233 "Karlene" on the Loose, The Pitiful Fact About the Strange Creatures Born After the Apocalypse (1/2)

Day 36 – 5:37 AM – Meeting Room, Port of Real Settlement Headquarters, Barangay Ungos, Real, Quezon

”General, everyone, please excuse me.”Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.

With a sigh, Major Bautista apologized and stormed out of the meeting room. His daughter getting out of control once more would surely be a bad thing in many ways. He needed to be there to be sure that his daughter would not be hurt or would not hurt more people.

Due to the sudden situation, the meeting was adjourned and would be continued later. The politicians left first and then, the secretary, Lieutenant Miller and Captain Garcia also left to help deal with the situation outside.

Now, the only ones left in the room were General Faustino and Jones Galley.

”Jones.” General Faustino spoke while rubbing the bridge of his nose. ”What do you think about that Mark?”

Jones tapped his chin several times while looking at the ceiling before he replied.

”I think he's a good person but mysterious and dangerous at the same time. Depending on how you treat him and the people around him, he can be your best friend or your worst nightmare. There are also a lot of mysterious elements around him like that fairy and those slimes. I don't know if he's a Mutator but he's a powerful Esper for sure. People like him are dangerous to become an enemy. Not to mention, he don't even react even a bit while killing people. Drake sure died anti-climatically.”

”You're evaluation is very high don't you think?”

”General, it's not high. It's the truth.”

”Then, what about your honey-trap suggestion? How sure are you that it will work?”

At the latest question of the General, Jones could not help but laugh.

”Of course, zero. Mark requested to use the transceiver, right? It's very likely that he will return to Bay City sooner or later. However, it seems he had plans in this region so he'll be staying for a while. During that time, maybe we can at least get his help.”

”I see. I also thought the same. The people in Bay City are also looking for him. They even relayed his appearance and information in different settlements here in Luzon. I can understand it though. He saved Miguel's daughter and he vanished before he was able to thank him personally.”

”Still, I'm a bit curious about something.” Jones voiced which made the General turn his head towards him. ”He's strong and his group seems to be strong too to be able to become one of the pillars in Bay City. I wonder why. Also within the report, they also had a Mutator Dog and even a huge rhinoceros beetle. Here, he had some strange pets too. If you think more about the things around him, the more mysterious he gets.”

Hearing Jones' logic, the general could only nod as he looked at the papers on the table. It was unfortunate that the chances of them roping in a very special person were zero no matter what angle they look at.

***

After entering the settlement, Mark was brought in a room on the third floor of one of the most secure buildings of the military sector. It was a three story building newly built by the port. The eastern side of the windows was facing the ocean and the view was good. Still, Mark knew that he was brought here not because he was an important person to them but to be able to maintain surveillance on him.

Mark lay on his bed wanting to rest but he was not able to. Unexpectedly, his head was aching too much and he was already sweating due to the pain. Although it was not as painful when his psychic abilities consolidated, it was still painful. The [PsyCrystal] on his arm was also shining and shivering at the same time. It indicated that he was undergoing a recovery of his Empathic ability.

He tried to endure the pain as much as possible in order not to wake Amihan who was also tired. She was already up for the whole day and almost the whole night. Unlike Mark who was used to not sleeping even for a day or two, Amihan needed to sleep more.

Still, the [BloodChildren] were awake and aware of Mark's condition. The three surrounded Mark nudging his body in worry. Compared to Oracle and Crimson, Ivy was having a hard time to move since she was still not trained to hop around like the two.

The pain subsided after half an hour and Mark could feel that his empathic ability was now activated. The range was still small, about five meters in radius around him but in the least, he would not need to touch people anymore in order to read their emotions. He could now feel how Amihan was sleeping peacefully on the pillow by the sofa and he could also feel the two soldiers standing guard just outside his door.

Not even five minutes passed after the pain subsided when noises came from outside the window. He could hear soldiers shouting about something on the loose and they had to catch. The alarm bell was also sounded. Fortunately, Amihan was not disturbed by the sound of the bell. She was really tired, it seemed.

Leaving the comfort of the bed, Mark peeked out of the window facing the other side of port. There he could see the soldiers scrambling to prepare. Then, he saw the reason of the commotion which surprised Mark a bit. It was in the other three story building Mark was sure that it was the laboratory since he could feel three signals of [BloodChildren] coming from that building.

A figure broke through the window of the third floor and jumped down the building. Mark was sure, from her body figure and clothes, the person was Karlene. However, she looked very different. Her eyes were entirely glowing with purple light while there were a lot of parts of her body covered in a purple colored armor. Her back long black hair was now purple and was flowing like a possessed person's. Her fingers was also covered in a purple armor that formed claws on her fingers and gauntlets on her hands and wrists.

What surprised Mark was because he never detected that Karlene was a Mutator and Evolvers would never appear and transform like this. There were two possibilities Mark could think of why could not detect her conciousness as a Mutator. It would be either that she had just turned into a Mutator or… It was similar to Freed's existence, another ego.

Looking at the practiced formation of the soldiers around the laboratory, it was not the first time that this had happened which meant that it should be the latter. Since she was obviously a Mutator and not a Psychic, it was very likely that instead of the savage consciousness birthed by the Mutagen devouring Karlene's consciousness or the other way, both Karlene's original consciousness and the newly born consciousness coexisted in her body.

It was a strange and rare case for a Mutator.

Even stranger, ”Karlene” was surrounded but she was not attacking preemtively at all. Rather, it felt more like she only wanted to escape.

”Stay here and protect Amihan alright?”