As if to spite Justin’s possible impending death, the beast's surge in strength died down as soon as it had come. Yet the soldiers who had gathered around it still backed up a good distance to be cautious.

  Unlike with the parasites lodged within each of the assimilated natives, Justin didn’t have as great a degree of control over the seedling before it latched onto the central nervous system of the creature, so he still didn’t know whether his experiment here would be successful.

  Hopefully the seeding could exert control on the creature’s brain soon enough, otherwise…

  ‘Damn it! It’s coming this way!’

  Under the immense pain of having a seedling crawling within its armored skull, the mutant beast turned ravenous and began to move erratically as sickly green bile began to foam from its mouth. At the same time, its center thorax began to squirm and convulse, much to Justin’s bewilderment.

  ‘That’s not something I’m doing, is it?’

  He couldn’t know. The seedlings got their directive shortly before they were deployed. While they were moving within the potential host all the seedling could do was fulfill it. Like a missile, it was a one-time use asset.

  But Justin had only used them on the natives. He had no idea if they were capable of fusing with the nervous systems of other creatures.

  However if that was the case, wouldn’t his stage quest be impossible?

  Justin felt a pit in his stomach form just as a very subtle refreshing feeling entered him.

  ‘What? N-no!’

  The scorpion beast had stopped struggling, but not because it had been assimilated! Justin had recognized the feeling as experience entering his body. The same feeling he had felt an uncountable number of times before all of this, and every time he had assimilated or killed another native afterward.

  But if the stage quest hadn’t been fulfilled along with the gain in experience, then that meant something else.

  ‘It’s dead.’

  [Health: 7 / 10]

  Justin didn’t even process the pain of the Origin’s health decreasing further as he approached the corpse. Looking over the beast that was as large as a small land-based vehicle, he sighed.

  ‘That…was the only living thing within miles of here.’

  He had checked.

  If it had been Justin before the parasite had bonded to his brain, he would have wanted to hold his head in his hands, but now he could only curse his luck.

  ‘Whatever is making my body overheat gets worse as I overexert myself. Trying to track down this beast has taken the greatest toll. But still, even if I conserve my stamina I won’t be able to last out the week. I have another day or two at the maximum.’

  …And then he would be dead.

  Overheating in this desert would kill him.

  Failing the stage quest would lock him from progressing, which would kill him.

  Sacrificing a large part of his hive would give the parasite control back, which would kill him.

  It was definitive.

  Surveying all the roads his future could take, Justin saw himself dying or being trapped within his own mind in every one of them. Part of him almost couldn't believe it. He was going to die here. In the middle of nowhere, in a random desert. On the planet of a civilization that didn’t even know what was beyond their own moon for certainty.

  He, who had been the founder and leader of a C-Grade guild, an organization that had been known in their civilization and had garnered a certain degree of distinction within the Guild Association, would die forgotten and dusty on a backwater planet.

  ‘Oh wait, that’s right.’

  Justin realized something with a bit of dry humor.

  His guildmates must have thought he had already died during the fight against the Herald. In a way that was almost right, but it served as just one more inaccuracy that would make up his life as people would later tell it, if they bothered to remember who Justin Locke had been at all.

  He couldn’t help but chuckle in spite of himself.

  There was a terrible kind of humor in it, wasn’t there? That despite all he had tried, the astounding progress he had made in only a few days, all of the people he had either killed or consumed to get this far, he was still going to die. And he didn’t even know why.

  “Ha! Hahahaha!”

  Justin laughed. Then he laughed louder.

  Then the whole throng of assimilated soldiers began to join in.

  Then the remaining captives, whose number had been reduced to less than seventy, even laughed along too. Though the reason why was unknown. From either fear or stress-induced lunacy, not even they knew why they laughed along with the monsters that had stolen them from society.

  Underneath his laughter, Justin suddenly heard the trill of a system notification ring out.

  [Stage Quest Completed!]

  [Stage Quest: Assimilate at least (2) hosts from distinct suitable species.]

  [End Result: Chosen Species Pair: Type-M4 Human and Bras Veneficus (Pre-sentient)]

  [Completion Rating: C-]

  [C- Grade Completion Bonus: +250 Biomass]

  [Completion Reward: 5,000 Biomass]

  “What?”

  Justin was bewildered, unconsciously speaking through the whole throng.

  ‘It worked after all? What is a Bras Veneficus? Don’t tell me the seedling found something after all? Something that had the potential for sentience?’

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  After his shock stabilized, a torrent of soldiers descended upon the scorpion’s remains, tearing through the carcass with bare hands and hook-like climbing tools. They ripped into the battered chitin like children tearing wax paper.

  In moments, the hive controller had his answer.

  ‘I don’t believe it. It was pregnant.’

  Justin reached out a mental feeler into the hollow sac of the scorpion beast’s body he had torn into, finding a single connection amongst the dripping wet mass inside.

  ‘One of its children. A scorpling?’

  Justin approached the cavernous opening, reaching out a finger in timid hesitation.

  A few moments later, a small, whitish shape rose to the surface against the other soft bodies inside. Extending its own appendage with the same apparent hesitation, it met Justin’s finger.

  ‘It’s real. One of its young. Though I can’t feel its mind like I can with the rest, its actions are still influenced by my will.’

  Justin’s mind nearly exploded as he thought of the possible applications.

  …

  A few days earlier in the skies above the Jejune.

  “...we’re also sending you down with an assembly of individual protective equipment. By the sides of your seats you’ll find an adjustable armor carrier. Take those out, unfold them, and fit the armor slates inside. Yes, that’s…no, no, not like that.”

  Over the skies of the Republic’s desert of stone, five red airships were currently hovering above the clouds while a sixth was making its descent.

  Within the bottom compartment of this sixth airship, more than twenty people were currently sitting in seats affixed to the wall. The room resembled a long cabin ending in a ramp door.

  Most of the occupants lining the room were dressed in hazard suits and had their attention locked onto a man dressed in grey camouflage at the front of the corridor. From the way he was dressed to his tone while speaking, it was obvious he was a soldier.

  He was also seemingly unbothered by the airship’s periodic jostling back and forth while walking up and down the open space in between the seats.

  “Above your heads you’ll find full-face respirators to put under your suit’s sealed hoods. Yes, those are what are called gas masks for our non-scientist friends—”

  “Question!”

  “---You don’t have to say that every time. What’s the matter?”

  “Will these really work?”

  Major Smirnov, as was his name and rank, walked down to the far end of the cabin to the man who had just asked the question. The view of his suit and tie were still clearly visible underneath his nondescript hazard suit.

  “I’ve been told to a certain extent, yes, they do.”

  “But if we don’t know what’s down there…”

  The Major cut the man off from speaking any more with a glare. He quickly pivoted to addressing the rest of his speech.

  “Anyway, the most critical part of this is that you don’t forget…”

  At the other end of the cabin while the Major spoke, a tall scientist with a greying expression was strapped into his seat calmly.

  At his side, a much shorter figure strained to grab the gas mask above her before finally being able to get her hands around it and pull it against her face.

  “I can still see some of your hair.”

  Caleb pointed to a few strands of black hair that, really were despite her apparent care, sticking out just a bit from the side of the mask. Odette’s eyes awkwardly fell as she took off the mask and stuffed her hair back into the part of her suit where her pale face stuck out.

  When she was finally done, she had put the mask back on and looked back at the older scientist with uncertainty.

  “I-is that better?”

  “Haha. It’s not such a big deal. Yes, it’s better.”

  Odette nodded without speaking, then returned to looking at the cabin wall in front of her.

  The older man returned to the sensor he had been adjusting as well, though after a few minutes of silence he looked around. Major Smirnov, who was in charge of the airship, was still at the other side of the cabin and had been distracted again by one of the ride-along government officials asking some dumb question.

  So Caleb spoke again to break the atmosphere.

  “I’m not like Sam, you know? As long as it doesn’t compromise the mission, you’re allowed to relax.”

  Caleb nudged the younger woman, before frowning slightly.

  “I’m being serious, you can relax. I won’t give you a bad report just because you’re a human being, alright?”

  Odette seemed to regard him against the hum of the airship’s cabin, before nodding. Something like a muffled sigh escaped through her respirator before she spoke again.

  “I’m not trying to be so tense on purpose, it’s just that…this is my last evaluative mission you know? If I perform well on this assignment…or even passably, I’ll be recommended for the next available Senior Researcher position at the department. I know I can’t let anxiety control me, but how do I prevent it when there really is so much riding on my actions now?”

  Caleb listened with an understanding nod of his head throughout his junior’s worries.

  As a senior researcher himself, he too had experienced such worries once upon a time, even if things had been a little different back then. He wondered how to soothe the nerves of his prospective colleague before pointing at the emblem that was attached to the hazard suits over each of their hearts.

  “You see these?”

  She nodded.

  “An eye over a silver shield, the symbol for the department of Inquiry into Deterrent Solutions. Do you see anyone else in this cabin with that emblem on their suit?”

  Odette looked around mostly because she was prompted to, but of course it wasn’t necessary.

  If anyone from I.D.S. had been here as well they would have been sitting with them. It wasn’t that large of a department, so everyone knew each other.

  “No.”

  “No you don’t. Exactly. And the reason for that is because only a very, very select minority even make the cut for our department much less have the work accredited to try for a senior position. The very fact that you’re in our department has marked you as separate from your peers. Recognize that, and you’ll begin to feel more confident, I assure you.”

  “But Professor Caleb—”

  Odette stopped when Caleb shook his head. Remembering one of their previous conversations, she nodded again before continuing..

  “But Caleb, that's the very reason why I need this. I want to be a Senior Researcher of course, but I don’t want my career to end there either.”

  Oho? Caleb thought he had more than a peripheral knowledge of his junior coworker, but he hadn’t realized she had such aspirations.

  As everyone in their field knew, the most accredited officials in each department, who had been proven to be among the greatest contributors to the Republic, had the option to try out for C.A.H.D., or the department of Combat Analytics for Homeland Defense.

  It was nicknamed the final convergence, and served as the ultimate destination for all of the Republic’s bleeding-edge science. It was also the reason why some in I.D.S. thought their department had been set up just to feed into C.A.H.D.

  Though that was obviously just the spoken paranoia from the disgruntled who had failed to advance.

  “Huh…well, you did well in your advisory program, right?”

  “Yes, I did. Though that gives me some latitude now, what comes after will…”

  BZZT

  Odette’s train of thought was interrupted as the cabin’s attention was regathered at the front of the corridor.

  The Major was standing there with a small button in his hand that hung from the ceiling off a stretchy cord. Apparently it made a buzzing sound when pressed.

  “Alright listen up! This is fair warning to all of you specialists whose destination is the camp! Every aircraft in this squadron is armed with ten thousand pounds of chemical payload, mostly divided between cesium gas and white phosphorus. As of the most recent imagery from the Argentum satellites, predictions about what you’ll find at ground level have been pessimistic at best. As such, the operators on each vessel have been ordered to keep their trigger-fingers light. Things’ll remain like that until we receive confirmation from our commando team on the ground, everyone got that?.”

  Smirnov looked around the cabin that had gone dead silent with a blank expression on his face.

  “That’s not you guys, by the way.”