After stopping her red haired friend she turned to me

"How did this material go out of control?"

'Do I tell her the truth? Will the doctor? What choice do I have? What will happen to Charlotte?'

A thousand thoughts raced through my mind in a matter of seconds but I ultimately decided to tell her the truth, it was my best idea in this current predicament

"Due to the panic of the sudden mutation and me forcefully keeping Charlotte away she stole my stash and pulled out the material, it was my oversight to let the material and stash be taken from me, I apologize"

A gentle smile adorned her face before she spoke

"No need for apologies, you stopped a tier 4 material and saved many lives by not only suppressing it but actually defeating it, a truly commendable feat might I say"

After praising me she gestured towards the Willow Bone that was still sitting inside of the floor

"Is that your weapon? How did you acquire such an extraordinary spear?"

I made sure to pay attention to her eyes and any change in her facial expression, for some reason I couldn't see any greed in her eyes, not even the faintest flame of desire

I couldn't say the same for the annoying red head though

"Oh shit! Such a fucking cool spear"

She appeared next to it and pulled it out before playing with it

Annoyed by the action Willow Bones Branches unwound from the main branch that gripped the jaw and tried to stab the red head

Surprised by the weapons revolt against her she quickly dodged and dropped the weapon causing it to sink into the floor yet again, it waited for awhile before the four branches wrapped around the main branch once again

"Shitty weapon, you'd be lucky to have such a hot badass as me"

Spitting at the spear she flipped it off in annoyance as she went over to the stash and began pulling out the monster corpses and inspecting them

'I hope someone can stop her from stealing my stuff'

Keeping one eye on her as she went through my stuff without pulling out anything she didn't think was worth her time I looked back towards the mature one

"A semblance of a conscience? Truly fascinating"

Now I could see a faint spark of intrigue and desire within her yellow eyes, it made me worried for what she'd do to get the weapon for herself

"Is that weapon the reason you were able to defeat the tier 4 material?"

"Well it was a large part of the reason I was able to win, yes"

"How did you even acquire such a rare and interesting weapon? I've hardly ever seen a tier 4 with that level of intelligence before"

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"I found it in fourth district, it was the spawn of a pretty powerful tree mutant, although I never actually fought it"

"Oh? The fourth district at this age, you truly are extraordinary young man"

Upon hearing my explanation I could see her suppressing her desires, it seemed like she valued the bases strength and stability more than her own selfish desires

Truly an admirable trait for someone to have

"Thank you, although I visit that district I'm not adept enough to hunt anything properly"

"You will. One day"

She once again offered that gentle smile before walking over to the red head who seemed to have found an interesting one of my possessions she wanted to play with

Arriving in front of the red head she slapped her hand and began collecting all of my items that had been thrown about half hazardly as the red head sulked in the corner like a child

As she was collecting my belonging from my stash I decided to go over and take back my weapon as well

Walking towards the Willow Bone the two guards looked at me, made eye contact and let me approach it freely even though they were still prepared to stop me or the weapon in case either of us became a threat or unpredictable

Reaching out with my bloody palms I grasped the wooden pole and felt the intertwined branches

'It seems... Smoother?'

It seemed like the harsh energy that had run rampant and damaged both of us had caused the outside layer of the wood to burn and become glossy almost as if it were a polished wood

Sliding my hands across the surface I could feel the new ease of wielding it as if it had become a much lighter and completely new weapon than it was before

As I was inspecting it I felt a gentle shudder through its branches

"Hungry?"

It shuddered again

"I can't feed you yet, but I promised to give you a feast, remember? So just hang in there"

It went silent as if in understanding as I continued to check up on the weapons condition

The wood had seemed to become more comfortable to wield due to the entire pole arm now becoming glossy, the jaw tip seemed burnt as it had become more grey but there was no significant damage that would concern me when wielding it in the future

After I finished checking out my weapon I held the lower end of the shaft and leant it against my shoulder as I checked out the surrounding room

It seemed as though Lucas the flesh puzzle had started being put back together as it slowly shrank at a rate visible to the eye

Even as the flesh shrunk and everything else was being fixed one could see the changes in the bone structure, organs, muscles and many different things that looked completely different than how it was before while still maintaining around the same layout as the original body

The doctor also seemed to be fine, although she was both mentally and physically taxed beyond her limit whilst guarding Lucas and stopping the powerful bolts of energy that threatened her all while using an ordinary looking sword and channeling her mutation the entire time

Charlotte looked the worst of the bunch as she looked literally drained, had multiple wounds due to being attacked by the bolts of energy as she was connected to the rib without anyway to escape, she was kneeling clutching her wrist stump as her entire body seemed to be healing much slower than it had when we were fighting

It was understandable, she had almost all of her energy taken from her by the rib as it tried to kill me

I cast a glance over to the rib that was currently being threatened by the four different guards all with their weapons poised and ready to destroy it with the slightest commotion

Both exhausted of energy and frightened for its 'life' the rib didn't dare to move or even use its abysmally limited energy

'I wonder if they'll let me keep the material... Probably not, they'd want to monopolize it after all'

The guards continued to make sure everything was in order, even after multiple other members showed up and took care of everything else

A guard helped Charlottes regeneration process speed up and a different man healed my injuries

A few had to write a few things on clip boards and take pictures as a record of what happened

Charlotte got off with a light punishment due to a number of different reasons, one including her potential and the fact she was a genius that was going to study in the capital city

All of the wrapping up process took an hour

And after that they 'confiscated' my tier 4 material

'Bunch of greedy bastards'

I was already extremely lucky though, I say the way they eyed my spear and a few other things I had in my stash, it was good for me that they had no probable cause to take them from me like they had for the tier 4 rib