Chapter 235 - 6th meal

When they were all making the blood pact to save Quinn, there was a thought in the back of Vorden’s mind. When Sil found out that he didn’t save him today, would he forcibly take over and try to do it himself?

In the mindspace, Raten looked over Sil’s sleeping body again.

"He’s still asleep?" Raten mentioned, "He didn’t even use the chair this time."

"Still?" Vorden turned around in the chair, and just like Raten said, he was still. Unmoving.

"Something tells me he’s going to be like this for a long time," Raten said after touching Sil’s shoulder. It flickered briefly, which made Raten recoil, "I didn’t mean to do that."

’Yet another problem on my plate,’ Vorden thought.

He put that thought aside for the time being, he’ll have to deal with it later.

Before they left to go back to their dorms, they all discussed the ways they were going to get stronger. Unfortunately, they only had two days to do it, and they were also school days. Since the time was limited, it was crucial they were all up to speed.

—

When Erin returned from the library with Layla, she found something very strange in her dorm room.

Maybe strange wasn’t the right word, as it was a very mundane object that lots of people would’ve seen. The odd thing was that it was a singular pad on her bed, and Erin started her period that very day.

’I didn’t put that there,’ Erin thought, then glanced at Layla, ’Did she somehow sync up to my period or something?’

The idea that Layla would’ve put her bathroom products on Erin’s bed wasn’t implausible, and if not Layla, then maybe Cia, but they all knew what beds everyone slept in.

Maybe Cia or Layla were trying to be nice since she did openly admit she was on her period earlier, but Erin couldn’t see Cia in the room, and Layla was in class all day.

’I’ll just put it off to the side,’ Erin grabbed the singular pad, and placed it under the bathroom sink. Out of sight, out of mind.

—

The next day, Erin opened up her system messages to see if Quinn sent her anything. He hadn’t but despite the events of yesterday, the quest "Save Quinn Talen" was still open.

’System, do you know why it said I hadn’t failed?’

In her mind, she thought that Quinn getting captured meant that the quest would be over. Is it because they were still capable of saving him during the interbase tournament?

"If I had to take a guess, it would be because despite the conditions changing, he’s still alive," the system noted, "Either that, or it is referring to saving him from something else. The quests of the system are very adaptive after all."

’Something else?’ Erin contemplated, then remembered that Quinn was at risk of losing his ability if he didn’t comply to the military.

She knew what it was like building herself up, only to lose it all, and didn’t want Quinn to experience what she went through.

’If he loses his ability, then he’ll lose all the strength he so carefully made his own...’

—

After class, everyone split up and went in different directions. They all had a different method of getting stronger, and for Layla, the path was clear.

At first, she hesitated to evolve because it could potentially risk losing her personality, but with Quinn’s life on the line, risks had to be made. All she had to do was eat two more humans, and luckily, someone just died yesterday.

Earlier when it was lunch time, Layla had walked throughout the school, listening in on conversations. Namely, she was listening amongst the military staff about where they stored the dead bodies.

Passing by a classroom, Layla heard two teachers talking about something, and stopped to listen in.

"The student wasn’t in your class, correct?"

"No, I’m pretty sure he was in Del’s."

"... Crazy stuff keeps happening in his class."

"No kidding, I mean, how do they even deal with stuff like this?"

"They already captured him, didn’t they?"

"They did but— this may be morbid— but if someone like him dies, then are they going to make us go to his funeral?"

Those were the words Layla needed to hear. Instinctively, she hugged the wall tighter and leaned in a little closer to the open classroom door, even though she already had enhanced hearing.

"He’s a sergeant, they’re going to prep him up at the morgue in town then make us all stand in his honor. It’s going to be boring the whole time since I doubt either of us knew him."

The other teacher groaned in frustration, then they talked about other topics that Layla wasn’t interested in. Knowing they were going to take him to the morgue in town was a huge step, now it was a simple matter of getting to it.

It was important to know where he was kept as Layla required a fresh body to consume. Despite being an undead, an old corpse wasn’t something she found appetizing. Thankfully, the military didn’t seem to have a personal morgue, meaning the town one was less guarded.

’I’ve been training my shadow ability every now and then,’ Layla thought, ’There’s a skill, shadow cloak, that’ll help me sneak in.’

Heading into town, Layla found the only morgue in the area. It was a plain looking building, probably because the only people who visited were morticians and the dead. Two groups that obviously didn’t care too much about what they saw.

She focused her MC to cover herself like she would a cloak. Shadows enveloped her body, and Layla was hidden from view of anyone near by. Due to the sun setting, it wasn’t very bright out, so it would be harder to spot her.

This was a skill Erin recorded in Logan’s machine a while back, and while Layla had used it before, it was only through the game. She smiled knowing it was done successfully.

Layla waited until someone entered the building naturally, then trailed in after them as to not visibly open the door. Inside was a rather dimmly lit area, so the cloak was more effective.

One of the workers at the reception glanced in her direction, then returned to whatever paperwork they had.

’... Right, I should remember that I’m not the same level as Erin. I might as well be a level 2 shadow user,’ Layla thought, ’and on that subject, I don’t know how long I can keep this skill up. I should hurry.’

Following her nose, Layla walked towards the direction of a faint delicious scent, and ended up in a room filled with a wall of drawers. Just like the first room, it was dim, darker even. At first, Layla was a little creeped out by the environment, until she realized that she was likely the scariest thing in the room.

Since there wasn’t anyone else around, she quickly opened up the drawers, and took a peek inside to search for the freshest corpse, Burder.

’Before I would’ve puked at the sight of a dead body... but I’m barely reacting now.’

She had a feeling it was the result of getting exposed to so many dead bodies, as well as the very nature of her being becoming different. Still, it didn’t mean she wasn’t a little disturbed.

Once she found the body she was looking for, Layla hastily dug her hand into his chest cavity, and grabbed a handful of guts and gore. If she grabbed any other part, it would’ve been more obvious the body was tampered with.

Then, she stuffed it into her mouth, swallowed, and closed the drawer like as if she was never there.

With no other business in the area, she left the same way she arrived. The moment she was outside and out of sight, the shadow cloak naturally fell away

[6/7 unique humans eaten]