Mutagen

<strong>Day 28 – 10:31 AM - Barangay Daraitan, Tanay, Rizal</strong>

Mark sat at the roof of an empty house while watching Jollene fight off several infected below in the middle of the earthen street. They were at the detached area near the river, this was the area Mark cleared up of infected the first time he came here at this place. The area was quite a distance away from the center of the barrio and was separated by vacant lots and mango orchards making Mark quite confident that the dangerous infected in the barrio would not wander here aimlessly. Furthermore, Amihan who was yawning on his shoulder was masking the smell and noise in this area.

SHWING!

Jollene swung her weapon decapitating the head of the infected in front of her. Her weapon was a short Japanese sword with a reddish black color which Mark made for her. The sword was called a Wakizahi which similarly shaped to a katana but shorter since her build, strength and skills was not yet suitable for a larger and longer one.

The decapitated head flew to the side splattering blood to the ground and the body fell down. She then staggered a little before retreating away as one of the Biters tried to pounce at her.

"I told you. Don't resist when your body moves on its own. Just compliment the movements with your own after the feeling stops. If you continue that, it will bring more danger to you."

Mark said after he saw Jollene stagger.

"Yes! Sorry!"

Jollene replied with a lively voice. Her forehead was sweating and she was panting faintly but her eyes were shining as she fought. The pampered aura she had before had been long gone and was replaced with an aura of a real survivor of the apocalypse. Well, at least, if there was no [Blood Child] around her.

Mark watched her move and entangled with infected once more. This was their daily routine these past days. At first, Mark tried to spar with her to test her ability and he was kind of amazed. It was really [Danger Sense] and her body would automatically move to avoid the danger she could feel. Even if she could not see the source of the attack as long as the attack was going to hit her body, her body would respond on its own. Her ability could even perceive feints and would not move on fake attacks.

Her ability however was something she had a hard time to get used to. After all, it felt like her body was being controlled by someone else making her resist it on reflex creating her awkward looking movements. However, she had already started to get used to it though there were still lapses where she was still resisting the danger avoiding movements.

Now, her movements were better and Mark brought her to fight with a few infected since yesterday. At her first try, she was still afraid but when she killed the first one easily, her confidence was boosted and even wanted to fight more after she eliminated the first batch.

It did not take long for the fight to be concluded and Mark jumped down from the roof while Amihan fluttered down before returning on his shoulder.

After the fight however, she would run away and hide. It was because Mark took out Crimson, the very first [Blood Child] he found by the riverside several days ago. With Crimson's help, Mark drained the blood of the infected before stuffing itself back into Mark's backpack with a wobbly bounce. As the training was over, Mark and Jollene carried their backpacks filled with things from the houses in the vicinity and went back home.

Mark had given each of the [Blood Children] names. Aside from Miracle and her cousin he named Oracle, the others been given the names Crimson, Cherry, Rose, Red, Ruby, Merlot and Currant in the order he found them. Of all the eight slime bodied [Blood Child], their genders were equally divided. How could Mark tell? There were no physical traits to tell but he knew because of the connection he had with them. It was the same principle as how he could differentiate the emotional fluctuations of people.

As for Crimson now being able to bounce from place to place to move different from before where it moved like a slug, it was because of Mark's training. He found it inconvenient that the [Blood Children] moved too slow and thus trained them to propel their bodies by force upwards to move like how it was for slimes in fantasy anime and stories. Mark expected it to be hard to train them but the little critters actually grasped it in several hours.

Unfortunately, Miracle had not woken up yet. Mark was wondering why. He was not worried however since his connection to her was rather strong telling him that the sleeping blood bodied girl was healthy.

After a trekking up the mountain, Mark and Jollene arrived at the vicinity of the spring. They did not return to the village but to this place.

Before, there were only a tall crevice, tall trees, thick bushes and stones in the area around the spring. Five days after the event inside the airplane, the area had already changed. Around the spring, there was a three meter tall wall erected made with stones and wood while being supported by reddish black metal foundations and frames.

The whole area enclosed by the wall was about two thousand five hundred square meters with each of the three existing walls measuring about fifty meters while the last wall was the tall crevice at the east of the base. Of course, the walls were not fully finished with only the frames and foundations made of [Blood Metal]. After all the quantity of blood Mark could collect in this past days from the infected at the barrio was still not enough. Instead, many parts were affixed with rocks and tree trunks.

With Mark and Jollene's arrival, the metal grated gates facing the path near the small river opened. The person who opened the gates was Huey who was waiting for the two to return.

"Boss! Jollene, welcome back."

Huey respectfully greeted before turning to Jollene with a gentle smile. Seeing his smile, she also let out a smile. She really liked how Huey treated her and was gradually recovering from her heart break because of it. Furthermore, Huey was a man who did not try to force any intimate physical contact on her which made her feel that he was giving her too much respect, space and freedom.

The gates closed and the area was in view. Several huts were already made but each of it was still small and not sturdy enough after being made from the materials they got after deconstructing the houses and huts there. That was these huts were here to store things that they used for construction. As for the sleeping quarters, there were two houses made of [Blood Metal] and wood built at the base of the crevice. One was made for the men while the other was for the women.

Mark took the other bag from Jollene and told her to clean up her blood stained body. She bowed and left while he continued on his way deeper into the base. Along the way, he could see the several improvised drying racks where pelts from different enlarged animals was being stretched out by ropes and was being dried under the sun.

These past days while they were building up the foundations of the base, they experienced attacks from different animals which sometimes tore through the improvised walls they made. The most dangerous one was when they encountered a huge rat about the size of a tiger. It was agile and strong which gave Mark some trouble.

They area of the base had not been fully cleared of trees to provide shade and protection. Amihan also preferred a place with trees after all. Under the shade of one of the larger trees, Mark saw Hallie and Nicole playing with the other [Blood Children]. The two became the caretakers of the little critters and who knows how it happened but Hallie was able to give simple orders to them. She even asked her favorite, Merlot, to make her a crudely shaped sword similar to a scimitar.

On the other hand, Nicole could only interact with Ruby in the same way as Hallie. She had no way to make Ruby make her anything though and also could not understand how Hallie was able to do it.

Even though the [Blood Children] really liked to hang out with the two, he was still their master and he could call unto them. It was just every time he did that while Hallie and Nicole were playing, they would glare at him and pout which made Mark feel funny. Well, it was break time anyway so he just let them. After all, these two helped with a lot of things that they could do in the base.

The main work force in the base, Ed and Ron were still working on one of the huts. When Jollene asked to be trained on how to fight several days ago, Ed also came to apologize for joining in to attack Mark. After that, he became diligent in being the main labor force and it was rather amazing that he had a lot of knowledge in carpentry and hunting.

Ron on the other hand was a person with rather too thin presence. He had no remarkable abilities but he was doing his best to assist Ed in his work. After all, his sprain had already started to heal and was able to help with lighter tasks.

Trisha was nowhere to be seen but Mark could smell the strong aroma of lunch being cooked coming from the house being used as the storage area for food. It seemed that she was cooking lunch.

Mark went straight to the crevice in the space between the men's and women's quarters. On the face of the crevice, there was a locked door which only Mark had the key. Inside the door was a small network of rooms and hallways dug inside the stone covered crevice. Like a mine, there were supports on the walls and ceiling. The only difference was that the supports were made of [Blood Metal].

This place was dug by him alone. He did it by slipping his blood into the spaces and the miniscule holes between the rocks and carefully controlled his blood to tear the face of the crevice into large pieces or rocks. Those rocks were the same ones currently being used as temporary walls.

Lighting up a gas lamp, Mark made his way further inside.

This place was Mark's private space where he kept most of his stuff along with the stored [Blood Metal]. His bedroom and even the materials storage room was here.

He took out Crimson from the back pack and made the blood it absorbed metalize into metal pipes. While Crimson was doing its work that it was already used to repeatedly do, Mark walked inside further and checked the furthest pair of rooms.

In the innermost rooms was the most dangerous part of the base, the infected farms. One room contained the five infected he brought back to the plane. As what he wanted to do with these five, he had not started with it yet and only fed them with scraps from the animals that tried to invade the base. As he did not have the ability to transfer the male infected's seeds without doing something repulsive, he had no motivation to do it.

On the other room was filled with a dozen of tied up normal Biters he retrieved from the Barrio these past days. As the population of the base was low, he could not get blood from them and thus, he created an infected farm where he fed the infected and take their blood after they recover. This way, he got a constant source of blood to be used around the base. The process of luring these infected here was tedious but it was worth it.

After going out of the dimly lit rooms with Crimson and Amihan, he looked around the base once more. Even though slow, it was going rather smoothly. It was a very good start. However, they still lacked a lot of things. Once a speck of his empathic ability returned, he would make his way towards the east where the initial place where Hallie's group wanted to go. He would try to find people, seeds to plant and other important things. If the place was run by the military, depending on the situation, there would be a chance for him to contact Bay City.

The day passed quickly but around midnight, he was jolted awake by a splitting pain on his head while the [PsyCrystal] on his wrist vibrated fiercely. It was the sign that his empathic ability started to recover.