Parasitism (1)

Sander had always thought of himself as a careful man.

It was a laughable thing to believe, for someone who committed the felony of smuggling, but at least he genuinely believed it.

After watching others start out recklessly only to get caught and shipped off to the Entertainment District as 'Employees,' he had prepared his smuggling operation with the utmost caution. He'd built a collusive relationship with the Smuggled Animal Monitoring Team in advance, and had even cultivated connections with Harbor Security — all the way up to the security teams of the Administrative District itself. Among the criminals inside this space city, there couldn't be many who moved that carefully.

Of course, Sander was realistic enough not to believe he could commit a perfect crime. His plan was simple: earn enough to relocate to another planet before the surveillance net closed around him, then cash out and vanish.

What he never imagined was that, with his goal so nearly within reach, an unidentified existence would come along and grind his dream into the dirt.

'Goddamn it!'

Running under the protection of his bodyguards, Sander cursed silently to himself.

He had asked his contacts in Harbor Security to alter their patrol radius while shutting off the cameras, so there wasn't so much as an android in the area — let alone a person.

Working cameras remained, of course, but running for them was too risky. The mere fact that he had snuck into a cargo storage yard packed with shipping containers in the dead of night with a squad of men was practically an invitation to suspicion. The very picture of smuggling.

Sander knew perfectly well that smuggling was a grave crime in Mega Corp space.

A checkmate, plain and simple.

The images of 'Employees' suffering in the Entertainment District flickered before his eyes.

"I think we need to make for the police station."

"What? If I go to the police, I'm finished!"

"We can't take whatever this is. Right now, requesting protection is ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠our best option."

"Th-that's... damn it all!"

The bodyguard was right. Buying time beat dying on the spot.

It seemed the moment had come to find out just how much the credits he'd been slipping to the District General Security Team all this time were actually worth.

One bodyguard covered the rear while the other two pressed close around Sander as they moved. The police station wasn't far beyond the loading dock. The three of them hurried through the canyon between towering walls of stacked shipping containers.

"AAAAAGH!"

"!"

A scream tore out behind them. Sander flinched and whirled around, but there was no one there.

Nothing but the laser rifle a bodyguard had dropped, lying abandoned on the ground.

"...We run for it."

The bodyguards hauled at Sander with faces taut with tension. Practically half-carrying him, they quickened their pace.

Far ahead, the chain-link fence ringing the loading dock came into view — and in its middle, a gate left half open.

Just get past that, they told themselves, driving their legs harder. Even Sander had begun to feel a flicker of hope when the bodyguard beside him froze in place.

"Wait!"

"What now?"

"I heard something."

At those words, Sander strained his ears — and sure enough, something was audible. Like the sound a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠crane makes when shifting a container, but far smaller? It was a rhythmic noise, like a hammer coming down on a chunk of metal, over and over.

"We go out through there and we're at the police station. Run."

"What?"

"I said run, NOW!"

At the bodyguard's shout, Sander ran. Behind him, both bodyguards raised their laser rifles and scanned their surroundings.

Barely a few minutes later, the bodyguards' last words reached him — and the sound of them multiplied his terror tenfold.

He'd run so wildly that his shoes had been ripped off his feet, but Sander never felt it. The chain-link gate was right in front of him now. The instant his hand touched the half-open gate, he felt a sharp sting in his calf.

'Huh?'

His legs gave out all at once and his face slammed into the chain-link fence. He'd hit hard enough to draw blood — the pain should have been immediate and blinding, yet he felt nothing at all.

'What's happening to me?'

Only then did he realize his entire body was paralyzed. As he lay toppled on the ground like a felled log, 'it' revealed itself above him.

｢Grrrrrrr｣

'Its' mouth drew close to his face. Watching the monster's jaws, drool dripping in thick strands, Sander wet himself without even realizing it.

'It' gave a short growl and picked Sander's body up off the ground.

'F-fuck! Where are you taking me?!'

The thing carried him back to where they had first met — beneath the container crane — and dumped him on the ground.

'Wh-what is it doing?'

Leaving Sander where he lay, the creature approached the refrigerated container. The one holding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Outspacers in cryo-storage.

Standing before the container's door, it pressed its head against the control terminal.

'What is it doing?'

After a moment, it manipulated the terminal with a small arm on its chest and opened the door with ease. Then, with a heavy thudding, it climbed inside.

An hour passed after it went in. Whatever it was doing, it hadn't come back out.

'Please, somebody help me!'

While the thing's attention was occupied elsewhere, he should have been scrambling away — but his body would not budge an inch.

There he lay, exuding a revolting stench, going nowhere at all.

'He reeks.'

I brushed Broker S's fluid-soaked fluid off my shoulder. I'd only meant to threaten him — I hadn't expected him to be terrified to that degree. I'd even deliberately injected the stinger gently for fear that a full-force strike might put him into shock and kill him outright.

'I can't kill him yet.'

Broker S was an important asset. Even if I intended to eat him, I'd have to do it at the right time.

'Deal with this before the broker.'

I was currently inside the refrigerated container where the Outspacers were stored.

Inside, twenty cryo-pods were packed in tight rows.

Broker S was out there, and corpses were scattered here and there, so I needed to devour the Outspacers quickly.

I operated the terminal on the frontmost pod. Chilly air hissed out as the glass hatch swung open.

The thing inside looked like a lobster crossed with a camel spider.

About 80 centimeters long with a camel-spider-like body, all eight of its legs were as long as its body, and the tips of two of them bore massive pincer claws. Its upper mandibles jutted up long and sharp, making it look like something gripping a pair of sickles in its mouth.

'I thought they were soldiers, but no.'

The creature in the pod was a worker. Nothing in the manifest had specified anything, so I'd naturally assumed they were soldiers. Wrong.

'No matter. Unless it's a queen, they're all roughly the same.'

Nothing problematic here. The trait I wanted could be acquired by eating any kind of Outspacer.

I tore the sleeping creature's head clean off and crunched it down.

'If only it weren't so cold.'

It tasted exactly like it looked — steamed king crab. To be precise, like eating steamed king crab straight out of the freezer without thawing it first.

'Ah. Should I call it crab stick flavor?'

Anyway, it was a taste I felt oddly nostalgic about. Since the worker was under a meter long, it didn't take long to finish it off entirely.

'First one's a dud.'

Nineteen remained. I set about devouring the rest of the Outspacers with single-minded dedication.

'......'

When only three were left, even I couldn't help feeling anxious.

'This drop rate is absurd.'

I knew the Predation Effect proc rate was never high to begin with, but if it didn't trigger through this whole batch, I'd have to give up and start looking at other options.

'Should I just let Broker S live?'

The broker had come here to smuggle. Smuggling was a serious crime under Mega Corp law, so even if I killed every one of his bodyguards, he'd have nowhere to complain — reporting it would cast suspicion on himself.

'...Still, leaving a land mine behind is a heavy risk.'

Aboard the research vessel, every human relationship operated under the iron logic of hierarchy, which made people predictable. The city was different. I had no idea who this broker might be close to, or what means he might one day acquire to threaten me.

'I need to brace myself for the worst.'

In a way, I'd survived remarkably smoothly so far. Situations where I should have died a hundred times over if this were the game had passed without major incident.

'Getting a Genetic Essence out of twenty specimens was never going to be easy either.'

In the game, I'd often devoured well over a hundred of the same creature and walked away with no Genetic Essence whatsoever.

Especially against Galagons or Vortex One — when the Predation Effect refused to trigger, it was brutal enough to make me want to quit the game entirely.

'I've been through this plenty of times even in the game.'

I braced myself for getting nothing from the Outspacers at all, and picked up one of the remaining three.

I ate it down to the last scrap — and of course, the Predation Effect didn't trigger.

'......'

Two left.

I was half resigned.

'Maybe I'll just bring the last one back for No. 26.'

If eighteen out of twenty had produced nothing, I had to accept the odds were dead. In a state of complete surrender, I crunched through the leg of one of the two with my teeth.

The crunchy texture and the springy flesh inside delighted my palate, but my heart was a tangled mess.

And then, just as I finished off that worker —

A miracle happened.

'Yes!'

When the thing I'd been praying for finally dropped, I heard myself shouting out loud in triumph.

Parasite.

The Outspacers, as a species trait, carried a variety of biological pathogens on their bodies. The parasite was one such pathogen — it burrowed into a target's body and could control its movements.

'Of course, the Outspacers' parasite only restricts the target's actions.'

Impressive in the lore, but in the game, the Outspacer parasite was implemented as a kind of debuff ability.

Anyone hit by the parasite effect suffered debuffs like restricted trait usage or restricted equipment usage.

That alone was undeniably a powerful trait — but when Amorph obtained the parasite, everything changed.

'Fuse it with the Contamination Organ, and I can make enhanced parasites.'

Just as the lore described, I would be able to produce parasites capable of controlling other living creatures. The trade-off was losing the Contamination Organ, and one of my physical-related traits being replaced with something entirely different.

I currently held eleven physical-related traits in total. The Type acquisition threshold was ten or more, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so losing the Contamination Organ wouldn't cost me my Type.

What's more, the trait gained from fusing the parasite with the Contamination Organ was the key that unlocked a whole new Type condition.

The Physical Enhancement Type, tied to bodily capability. The Psionic Enhancement Type, tied to psychic power. And the Type that opened up through their fusion-derived trait: the Infection Enhancement Type.

The Infection Enhancement Type influenced debuff-related traits such as crowd control.

Its direct effects were less flashy than the other Types, but for someone like me who favored ambush-heavy strategies, it was an exceptionally useful branch.

On top of that, evolving into a Young Adult required collecting four Types, so every extra one I gathered mattered.

Which meant my choice was singular.

The moment I accepted, I felt my body begin to mutate.

My lower right arm — the one that had housed the Contamination Organ — thickened and swelled up as though filled with eggs. Inside the arm, newly formed parasites writhed, awaiting their master's command.

'Excellent.'

Now that I had the trait I wanted, it was time to test what it could do.

After devouring one of the remaining Outspacers as well, I stepped out of the container. The anesthesia seemed to have mostly worn off — S, who had been diligently crawling along the floor, threw a fit the moment he saw me.

"Heeek!"

His face, drained past white into a sickly yellow, was unmistakably the face of a man drowning in terror.

But it was too early for him to be afraid.

The real terror started now.

The moment I activated the Parasitic Colony, my lower right arm began squelching and undulating. It churned as if trying to vom something up — and then, from the hole in my palm, a black thread-thin worm shot out.

"Wh-what are you doing?! S-stop it!"

S, who had been wailing between screams, began to outright cry as I approached. His once-fat face, hollowed by the psychological trauma of the past few hours, had shriveled to half its former size.

My hand drew closer to his gaunt, pallid face.

"...Then I'll be going now."

Broker S — no, Sander — bowed his head to me and took his leave.

The parasite implantation had been a success. Sander was now my slave.

'Though only for twenty-four hours.'

After twenty-four hours, the parasite would die on its own — and Sander would die with it. The parasite would have fully taken hold of his brain by then.

Only if I replaced it before it died could he go on living.

Sander knew this too. That without me, he was a dead man.

'A smart man won't resist me lightly.'

He'd probably go to a hospital or somewhere and try to have it surgically removed — but the parasite was reading every one of those thoughts. The moment he harbored so much as a hint of disloyalty, it would secrete an agony-inducing compound into his brain as punishment.

'It will hurt like hell.'

Sander had already experienced firsthand just how excruciating that pain was. Short of something truly extreme, he wouldn't dare defy me.

Besides, I'd shown him exactly how to dispose of the corpses right in front of his eyes. A smart man would know perfectly well what I meant by that.

'Alright, time to head back.'

I brought the bodyguard who'd been acting as the leader along with me and returned home.

By the time I arrived, No. 26 had woken from her sleep and was waiting for me.

｢Where did Big Baby go?｣

[ZZZZZZZ (In case you got hungry)]

｢Wow!｣

I am an Amorph who learns. The instant I offered up the food, her anger melted away completely.

After handing over her meal, I pulled the ankle of the man from next door out of the refrigerator where I'd been keeping it.

And so, as we enjoyed our midnight snack together, the night quietly wore itself down to its end.