“Grrwaaa!” I exclaimed, a mix between a roar and yelp.

I grabbed the bench-sized piece of the rotor blade that bit four inches deep into my mid-torso. The amount of blood dribbling out wasn’t much compared to what I expected from having my abdomen slashed open—again. Talk about unlucky. Fucking weird this shit happened twice on the same day. I’m tired of seeing my own intestines!

My claws dug into the metal blade to get a firm grip. I steeled myself for pain—steeled, metal, get it? Applause, please, for my stupid joke. Despite the severity of my injury, my guts getting minced and all, the pain was tolerable. I could even think of random jokes just after a helicopter crash.

Just another day for Erind.

I clenched my fangs while dislodging the rotor blade from my body. How did this even get here? Everything was a swirl of metal, concrete, explosions, and fire. I was thrown out of the helicopter when it smashed into the building. It had fractured into many parts as it tumbled through the office floor, sweeping cubicles, cabinets, tables, and chairs. I think I even heard people screaming.

I didn’t lose consciousness through all of that, a testament to my body’s resilience. It felt good to be this invincible, kinda, and I could really understand why people let themselves get taken over by Adumbrae. My stomach wound itched as the skin and flesh mended themselves back together.

Now, to get Penemue—

Shit! Ouch. My right leg was busted, twisted like a corkscrew with my foot pointing backward. I only noticed it when I tried to stand and searing pain shot up my hamstrings and butt. Without hesitation, I forcefully rotated my leg the correct way, allowing myself only a small whimper. Several seconds of rest should be good enough for my regeneration to heal me a bit before I dived into danger again.

I scanned my surroundings, the sound of my bones crunching back into place provided background music. The whole place looked like a helicopter crashed into a building, obviously, duh.

The main body of our former ride slammed into the walls on the opposite end of the floor. Its front part was flattened like a pug’s face. A severed hand dangled from its dented side. It wasn’t attached to the pilot’s body; I couldn’t see where he was. The copious amount of blood painting the shattered windshield confirmed he went splat inside the cockpit.

So, where was Penemue then?

I gingerly put weight on my right leg. The pain was bearable.

Time to dig out a stupid axe.

I scrunched my snout as I made my way to the smoking helicopter. Smell of humans?

Yep, that was definitely humans, different from the dead pilot. It wasn’t body odor. I couldn’t really put the smell in words. Like I could recognize the smell of cooked chicken or pork in my cute Erind body, I could also tell these were humans with Blanchette’s keen sense of smell. My ears prickled. Rattling noises, sobbing, chattering teeth. Hiding humans, scared office workers. One was under a table twenty feet away, another inside a cabinet somewhere behind me.

I ignored them and started digging through the wreckage. Penemue should be inside unless he also got thrown out like me. He was fairly large—Reo could’ve squeezed a joke out of this—so it should’ve been easy to find him. However, after tearing off the metal sheets that covered the helicopter’s frame, exposing its insides, he wasn’t there. He couldn’t have been broken apart by the crash because he seemed to be tough as hell, and I didn’t spot any of his parts.

Where the fuck is that guy...object?

The broken window walls.

Was he thrown somewhere outside? That was going to be quite the fucking chore to find him.

Huh? A peculiar odor mixed with a human’s put me on guard.

Not the disgusting stench of the parasite monsters; I’d recognized that vomit-inducing smell instantly. This new one was different but not completely unfamiliar. Earthy, kind of funky, slightly fatty meat smell—it was at the tip of my tongue…or snout. It irritated me that I couldn’t pinpoint it.

Whatever this creature was, it was approaching fast. From the sound of its footsteps, it likely had two feet and about a human’s weight. A couple of others like it were coming. The first one was almost here.

It barged through the entrance at the far-left corner of the office space, popping the door off its hinges.

A human.

Some random office worker wearing a rumpled dress shirt and tie.

It would’ve been great if it stopped at that.

The biggest mumps I had ever seen ever was on this man’s neck. It was almost as big as his head, and it was still growing. And from the bulge that was threatening to burst, sickeningly mutated mushrooms sprouted, climbing up to the top of his head.

“Rwaarghh.” I rolled my eyes and threw up my clawed hands. Oh, come on! A mushroom man? This was obviously Mushroom Buddy’s work. Did this have a connection to the parasitic tentacle monsters? Can I have those guys back instead?

Upon seeing me, the man and the mushroom growing on him—apparently, they had creepy small humanoid body parts, including mouths—bellowed at me like a herd of angry bulls. The mushroom mumps bump deflated as if it was pushing liquid back into the man’s body. His arm on the side of the paranormal growth burst into a massive mushroom colony like a magician suddenly conjured a bunch of flowers at the tip of his wand. This mushroom colony melted into itself, flowing past the man’s arm, nearly down to the floor, and formed a straight barrel. This whole growth calcified into an organic gun or something. All of that happened within three seconds.

It raised the gun. I charged.

There were continuous minute bursts like someone cooking popcorn. Dozens of projectiles flew at me. I zipped in erratic angles to avoid them, coming closer and closer to the mushroom man. I got hit on my thigh. The bullet inside my leg exploded. I staggered because of the burst of pain but picked myself up and continued evading. A quick glance down and I saw a fungi wreath blossomed out of the small crater on my quads. Before it could grow any bigger, I excavated the diseased chunk of my leg with one swipe of my claws.

This bastard had triggered my power and I hungered for mushrooms! With a swift leap, I closed the distance between us.

He leveled the gun at my face.

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“Ghrwarr!” My jaw opened wide, I chomped on the end of the barrel, consuming its length like a wood chipper shredding a tree trunk. His punches and kicks felt like a baby hitting me. I held my prey, claws hooking his skin, his flesh, hesitating only for a moment before biting down on the bouquet of mushrooms.

The agonized screams of the tiny mushroom half-people thingies didn’t deter me from eating them and the man they were attached to. Two more mushroom fuckwits arrived, interrupting my meal—a middle-aged man in a janitor’s uniform and a woman who looked like a secretary. They had giant malignant growths on different parts of their bodies along with the spreading mushroom gremlins.

The secretary lady grew blades, reminding me of Myra, and jumped on me. I threw away the carcass I was eating and met her attack. It was as if her blades were in slow motion and I could’ve easily avoided them, but I allowed myself to get stabbed. After an injury, it was time to eat. Was I turning into a masochist eater or something?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something coming at a curve at me. I hopped out its way but still held on to the woman I was eating.

A ball covered with spikes the size of a watermelon hit the floor where I had stood. This spiked ball was connected by a long tendril to the janitor’s arm. His other arm also had another overly long flail. He began to rotate his arms like a pinwheel, whipping the mace-balls thingies around.

Running on all fours, I weaved through the destructive balls like a kid running through arcing water sprinklers and avoiding getting wet—I did play that game a few times when I was little. Still clamped between my jaws was the corpse of the mushroom secretary. I chewed on it as I charged the mushroom janitor.

I didn’t bother to get hit anymore.

I rammed the mushroom janitor and wildly thrashed with my claws, tearing both him and the already dead woman to shreds. I took my frustration of eating weak prey out on them. On a positive note, these mushroom people were much easier to kill than their tentacle parasite counterparts.

Before any more mushroom people could show up, I stopped playing with the blood and guts, and went to the broken windows. Looking down the street, there was no huge axe in sight. And my sight was pretty freaking good. I could count how many tentacles are on the zombie monster beside the overturned red sedan, how many eyes the rolling flesh heap had—weird things to count, but I could do it.

I stuck my head outside and looked to the right, checking if giant Mushroom Buddy was still chasing after us.

Apparently, it had turned around—or not. I wasn’t sure which way it faced because it didn’t have a face and an actual front side. But it was walking away, going up the northern part of Marshall Avenue followed by its mushroom people army.

Mushroom Buddy released another volley of its giant almond pods up in the sky. Several rained down in the area around me, one of them landing on the street right below and crushing a couple of tentacle zombies. Other parasite monsters close by ambled towards it. Some climbed on it, others attacked and tried to eat it.

I curiously stared, wondering what would happen.

Cracks ran down the length of the pod as it began to open with an ominous hiss that I could pick up from my height. It released orange smoke, the same as the haze around Mushroom Buddy, enveloping the parasite monsters around it.

So that’s how it spreads…

Patches of mushroom colonies instantly bloomed on the bodies of the monsters. Those controlled by the parasites had a new master.

The monsters under the new management of Mushroom Buddy went after their former pals, trying to turn them over to their side by infecting them with the spores. The fuck was this? Mind-control battles?

This is a huge problem, I thought as a realization came to me.

The parasite monsters were finite. Yes, they were numerous, but their numbers depended on how many parasites were available to latch onto human hosts. They didn’t multiply. Actually, many of them combined with each other. I bet, between attacking my condo and this huge monster army wreaking havoc in this part of the city, the 2Ms had nearly depleted their parasite inventory.

The mushroom people, on the other hand, spread and multiplied, turning everyone into creatures like them.

If Mushroom Buddy continued with its almond pod meteor shower, it could slowly take over the city. Which was bad. I live in this city! That was kind of an important detail. The fates weren’t contented with destroying my condominium building. Would this string of misfortune not stop until I transferred out of La Esperanza?

I really needed to bring down Mushroom Buddy and eat it.

A whistle rang in my ears.

My head snapped in the direction of the sound. The building to the left of that across the street from me. Just then, one of its floors exploded, all of the window walls shattered into a spray of glass. A wave of wind blew out. It carried with it mushroom monsters along with several pieces of office furniture.

Penemue!

Could I just jump down and climb up there? What was this? Like ten floors down? Maybe more. I didn’t want to break my legs and get caught in the middle of the monster gang war.

“Crekkekkk.” One of the office workers came out of hiding. She was a mushroom woman now. I noticed the filing cabinet behind her that she used for cover had holes in it. The mushroom spore bullets had punched through and infected her. “Kekekerekk.”

Her head had turned into a bunch of pulsating orbs filled with Mushroom Buddy’s spore, appearing like a bunch of orange grapes the size of Christmas balls. This was the first time I encountered a mushroom person with this form, but I already knew what was coming. The orange grapes that bubbled to greater sizes confirmed my suspicions.

Jump out it is.

BOOM!

A cloud of spores threatened to engulf me, but I was already falling down the building. My hoodie fluttered, my hair whipped wildly. The pavement below rushed to give a warm welcome of hard concrete. This is going to hurt.

I landed on my feet. The pavement cracked. My left ankle broke. I went down on my knees with a grimace because of the pain. Several of the monsters fighting each other noticed me and decided they wanted me instead. I crawled forward as fast as I could, careful not to put pressure on my injured leg until it could regenerate back.

I didn’t bother fighting the monsters. I kept low and zigzagged across the road to elude them. They tried to stop me, diving at me, trying to tackle me like I had the football and going to the end zone—something like that, I didn’t know how football worked.

I reached Penemue’s building and leaped on its wall before the monsters could blink. Maybe some of them did—I didn’t check; someone had to take me to court for that. Most of these monsters didn't even have eyes.

“Penemue!” I called out as I climbed up the walls of the building. Or that was what I wanted to say to prevent him from going away, but what came out was, “Ggrwaaarr!” I thought with all my might. Penemue! But this also shouldn’t work if somebody held him. I just hoped he was still there when I arrived.

A few seconds later and I reached the floor with the blown-out window walls.

Penemue was in the hands of a man in an expensive business suit. Several chopped-up mushroom people were strewn at his feet. He directed a group of frightened employees to safety, but they were understandably hesitant to follow their boss wielding a humongous lollipop axe. The employees saw me and ran away screaming, accomplishing what Penemue had a hard time doing.

I extended my right arm at him with an open palm.

He got the message and threw the axe at me—threw himself, to be more accurate. Penemue landed beside me and I immediately grabbed him. If we don’t stop the giant mushroom, I told him in my head, it’s going to turn people into those! I pointed at the mushroom people he killed.

(I already told you we should stay clear of the Manifested. And it’s suspicious that you suddenly care for people.)

Are you going to read my mind now? It wasn’t like I could hide my thoughts from Penemue. The moment Mushroom Buddy came up in my head, the thoughts of consuming it surfaced.

(We need to find Auron. The BID will take care of the Manifested. What is this about eating—?)

What? I considered separating from him. I was about to suggest it when his sudden pause surprised me. Hey! What are you doing? I could feel him rummaging through my head. I’m going to throw—His presence disappeared. Penemue?

(Adumbrae!)

Blades of winds engulfed me.