If I had Powers, I would Hide It (Work In Progress)

Chapter 2: Kurota

Then, a thought occurred to me. A weird, unscientific, downright horrendous, yet exciting thought. My body was quaking with excitement. I grabbed hold of my knife once more, opened the door, and prepared to run. The Demons noticed me and started walking their way towards me. I set my mind to use it, whatever it is. Then, with my knife in hand, I charged through without a second thought.

Oh my god. OH MY GOD. I'm fast, very fast, faster than I thought I ever could. I targeted a large-looking Demon, used my momentum to charge at it, and stabbed it before it was able to land any real hits on me. The Demon died and disintegrated shortly after. My face hurt from the size of my smile. Running around smiling while holding a knife-I must look like an absolute maniac. But it doesn't matter; my hypothesis had just been proven true.

Hypothesis 97: Killing Demons makes you stronger. (Correct)

I started running around my backyard, killing every Demon in sight. Each one felt easier than the last. At some point, I threw my knife at one of the Demons, killing it, and continued the slaughter using my bare hands. It was definitely much harder to do without the knife, but eventually, even that became easy.

One of the Demons threw one of its arms at me from far away. Instinctively, I threw my hand towards it, knowing I couldn't reach it, and suddenly, black tendrils-covered in the same black aura the Demons have-flew from my hand and reached the Demon, stabbing and killing it.

Startled by this new discovery, I tried to do it again on command, and it wouldn't come out. While my guard was down, another Demon snuck up behind me, and I instinctively used those black tendrils again. This time, however, I knew what it felt like, and now I could use them on command, which accelerated the massacre-during which I had a big smile on my face the entire time.

Eventually, the last Demon fell and disintegrated. I was exhausted. I was out of breath, and my whole body was covered in sweat. The backyard fell completely silent, apart from the chirping of crickets.

I went back inside and locked the back door. Still out of breath, my grin grew wider. I started wheezing; it grew louder, then my voice fully came out. This was definitely not like me-laughing out loud like a maniac like this.

I pinched my arm as hard as I could to see if this was a dream or not.

It wasn't.

I'm laughing so hard my tears started pouring down. I'm a scientist. I'm supposed to be the one that opposed these kinds of things-that Demons exist, that their souls can be absorbed, and that they make you stronger like some sort of anime character. And yet...

I was thirsty. I manifested those black tendrils again to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. The bottle came to me; I took it from my tendrils and started laughing hard yet again. I finished the entire bottle of water in one go and used my tendrils to put the empty bottle in the trash can before laughing again.

Ten minutes went by.

I got up, went to my basement door-located near my kitchen area-and unlocked it. This was the first time I'd ever unlocked this basement since I bought this house two years ago. Looks like I'd finally be putting it to good use after all this time.

This place was as decrepit as it gets in my house. I took out my phone to turn on its flashlight and saw the clock hit 9 PM. Not letting the shock of realizing that everything that just happened had occurred in only three whole hours slow me down, I used my phone's flashlight to find the light switch and flipped it on. The lamp turned on weakly, illuminating the basement with a soft, warm white glow. Hmm, that's definitely not an LED. I'd have to replace it later. The room was completely empty, and the walls were broken down in some parts. Cobwebs covered every corner of the room, and water was dripping from the ceiling.

I proceeded to clean every corner of the basement that same night, replaced the light bulb, and now it was clean-ish. I still had to do something about the water and the messed-up walls, but other than that, it had become quite a usable space.

I'm sure you're wondering to yourself right now why I'm cleaning up this basement that I never used. It's because I want to keep everything to myself for now. People have a tendency to dictate what should or shouldn't be done. Also, I've never said anything to anyone about an unfinished project or research before. I'd only tell people about it when I was done, and I planned to keep it that way. Speaking of projects and research, I should probably start thinking about the title of this new paper-and also what I should call these powers I gained from killing Demons.

Hmm.

I let out smile.

Kurota and Its General Properties.

Kurota translates to "Black Soul." It's simple, but that's all I need. I couldn't help but smile at the idea of the things this research would unveil. This was getting really, really exciting.

Also, the next morning, I got some contractors to fix up my basement, and then I brought in all the lab equipment I had into it. So now it's a fully-fledged underground laboratory. I'm quite proud of it.