Mutagen

Day 23 – 3:24 PM – Mountain Village, Mount Malabito, General Nakar, Quezon

It was already past lunch when Mark managed to go back to the village.

Melanie's story might be short but the time consumed as she told that was rather long as she had her difficulties talking. Not only that but the whole process of dealing with the things inside the airplane took more than two hours and that included waiting for the [Blood Children] to be born and killing the Biters inside the airplane. Another thing was that he also waited for the flesh pod to wither before he retrieved Miracle inside. It was not like he could not destroy it but he thought that it was better for the human baby shaped [Blood Child] to stay inside longer.

Another thing was dealing with the aftermath. Melinda's flesh tentacles on the riverside were already reduced to a dried flesh and thus, he proceeded to store her ability into the newly created [Physical Crystal] and Melinda's body also started to disintegrate like her flesh tentacles after her mutation had been removed. It seemed that without the root of mutation, her body also could not stand the sunlight.

After that, he needed a way to transport the five infected he secured, the new blood children and the other usable things he found in the compartments of the airplane. It would need him to go back and forth because of that and it was not efficient. To return faster and in one go, he needed some kind of transportation. In this case, his eyes fell on the river. He needed a boat.

As that place was near a tourist spot, there should be a boat by the river and he really found several boats docked beyond the area where the plane crashed which was at the east side of the barrio. Unfortunately, all of the boats were rather unreliable enough to be ridden as rust already started to accumulate without the proper maintenance those boats needed. In the end, he pulled the largest one of those boats towards the area where the plane was and intended to coat the exterior of the boat with [Blood Metal]. It was good that he had quite an amount of bodies to harvest blood from.

While he tried to remove the stinky smell by washing his body on the river, he made the [Blood Children], except for Miracle, gather the blood of the infected inside the airplane. However, while the smell on his armor was removed, the smell stuck to his clothes. Because of that, he would have to endure until he could change his clothes. There were clothes inside the bags on the compartments in the airplane but those clothes were rather unsuitable to be worn without being washed. With almost a month that the interior of the airplane was covered in that smell flesh membrane, it was not surprising that the bags also smelled like a rotting corpse.

When he called onto Amihan, the little sylph did not want to get close to him for obvious reasons. She even kept complaining as she could not breathe near Mark.

On the other hand, unlike the other [Blood Children], Miracle was not active at all. Although he already proceeded to convert her blood body and already had a connection with him in his mind, she was not responding. There was no doubt that she was alive, rather, it felt like she was sleeping.

The ride home was rather rough. Even though Mark knew how to ride a paddle boat, it was only in theory. This time was really the first time he even ride one that he could remember clearly. He had vague memories of riding a boat when he was small but of course, he was not the one operating it. The boat had a motor and had gas but the motor was not working anymore.

As he rode the paddle boat downstream, it was like kayaking with a large vessel with heavy cargo. Not only his hands hurt but also his legs and bottom. The strange thing however was that the [Blood Children] rather liked the shaking of the boat as they rode it downstream. Mark could not understand why but maybe, they felt like it was a fun ride or because babies liked to be rocked to sleep.

The ride on the boat was much faster but it was too fast that Mark almost missed his stop. The boat hit some large rocks several times but the [Blood Metal] was too tough to be broken by just those rocks. The boat being large also became a disadvantage as it made the boat harder to control by hand. If Mark was not an Evolver that became a Mutator, he would surely fail to control it.

Climbing up the mountain was not hard. The only thing he carried were the bag that stored the [Blood Children], Miracle in his left arm and Melanie's body that was covered in cloth on his shoulder. As for the five Biters, they recovered some of their strength already and Mark removed the shackles on their feet while he gagged them to prevent them from being able to bite anything. He also put a collar and chain using [Blood Metal] and pulled them up the mountain. Pulling them was not hard as they would also try to follow after Mark and try to attack him from time to time. It was just that their bodies were still weak that they could not pounce, attack or run continuously.

When he returned, the Hallie was fine seeing the infected but the others looked afraid and confused. Well, he had no reason to tell them everything and thus, picked a house that was yet to be dismantled by Ed and kept the infected there. He only told them that he needed these infected for an experiment.

As for Melanie's body, Mark would give her a proper burial. He was not that heartless to just leave her body there to rot along with the Biters. Besides, Mark was rather interested in her body because it did not turn back to normal even when he already used the [Physical Crystal] on her.

When Mark entered the house to get some change of clothes, he saw that Nicole was already awake. Even though she was still weak to get up from the bed, it was good that she already gained consciousness.

After changing clothes at another house, he went back and chatted with Nicole for a bit.

"Thank you. Really." Nicole said. "We're really lucky to see you here. If not, I don't..."

Nicole did not manage to finish what she wanted to say as she started to sob. They really had a hard time after the apocalypse started and she herself almost lost her life several times. If not for Hallie protecting her most of the time, she would not be here at all. Not to mention when she fell ill. If Mark was not here, there would be no safe place for them to stay, there would be no medicine for her illness and there would be no food for them to eat.

Mark only patted her head and did not say too much.

"It's fine. When you recover, expect to do work though."

"Sniff… No problem. Hallie already told me."

At that time, Mark felt some call in his head.

Right… he forgot to take out the [Blood Children] from the bag.

"Uwah! They're multiplying!" Hallie exclaimed as the living room became a den for eight red slimes and a baby shaped slime that looked asleep. "Hey Mark! Give me one! Give me one please!"

She was not surprised at its existence as she saw Mark playing with one already but having more was a different issue. Hallie tried to beg for one but she was shut down by a single firm…

"NO."

It was not like because he did not want to since he knew how it should be for an Otaku to see something that only exist in anime, manga and RPG games in real life. The thing however was because these [Blood Children] were too important to the building of the base. Furthermore, he had both mental and blood connection with all of them which made it harder to give them away. Well, it was fine borrowing them which made Hallie a little appeased.

"They're warm."

Nicole said as Hallie handed her one.

Mark also noticed that since the first [Blood Child] he found and was sleeping with it since the temperature here in the mountains during the night was cold. He did not know why but maybe because they were made of blood that was supposed to be warm? These little blobs of blood was something out of the norm anyway that Mark stopped thinking about it.

"What's with that one?"

Hallie asked while pointing at the baby shaped slime.

"Oh, she's different from the others. You can say that the eight was born like that while this one was a human baby that turned into this."

Mark then told the two about the story behind the [Blood Children] which made the two concerned and looked at the little blood creatures with pity. He also told the two about the importance of the blood children to building the base.

"Isn't that child labor?"

Hallie asked in a joking manner.

Still, Mark could not deny that. The [Blood Children] after all were just newborn babies that could follow his commands as long as it was within their capabilities.

He watched the six [Blood Children] on the bamboo table which were poking each other and playing. Even though they were just newborn children, their mentality was close to a one or two year old baby. That was his estimate as he felt the emotions of these blood critters in his mind.

On the other hand, Miracle was truly different. Mark was confused as to how she was able to keep her form like that or how she turned into one. While examining the sleeping baby, he noticed that she actually had bones in her body which became the foundation of her shape. It was just the bones had also mutated and changed into a semi-transparent one which made him remember Melanie's semi-transparent body. In the end, it seemed that they were really related by blood.

The day did not end just like that. Jolene bravely met him at the house.

"Please, train me!"

She squeezed out her thoughts. Even though she bravely met him, she was still nervous. Even Nicole and Hallie found her behavior really funny. On the other hand, Hallie's eyes darted back and forth on Mark and Jollene and spoke.

"Fufufu… Slave-san wanting to be trained by her master... GAH!"

She received a head chop making her crouch while holding her head in pain.

Jollene also realized that the words she said had another meaning which made her blush.

"Ah-No! I mean teach me how to fight!"

She hurriedly exclaimed flustered which made Nicole laugh as she sat on the bed.

Mark did not mind as he knew what she meant. He was a proper man after all. A proper man. That was important. It was just Hallie giving it an alternate meaning.

"Hah…" Mark sighed. "Alright. I guess it's a master's duty to teach the slave how to fight."

Hearing that, Jollene's eyes brightened. She was happy that he agreed and did not mind how he said it. However, she shivered at the same time. She was too focused on asking Mark that she did not notice the [Blood Children] that was now poking her legs from the table.

"Wha-what! What are these things?!"

Jollene seemed to have weakness against these kinds of creatures. She hurriedly stepped back almost knocking to the body of Melanie covered in cloth which Mark lay on the wooden sofa.

Mark scratched his head to her reaction while Hallie's eyes lit up. She hurriedly took one of the [Blood Children] and shoved it on Jollene's face making her body freeze in fear that she could only shriek.

"By the way, what's for lunch?"

He asked as he wanted to eat after he buried Melanie's remains.

"Trisha cooked some Tiger Meat Stew!"

Hallie replied before she went out of the house chasing Jollene out while holding a [Blood Child] with both hands.

Mark scratched his head once more.

"Meat huh… No thanks. I'd rather go with canned beans and peas today."

He murmured before absentmindedly taking Melanie's body out of the house without saying anything to Nicole who was left confused.

"Just what are those three doing?"

She murmured in confusion.