Spoils of War (2)

I'd barely tasted any intelligent flesh since the battle at the apartment complex.

Perhaps that was the reason my appetite had grown so ravenous.

Jade, paralyzed from the neck down. The heavy weapons trooper with most of the bones in his body shattered. And the Cultist's corpse besides.

Today had brought a bounty of new prey.

Once I finish processing all of this, the hunt will be wrapped up.

I was standing in the place where Jade's crew had clashed with the Mountaincrawler. Before me, the beast lay sprawled and breathing in ragged, laboring gasps.

The juvenile, which had bought me time while under the parasite's control, had been gravely wounded by the enemy. Three of its six legs had been severed outright and two more were broken. Its belly, soft compared to the armored plates on its back, had been torn open by sniper fire and grenade blasts, spilling its entrails onto the ground.

Mountaincrawlers have no regenerative ability. All that remained for it was death.

I hold no grudge against the thing.

I injected the mortally wounded Mountaincrawler with venom — not to kill it faster, but to dull its pain. As the paralytic toxin spread through its body, its expression eased, as if the agony had finally receded beyond reach.

Its breathing slowed, slowed, and then stopped. The moment it did, the parasite emerged from its ear.

When I held my arm close, the worm crawled back into the same place it had first come from.

If a incident breaks out and people spot a parasite, someone might start connecting the dots.

Sander hadn't been able to retrieve the parasite from the hospital morgue — getting close had been impossible. But now was different.

With the parasite safely recovered, I left the Mountaincrawler's carcass behind and moved on.

Any other time I would have simply eaten the corpse, but circumstances wouldn't allow it. With the heavy weapons trooper slung over my shoulder, the police and their androids would have been dispatched to this location ages ago. No matter how quickly I ate, there was no way I could finish processing a six-meter meal before they arrived. And if I couldn't finish it, the Predation Effect wouldn't trigger — better to put the carcass to a different use.

Simple. The smugglers tried to haul the Mountaincrawler out, failed, and fled the scene.

The grenade-shredded carcass, along with the battle scars scattered everywhere, would serve as all the evidence they needed.

That's also why I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠left the cyborg uneaten.

Unlike his comrades, his role would be the smuggler who didn't make it out in time. I placed the cyborg's severed head — the one I'd set aside earlier — into the jaws of the Mountaincrawler's corpse.

That should do it, right?

The police would realize something was off eventually, once their investigation progressed. But the odds that people who didn't even know I existed would deduce the presence of a second monster at the crime scene were vanishingly slim. They'd be too busy hunting for smugglers who were already dead.

Good. Grab what's ours and get moving.

My auxiliary organs sent a warning: footsteps were approaching from beyond the Port District.

I hoisted the paralyzed heavy weapons trooper back up. Next to collect was the Cultist's body.

After securing her corpse ahead of the police and androids, I doubled back toward the kids.

By the time I returned, No. 26 and Adhai had already finished their meal. I stripped the reinforced suit off the headless, mummified remains of the sniper.

I'll take this along and examine it properly.

Assessing the enemy's equipment was critical. Especially when it was information I didn't yet possess — that needed confirming as soon as possible.

As long as it's not a Unique-grade suit, it can be mass-produced, and I'll need to prepare for that.

Suit secured, I picked up Jade as well, whose paralysis had yet to wear off.

Having four combat arms really does come in handy at times like this.

One person per arm and off we go. Apparently, though, that wasn't how it looked to the others.

No. 26 called out to me, perhaps because three people plus a suit of armor looked heavy even for me.

"Want me to carry something?"

I started to answer that I was fine — then caught sight of her size and reconsidered.

She could manage a suit of armor, couldn't she?

When I handed it over, she extended a tentacle and wound it around the reinforced suit, coiling it like spaghetti around a fork until it was locked down tight. Then she unfurled the fins she'd been keeping hidden inside her body.

Waving the fins back and forth, she took a few test steps forward and back, then blinked the lights along her body as if to say all was well.

"All set. Let's go."

Honestly, I'd been expecting her growth to show on the combat side of things, but her utility development was nothing to sneeze at either.

Clever girl.

I wanted to pat her, but I was afraid she'd drop the armor, so I held back. She seemed to sense my feelings anyway, flashing her body in a way that said a pat on the head was welcome even if she didn't get one.

With everything settled, I called William over and gave him his cleanup orders before we returned to the nest. With the Mountaincrawler's carcass and the smugglers' traces on-site, staging the scene shouldn't give him much trouble.

Besides, William had been the one chasing the smuggling operation in the Port District. No cop would think it strange for a man like him to be here in the dead of night.

"...Understood, sir."

Orders given, I headed for the nest with the kids in tow.

And so the dawn hunt came to an end.

We ran into no enemies on the way home. The police attention was concentrated on the heart of the Port District, leaving the outskirts more lax than usual. Thanks to that, we slipped underground without incident.

Arriving at the nest, I set Jade and the heavy weapons trooper down. The toxic gas would kill them if they lingered too long, but that hardly mattered.

Before the gas could suffocate them, they'd be inside our stomachs anyway.

[Zzzt... zzzt... (This prey is yours.)]

[Adult] [Thanks]

I handed the heavy weapons trooper over to Adhai. Paralyzed as he was, the man could only cast a pitiful glance toward Jade ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— and there was nothing Jade could do for him.

All he could do was watch his comrade's final moments with sorrowful eyes.

"Ugh— uuuugh! Uuuuh!"

Adhai spread out a mound of tentacles and draped them over the man's face.

The suckers at the tips of the long, slender tentacles latched onto every part of the trooper's head. Then the tiny, needle-sharp teeth lining each sucker bored mercilessly into his skin.

"Ghk! Ghhk—! Gak!"

Like a straw slurping down a drink, the tentacles undulated and gorged themselves on his blood.

Apparently even after eating an entire person, the growing Gallagon was still hungry — such was the appetite of a juvenile.

No. 26, already full, showed no interest in Adhai's meal. She settled herself against a corner of the nest and drifted quietly off to sleep.

While the kids saw to their own business, I picked up the Cultist's corpse. I'd killed her by raking my claws across her abdomen, so her entrails were spilling out of the wound.

Normally I'd start with the head...

But there was no law saying I had to stick to the same routine every time.

I tore into the Cultist's innards and stuffed them into my mouth.

Huh. Not bad.

Human flesh carried a strong, straightforward meaty flavor, but the Cultist was complex — a taste I'd never encountered before.

Sort of like jelly? With a hint of offal sausage. A really unusual texture.

Unlike the cyborg's fruit-like tartness, this leaned closer to the sweetness of sugar. The texture was somewhat softer than human flesh, though not so soft as to be mushy.

That's a relief. I was worried, since I'll be eating plenty more Cultists going forward.

It was possible this one was simply unusual — but if other Cultists tasted the same, I could eat them gladly.

And so I devoured the Cultist's corpse down to the last scrap.

When I finally crunched through the fragments of her broken horn, a translucent text box reported that a portion of my evolution conditions had been satisfied.

Finally filled out one Cultist.

The Predation Effect had not triggered.

It was a shame — if I could have acquired her Soul Link ability, it would have widened my tactical options considerably.

By the time I finished eating, Adhai had already polished off his meal and fallen asleep.

Until yesterday, whenever he was with No. 26, he'd been the one cradling her in his arms. Now the roles were reversed — No. 26 had grown so much that it was she who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠held Adhai as he slept.

Good work, both of you.

I gave the sleeping kids one last look, then turned to my final meal. The anesthetic on Jade had worn off a little; he lay on his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠side, pressed against the floor.

No real need to anesthetize this one, is there?

I seized him and hoisted him up. He reeked — apparently he'd soiled himself watching his comrade get eaten.

Not that I was a picky eater. I opened my jaws wide to bite into his head.

"W-wait...!"

The instant I was about to crunch down, he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Y-you can sp-speak human, can't you? I can help you! If you spare my life, I'll serve you!"

Jade screamed his plea with everything he had.

Hm.

Well, this was a novel reaction.

Nearly everyone I'd tried to eat had responded the same way — begging for their lives and nothing more. Jade was the first to actually offer me a deal.

What should I do?

Holding him aloft, I weighed what I'd actually gain from keeping him as a slave.

He could give me information on Sihyeon Yujin...

But she'd been dead for a long time now, long since become nutrients in my body. If Sihyeon were still alive, his intel might have been worth something. As things stood, everything he knew was useless.

What merit is there in using him as nothing but a slave?

Judging by his clothes, he didn't look like he'd held any particularly high position in this city. A prison escapee hiding out in the shadows was hardly in a position to land respectable employment in the first place.

If he were a cop like William, or some kind of licensed professional, maybe. But Jade's occupation does nothing for me.

And more than that, Jade was a dangerous candidate for parasitic control.

As one of Sihyeon Yujin's subordinates, he'd have seen an enormous variety of gene modifications and learned what effects they produced. Which meant he might well know about parasite-related genetics — or how to resist a parasite's control.

I ran the calculations one more time, and made my decision.

Don't need him.

Jade was useless to me. His only value was his flesh.

"J-just a moment...!"

I ignored his final cry and bit straight into his head.

My reinforced jaws crushed his skull in a single bite. The remains inside spilled out and slid down my throat.

Mm.

Interesting flavor — interesting in a different way than the Cultist. This one tasted like someone had drowned it in chemical seasonings.

Not that it's bad, exactly...

It was like a dish made from good ingredients that refused to cooperate with one another. Imagine a talentless cook taking a pile of expensive ingredients, throwing them together without any technique, then drowning the mess in sauce to hide it.

Still, it's not inedible.

The Cultist had left me wanting, with so little meat on her. Perhaps thanks to that moderate hunger, I was able to finish Jade off cleanly as well.

And the moment I devoured the last of him—

A translucent text window appeared before me.

Metallic Gremlin?

The Jade I'd just eaten was, unmistakably, human. Metallic Gremlins were far more grotesque than any human, and tiny besides.

He'd been counted as a humanoid intelligent lifeform, so I clearly wasn't mistaken about what I'd eaten.

Which left only one conclusion. Like Sihyeon Yujin, Jade was a product of completed genetic modification.

No wonder he tasted so strange.

Where Sihyeon Yujin's flesh had been perfection itself, Jade's had been deeply off-putting — and it seemed his botched, haphazard gene-splicing was the reason.

Well, if he'd been grafted with Metallic Gremlin genes, he was a hard counter to me.

Metallic Gremlins were a species with innate abilities like devouring metal, disabling electronics, and blocking equipment effects. That made them the terminators of anti-cyborg, anti-android warfare — but against beings like Amorphs or Outspacers, who used no electronic equipment at all, they were at a devastating disadvantage.

Jade was just unlucky.

His abilities would have been devastatingly useful for terrorism. Unfortunately for him, his opponent had been me.

Metal Absorption, huh.

Metal Absorption let me consume metal or equipment and reflect a portion of that material's properties and effects onto my outer carapace for a limited time.

For example, with Metal Absorption active, consuming Blacksilver — a metal resistant to psychic power — would temporarily grant my carapace a high degree of psionic resistance.

On paper it looked like an excellent trait, but unfortunately it came with two drawbacks.

First, the duration was short. Ten minutes base, extended to twenty with the Physical Enhancement Type bonus — hardly generous either way.

Second, once the time limit expired, the borrowed effect vanished automatically. If I wanted that effect again, I'd have to reactivate the trait and re-consume the same metal.

Those flaws meant this wasn't a trait to be thrown around carelessly. Only used with care would it be worth its price.

The drawbacks are real, but it's exactly what I need right now.

For someone as vulnerable to ranged weapons as I was, no amount of defensive traits would ever be enough. Raising my armor with Metal Absorption while under concentrated enemy fire — the possible applications were endless.

And Metal Absorption counts as a physical-type trait.

I currently possessed twelve physical traits in total. With Metal Absorption, that made thirteen.

Which meant the time had come to try the Transcendence System.

Heart pounding with anticipation, I accepted the application of the new trait.