Chapter 38: Recruitment

"...a..."

After a few incredibly painful minutes that felt like hours, the torture finally ended.

However, like the system had warned him before, the process had left Jay in a really deplorable state.

He was lying on the ground, surrounded by a few blood stains on the floor, which had been thrown by Jay himself, the bandages on his face, which had arrived in the South Zone totally clean and white, were now a dirty maroon color.

But of course, while his appearance was terrible, it was nothing compared to how his body was.

Torn muscles, broken bones, torn tendons, and much more.

The process of the assimilation of the "Limit Breaker" parasite, as its name indicated, was breaking the limits of Jay's body following the steps that the original host had taken to achieve that result, i.e. Colt.

As a pugilist, Colt had trained his body hard, pushing it to the limit and gradually tempering his body more and more, until after several months of pure effort, he managed to reach the respectable (D) rank.

Then the parasite, along with the system, following in Colt's footsteps, began to intensely temper Jay's body, greatly accelerating the strengthening process that Colt had gone through, from several months to just a few minutes.

However, a process at such incredible speed consumed an equally incredible amount of energy.

In fact, even in Colt's slow and gradual training, strengthening his body also consumed a good amount of energy, but he had no problem with that as he possessed a type of energy full of vitality capable of withstanding the high consumption that his training entailed...Qi.

Unfortunately, Jay didn't possess even the slightest bit of Qi, so the parasite, in conjunction with the system, had to improvise.

There was no Qi?

Then use all the energy of the Carrier to temperate his body!

Not enough energy to create new bones, muscles and other parts?

Then just recycle what we already have!

That this will leave the Carrier's body severely injured?

He knew what he was getting into!

Thus, the assimilation was successfully completed.

But even though the assimilation was over, Jay couldn't feel happy...in fact, he couldn't feel or do anything right now, not even...swallow the pill in his mouth, just lie on his side on the floor.

This was an extremely bad situation, in the terrible state that Jay was in right now, he desperately needed that pill, and if he didn't take it soon...maybe he wouldn't get out of this.

Slowly, the heat was leaving his body, although he wanted to resist it with all his strength...there was nothing he could do.

Just then, a notification came from the system.

_____________

Hidden Task: [First Breakthrough] has been completed!

Reward: 10 parasites (original)

Remark: The first time is always the hardest!

_____________

That was the window that appeared in front of Jay, although of course, due to the extreme tiredness he was feeling, he didn't have the strength to read the message in front of him, in fact, he didn't even saw the message that told him that the assimilation had ended.

He could only keep trying not to fall asleep, because he knew that if he fell asleep...he wouldn't wake up.

However, that didn't stop the system from giving him his reward, causing the 10 parasites of the reward to slowly form inside Jay's shattered body.

"!"

These parasites, the moment they finished forming completely, immediately felt that something was wrong with Jay's body, so they began to share their energy with him, giving Jay a breeze of life.

Unfortunately, even though they were sharing almost all of their energy with Jay, that was only enough to keep Jay from getting worse, nothing else.

They knew that sooner or later their energy would run out, so they had to do something before that happened.

Even though they didn't have a mouth, they could still communicate with each other through a mental link they had, quickly coming to a decision.

They would all separate to cover an important part of the body and merge with that part of the Carrier to be able to heal even a little bit that part, that was not their function at all and it might not even work...but in a situation like this, they had no choice but to try everything to save the Carrier.

If everything went well, they would give the Carrier the opportunity to move around and ask for help from one of the two human beings outside the house.

Thanks to their innate talents as parasites, feeling living beings was as natural as breathing for them.

Then, as they continued to share their energy with Jay, they all rushed to the agreed upon parts, such as the brain, heart, lungs, etc.

The largest group of parasites was the one going to the brain, with 3 parasites, which moved quickly through Jay's neck to get to his head.

*Cha*

Suddenly, all three stopped just as they were passing through Jay's mouth.

They had felt an incredible amount of vitality coming from there, greater even than the energy that could be gathered by 50 of them!

The three rushed to the mouth, finding the regeneration pill resting on Jay's right cheek.

Seeing this large sphere brimming with vitality, the three instantly knew what to do and quickly returned to Jay's chest, telling all the other parasites about what was in the mouth.

Not wanting to waste another second, they all went to Jay's mouth to move the sphere to his stomach, where all that vitality could be put to good use.

After a few seconds and a spectacular teamwork, they did it.

The pill had reached Jay's stomach!

*Woosh!*

At that moment, a huge wave of vitality came out of the pill as it disolved inside his body, spreading throughout Jay's body and regenerating everything in its path.

The parasites could clearly feel it, the Carrier was healing at an amazing rate!

With this, they couldn't help but feel relieved and also somewhat happy, after all, this would be a story to show off to other parasites.

***

Unaware of the emotions of the parasites inside him, the almost unconscious Jay, feeling the growing energy in his body, opened his eyes.

"HAAAAA!"

And the first thing he did was take a great breath of air as he grabbed his throat and stomach, an unbearable thirst and hunger assailed him simultaneously.

"Haa...water!"

The next moment, he got up and ran to the kitchen tap, separating the bandages that covered his mouth so he could drink directly from the tap, without caring that the tap had clear signs of not having been used in a long time.

Unfortunately, not a single drop of water came out of the spout, causing Jay to strongly tighten his grip on the kitchen tap, crushing it.

He then quickly headed for the front door of the house, guided by nothing more than his survival instinct, which desperately screamed at him to find food and water.

Not realizing...the message that had been sent to his smart watch.

***

A few minutes before the assimilation process was completed, Noah was outside the house, leaning against part of the small wall near the exit to the street.

Because he didn't want to draw attention to himself in any way, he just sat there quietly, thinking about what Jay was doing inside, but with his hand on the "send" button of a message he wad writen before, in case something happened.

Judging by Jay's attitude, it was obvious he was doing something to increase his strength, but Noah didn't know how he was accomplishing something like that.

'In fact, now that I think about it...what kind of super is he...?' Noah thought, remembering what Jay had shown so far.

That he was a mage was totally out of the question, he didn't have any kind of catalyst to use spells nor could Noah feel any special kind of energy from him, so that option was out of the question.

As for whether he was an esper, Noah hadn't been so sure about this initially because he hadn't seen him use any kind of ability.

However, just a few minutes ago he had seen him clean the dust of the living room of the abandoned house using the wind, and this was a esper skill.

But that created another problem, and that was that...espers didn't have methods to get stronger temporarily, unless that their esper skill was that.

In contrast, there was another class that had an abundance of such methods, the pugilists.

From burning up your future potential, vitality, blood, and even your life expectancy, there were myriad special methods for them to temporarily getting stronger or even forcibly advancing of rank.

'But if he's a pugilist...how could he control the wind before...maybe he did it with Qi...? No, that wasn't Qi...' Noah plunged into his thoughts, trying to find a logical answer to what he had seen.

"So this is where you were eh~."

"!"

Unexpectedly, a man's voice could be heard from above Noah, who, looking in the direction of the voice, could see a man with short black hair and a scar on his chin.

Noah quickly lunged forward in the direction of the house's entrance, taking advantage of the impulse to move further away from this man, and in the process sending the message he had writen before to Jay.

"Hahaha, good reaction." Said the man as he jumped over the small wall, staying on top and just smiling at Noah, "But don't worry, I'm not from Metal Body, I'm not here for revenge or anything like that, in fact, I hate them too~"

"..." Noah did not answer and just stood on guard, ready to run the moment the man in front of him made a move, although what he had said took him a little by surprise.

"Heh, a man of few words, as far as I can see...well, it doesn't really matter, I'll explain why I'm here, you see, we've heard of your small but promising exploits here in the Metal Body district and let me tell you...well done!" The man continued, visibly cheerful, not minding the fact that Noah was not responding to him.

"While the guard you defeated was a bit trash, the rookie was pretty handy, plus we saw the other guard carrying his unconscious partner...it was you too, right? Man, you're good." Praised the man before continuing, "Anyways, the offer I wanted to make you was...would you be interested in joining Wolf's Fang?"

'...They want to recruit him...?' Noah thought.

Now that he thought about it, he realized that Wolf's Fang recruiting him wasn't weird at all.

Metal Body preferred quantity to quality, while Wolf's Fang was the opposite, creating a huge gap between the individual power of both sides.

This is why, despite the fact that the number of Metal Body members was much higher than Wolf's Fang, they could hold their own as their main rivals in the South Zone, occupying a similar number of districts.

So Jay, who had defeated 2 guardians and a promising member of Metal Body, definitely was eligible to join Wolf's Fang.

"Oh, and if you're wondering what we can offer you if you join...well, we have money, women, and even training methods for pugilists, we know you're a pugilist too, so it's certainly not a bad deal at all~!" Said the man as he jumped down from the small wall and approached Noah, extending his right hand. "So, what do you think~?"

What he said was not a lie, although the districts they controlled had almost no people and they could not charge them for protection like Metal Body, they had other ways of making money, such as trafficking in illegal substances, weapons, women, among many other shady things.

Noah walked away a little bit the moment the man came down from the little wall, thinking about what he should do in a situation like this.

'...I've sent the message, I doubt it will take long...guess I'll just have to play along to distract him...'

Noah then slowly stretched out his hand to the man, who quickly took it and shaked it with a smile on his face.

"Great, I knew you'd make the right choice~!" He said as he continued to hold Noah's hand, "Now then, it's time for the test!"

Suddenly, he squeezed Noah's wrist tightly.

"Urk!" Noah could not help but groan in pain.

"Hahaha, I am sorry, but it is necessary, I do not want you to escape before the test begins, besides, I will make it easy for you, you just have to resist one of my blows!

*Shrr*

The sound of clothes tearing could be heard clearly, coming from the man before Noah.

At that moment, Noah saw how gradually, the left sleeve of the jacket the man was wearing was tearing because it could not contain the growing muscles of this man.

"...Ah, shit, I forgot to take my jacket off again..." Said the man, his arm still growing in size, looking more and more like the arm of a giant instead of a human being.

'He's not a pugilist... he's an esper...!' Noah thought, alarmed by the sense of danger emanating from the man.

"Well, you'll just have to pay me later for the jacket...now then, grit your teeth, rookie!" he shouted, throwing a punch with his huge, muscular arm that was almost six feet long.

*BAM!*

But just then, the door of the house was blown off.

Revealing...a man with his face covered in bandages, whose eyes emanated a dangerous air.

His gaze quickly settled on the man holding Noah.

Seeing him, instead of feeling relieved, Noah couldn't help but think...

'Why...why does he look more dangerous than this guy...?'