The invisible hands which had tried to tear apart his mouth turned out to be his own, just not under his control. Mir could feel the blood soaking his fingers and palms, leaking out of the broken plastic cover around his ripped mouth.
Gingerly, he tried to sense how much damage had been done there.
"Sss...."
The bolts of pain barely registered in his numbed brain. Both corners of his lips had been stretched by more than a centimeter. Had he been mired a moment longer within that last round of hallucination, he could've probably opened the gashes up to his ears.
"Yeah, don't touch the wound, kid. You're lucky, so incredibly lucky that your body had such an unusually low amount of active viruses and mutant genetic codes. Which shelter did you grow up in? Sounds like the real deal, a sanctuary that actually CAN deter the virus," the man standing over him said as Mir's frenzied thoughts began to fall in a line, giving him back the calmness he had lost for the last few minutes.
"Give me something for the wound. You've got medicine, right?" Mir said through clenched teeth, trying his best not to move his mouth.
The man appeared conflicted for a moment. But he took another look at one of the slim devices on his palm that was still pointed at Mir, seemingly reading something there, after which he relented. Reaching into the wide belt around his waist, he took out an inch-long injector.
"Here, push it under your skin. Half on the right cheek, half on the left cheek, just above the wounds. It'll take care of the immediate problems. If you want something better...well, you have to earn that. Now answer the question. Where did you grow up in? Which shelter was it? DeepNorth? Crystal Palace? Dawnless?"
Mir listened to him attentively while he injected the contents of the tube into the skin of his mouth. It wasn't exactly a painful procedure. The injector used air pressure to force the contents inside the tube to go through the pores of the skin. Within half a minute, he was done.
The man looked impatient with the time he was taking.
"Well?"
Mir began to reply with a carefully prepared answer.
"The reason why I have such a low rate of viral activity inside my body isn't related to any shelter."
"...Oh."
He could hear the disappointment in the man's tone.
"It is because I have a method of expelling the virus from my body," Mir added.
The man scoffed. "You're telling me you've been using a Virus Neutralizer formula to expel the virus from your body HERE? Inside a sacred ground? When did your Church start allowing its deacons to do that?"
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Mir shook his head. He had guessed it correctly. This guy definitely wasn't with the Ravensworth family, nor did he have any direct connection to the Chuch of Sunbreaker.
The reason why he had changed his outright hostile attitude to the current lukewarm one was because of the interference of the Church. Despite not actively helping Mir and Murray in this hunt, the Church still could pull some strings in the shadows, especially now that a third party had gotten involved.
"I did not use a Virus Neutralizer formula. You've said it yourself; the reason why I survived was because my body contained very few mutant genetic codes alongside lacking in active viruses. The only people who would have no residue of mutant genetic codes in their bodies are people who haven't tasted much contaminated food in their lives. And people who haven't consumed contaminated food naturally have no reason to use Virus Neutralizer formulas. Those formulas only work when your body reaches the limit in terms of viral activity in it."
The man cocked his head. "That does make sense, yeah. So what method have you been using to keep your viral activity so low below the average standard?"
Mir gave him a measured look before answering, "Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn't tell anyone, but since you're going to be helping me for a while, I guess I need to be honest. I use that sacred artifact to expel the virus from my body. The procedure is very complex, but it works."
The man immediately turned to look at the diary on Mir's lap.
"I see...No, wait, what do you mean I'll be helping you for a while?"
A smile tried to surface on Mir's face, but he had to restrict the humor in his eyes in order to avoid injuring his features further.
"The usage of the sacred artifact has its side effects. I'll be knocked out very soon. You need to make sure that I am safe and sound until I wake up."
"...What?" the man's confusion reached a higher peak.
"From your desperate tone, it isn't hard to figure out that someone close to you is in danger of being infected beyond control soon. That is, after all, a very common problem most of us have. Eighty percent of the families in the city have an elderly member who is about to turn into an abomination after lifelong exposure to sunlight daily. Twelve percent of the families have young children who have unwittingly spent too long in the sunlight, making their fragile immune systems undergo a breakdown. You fall into one of these categories, mister. You've been looking for good shelters, or some other method to lengthen the time that a family member of yours has remaining. Congratulations, you've found yourself a method that comes with no permanent side effects! And I, the owner of this artifact, can help you unconditionally, provided that you try to keep me alive."
For a second, Mir feared that the worst outcome would take place. The man could kill him, or torture the method of using the diary out of his mouth before robbing him of it.
But he was fortunate for once. The man didn't choose to go down that violent route. He took a long look at the screen of the device he was holding, and then moved away the pulsars pointed at Mir's face.
"That reminds me, how did you make my hallucination attack stop? I didn't know one could do that." Mir enquired out of curiosity.
"I didn't either, kid," the man replied, startling him. "It looked like you were about to lose control and turn into one of the low-level abominations. But it seemed impossible, considering that no one whose Extent of Viral Infection is below 20% can be turned into an abomination by a mere hallucination. You need external factors to make that happen when the stats are so low. For example, the mental pollution of a taboo zone, or the assault of a high-grade mutant creature through a mental connection...Since there are no taboo zones here, I figured it might be the latter."
"...Wow."
Mir was genuinely impressed. This man's deductive skills nearly bordered on a mutant ability itself. It wasn't easy going through chains of logic when someone was about to rip out his own face in front of you.
"I've heard stories about veterans who delved into Code-Black sacred zones, where mutant creatures that can attack your mind even without any mental connection are as common as fish in rivers. A rule of thumb in dealing with such creatures is to artificially shock the team members' brains regularly to make these creatures wary of touching the mind of anyone in their range. So...yeah, you got a Pulsar bullet to the head."
Mir touched his head and found a round metal ball stuck on his scalp like it had been attached there with glue.
No wonder the Witchweed had ceased its assault! The last few minutes of his hallucination had nothing to do with mutations. The plant was purely acting on vengeful instincts, trying to kill Mir and free itself. It had used their neural link to take over his body partially, ditching all traps and temptations.
The electric shock from the Pulsar must have harmed its consciousness as much as it had harmed Mir. Pulsars were hardly gentle instruments. These things were used on mutant beasts, hardened criminals, and rogue Transcenders. Side effects of being shot too many times by these included cerebral malfunctions as severe as full-body paralysis.
"Thank you for the life-saving headshot, mister," Mir said, unable to hold back his laugh and-
"Fuck, dammit! I think I tore my mouth a bit more. Do you have better medicine or not?"
His face would probably be permanently disfigured.