My Auto Cloning System

Episode 61: Cursed Curiosity, Criminal Thinking

The house had gone quiet again. The kind of silence that didn't soothe but pressed down on your chest like an invisible weight. The ceiling fan hummed overhead, the sound dull and steady, making everything feel more still than it should. Kim Do-hyun sat cross-legged on the living room floor. His shirt clung to him with the dried sweat and grime from earlier, the fabric stretched slightly from wear. There was a dark smudge near his waist where a scorch mark had burned through the cotton. He figured that must've happened when the Fishman exploded out of the sewer grate. He hadn't noticed until now.

In front of him lay the crystal. It didn't look like much at first. Cloudy and small. But if you tilted it just a bit, it shimmered with soft swirls of violet and green. Like dye frozen in ice mid-motion. It wasn't scary to look at. Which made it worse. The dangerous stuff rarely looked dangerous. That's why he'd done the smart thing for once. He grabbed his old tablet, dusted off the screen, and typed the crystal's name into HunterNet.

The Wi-Fi barely held on. Still the search eventually loaded.

Item: Lesser Beast-Core Jewel

Class: D-Grade Artifact

Description: A crystallized byproduct of monster evolution

Use: Can be absorbed while activating mana flow to permanently increase Strength +5

Legal Status: Government Restricted

Warning: Not for use on registered humans. May result in uncontrollable mutation. Risk of full monstrous transformation. Discard if compatibility is uncertain.

Do-hyun leaned back on his hands. Let out a long breath. He had a bad feeling about it from the start but reading it in black and white made it feel worse. No wonder Han Jin-woo looked at it like he wanted to throw it into the ocean. Still, that +5 Strength… it wasn't nothing. For someone in the lower ranks, that kind of stat bump was almost unheard of.

He stared at the line again.

Not for use on registered humans.

His thoughts began to wander. That kind of slow, spiraling curiosity he never liked admitting he had. He'd broken rules before. Bent a few more. And this one wasn't even clear-cut. If the restriction was about using it on a person, what if it wasn't a person? What if it was a clone?

A clone wasn't human. It was mana. A copy. No real soul. No status registration. If a clone mutated, would it even matter? Maybe it wouldn't count. Maybe only the gains would carry over. He'd seen that happen with training. If a clone lifted weights, he got stronger. So if a clone transformed into something powerful… why not?

His fingers brushed the crystal. It was warm. Too warm. Crystals weren't supposed to hold heat. Another sign that something inside it was alive. Or at least, restless.

He pictured it. Number 1 turning into a berserker with scales and claws. Number 2 growing wings and ignoring orders. Number 3 sprouting centipede legs and crawling across the ceiling. He imagined it working perfectly. Dozens of monster clones under his control. Each one stronger than a licensed C-rank. Then the government finding out. Yoo Seung-jin grinning and saying something like, so you're telling me your clones evolve now?

Then came the mental image of a squad of agents opening fire on him in a shopping district. A clone snarling beside him, part man, part something worse. Him texting Park Joon-ho that, technically, nothing illegal had happened. At least not by letter of the law.

Do-hyun sat up straighter and rubbed both temples.

Nope.

That's not today's problem.

He pushed the crystal to the side and let it roll to the base of the coffee table, where it stopped next to the sword. The same blade dropped by the Fishman. Black steel. No glow. No strange whispers. No thirst for blood. Just a heavy, sharp weapon.

Han Jin-woo warned him not to touch it directly. He remembered that much. Said cursed items were unpredictable. Some drained your health. Others locked your skills. A few latched onto your soul and wouldn't let go. The usual horror stories you read too late on Hunter forums.

Back when Han was warning him, Do-hyun was thinking about pork belly. Wondering how much grocery money he could get from selling the thing. Now though, now that the clones weren't groaning in pain and the chaos had died down, it felt like the right moment to be responsible. Or as close as he could get to that.

He glanced toward the hallway. The bathroom light was still on. One clone soaked in a cold bath. Another slept in bed. Number 3 was sitting on the couch eating cereal out of the box. Wrapped in bandages like a walking first-aid kit.

Do-hyun called out.

"Number 2. Come here a second."

Footsteps followed. Number 2 stepped into the room. He moved slowly but steady. A patch of gauze clung to his cheek. One sleeve was gone. His eyes were clear.

Do-hyun nodded toward the sword.

"Pick it up. Let's see what happens."

Number 2 walked over without hesitation. He crouched. Reached out. Grabbed the sword by the hilt and lifted it from the floor with ease.

Do-hyun held his breath. Waited for a burst of light. A cursed scream. Something. Anything.

Nothing.

At least, not at first.

Number 2's brow creased. He blinked a few times. Tilted his head like he was listening for something far away.

Do-hyun narrowed his eyes.

"What is it?"

The clone didn't answer right away.

"There's a voice," he said at last. "It's talking to me."

Do-hyun didn't waste a second. He straightened up and reached toward the clone, fingers snapping in the air.

"Familiar. Activate."

And just like that, he dropped into the clone's senses.

---

The clone's hand gripped the sword, fingers closing tightly around the leather-bound hilt as if testing its weight and balance, but it wasn't the physical heft that disturbed Kim Do-hyun. No, it was something else something that slid into his awareness the instant he activated Familiar and linked himself to Number 2's senses.

For a brief moment, the living room disappeared. The air around him seemed to compress, as though the temperature had dropped without warning. It was like he had plunged face-first into a freezing lake, but instead of water, it was dread.

A voice surged forth, not from the sword, but through it into Number 2's mind, and by extension, into his own.

"Kill for me. Blood. Give me blood. Hurry. Hurry. Kill. I need more."

The screech wasn't like a human scream. It wasn't even like a monster's roar. It carried no pitch or tone in the conventional sense. It felt like metal grinding across bone, like an iron hook raking across the inside of his skull. Do-hyun recoiled, every nerve alight with cold electricity as he severed the Familiar link instantly, snapping back into his own body like a drowning man breaching the surface of dark water.

He staggered forward slightly, pressing the heel of his palm against his forehead.

"What the hell was that?" he muttered. The question wasn't rhetorical he meant it literally. He had heard cursed weapons could whisper, but that… that wasn't a whisper. That was a demand. A hunger.

Across the room, Number 2 remained eerily composed. The clone held the sword as if he hadn't just been screamed at by some disembodied bloodthirsty entity.

"You're good?" Do-hyun asked, narrowing his eyes.

Number 2 nodded slowly, flexing his fingers. "It's loud, but manageable. I think it likes me."

"Yeah, that's not comforting," Do-hyun said, frowning. "If it starts making you foam at the mouth or bite your own fingers off, I'm ending your shift early."

Number 2 chuckled under his breath, spinning the sword once in his grip before resting it on his shoulder. There was no visible corruption. No shadowy aura. No ominous runes glowing. But that didn't make it safer—just harder to predict.

Do-hyun exhaled slowly and leaned back, letting his weight settle onto the old floorboards as if they could anchor his thoughts. He needed to think clearly. The crystal was bad enough, but this sword? It was actively demanding blood. And not in a poetic way. That was dangerous.

His gaze drifted across the room to the crystal, now lying half-forgotten under the coffee table. It sat there innocently, its shimmer muted under the room's dim light, as though biding its time. He wasn't sure which of the two items disturbed him more. One wanted to mutate its user, the other wanted murder.

He rubbed at his temples again.

"Better let the clone keep it for now," he mumbled.

Nothing in the system rules he'd learned so far had clarified what happened when a cursed item was wielded by a summoned being. If the sword tried to take something like a soul what would it find inside a clone? A mana framework? A fragment of his own consciousness? Would it bounce back into him? Or would it simply devour whatever fragment Number 2 had, leaving nothing behind but a meat puppet?

These were not questions with easy answers. But he wasn't about to test them directly. Not yet.