Mutagen

<strong>Day 41 – 7:52 AM – Dwelling Complex, Middle District, East Port Settlement, Barangay Dinahican, Infanta, Quezon</strong>

TOK!

TOK!

Two knocks broke Karlene's momentum on her preaching. She thought that they might have disturbed the neighbors due to their noise. Before Alana and Karlene could say anything, Mark had beaten them to it.

"I'll open it."

Mark stood up leaving Miracle and Amihan on their breakfast and made his way to the door. The two girls immediately fixed themselves but Karlene was still glaring at her best friend while the latter had a bitter smile on her face. It seemed right now, Karlene's anger was kind of strange. As if it was not only coming from her but from another source.

Opening the door, Mark saw an unfamiliar man outside.

"Do you need something?"

Mark said in an unfriendly tone.

"Is this perhaps where Ms. Garces and Ms. Bautista are staying? I'm sent here to give something to them."

The man replied while trying to maintain his humble tone. It was obvious that this Mutator in front of the door was not used to it.

"Hand the thing to me. I'll give it to them."

"I'm sorry but my boss said to give it directly."

"You can give it to me and I'll give it to them or you can just keep it and leave. Your choice."

Mark did not even try to give the man face.

"Well…"

The man looked troubled but Mark's eyes started to release a hidden fierce glint. After all, even though this man had been acting humbly, Mark could tell that the man was cursing inside. His words about giving the item directly were lies too. It was obvious that this man only wanted to get a close contact to the two girls. Mark would not really bother about this but the two girls were under him now. As their leader, one of his duties was to protect them from lechers like this man.

Since Mark would not relent, the man was forced to give Mark the item and left. It was a letter.

"What does it say?"

Karlene asked.

"The Cristobal Family is inviting us to their Mansion."

Mark replied with a frown. From the start, he had no positive impression on this family. Added the circumstances of Edzel and Hamlin's family, it was already enough for him to regard this family as his enemies.

"We won't go."

Alana said with a frown containing disgust. Karlene was also the same.

"I don't want to go either."

Mark said and tore the invitation into pieces. He then looked at the two girls.

"You seem to hate that family."

"The son of the head of their family is a perverted bastard. That trash targeted us before. All that comes out of the mouth of that garbage are flowery flatteries and lies. That arrogant prick should rot in hell already."

Alana replied.

"How about you? You seem to dislike them either."

"The new and potential people that I recruited last night all had grudges with that family. Especially that trash you are talking about."

"I see… Wait. You recruited people? You didn't mention that last night. Are they trustworthy?"

Alana asked in worry. Karlene also had the same expression.

"Don't worry about that." Mark assured the two. "I won't recruit them if I didn't find their personalities pleasing."

Suddenly, Mark turned facing the direction of the wall. Outside that wall was the street in front of the Dwelling Complex. He felt several people but fortunately, they did not come from the same group as the man that had just left.

Still, Mark could not help but sigh. Among the new visitors, there was someone familiar.

TOK!

TOK!

TOK!

The door was knocked once more.

This time, Mark made Alana and Karlene open the doors. It was because for sure, the two knew the people outside.

Opening the door, Alana and Karlene were surprised.

"Annica!"

The two girls shouted in unison. Their voices were filled with both surprise and glee.

"Big Sisters!"

The girl that knocked on the door, Elise Annica Salvador, entered the door and hugged Alana and Karlene.

The people with Annica, her two brothers and their guards smiled at that scene.

"Annica, we know that our group coming here would reach you but what are you doing here?"

Alana could not help but ask.

"It's because someone sneaked into my room last night and stole my pets!"

Annica replied while curiously staring at Mark. Her golden colored eyes were exuding a faint glow.

Hearing that, Alana and Karlene could not help but also look at Mark. Although he came here to retrieve the [BloodChildren], to sneak into a girl's room in the middle of the night still sounded inappropriate. Especially since the owner of the room was a girl close to them.

Under the stare of the three girls, Mark spoke.

"Are you sure that the person is me?"

"A hundred percent! You are the only person I saw with a lot of energies beautifully circulating inside your body! I won't mistake it! Also, Hellhound led us here after following the smell of the person that entered my room last night!"

Hearing its name being called, a dog more than three feet tall peeked into the door. It was a black furred German Shepherd with a pair of horns similar to a ram. The joints on its limbs and its tail had protruding spikes.

Mark could not help but shiver when he heard that the brat could see the energies inside him. It made him feel like he was naked in front of her. Luckily, it seemed that she had no way of identifying what kind of energies they were.

He then looked at the door peeking outside the door. That dog was not one of the pets he encountered last night. Probably, it was kept somewhere else. Still, he could not help but commend inside that the dog looked cool.

Since he was already found out, Mark could only shrug his shoulders. Still, it was quite strange that even though the girl called Annica was complaining about Mark stealing her pets, there seemed to be no notion from her to make him return them.

With a smug look, Annica smiled when she realized that Mark accepted her claim. She then looked at the others but her eyes could not help but become confused.

"Big Sister Karlene, why is there three energies in your body now? Also, two of them are life energies… Are you pregnant?"

"What are talking about?! I'm not!" Karlene retorted with a red face. Just what was this brat thinking? "Also, what is this about energies here and energies there? We can't understand."

Hearing that, Annica looked confused but did not say anything else about the two life energies inside Karlene. She then looked around Mark and her eyes lit up.

"Fairy!"

Obviously, Amihan flew away hiding behind Mark hearing that shout.

Seeing the fairy hide, Annica felt dejected and pouted. Her eyes landed on Miracle and her eyes widened.

She was about to speak when her mouth was blocked. No one noticed but Mark appeared behind her.

"Stop peering on private matters you brat. Just tell us what you wanted for coming here."

Mark said with a frown.

"Mmmmfw!"

Of course, Annica could not talk with Mark's hand blocking her mouth.

"I apologize if my sister did something unreasonable. Can you please let her go? Annica, don't say anything more. You are blurting out people's private secrets you know that?"

The one of the men outside the door entered and apologized while reprimanded Annica with a stern expression.

After Annica nodded, Mark let her go. The others could only watch at the side with bitter smiles. Especially Alana and Karlene who knew that the mouth of this girl was like an open zipper. She would blurt out things without thinking unless someone closed her mouth.

As the peace returned to the room, Alana took the initiative to introduce the Salvador siblings to Mark.

"Actually, we want to invite to you our house. Our father wanted to meet your group, especially the rumored [Dragon Rider]."

Raybert, the eldest of the three siblings spoke. Hearing the rare job class from RPGs, Alana and Karlene turned their heads towards Mark. Mark on the other hand sighed with the cool but embarrassing title being attached to him.

However, Mark had no reason to decline the invitation. Not only that the three never mentioned about taking back the [BloodChildren] but the Salvador Family personally invited their group.

This was the difference between the Cristobal Family and the Salvador Family. The Cristobal Family viewed themselves as high and mighty and thought that a simple letter could represent their sincerity on inviting Mark's group. However, that letter only showed how self-important they were for people who knew how to read others.

The Salvador Family on the other hand was more sincere and knew how to behave. Furthermore, among the three families in the settlement, the Salvador Family was the most upright and the family that contributed the most to the settlement.

***

Leaving the Dwelling Complex, the group of four guards, the three Salvador siblings and Mark's group walked out towards the inner district.

Along the way, there were more people on the streets since it was daytime. Of course, more eyes were attracted to their group especially since there were two beautiful actresses and a cute brat among them. Not to mention that Mark had Amihan on his shoulder and Annica was riding on the back of Hellhound.

At the streets, Prostitutes still lurk even during the day. After all, they needed to get food as much as possible and this was the only thing they could do.

Mark then noticed a line of children and elderly at the main street in between the Outer District. Noticing Mark's gaze, Raybert spoke proudly.

"That is our feeding program. We give soup to children elderly who can't work anymore twice a day. Even though we don't have the ability to give them all a permanent shelter in the present, at least, we can let them have their fill. Of course, the meal is not nutritious enough and the ingredients are limited. Even though we are the rich, money don't really have value nowadays. We are also struggling to keep our supply."

Hearing that, Mark's impression of this family was getting better. He thought that the three families abandoned their citizens already but it seemed that it was only the two other families. His impression of the guards following them was not bad either as some of the children passing by with their food was greeting them. It was the same for the men that seemed to be working at the Free Port District that was passing by with their tools and equipment.

Among the people of Salvador Family that invited them, although all of them were proud, none of them were arrogant. Rather, aside from the hard headed Annica, her two brothers were sincerely humble.

If this was the case, it might not be bad to inform this family of the incoming disaster. He would not convince them to believe him but in the least, he told them.

Mark also had to prepare. Looking at the sky that was quite dark despite the time of the day, the disaster would come too soon. He was quite frustrated with the vision coming in too late but considering whose death was seen by him, it was reasonable. It was likely that the three decided to follow him and they got bound with his unrestrained fate. Due to that, only this time that he met the three gave him the vision of their death.

He just wished that he would get more information of what would happen. It was because he wanted to be prepared not only on the situation that he saw but also the worst case scenario where the difficulty of the event from his vision rose several times higher.

While thinking all those, Mark's group being led by the Annica, her brothers and their guards arrived outside the block of the Salvador Compound in the Inner District.