Mutagen

Day 138 - 4:56 PM - Aimee's House, Mountain Base, Mount Malabito, General Nakar, Quezon Province, Philippines

Aside from Mark and other individuals awakening as Blood Demons when Chiyo was planted, there was another mystery that in this place that no one had an explanation.

It was the existence of the mutated infected that woke up from a pod from the infected nest in Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

She was the woman that had the name, Aimee.

An infected woman with a gigantic physique with half of her body being tentacles with eyes at the end, even among other mutated infected, her appearance was extraordinary in many ways.

And unlike all the infected that they had encountered, she was the only one that gained consciousness. Furthermore, different from the Monarch Infected that gained consciousness, Aimee was the only one claiming to be the human in her memories.

The strangest thing about her, however, was how her appearance greatly resembled the monster that ended the existence of the planet called Eriellis.

Since Mark gained the alliance, or at least, the cooperation of the Eyes and the Observer, he decided to bring Fourth to Aimee. Considering that they had knowledge about the world, the mystery surrounding Aimee might finally get resolved.

With Mark leading Fourth, they made their way to Aimee's House. It was a large structure south of the base where Chaflar's stable was also located.

Both structures are built side by side for the sake of convenience since both buildings needed large parts to make. At first, Ed, who was leading the construction in the base, was worried that Aimee would not like it. After all, many people would not like it to live beside an animal stable. But like how Aimee lost the embarrassment from not wearing anything at all, she did not mind the location of her house.

The only thing that mattered to Aimee was that she had somewhere to live and take care of the stone that she believed to be her child.

Mark knocked on the door before entering. The structure had two doors, a large one and a smaller one.

Entering the smaller door, Mark and Fourth found Aimee already waiting for them inside. Like how she informed Mei of the potential danger this morning, it seemed that she knew whenever an Eye was around, even though Fourth had already controlled her presence in the surroundings.

The house did not have too much furniture. It was hard to make everything from scratch because of her size. The first priority they made when building the house was the bed that consisted of several thin mattresses lined together in one corner.

And on that bed, Aimee sat with her tentacles coiled around that egg-like stone.

Aimee could not speak like usual and just bowed her head at Mark as greeting. Mark, on the other hand, accepted her greeting before turning to Fourth that was already frozen in shock.

"Heh? HUH? HOW... OI..."

Those words were the first things that came out of Fourth's mouth the moment she came to.

"Speak properly, will you?"

Mark scratched his head. It was unexpected that Fourth would give out such a reaction.

Fourth looked at Mark, her index finger was still frozen, pointed at Aimee.

"Do you know what that is?"

She suddenly asked.

"That's the reason I brought you here. I don't know, and I want to know."

Mark replied.

Those words from Mark made Fourth speechless. After all, this guy had been collecting things that he knew nothing about.

Fourth turned to Aimee, looking at the woman with confused eyes.

"How should I say this..."

Sure enough, Fourth was troubled. It was not about how to explain, though. What she was thinking about was if she had the authority to explain it.

At her trouble, a bright light shined behind them. Af first, Mark thought that it was the door that they just entered.

But then, although he was right that it was a door, it was definitely not the one that connected the house outside.

Behind them, a door connected to nothing appeared. It was a door white with exquisite design, outlined with shining silver and gold. The center had a pair of wings made of tin and a baseball-sized amethyst in the middle.

For a door to suddenly appear like that was unexpected. Mark turned to Fourth as it seemed that she knew of the door.

The door opened, and a female teenager in with a scholarly aura passed through it.

Mark looked at the woman in all seriousness. There was no doubt that she was an Eye, although unlike Fourth and the others, she came here with her aura already concealed.

Still, the sudden appearance of this girl made Aimee on guard.

After she passed through, she closed the door, and it vanished into thin air.

Before anyone could say anything, the girl bowed her head politely towards Mark.

"Please pardon my sudden arrival. I am Nineteenth, the Embodiment of Interest. I am pleased to be your acquaintance, Master of the Blood Demons of this generation."

Mark stared at the girl, quite surprised. Also, that title Nineteenth called him was unexpected. And by reflex, he turned to Fourth.

"Why do I feel that you are thinking about something rude?"

Fourth complained as she suddenly felt pain because of that stare from him.

"Well, I have met four Eyes already, and all of you are a troublesome bunch. I did not expect that there would be someone decent among you all."

Fourth returned those words with a complaining look. It was not Fourth's fault that she was not decent at all. It was because they were made like this.

"We are made by human emotions, and our personalities are affected by that. It could not be helped that most of us are unruly, and hard to deal with. Still, I thank you for the compliment."

Mark turned to Nineteenth with a shrug. He quite liked this one's personality compared to the others. She did not even complain that he was badmouthing the other eyes and admitted their faults.

"Then, why is another Eye suddenly appearing here in our place?"

Mark asked.

"Because of the previous circumstances, Master had been keeping an eye on you through Fourth. Being a Blood Demon aside, we never thought that you will give us another surprise in a single day. We know that you brought Fourth here to ask questions. Unfortunately, she is unauthorized to disclose some of the information you needed. That is why I came here to supply it."

No wonder Fourth was hesitating to answer, she was not allowed to disclose the information that was connected to Aimee's existence.

"So, you Eyes and your Master are keen on supporting me now?"

Mark could not help but ask.

Nineteenth then shook her head.

"Unfortunately, not everything. We can only provide you information on certain things. Like now, if this miss is not here, we had no reason to provide you information about her at all."

Mark nodded in understanding. The Observer and the Eyes were now going to support him with information depending on the circumstances. However, there was no way that they would jump in if Mark caused trouble on purpose.

"Then, explain."

Mark said, making Nineteenth nod.

"But first of all... Miss." Nineteenth smiled at Aimee. "You don't have to be on guard. I'm quite sure that you also want to know what happened to you and your child. Am I right?"

Those words made Aimee feel agitated. After all, she remembered being human, then she remembered living as an infected, and then, she turned into this with her child looking like an egg-shaped stone. There were a lot of answers that she wanted to have an answer.

Seeing that she managed to make Aimee interested in listening, Nineteenth put her hands in front of her and a book magically appeared.

With several taps of the expensive-looking book, she flung it at the open space beside the wall. And there, the book enlarged, suspended in the air.

Mark and Aimee were amazed and thought that they would need to read something on the pages. Unexpectedly, the book started to play moving sceneries as if it was a television.

And the scene was...

The apocalypse that was created by the appearance of Mutagen on Earth.

"The outbreak?"

Mark asked.

"Yes, we have to start here." Nineteenth nodded. "Specifically, what we will start on was the actual effects of the pathogen that is now called Mutagen."

And there, the scene on the book flashed from time to time, showing different mutations of both infected and humans, aka, Mutators.

A human that became infected after being bitten by an Infected Tick mutated into an infected with saggy skin that would drink the blood of its victims and like a Tick, would bloat depending on the amount of blood it fed on.

An infected that was bitten by a common Biter but got caught in an explosion of a gas station. It managed to survive, mutating into an infected with high body temperatures, setting up flames where ever it went to.

And then, there was this normal female Biter that was just roaming the street blankly. All of a sudden, the Biter fell down to the ground with her body convulsing violently. Her legs then started to fuse, mutating into something like a snake's tail. Her upper body also showed changes and she grew fangs that most infected did not have at all.

The next one was a flashback of a caucasian highschool boy that got bitten by a dog. He was going to the hospital for a vaccine when the outbreak started. Of course, it ended up with him being in the middle of the dangerous commotion and got bitten. Instead of turning, however, he turned into a Mutator with a dog-like transformation.

The scene flashed once more, it showed a beautiful woman. She seemed to be a normal one without a single body defect at all. She was working when the outbreak came and got bitten. The infected that bit her was also a normal one. However, she became a mutator with blonde green hair, pointed ears, and an agile body.

"I wonder if the context is clear here?"

Nineteenth asked as the last scene ended.

"It's the effects of mutation, isn't it?"

Mark answered.

"Yes." Nineteenth nodded. "I know that the first two scenes and the fourth scene I showed had already been circulated as common knowledge by the researchers around the world. When a bitten person or and infected became compatible with the strain of Mutagen they carried, they would mutate depending on the catalyst on their bodies. But don't you think that the third and last scenes were odd?"

Mark and Aimee could only agree. It was odd. Both scenes showed that the two were both normal without a possible catalyst for mutation as Nineteenth implied. Actually, Mark had this hunch before, especially after meeting Emika and her family. Animal-like mutations could be common because many humans deal with animals on a regular basis. But why would there be a plant-like mutation and three of them were from members of the same family?

It was also the same as Felicia and Roan. Both of them had cat mutations although it was quite impossible that both of them got bitten by an infected cat or both lived with cats considering they lived far from each other. Felicia seemed to have a cat before, but it did not seem that Roan and the rest of their family kept one.

"Actually," Nineteenth spoke while Mark was in contemplation. "While it is true that Mutagen mutates its victims using the catalysts present, it did not mean that only invasive catalysts are there. Inside a lot of humans carries a catalyst that Mutagen might be able to use to mutate people."

"What do you mean?"

Mark asked as Nineteenth was speaking in a roundabout way.

"Well, you see..." Nineteenth smiled. "Not all humans are pure human."