Chapter 135 - A Large Canvas

After having made his decision, Jay could feel his energy immediately begin to escape from his body.

It was a strange and not very pleasant sensation, but knowing that it was something necessary for the system, he didn't resist at all... although he didn't know if that was possible in the first place.

At the same time, the parasites, sensing this change, filled the [Mental Network] with a bit of surprise, apparently with none of them being aware that the system would make such a move.

Quickly, several changes began to appear in the space Jay was in, which while protected by his little ones, was still part of Kai's body.

First a few ripples appeared in the space, similar to as if a rock had suddenly fallen into a completely calm lake.

'...It has become more difficult...?'

However, Jay could feel that for some reason, his energy seemed to be having trouble getting out, as if it was being blocked by something.

The next moment, Jay suddenly received two messages, one coming from the system, and one from the [Mental Network].

The system gave him a warning, that if he maintained this mental blockade, it would not be able to carry out what Jay himself had chosen.

As for the [Mental Network], it was his little ones communicating to him that it was taking too much effort to maintain the blockade.

Faced with this, Jay, after telling the [Mental Network] that it was okay and to stop doing the blockade, realized something.

'Why is the system alerting me instead of giving them an order directly...?' Jay thought, this time not sharing his thoughts on the network.

Originally, Jay firmly believed that the system, being the one who granted him the parasites, and also being the [Parasyte System], that it had total and absolute control over the parasites.

Or at least that it had when he had first obtained the system.

However, as time had passed, Jay had come to realize that this belief of his had perhaps been a bit too much based on simple assumptions on his part.

Several matters in the past had caused him to doubt this, the time when he had used the [Limit Breaker] being a situation that could either confirm or destroy this theory of his.

In that case, while he had not been conscious most of the time, he could remember that had it not been for his little ones moving the pill to activate its effects, he would undoubtedly have died.

Now, there was one big question he had in this situation, and that was, had his little ones moved on their own or by order of the system?

Either way, therein lay the answer as to whether the system really could command the parasites as he did.

*Bam!*

Suddenly, the parasite blockade lifted, again releasing Jay into Kai's mind while preventing him from further thinking about this theory of his.

Immediately, what appeared to be a cosmic space filled with small points of light that resembled stars in the distance filled Jay's gaze.

It was undoubtedly an impressive sight that would make anyone think they were somewhere out of this world, but in reality, this space was simply Kai's mind.

Right now, Jay kept floating in this space, something he had already experienced the first time he entered, and there was no problem until here.

*Woosh!*

'Ah, here they come...' Jay thought, watching the distance.

Moving at breakneck speed, dozens and dozens of those bright lights that resembled stars began to travel towards him.

While their appearance was menacing, it was not a physical impact that was the most dangerous thing about these 'stars', but the information that each of these carried.

Regardless of their size or brightness, what each of these brought could well be a memory, a sensation, or something else entirely.

The next moment, as if these dozens were not enough, all the stars visible to Jay in this space also began to move towards him, creating a scene that could give more than one a great panic because of how threatening it looked.

In the midst of all this, Jay simply hovered, paying attention to a pair of stars he remembered from his first experience.

Both the size and speed of this pair was far greater than the others, and it was these that were primarily responsible for causing Jay a serious identity problem due to the plethora of information they contained.

In a matter of seconds, all the stars had greatly shortened the distance between them and Jay.

The way things were going, it wouldn't be long before Jay would ask his little ones for another blockade.

*BAM!*

Suddenly, a loud sound was heard in this space at the same time as changes occurred around the space Jay was floating in.

'This... is new.' Jay thought, looking around.

Seemingly out of nowhere, several lines of a red color had appeared, in the process creating a large sized cube that Jay was stuck in.

The next moment, more and more lines began to emerge from the sides of this transparent cube, forming a complicated structure but one that was slowly beginning to more closely resemble something Jay was familiar with.

A floor slowly began to form inside the cube, columns suddenly rose from this floor and from these expanded walls, furniture was built almost instantaneously.

Not even a minute had passed before all this construction was finished, revealing nothing more and nothing less... than a huge library.

'...So this is what the system meant by organization huh...' Jay thought.

As he had implied, the option Jay had chosen to deal with the enormous amount of information present in Kai's mind had been nothing more than the organization option.

While it was undoubtedly the simplest, Jay was content with that, as here, the only risk he ran was that his energy would quickly run out.

In contrast, with the other options either his little ones were going to have to pay the price, or in the worst case scenario, he would receive permanent brain damage.

If one took into account that the system was never dishonest with the statements it made, whether for good or bad, then one could already see how threatening the latter in particular was.

'Anyway, there will be opportunities in the future when I'll be able to use both...' Jay thought, without any remorse.

After all, Jay was sure that these options shown to him by the system were one-time opportunities, but were more like functions that were available in the system.

This was a statement made with confidence, as Jay would take it upon himself to investigate their use further, who knows, he might even be able to pull it off without having the system's help.

While he had been busy with his thoughts, the library had finally been finished, except for one particularly wide column, which stood in the middle and had no shelves at all, but instead had a large canvas hanging on it.

What was striking about this was that the canvas was completely empty, as were the shelves.

'Do I have to do something now...?' Jay thought, looking up at the stars around him.

Stars which, it had to be mentioned, instead of continuing on their way to crash into Jay and consequently the library, were now still, suspended in space.

*Boom!*

'Oh?'

The next moment, each and every one of these stars then began to move away at an even greater speed than they were approaching Jay with.

This of course, caused Jay to be filled with interest, as he wondered what the reason for this sudden retreat might be.

*Chack!*

While his attention was focused on the retreating stars, the sound of something fleshy moving then rang through the library.

Turning his head, Jay was able to observe that on the empty shelves, several holes had appeared, of considerable size, almost being as big as a basketball.

*CHACK!*

"!"

Without even a second had passed, extremely long figures came out of all the gaps, shooting in the direction of the surrounding stars, with their bodies still in the gaps, making it appear that instead of moving, they were simply stretching.

Seeing these figures, specifically, the 'head' of these, Jay couldn't help but think of a certain similarity they had to some smaller beings.

'My... little ones?' Jay thought, a confused expression on his face.

Starting at the head, a row of extremely sharp teeth decorated what appeared to be the mouths of these beings, followed by small eyes and a body that despite being much longer than that of his little ones, was completely the same.

As for how many of these had come out, there were two per shelf, so their number was in the tens.

It was as if these were an enormously elongated version of his little ones, whose function didn't seem to be to assimilate, but something Jay was about to discover.

Barely a minute had passed, but these long parasites had already traveled a great distance in this seemingly infinite space, and the stars, as fast as they were, were still slower than them.

Finally, the inevitable happened, and one of these parasites hit a small star.

Then, an unmistakable sound was heard.

*GULP!*

And with that, the star had been devoured by the parasite, causing several stars to immediately start moving faster for fear of being devoured in the same way.

On the other hand, Jay, although he was surprised by this and was about to ask something to the system, could notice that in the body of the parasite that had devoured the star, a lump had begun to move down its body.

Slowly but visibly, this lump continued to move down until it reached the part where the parasite's body was connected to the hole in the shelf.

A moment later, the lump disappeared from Jay's field of vision, but almost simultaneously, there was a change on the shelf.

*Pop!*

With that sound, the wall of the bookshelf spat out a book that fell gracefully onto the shelf.

Obviously interested by this, Jay then reached over and grabbed the book off the shelf.

It was incredibly thin, the number of pages it contained barely being a couple at a glance, but the most interesting thing was not that, but the title on the cover.

'Smell of wet earth after rain...' Jay read in his mind, coming to a realization of what exactly the system meant by organization.

Opening the book out of curiosity, Jay noticed that there was an image printed, of a small field of wet earth in cloudy weather, but before he could say anything or close the book, a certain scent came to his nose.

"Oh my..." Jay said, speaking for the first time inside Kai's head, proof of how surprised he was thanks to how real the scent seemed.

Leaving the book on the shelf, Jay then moved his gaze to the surroundings, where the long parasites had already approached many more stars, devouring them and causing many more books to appear on the shelves.

This caused a certain question to pop into Jay's head, who was quick to let the responsible for this know.

'System, open question, will this be detrimental to Kai in any way?' Jay asked, watching as the amount of stars gradually disappeared.

Although Kai was a perfect stranger to Jay, it wasn't as if the latter was seeking to erase his memories or control his mind either, he was simply trying to get to see what the limits of his new ability were.

Therefore, he decided to ask the system just in case.

[Answer: The organization process is completely safe for both the [Carrier] and the target individual, with the only dangerous variable being the [Carrier] itself damaging the library.

Recommendation: Please don't break anything.]

Reading that, Jay then felt a bit more relieved, as he had been worried that perhaps the moment he severed the connection with Kai, he would be left without memories or something similar.

Now without that worry on his shoulders, Jay then decided to continue watching as the long parasites continued to devour more stars.

In that way, this library, which had originally been empty, was now gradually filling up.

However, not only the bookshelves were having a striking change, but also the canvas in the center of the library.

"Heh, that's curious..." Jay said.

On the oversized canvas, now more than half of Kai's face was drawn, as an indication of who these memories belonged to.