Blinking his sore eyes, Matt groggily lifted himself up with difficulty only to be brought back down onto a soft cushion.
Turning his head to look above him, he realized that Astrid was the one that just did this, from the feeling he had after waking up and from the sensations his head and hair were feeling right now, his girlfriend was giving him her lap as cushion.
He remembered defeating Wendigo by burning down its previous container and locking it up in another closed off one.
After that… he got out and… fell asleep from exhaustion.
Looking around he could recognise the corridor outside of the devil's holding space, the flames had stopped burning, the ashes had turned cold and the flickering lights above them were barely lighting their surroundings.
Blissfully enjoying his current situation, Matt decided to have some more rest and think about his next steps.
'Astrid is back… I have to make sure to pamper her later and have her play around with the cauldron she had just inherited… She also talked about something like having robots replace her blood… I'll study that along with that AI once we are back in Valhalla.
Next… my ascention to leader… fuck I'm not ready for that… I'll have to think of something on our way there along with my plans to change the clan.'
{Your battles and final confrontation have earned you two upgrades, you have obtained "all bodily fluid checkpoint creation" and "organic checkpoint coupons" x2.}
'I earned what now?'
[New mutations unlocked, skills "normal tentacles", "bone harpoon", "predator's mind", "ink sacs" and "Camouflage" have awakened. Skill "Camouflage" has evolved.]
'Is it Christmas ? Let's check on my presents then.'
{"All bodily fluid checkpoint creation" all your fluids and not just your blood can now create checkpoints, to make sure you don't accidentally create one, you now have to draw the checkpoint yourself. Knowledge about checkpoint creation has been assimilated into your soul.
"Organic checkpoint coupons" is a bonus that gives you the chance to place a checkpoint onto a living being. Please note that it still uses one checkpoint location.}
["Ink sac", you can form natural ink sacs within certain parts of your body.
"Normal tentacles" you can grow medium sized tentacles on your human body's back.
"Bone harpoon", you can grow dented bone spikes on specific parts of your body or other mutations. Can hold poison sacs and dispensers with other mutations.
"Predator's mind", your entire focus will be directed at hunting and killing your prey.
"Camouflage", you can change your human skin color, texture, shape and albedo to make yourself almost invisible.
'Right, I completely forgot to check on what I got after I turned invisible the first time… camouflage and ink sacs sure aren't valorising…I get why those office worker gods were displeased back then.'
'But damn that's a lot of new stuff… Hehe, I'll have some fun later.'
[Sir? Are you alright? Your heart rate is abnormally high for a human in a resting position.]
*Breathe out*
'Yeah I'm fine Aiden.'
[Alright, happy to hear that the strain from the mutations only exhausted your physical body. Your week-long sleep has completely healed you.]
'My what?'
[Your sleep sir.]
'How long?'
[One week… sir?]
'...'
'Was Astrid taking care of me this whole time ?'
[No sir, Miss Astrid only woke up 22 hours ago, she was previously in the same state as you.]
'And why is that ?'
[Do you mean your sleep ? Well that is a side effect of stable mutants using their active mutations. Different grades and types of mutations have different effects on your body, symptoms and side effects can include cramps, exhaustion, coma, lower healing factor, rabid behavior, bestial regression and death.]
'Death !?'
[Yes, the side effect known as death can occur if the mutant overly exerts his mutational ability while lacking energy. I advise the host to eat soon or else this side effect may happen.'
Matt anxiously jumped and ran towards his leather bag that laid against a wall. He took out all the rations they still had and ravenously consumed all he could under his girlfriend's concerned gaze.
"Are you alright ? I checked your entire body for any wounds, did I miss one ? Are you hurt ?'
Wiping a bit of grease from the corner of his lips, Matt looked up and realized his blunder, he ran away from her care and started eating all of their food like a savage.
"I am sorry, here's your part." He said as he pushed half of their rations towards her and resumed eating.
Astrid was visibly angry, she furiously came closer and slammed her fist in the back of his head letting him face palm the floor.
"Ouch… Fuck that hurts." He complained at first but quickly shut up when he saw the face Astrid was making.
".."
"Sorry…"
Her expression relaxed and she sat down onto his lap before taking the loaf of bread Matt had in hand and taking a bite. She nibbled on it all the while keeping eye contact with him until she finished and reached for another one.
Both of them quietly ate to their heart's content as their rations quickly disappeared.
"It would be nice to get out of here but we still have to sort out the entire thing with the cauldron."
"Nh. But I don't think that's possible anymore, I think the main console she was talking about was the thing you used before everything burned down."
"Right… Why do you keep calling it a
her?"
"I haven't told you? So that's what happened after the scorpion impaled me…"
...
"That… All of this just because of some petty inferiority complex that she felt centuries ago…" Matt was flabbergasted (I always wanted to write this word) before becoming furious, "I'll have a chat with this bitch."
Now walking out with hectic steps, Matt walked past the machines he destroyed and the machines that had stopped functioning after the source of their corruption had been cleansed.
He walked and climbed quite far before reaching some kind of old control center overlooking an entire factory floor.
From the places he had explored there were five such factory rooms along with one server room and nine hallways packed with crates containing raw materials and mechanical parts as well as random junk and those weird jelly barrels that made those passages almost unusable.
All of these were unequally and archaically arranged on three subterranean floors only accessible between each other by either the waterways and the service elevators.
Even though most of it was now broken since Matt's calm outburst.
Back to the control center, approaching the different screens, Matt flipped a dozen switches randomly until the power within the center turned back on.
He took out the futuristic USB drive and inserted it in one of the modern computers that was only connected with power.
Going to fetch some old speakers that had some mold growing on them while the loading bar charged up, Matt connected them and patiently waited.
Astrid who had silently followed him was fidgeting as she saw him bring back the devil. "Are you sure this is a smart idea? I mean… She might bring me down again."
"I… I made sure she couldn't do anything… I need answers."
"Why? Can't we go back to Valhalla and be happy? Together."
"There are too many questions… dangers. I'm doing this so that we can have a future together…"
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1260 words
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I will get results for multiples tests later today, if I have good grades I'll post another chapter tomorrow :p