Thanks for the Invite, I'm in Terra, and I'm a Parasite

The lump of flesh kept repeating short phrases through its faces. At the same time, it watched the unconscious Dario and slowly approached.

His consciousness was fading...

Am I going to die?

Fortunately, he hadn't brought Irene down with him...

His eyes closed, and his last thoughts gradually scattered.

"Dario, tell me, why did you choose to become an Inquisitor?"

Teacher...

"Is that so? Not a bad reason. I hope you'll remember what you said."

"Why? When you have a student of your own, won't they look at you with the same hopeful eyes you once had and ask you that same question?"

"Teacher, why did you become an Inquisitor?"

The young Liberi girl, newly become an apprentice Inquisitor, looked expectantly at him, who had only just become an Inquisitor instructor.

He froze. Then, almost instinctively, he blurted out the words he'd kept on his lips ever since his own days as a student.

"Teacher?"

Irene, investigating the residential district, froze and turned around.

That was the direction of the church. Was her teacher investigating there?

After thinking for a moment, she turned her attention back to her own task.

Don't lose focus. There was no need to worry about Teacher Dario.

He was the finest Inquisitor and the most respectable teacher. She had realized that from the first time she'd met him.

The only thing she needed to do was properly complete the task he'd given her!

A faint breeze blew through the tunnel from somewhere unknown.

It brushed across Dario's blood-covered face, as gentle as a woman's hand.

The warmth of his blood was tempered. Then, it passed over the massive body and began to stir the wick in the lantern nearby, where only a few sparks remained.

"Thump—"

"Thump—"

At first, the sound was faint. Then it grew louder and louder, until even the enormous creature before him could sense it.

The spark within the wick reignited...

Countless faces stared incomprehensibly at the "food" before them.

It should have died. Why was it still making sounds?

"Thump—"

"Thump—"

Whoosh!!!

In an instant, the body embedded in the wall lunged fiercely at the lump of flesh.

The heart that should have long fallen silent now pounded like a war drum.

Faint, yet deafening.

The lantern burned, even though its wick had already been depleted beyond the point of sustaining such dazzling light.

The massive mass of flesh charged again, but in the next instant, an arm blocked its path and halted its violent impact.

Even though it had been twisted beyond recognition as a human arm, even though broken bones had pierced through the skin from the deformation—

Dario opened his one relatively intact eye!

Not a single part of his body wasn't bleeding, nor was there a single part that wasn't making the shrill sound of cracking bones.

Yet he still opened his eye, like a machine already pushed beyond its limits pulling its engine once more and letting out one final low roar.

"Crack."

The Inquisitor's hand cannon thrust directly into the creature's tumor, the force so immense that half the barrel was shoved inside.

Dario parted his lips slightly, as if saying something, but then he pulled the trigger, and the faint sound was drowned out by the roar!

(Grand Inquisitor Dario is one of my favorite NPCs, so I couldn't help writing a little more for him.)

(It's fine, he won't die. Just wait for Sharky and her external brain to come save the day.)

Wrath

"Boom!"

Laurentina stepped onto the stone bricks outside the church. The tremendous boom from underground made her realize she might have arrived too late.

She ran up the high wall surrounding the church and vaulted over it as easily as if she were walking on level ground.

[The vibrations are coming from straight ahead... That's right, I can sense two lifeforms underground.]

[One life signal is extremely weak, Laurentina, hurry!]

"I know!"

A long-handled circular saw constructed of flesh appeared out of thin air in Laurentina's hand.

She took a step, then used the saw's long handle to perform something like a pole vault! Her entire body shot into the air!

"Zuo Jian!!"

In midair, Laurentina raised her saw and shouted.

He immediately understood her meaning. More flesh wrapped around the saw, enlarging its original teeth more than fourfold.

She looked down at a bluestone floor tile and, carrying the force of her descent, smashed the weapon in her hand straight into the ground!!

"Bang!!!"

The upper layer of the tunnel couldn't withstand such tremendous force and collapsed directly.

Sunlight from outside shone into the narrow tunnel as Laurentina emerged from the dust, holding her circular saw.

She turned and saw Dario, unconscious and slumped against the wall.

Her skirt fluttered, then a section broke away and pressed itself against his chest.

"He's... that little Inquisitor's teacher?"

Recognizing his identity from his tattered clothes, Laurentina said this.

[He's badly injured. His internal organs are practically a mess... All I can do is temporarily use part of my body to replace his damaged organs and keep him alive.]

"Can't you directly replace or repair them with your cells?"

[I can't. I've already assimilated with you. In a sense, the flesh's sequence has been locked. If I force assimilation, do you remember what Quintus looked like?]

[The optimal solution right now is—]

Laurentina turned back toward the charred-black lump of flesh gradually emerging as the dust cleared.

"To deal with that out-of-control tumor, right?"

[Was that explosion just now caused by this Inquisitor? But it seems most of the impact was absorbed by the flesh in front of us.]

"Click—"

Just as Laurentina approached, the pitch-black lump of flesh suddenly split open.

She immediately gripped her weapon warily, staring at the enormous cocoon-like mass with its charred black surface.

Click.

A crimson hand, slick with a little mucus, stretched out from inside the tumor.

Then it seized the tear and violently pulled it open.

[Did it realize its massive flesh form couldn't function in such a cramped space, so it changed shape?]

At Laurentina's collar, a blue eye watched the red humanoid figure slowly break free from the tumor like something emerging from a cocoon.

It had no face. Its head was covered only in densely packed eyeballs.

By human standards, its body looked almost malnourished.

Its limbs were thin, and it was gaunt as a skeleton.

"Ahhh—"

It howled, several eyeballs focusing in unison on Laurentina.

Something about her seemed to make it deeply wary.

[? Laurentina, be careful.]

Almost instantly, her skirt rose, expanded, and interwove, transforming into a massive shield before her.

What followed was a violent, dense barrage of hard impacts!

"Damn it, what did it spit out?"

As her vision was blocked by the shield, Laurentina also seemed to see several mouths appearing on the creature's skin.

[...Originium?]

Zuo Jian raised a black crystal he'd intercepted and asked in a somewhat astonished tone.

"What? Originium? Where did it get Orig—"

Laurentina froze.

Then she looked toward the Inquisitor behind her, then through a gap in the shield at the fleshy humanoid and the huge charred body behind it.

At first, it had only been several bottles of blood.

For it to swell to this size...

[These Originium crystals, if nothing unexpected happened, probably came from inside or on the bodies of the Infected.]

[It chose not to digest that portion and kept it within its body?]

Zuo Jian voiced the ugly truth Laurentina had been thinking.

"Phew. Can you regain control of that monster?"

She looked at the blue gem on her collar.

[...I can't. It's too chaotic. My portion is actually still asleep. Its actions are almost entirely unconscious proliferation and continuation.]

"But it doesn't look unconscious at all in this state."

[That's the problem. After realizing what those lunatics fed this flesh, the answer seems fairly clear.]

Zuo Jian had never felt as furious as he did now.

[Laurentina, give me control for the moment.]

"You... be careful."

Understanding how Zuo Jian felt at that moment, she hesitated briefly before leaving him with an unnecessary warning.

Then, she closed her eyes.

In the next instant, her body underwent a drastic change. Large amounts of crimson chitin began to emerge until they completely enveloped the girl's body without leaving a single gap.

A dark-red hardened layer covered her face like a suit of armor.

Then the hardened layer at the center of her face split open, revealing a single dark-blue eye.