"What are you doing here?"

"I'm looking for the washroom." Will answered nonchalantly.

"The washroom?" The guard eyed Will's pistol as he decided what to do. "There was one next to the conference room."

Will tensed, preparing to react if the man made a move.

"It was being used."

Before anything could happen, though, Will felt another presence coming around the corner. Having little time to make a decision, Will decided not to act.

The person that soon appeared from around the corner was Norman.

"What's going on here?" He questioned.

"He said he was looking for a washroom." The man said. "I think he was looking for the armory."

Norman tilted his head, focusing as if he was listening to something as he slowly muttered, "The armory is well guarded..." He suddenly turned to look behind Will at the server room. "But I didn't know you were also a computer science student."

Norman walked past Will and opened the door to find Donny in the middle of sliding the last of the hard drives back into their racks.

"Uh...hello?" Donny said, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

Without any light, Norman walked into the dark room and grabbed one of the hard drives to find it with visible damage.

At least [Enhanced Hearing] and some kind of [Night Vision]. Will took note.

"What's that smell?" The guard scrunched his face and waved his hand next to Will.

"You have something to hide, Biology Student?" Norman asked as he scanned Will and Donny. "You could have just asked. But we can't have people walking around here doing whatever they want, I think it's time for you two to leave."

"We're not locking them up?" The guard asked.

"What for? The computers are useless to us. Anyway, I think they just did you a favor, Harry. I'm pretty sure your information was also on these servers."

The two escorted Will and Donny to the lobby, where Karen was waiting. When it was time for them to separate, Norman held his hand. Will took his hand and Norman held onto it tightly, squeezing as he tested Will's strength. Will found that Norman had more strength than him.

Increased [Strength] too. Likely a hunter bloodline of some sort.

"I see you also have powers." Norman let go and gave a smile, whether it was from learning he was evolved or winning the test of strength, Will didn't know. But he noticed that Norman didn't use the same terminology as everyone else from Nirvana. "I'll be seeing you soon, Biology Student."

What is he up to?

"When did you two get so buddy-buddy?" Donny asked as they left the building and entered the jeep.

Will noticed that other than the vehicles belonging to the group from Delmont condos, all the others were still inside.

"I think it's only one-way, like all his other interactions." Karen said. "But I can't believe that everything on earth is infected."

"Don't you mean is in the process of being 'reborn'." Donny laughed in amusement.

Karen scoffed at that before she suddenly slapped her forehead. "Ah! I missed out on a good chance to use that egg."

"You could still use it." Will said.

He had hid the Metamorphosis Pod in a warehouse close to the compound. As he didn't have a large amount of corpses to feed it, and it wasn't showing any signs of evolving to Category 1, it was currently useless to him. But it was a good thing that he would soon have access to a very large amount of corpses.

"Nah, I think I'll have a natural rebirth." Karen said.

On the way home, they searched around an industrial area close to the compound and found an empty water tanker that they could use to collect the water they needed. The water tanker seemed to have been siphoned of its fuel though, so they had to scour around for most of the day, fighting zeroes and siphoning diesel fuel, to gather enough for the tanker and to pitch in for the amount that Gerald had requested.

They returned home to find Grandpa practicing tai chi out in the yard, while Monica was napping against Broski on the porch after finishing all the chores around the house.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself." Karen said to her friend.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"I don't know why, but it's so comfortable here." Monica rubbed Broski's majestic coat of fur. "I just want to nap here forever."

Will headed straight for the clinic and holed himself inside. After sedating and sterilizing the dog flea, he operated on himself.

The reason the Parasite was B-ranked was because of how versatile it's use was. He had plenty of time to think all day and decided that the best spot to place it for now was between his right shoulder and trapezius.

How the Flea Parasite worked was that it allowed someone to accumulate a buildup of energy to release all at once. The amount of energy that fleas could release would allow it to unleash approximately 100 times the amount of force its muscles would normally be able to generate.

This number would be vastly lower for Will though, since he needed to raise his compatibility with the Parasite and he also didn't have the correct body structure to do so. But among the flea species, the dog flea had one of the higher jumping capabilities.

Will planned on changing the location of the Parasite in the future when he found another similar one. But for now, the Parasite would give him extra attacking options in the event that he couldn't use his gun, or worse, if he was forced to face something that couldn't be hurt by bullets.

That night, when the Parasite woke up and started integrating with him, Will stepped into the gym and stood in front of a punching bag. As he assumed a punching stance, he felt his muscles around the Parasite begin to compress. The tension in his muscles grew as more and more energy was built up.

When he couldn't hold it any longer, Will felt his muscles relax as he released all that built up energy and his right arm shot forward.

Bang!

The punching bag was sent flying upwards.

About double my strength. Will estimated as he held out a hand to stop the punching bag as it was swinging back down. I'm going to need to raise the compatibility higher to be useful in combat against a Cat-1.

Thus, over the next 3 days, as the other groups prepared for the plan. Will sent most of his free time practicing with his Parasite as much as he could, getting used to using it and raising his compatibility with it. He mostly practiced punching in the gym or swinging a weapon in the woods behind the compound.

Although Will had never done so before in his other life, he also practiced throwing weapons and using a compound bow that had its draw weight far above normal, but his aim wasn't as good as he'd like.

At the start, he could only double his strength. As his compatibility with the Parasite slowly raised, Will felt his muscles around the Parasite growing firmer and tightening. By the time the day to assault the wastewater treatment plant came, Will could unleash 4 times his strength.

Name: Will Age: 18 Class: Berserker Barbarian Strength: 15 ➜ 17 Dexterity; 17 ➜ 19 Endurance: 15 ➜ 16 Intelligence: 0 Charisma: 8

Will gave his stats a once over before they needed to meet up with the other groups.

It had only been a couple of days since he evolved, but two of his stats had already gone up by 2. The increase in [Strength] he could understand, since he had been keeping up with his work-outs and had a Parasite adding to it, but the increase in [Dexterity] didn't make sense. Will could only guess that it had something to do with his mutated bloodline once again. He would have to focus on raising his stats after this and see how far he could advance.

"How are you feeling?" Karen asked Monica.

"I feel better than ever." Monica sent a beaming smile in Will's direction.

Will nodded and asked, "You remember what to do, right?"

"You don't need to worry. We'll fill up the water tanker at the place you marked in two days." Monica assured.

"Although we cleared it already, you should still keep your eye open for any stragglers."

"Don't worry, I have these two to protect me." Monica said as she gave Broski a pat.

"Woof."

Grandpa gave a thumbs up from the side.

Although Will didn't want to leave the compound without anyone keeping watch, it would be dangerous for Monica to fill up the tanker on her own. Since Grandpa didn't know how to drive, she was the only one who could do it. Therefore, they decided to send all three of them. If everything went according to plan, they would only be away for an hour or two at most.

"Take care, Grandpa." Will said to his grandpa before he, Donny, and Karen hopped into the jeep and left the compound.

They first met up with Gerald's group before heading over to Hope together.

"You three ready for this?" Jacques greeted them when they arrived.

They greeted him back and then Donny went off to have a smoke break with Jason. After Jacques left to supervise his group finish their preparations, Anne approached Will.

"I heard about that whole rebirth business." She said. "How do you feel about cooperating?"

"How?" Will asked.

"Your group seems quite capable of moving around without too much trouble, so I was thinking that you could help us scout out any animals that could be used for food and we could work together to secure them."

"You believe their theory about becoming stronger by eating virus carriers?"

"You don't? We can provide you with anything you would need—fuel, ammo, repairs, other types of foods, luxuries, comforts." She put an emphasis on the last word. "There are any many people here that wouldn't mind latching onto a very capable young man like yourself."

"I'll think about it."

"In the meantime, I have a feeling some of the others will be eyeing any animals at the plant, we could band together and put pressure on them so that we could take any more."

"You don't mind that they may have eaten humans?" Will raised his brow at her.

"I don't see what's the problem, we just need to clean them extra thoroughly." Raising her brow back.

"I'll think about it."

"Don't take too long. You can talk to Noah if you make a decision." Anne said, walking away.

"Ick." Karen made a face of revulsion after Anne left. "Are you going to go along with it?"

"No." Although it was a bit hypocritical since he used the Metamorphosis Pod, he wasn't so desperate that he needed to eat tainted food to evolve. There would be plenty of untainted food for him in the near future, once everything evolved.

"Good." Karen gave him a nod of respect and a friendly jab on his arm. "Using that egg is one thing, but eating things that ate people..." She shuddered.

Once Jerry's team, Jacques' team, and Anne's team—who were led by Noah, were ready, they rendezvoused with the rest at Nirvana before moving out in a large convoy towards Green Water.