Hiromi went outside and waited for a minute. Then Hikaru called her in. When she came inside, she noticed that the house was clean. The debris and bloodstains were all gone. It was like nothing had happened except for the missing dining table and gap in the first-floor handrail. She looked toward Hikaru in surprise.
"You will standby for orders here. Give me your phone number."
Hiromi told him her number and looked around. Hikaru's first act of kindness. This wasn't bad she thought.
"I'll contact you when you're required. Can you take care of yourself? Do you have enough money."
"Yes, I do."
"I don't mind if you eat people but don't get caught and leave a trail to me. I don't have to tell you this... but if you betray me, I will make sure you die painfully."
"I won't! I promise!"
"Then, see you later."
"See you soon my lord!"
Hikaru walked out of the house and headed towards the train station. The sun had risen and the world was no longer grey but basked in orange light.
***
Since the Genji incident in which the police and media went crazy over, the officer of Midori ward, Daichi Atsuo, had put a stop to all harvesting activities for 48 hours.
While there were a few parasites in the media, police department and other noteworthy organisations, there were not enough of them to have a big influence. There was a total of around 400 parasites in Midori ward and so Daichi had a choice of taking over one organisation or spreading out his influence.
He decided that it was better to have eyes everywhere as the gestation period of a low-class procreator is a week. Meaning after Monday next week he would have reinforcements of about 10,000 parasites. That would be enough to completely take over any organisation with authority in Midori ward.
Since it would be noticeable if no students were going to the schools in Midori ward or any other employees for that matter, only a small portion of any categorical group is taken for harvesting until they have much larger numbers.
The schools were still on although parasites could opt for sick leave or absenteeism as long as they let the principal know beforehand.
Although humans might find some discrepancies and incomprehensible behaviour in the parasites, no one would think that they were infected by an alien or call the police. So, there was leeway to inappropriate behaviour.
While most didn't have to go to school or work, they did. It was boredom.
Daichi knew that it would be difficult to get the parasites to curb their appetite and ration the food. In addition, he couldn't extend the freeze order any longer as they were running out of food for the procreators who ate a person almost every hour and each day.
Tonight, the harvest returns.
Although Hikaru had wanted to go school out of boredom, he had a better idea.
After he finished assembling a clone of Aimi in his body, he forced her out of his abdomen and she dropped on the floor head first like a long doodle. He had decided to experiment on one particular body and mind so that the results won't be mixed up by variations in physiology. He chose his first victim, which was drilled into him by Chiho.
He felt her neck pulse with a small tendril while sitting casually on the side of his bed. Her heart was beating as expected. He could see her chest rising and falling so she was breathing. He slapped her with the tendril and a black bruise faded in. She woke up.
"Aghh-"
*Crunch*
With his level 4 back tentacle, he wrapped her in it and crushed her dead. He then swallowed her back up.
He had done this at least over a hundred times. During the process, he had thought that maybe she remembered her last memories and so he removed it. He had learnt how to edit the memories by looking at his work after reabsorbing the clone. Since he wasn't adept at it, a huge chunk of her memories was removed. Yet she was still screaming.
He had a theory. It had to do with the hardest part of the cloning process. The arrangement of neurons in the brain weren't accurate and precise enough. He repeated the process another hundred times until he thought of a more efficient way. He created only her brain and sent nerve impulses to stimulate it. After a couple of hours, he spat her body out and tested it.
"HHu Wah HAHGHH-"
*Crunch*
Hikaru at this point almost smashed the wall next to him with his tentacle.
This was extremely unusual of him. He breathed in and out before continuing his laborious experiments. He guessed that he because spent much time simulating just her head, he wasn't arranging some of the neurons properly because of the missing connections from the peripheral nervous system.
After he calibrated the arrangement of some neurons in the central nervous system corresponding with the positions of those in the PNS a few hundred times, he spat out number 1045.
She got up and looked at him.
"Talk," Hikaru commanded.
"TEh seothe thwat you eththie" She said with a frightened expression.
"Are you aware that I don't understand you?" Hikaru's unhappy tone was clear.
She was waving her arms around and seemed like she was objecting to something.
"Twten nwwo! Etih eitheio wakmr )%*%#-"
*Crunch*
Her arms fell flat to her sides and hanged over Hikaru's tentacles. Instead of absorbing her, he kept her like that for a while. The words coming out of her mouth was incomprehensible but each word had meaning.
It was progress.
He didn't feel like he could get much stronger from consuming regular people but if he had to kill a million to get stronger, he would without hesitation. However, absorbing people had more use to this experiment as he needed more data to perfect a clone.
Hikaru blinked. He remembered to check the time. It was 2:30.
***
It was almost harvest night again. That thought dreaded Junpei. He couldn't touch another living soul again. His humanity will break if he did. He wanted to ask for help but he knew that there were eyes everywhere.
How would he know if a police officer he was talking to was a human or a parasite? What about a doctor? A lawyer? A friend? Even if he did talk to a human, how was he going to make sure that the information gets passed onto the right hands?
Junpei stepped up to his door with keys in hand.
"Ahhh!"
His sister's scream could be heard on the other side of the door.
"Hanae!!!"