the beeping sounds in the workshop grew eerily loud.

Kai, for his part, was beginning to feel mentally drained.

He stared at the two best friends, completely unable to fathom the accusations being hurled.

Ray being part machine? How absurd could that possibly be?

’Has Van been binge-watching ancient copies of Yerminator? Unfortunately, that movie was produced many decades ago,’ Kai thought, shaking his head.

”Ray...” Van narrowed his eyes even further. ”Tell me exactly what is going on.”

”There is nothing going on!”

”Then give me your hand if you truly have nothing to hide from me.”

”Why should we hold hands? It’s honestly kind of icky to me,” Ray replied, attempting to reinforce his poker face with a deflective joke.

”How is it icky? we’ve held hands countless times when we were younger!” Van pointed out, lifting an eyebrow in disbelief.

”That was then. This is now. I can’t be caught holding hands with the same gender in public,” Ray replied with a mocking, defensive smile.

Van opened his mouth to retort, but before he could speak, Kai interjected.

”Van, what is the actual basis for this accusation? Why are you so suddenly intent on holding hands with Ray? What has gotten into you?”

Hearing the question, Van cast a quick glance at Kai.

His eyes darted around the blonde’s face as he weighed his options for a few tense moments.

’Should I tell them? If I don’t, I might never find out what Ray is truly concealing. There’s a reason why I accidentally established a digital connection with a machine inside his body.

Or... is it possible that he doesn’t even know about the tech inside him? But how could he have gotten it in the first place? First, the ability to transform into a werewolf, and now, he’s part machine? Something is definitely up with him.’

”Hello?” Kai shouted, snapping his fingers sharply to break the heavy tension.

Van snapped out of his trance and glanced at Ray, his eyes narrowing until they were mere slits.

The dark bags under his eyes seemed to grow even more profound as he tracked his friend’s restless, shaky form.

Though Ray’s tremors were subtle, they didn’t escape Van’s observant gaze.

To him, Ray looked exactly like a criminal who had been caught red-handed but was still clinging to a desperate, fading hope of escape.

’Nope. He definitely knows about it. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be behaving this way,’ Van concluded. With that final thought, he reached a decision.

He calmly turned and walked away from his friends.

Ray released a sharp breath of relief, watching his best friend retreat without pushing the issue further.

”Hm?” Kai muttered, staring at Van’s retreating back with a confused frown.

Van finally settled into his chair.

After tapping a few keys on his board, the main computer shut down in an instant.

Along with it, the other machines that had been beeping and whirring throughout the room fell silent.

The sudden absence of noise made the workshop feel dull—as if the vibrant life swirling through the room had been yanked away, leaving it soulless.

Van didn’t seem to care as he swiveled his chair around to face them again, his fingers interlocked in front of his mouth.

The metallic, ball-like object he had been holding earlier was set aside on the table behind him.

”You want to know how I’m so certain you have machinery inside you?” Van asked, fixing an intense, unwavering gaze on Ray.

”I don’t have machinery in me, bro,” Ray replied, attempting to sound confident.

’Come to think of it, we’ve touched a few times since I got my system, but I never received a notification like that before. So why now? What has Van done to himself?’ Ray wondered.

”Fine then,” Van exhaled, a small, knowing smile playing on his lips.

He jumped down from his chair and shoved it away, sending it skating across the floor to the side of the room.

Without wasting a second, his hand shot backward, landing firmly on the darkened monitor.

Even as he kept his face turned toward his friends, they noticed a startling change.

His eyes... they were glowing a vibrant, electric blue.

It looked as though he had fitted glowing contact lenses into his sockets as the color shifted from green to blue, catching Ray completely off guard.

’What?!’

The lifeless screen Van was touching suddenly flashed to life, activating without him ever pushing a power button.

On a separate machine standing beside the desk, Van placed his other hand.

It immediately whirred to life, and from its housing, tentacle-like wires shot out, spinning and dancing in the air in front of the duo.

Ray and Kai both stood there, mouths hanging open at the marvelous, terrifying sight before them.

”The truth is, I can suddenly communicate with machines and breathe life into dead ones,” Van uttered firmly, his voice echoing in the small space.

He turned his glowing gaze back toward Ray, his expression turning into a glare.

”So, tell me, Ray... do you still want to deny the fact that I’ve caught you red-handed?”