a

by freesayan

a

2. Chapter 2

Chapter 10

Appearance Changes

Alexander North

Of course I chose the wrong place to start digging.

But at the very least, I did manage to make it into the base. So there's that.

But...

My thoughts pause as I look around the ventilation shaft that for some reason has rust all over it.

...whoever is supposed to be maintaining this did a terrible job. That said, it's the only reason I was able to get inside in the first place. Considering the large hole in the ventilation shaft that I managed to dig into.

Then again, I wouldn't want that job. So I can't technically blame them. Even if I really can and do.

I navigate through the shaft until I find a branching path that goes straight down, which I quickly jump down through to find myself in a bathroom. A private one at that, considering the lock on the door and the fact that there's only one toilet in it.

Guess there were worse places that I could have come out i-
My thoughts trail off as I get a sight of myself in the mirror.
Are you kidding me? How did I not think about that being a

possibility?
After all, I have the same infra-red vision as the creatures...
I stare at my reflection in the mirror for several seconds, focusing first

on the pitch black eyes with light blue glowing rings in them – the same as the monsters outside – before looking at the pure white hair, which I already knew about, and the incredibly pale skin.

If I didn't know any better, I'd assume I was a vampire from mythology...

Actually, I quickly pull up my lip to look for any fangs, only to find that my canines do actually look sharper than they used to. And in addition to that, the rest of my teeth seem to have sharpened a little bit as well.

Although they still look relatively human and flat. Just that all of them look just a tiny bit more like the fangs of a beast instead.

Okay, this is most likely going to put any soldier I see on alert.

I mean, I would go on alert if I saw something like me walking around, even if it wasn't the middle of the apocalypse.

But how to cover this up...

At this thought, I remember the helmet that is still up at the tunnel I had made because it was too thick to fit into the hole in the ventilation shaft.

That'll work.

I quickly jump back into the ventilation shaft before moving back through it backwards until I reach the hole and begin kicking at it.

Let's see if I can't widen this entrance.

After quite a bit of kicking, and some awkward moments where a spider that was hiding who-knows-where tried biting my neck, just to freeze alive in the attempt, I finally manage to get the opening wide enough to pull my helmet through. After that, I deal with a large hassle involved with getting the thing and myself out of the very narrow ventilation shaft before walking to the sink.

Please work, please work, please woooork...

Fortunately, the water begins to come out when I turn the dial, making me sigh in relief.

The water hasn't frozen just yet. Probably because the water pipes are relatively deep underground.

I quickly begin to splash my face and neck with water to wash up before putting my helmet back on again. Then I move on to splashing the water over my armor to clean it of the dirt, snow, and other muck that it had gathered while outside.

Although I mostly just want the blood cleaned off. Because it smells pretty bad.

After I finish up with that, I quickly put my gloves on and look back at myself in the mirror again.

Good. No signs of not being a human. Just a regular second lieutenant in our standard black cybernetic armor. Or rather, damaged standard black cybernetic armor.

At least the other soldiers won't shoot at me on sight anymore. Although that wouldn't be much of a problem at the moment. Not with the guns acting up as they are.

Still wouldn't be nice of them to try though.
And with that thought in my head, I turn to the door and open it.
Just to find a wraith passing by the door on the other side.
Are you kidding me?
The wraith lets out a shriek and rushes at me, but I pull out my knife

and turn slightly to make it fly straight past me before I slice upwards during its passing, chipping its own blade while doing the same to mine. I then grunt while pushing back its blades with mine and kicking out at its feet, knocking it towards the ground while its blades are still facing forwards, making it land face first on its own blades.

It lets out a horrified shriek at the pain, but I stop it by stabbing down with my other knife straight into the back of its skull and into its frozen brain. However, the knife doesn't go all the way in at first, so I stomp down on it with my other boot, sending it splitting straight through the brain and killing it in an instant.

I definitely prefer the wraiths over the other two types of monsters. They're so much easier to kill.

The stupid wendigos are too berserk and unpredictable for my taste, while the brutes can probably fling me several meters away with ease.

But the wraiths? They're just really fast with relatively sharp blades. And they're also rather bad with enclosed spaces, considering how easy to kill this one was compared to the others I've fought thus far.

Although I get the feeling I wouldn't be saying that if I was still just a regular human being, but whatever.

I reach down and place my hand on the creature's back, drawing the light blue energy into my body before standing up again and walking into the hall.

/ Notice \

The following user statistics have updated:

Agility: 1.57 - 1.58

\End of Notice/

This should be floor BF1.

Throughout the base there are nine floors, with two of them being above ground and the rest of them being below ground. Meanwhile of the ones below ground, two of them are for higher ups only. Which doesn't normally mean me, but I really need to find the base commander.

After all, he's the only one on this base that can deactivate the limiter on my terminal, letting me contact dad directly.

I'm still surprised dad let him put that limiter in in the first place. But I guess he finally decided to let me get some real combat experience where I couldn't rely on having him as a backup if something went wrong.

Which was about time, even if I never actually contacted him through the terminal to ask for help before.

It's just rather awkward that I need that backup now.

I shake my head at the thought before beginning to make my way towards the elevator. Only to stop after just three steps and instead begin to make my way over towards the stairs instead. Because obviously the elevator isn't going to be working right now.

Chapter 11

A Familiar Face

Alexander North

Surprisingly, it doesn't take me long before I run into someone. And it's someone I'd rather not see right now, judging by the family crest he has displayed on his shoulder.

The instant he steps out of an office into the hallway, he turns to me and quickly focuses on my own shoulder, bearing my own family crest and rank of second lieutenant. He then spreads his arms out and exclaims in an oddly quiet voice despite his clear excitement, "Alex! You're still aliiive!" before rushing over to me and pulling me into a bear hug, taking full advantage of his massive size difference over myself.

Although unlike all of the other times this has happened, I don't grunt thanks to my newfound strength. Instead, I push him back a little before looking him over to check for wounds.

Meanwhile, he himself looks surprised at my strength for a second but seems to push the thought aside as he notices the tears in my uniform and asks, "Were you hurt?"

The man is also a second lieutenant, just like me. But unlike me, he refuses to even pay any attention to the ranking system unless someone is a higher ranked than him. Something about disliking holding authority over others. And after a lot of pestering by him, I started to call him by his first name as well. Mostly because he wouldn't let up and it'd cause even more problems if I didn't.

It didn't help that the higher ups don't care either since we're the same rank.

"Don't worry about it Phillip, I'm fine," I answer in response before asking, "were you not able to find your team during this?"

Our quarters are all separated by our squads, so unless he or his team weren't in their rooms at the start of this – which, considering that this

happened at night, I'd think they probably would be – then he must have been separated.

"Yeah, my team was having an unsanctioned party with another squad during the night, but I didn't go," Phillip explains, making me wince slightly at just how unfortunate that timing is. "What about your squad? Where are they? Weren't you supposed to be on a mission?"

"Our ship lost the ability to fly and crashed while we were coming back from the mission, so we walked back through the blizzard, but I was separated in the process," I answer before starting again towards the stairs with him following next to me. "What happened here? I would've expected more soldiers to still be walking through the halls."

"It's honestly kind of hard to say," he says while taking his helmet off, revealing his slightly pudgy looking face, short brown hair, and equally brown eyes as he sends me a slightly worried gaze, likely due to the fact that I had just mentioned our ship crashing, "at one moment I was sitting in my room playing a game, and the next? Everything suddenly grew cold."

He then faces forwards again and continues, "I ignored it at first, thinking that the AC was just turned on or something, but when it kept getting colder, to the point that frost started building up on everything in the room and mist started filling it, I knew something was up. And that was when the screams and shrieks started echoing from outside in the hallway."

I grimace at that, but stay silent as he finishes, "I quickly got my gear on and rushed outside, only to find a monster that looked oddly like a wendigo from our mythology classes feasting on Josh from squad AH22. So I fired my gun. And you can imagine how that turned out. All it ended up doing was attracting the creature's attention when the bullets lifelessly fell onto the ground."

He pauses there as we reach a bend in the mist and frost-coated hallway before turning the corner to find the next part of the hallway clear of monsters, with the exception of one dead monster and a few dead soldiers.

"Damn," he mutters at the sight of them, and I nod my head in agreement. Although while we're walking by, something catches my attention.

The monster isn't illuminating its regular light blue glow.

So does the energy fade away after a period of time left untouched? Or did another monster absorb it?

I tense up slightly at the possibility that there could be a monster nearby, but Phillip just kneels down to check on the dead soldier's family crests.

"Shit, this one's Vixaran," he mutters after getting to the third body and not recognizing their crests.

"Wait, really?" I exclaim while getting down to check the crest myself. Just to find the very familiar crest of the archducal family holding one of the positions on the merchant's council leading the Economic circle of the Empire. "Shit, it's really him!"

We both get up while sharing a look before Phillip mutters, "This'll probably cause quite a few political problems in higher society. Do you think you might be called back because of it?"

As he says this, he glances at my own crest, which is also an archducal family crest. Just one from the other archducal family.

I frown at the question and shake my head.

"You know as well as I do that dad tries to keep me out of politics as much as he can," I remind him before continuing forwards and adding, "Besides. We'd have to be able to contact them to be called back."

And be able to get back in the first place.

"Oh," he mutters, not moving for a second, following which I hear his footsteps quickly catching up to me as he says, "I guess you have a point there."

The real pressing question here though is just how many other soldiers have died already for this place to seem so... empty? And if they did die, then where are the corpses? Or where are the monsters if they turned?

There would be blood stains everywhere and probably some gore if a wendigo went around eating them all. Not to mention that those three corpses wouldn't be there if one did.

Besides. I'm pretty sure the captains – whose ranks are made up entirely of symbiont hosts – should be able to deal with the monsters in smaller numbers.

My thoughts are interrupted as a loud screech echoes from down the hall, seemingly coming from one of the training rooms. Then another one, something akin to a rabid snarl follows right after it.

"That's not good," Phillip mutters while raising his sword, which I really wish I had right now, but we don't bring them out when we're on an op where the combat is going to be in a ship.

"No, it's not," I mutter in response as we slowly walk across the hall.

Once we make it to the training room, we peek in through the window of the door, just to find four wendigos and two wraiths trying to attack two low ranking soldiers who at standing high up on the obstacle course of the training room

I look through the room for the other entrance, just to find the door torn to pieces that are scattered across the floor next to it.

Guess that explains how they got in despite this entrance being closed.

"We should help them," Phillip says while reaching for the doorknob, only to pause as he realizes that he doesn't have a plan. He then looks at me with hope shining in his eyes.

"No," I state without any hesitation in my voice, seemingly shocking him in the process. "There is no way we'd be able to get in there, rescue them both, and make it back alive. At this point, it would be better to regroup with the commander or other higher officers and come ba-"

My words are cut off as I notice one of the two soldiers spotting us and pointing while shoving the other one's shoulder. And as soon as I see the face of the other one – who for some reason isn't wearing his helmet – I get a very bad feeling.

"But what if they're dead before-" I cover his mouth with my palm while pointing at the door window with my other hand before he can finish talking, making him look to see the second soldier pulling out his gun with a smile on his face and tossing it straight towards the door we're standing behind.

Now, the gun doesn't reach all the way to the door, considering the vast distance between us, but it does land several meters away from the door with a loud clatter sound.

A sound that immediately draws the wendigos' eyes towards us.

"Run!" I shout at him right as the wendigos all tear off towards us, leaving the wraiths to continue staring at the two soldiers that had just fed us to the metaphorical wolves.

Phillip quickly joins me as we begin running down the hall in the direction of the stairs. And as we're running, I ask, "Still want to save them?"

He just shouts, "Hell no!" right as the wendigos tear down the door to the training room and slide across the frost-covered floor for a second before beginning to follow us down the hall.

Chapter 12

Meeting

Alexander North

The wendigos continue chasing us down the hall until we finally reach the stairs and lock the door behind us before jumping down them. However, the sound of the door being torn off of its hinges screeches through the staircase even as we reach the stairs of BF3.

"What are we going to do?" he asks right after finding the third floor hallway right on the other side of the door blocked off by a bunch of wreckage seemingly from the floor above.

Seriously? What could've possibly caved in the damn floor!?

I hurriedly look up again to find the wendigos quickly climbing down the stairs towards us, just for a soldier to jump up from the floor below in front of us, followed immediately after by two more. Then several other soldiers begin to climb up the stairs.

After just a glance at the special armor worn by the three soldiers that jumped, I can immediately tell that they're all captains.

Both Phillip and I let out sighs of relief at the sight of them, but I step forwards to join them as the wendigos jump down the last of the stairs straight at them.

Each of the three captains catch one and use their own momentum to pin them to the floor, and I do the same before stabbing my knife straight into the skull of the wendigo. Once I lift my head again, I find the captains simply cutting the heads off of their three wendigos before sending me an odd look.

None of these soldiers have their helmets on, which makes sense considering that they were probably inside before this all began. And we normally wear our armor without our helmets when going about our duties in the base.

And thanks to that, I recognize the three captains as the captains of the AH22 squad, which is Phillip's squad, the AR 21 squad, and the A1 squad.

I turn to look at Phillip, who clearly recognizes several of the soldiers who had climbed the stairs after the captains, before looking down the stairs to see quite a few more soldiers still climbing.

While I'm looking at the soldiers climbing up the stairs, one of the captains – the captain of Phillip's squad – approaches me and asks, "Are you a symbiont host, soldier?"

I turn back to him with a frown hidden behind my helmet, but before I can say anything, Phillip quickly comes over and puts his arm around my shoulder while saying, "No sir, he's just a really skilled fighter!"

The captain narrows his eyes at me, only to look at the arm around my shoulder along with my insignia designating my rank and relax a little. He then walks away without another word.

Yeah, I don't think he believes him. But he does at least seem to trust Phillip's taste in friends.

Which makes sense considering how intrusive Phillip is when it comes to researching anyone he becomes friends with or even so much as gets to know.

"Where were you going, second lieutenant?" the captain of the A1 squad asks after approaching me from behind somehow without my noticing, startling Phillip in the process.

I shake off Phillip's arm as I turn around to answer, "We were originally going to head down to the lower floors to look for the commander, sir."

Phillip suddenly takes over from there with a rather peeved off expression on his face, "But while we were traversing BF1, we found a couple of soldiers stuck on the obstacle course with four of the berserk monsters and two of the quieter ones trying to get at them. And as we were trying to figure out how to help them-"

I frown at that.

"-one of the soldiers noticed us and pointed us out to the other one, who quickly tossed his fucking gun at us to make us into a diversion for the berserk monsters!" Phillip finishes while crossing his arms and nodding at the dead monsters at our feet.

The captains share a glance before Phillip's captain asks, "Do you know which squad they were from?"

Phillip looks confused for a second, only to shake his head and say, "No, sir. They were too far away, but if I were to see them again, there's no

way I wouldn't recognize them!"
The captains turn their gaze towards me as all of the soldiers finally

reach the top of the stairs and stand at attention, each armed with swords that are making me really jealous right now.

I shake my head in agreement with Phillip, so the captains look between themselves.

"Looks like we'll have to take disciplinary actions after this is all over to deal with any other soldiers who might've gone astray a little during this," the captain of squad A1 mutters, to which the other captains nod their heads in agreement.

After a few seconds of silence, two of the three captains begin to head back down the stairs with the A1 captain declaring, "Alright, we're finished up here. Let's continue going down!"

The soldiers that I can only assume are from his squad and the other captain's squad follow after them, while the ones in Phillip's squad stay behind with their captain, who looks at me and says, "I don't really know what you're hiding, but Phillip trusts you. For now though, I need to know where your squad is."

I narrow my eyes slightly at how he didn't even ask which squad I was in, only to remember that he probably already knows who I am, considering my crest. After all, not including dad, I'm the only one with this crest.

Without mentioning my current I'm-no-longer-human situation, I answer, "Private Withers was pierced by a shard and turned, while the rest of the team managed to get into the base through the secret entrance. I, on the other hand, couldn't make it through and had to dig through the outside of the base into the ventilation shafts to get in the base."

The captain narrows his eyes at the last part and asks, "How did you get into the ventilation shafts? They're supposed to be too secure for someone to do that."

"The shaft was poorly maintained to the point that the metal making up its exterior was rusting," I answer him while standing at attention.

The man stares at me for a few more seconds before sighing and muttering, "Gonna have to make sure those idiots do a better job of maintaining those if we get out of this alive." He then looks at the seven or so soldiers around us, just to look back at me again with a more relaxed look on his face as he reaches his hand out and says, "It's a pleasure to meet

you, Second Lieutenant North. I am Archibald Ruthers, and I am the captain of the AH22 squad."

I accept it with a nod before he continues, "For the time being, until we manage to regroup with your squad, you will be a part of my squad. Is that acceptable, second lieutenant?"

Without any hesitation, I nod my head. And after he sees that, he nods back and lets go of my hand.

"Let's catch up with the other squads," he says while starting down the stairs after the others.

Chapter 13

Another Monster

Squad AR27

At the same time in the BF1 main hangar

"What the hell is that?" Captain Andrew mutters while staring down at the enormous monster currently feasting on one of the inactive spaceships in the hangar. The creature is larger than the spaceship itself, spanning upwards of five meters in length, and two more meters in height, with a lamprey-like mouth full of razor sharp teeth, a worm-like body except with two feet on both sides of it, and three pure black eyes. However, unlike the eyes of the other monsters, these eyes don't have the blue ring that they do.

No one says anything and they're all left standing at the upper levels of the hangar in the hangar control room staring through the windows at the creature as it continues feeding on the ships.

"At least it doesn't look like it eats peo-" Robert begins, just to cut off as a scream sounds out from down below, in the ship that the monster is currently eating. The group then watches as a soldier falls out of the ship and begins to run away from the monster, just for the monster to stomp on the ground with one of its large feet, causing a sudden wave of ice to run through the ground, freezing the ground and everything on it, including the soldier's feet. It then goes back to eating the ship again.

The rest of the group turns to look at Robert, who can't help but back down slightly at their gazes – particularly the gazes of the major and his two first lieutenants.

They then turn back to the hangar again as the monster finishes eating the ship. It lets out a loud grumbling sound before lowering its front half – which was slightly up in the air as it ate – back to the ground and beginning to crawl over to the soldier.

"Nonono, please do-" Robert says while hiding his mouth behind his hand, just to stop talking when the monster eats the soldier and continues on to the next ship.

A short window of silence ensues as the monster slowly makes its way to another ship before Victoria points out, "It looks like this creature has more than one glowing point, sirs," while staring at the three different spots on the monster's body that are illuminated by a light blue glow.

The major nods at that, only to turn around and start towards the wall behind them while saying, "We've seen enough already. The only person in this base that might be able to kill that thing without firepower is the lieutenant colonel as a Tier 3 symbiont host."

The man stops in front of the wall and punches straight through it to grab a lever, startling the others in the room with the exception of the captain, who already knew about the hidden staircase on BF1. Just not where exactly it was located.

"This is one of the two staircases throughout the base that goes down to BF6," he explains while pulling the lever, making gears sound in the wall before it parts to reveal a door. He then walks up to the door and enters a code in it, just to grunt as he remembers that the power is out.

"Why do you think anything using electricity doesn't work anymore, sir?" Victoria asks out of nowhere as the major begins grabbing the door from the sides of its frame.

One of the two lieutenants looks at her and adds, "The guns don't use electricity, but they're down as well."

The captain makes a hand motion for them both to stop talking before he starts walking over to the major while saying, "There are scientists down in BF6 and BF7 that might be able to explain that."

Once he reaches the door, the major moves to make room for him and they both begin to rip the door from its hinges, making a loud screeching noise in the process that has the heads of several monsters scattered about the floor turning in their direction, but none of them make any moves to head over there thanks to the presence of the large monster.

Both of the symbiont hosts breathe heavily after setting the door down on the ground before walking through the now-empty doorway into the staircase.

"Let's go," the major says with a grimace.

Alexander North

On BF5

As we walk through the narrow hallways of the fifth underground floor, I take a moment to look at my terminal.

Considering the number of monsters we've killed thus far that I've been able to sneakily drain of energy...

/ Current Analysis of user Alexander North \

Strength: 1.56 Agility: 1.62

Reflexes: 1.42 Constitution: 1.99 Immunity: ? Senses: 1.71

Body Malfunctions: ?
Error: Cannot determine Immunity or Body Malfunctions of user's

current species.
The average of a human being without a symbiont is a 1 across all stats.

\End of Analysis/

That's a pretty decent increase.

From what I've been able to tell, the wraiths generally increase my agility and reflexes, with a small boost in my senses, while the wendigos increase basically everything but my constitution. As for the brutes? I still haven't managed to kill one yet, but if I had to guess, it'll probably increase my strength and my constitution.

Right as I'm about to close out of my terminal again, a new notice catches my attention.

/ Notice \

Terminal is examining user's body to update the database. Changes may occur in the terminal to indicate new possible statistics for

user's new species.

\End of Notice/

I abruptly stop walking at the sight of the notice, just to start again to make sure I don't stand out.

What the heck? I didn't know the terminal could update itself...

But wait. Does that mean it might add a new statistic for the freezing things I touch power? Or something like that at least?

My thoughts are interrupted as we stop by one of the housing areas full of different housing quarters and Captain Ruthers suddenly approaches me and nods towards them while saying, "If you still need a sword, go ahead and take one from one of the housing quarters. The owner of the unit isn't using it."

A smile brightens my face at that suggestion, and I quickly salute him before rushing into the housing area to find a sword. Meanwhile, I hear the captain telling the others to do the same except to find a helmet for themselves instead of a sword.

Although why they have their swords on them but not their helmets is beyond me, it doesn't really matter.

I can finally get something better than these damn knives!

Chapter 14

Spider Bombers

Alexander North

After borrowing a sword from some random person's quarters and hanging it on my waist by its sheath, I pat it a few times with affection while walking back to the captains, who are standing guard at the entrance to the housing area with a couple of monster corpses next to them.

Hmm. Guess there really aren't as many monsters on the lower floors as the higher ones.

But on second thought, it makes sense. Considering that the shards would have to bury themselves deep underground to get here. Not to mention the monsters who'd have to break down the doors of the hallway and make it into the staircase.

There also seems to be a bit less frost everywhere down here.

"So, are we heading to BF6 next, sir?" I ask the captain of Phillip's group – or I guess it's now temporarily mine as well – once I reach the entrance to the housing area.

My question seems to surprise both him and the other two captains, but he just glances at my crest and seems to remember who I am as he answers, "That's correct, second lieutenant. We need to find the base commander, and that's the most likely place that he'll be at right now. It's one of the places we're all supposed to meet in an emergency."

I nod my head at that before looking down the hall as a wraith appears around the corner.

"There's a wraith," I mutter while pointing over at it, making the others look confused for a moment, only for that confusion to go away once they turn to see it.

The other two captains quickly rush over to deal with it, leaving my new captain with me as he asks, "What's a wraith?"

Oh. Right. Forgot that I was giving them a name.

"That's just the name I gave the fast ones with bladelike arms because they remind me of wraiths in the old mythology," I answer him with a shrug.

Captain Ruthers actually laughs at my explanation before muttering, "I think I like this kid."

I just stare at him for a second, only to shrug again.
Wonder what he'd say if he knew what I was.
Although I don't even know what I am.
"Captain Ruthers," I hear someone ask from behind us, making me

turn around to find one of the soldiers – a second lieutenant just like myself – standing behind us wearing a helmet with the rest of the soldiers standing behind him, "we have each found a helmet and are ready to move on."

The captain looks at the various soldiers before nodding and turning towards the other two captains while saying, "We'll move out once those two are finished dealing with the monster."

"Yes, sir!" the soldier exclaims in response.

It doesn't take long for them to finish before we quickly find ourselves moving through the floor again towards command central – which is basically just a large meeting hall where the higher ups meet to make important decisions. But oddly enough, once we actually get there, we find dozens of strange... creatures... inside of it. The creatures honestly just look like oversized spiders. Except ones with icicles growing out of their skin in seemingly random locations, and with light blue eyes.

"What the hell?" one of the other second lieutenants of the group mutters at the sight of them through the open doorway, attracting the creature's attention straight towards us.

"Eww," a few of the soldiers with us start fidgeting at the sight of them, with the majority of said soldiers being the girls of the group. But I do see a couple of guys doing it too. Likely all disgusted by the creatures.

Although what catches my attention over them is the one big guy who simply walks up towards them and reaches out to stomp on one of the spiders right when it gets close to him. Which turns out to be a really bad idea after the spider practically explodes, sending some sort of liquid flying out of its body, freezing everything it touches. But it doesn't just freeze it,

as shown by the quick onset of frostbite on the big guy's leg as he screams he head off after the liquid literally soaked through the armor on it in an instant.

"Shit, don't step on them!" one of the captains shouts, followed by another one who shouts, "Try to use your swords to kill them as cleanly and as far away from your body as possible!"

Easier said than done, considering how they're only one foot in length, but I obviously don't mention that out loud. Instead, I grab my knives, because they're better against smaller targets, and honestly, because I don't want to ruin my new sword already, and quickly start stabbing the little critters before they get close enough to me to do whatever they're planning on doing.

Each of the soldiers around me proceed to tear into the spiders with awkward movements due to not being used to attacking such small creatures so carefully. Eventually it reaches the point that a couple of them mess up and end up being suicide bombed by the spiders, which only serves to freak out the other soldiers and cause them to make even more mistakes.

I continue killing more and more spiders until one of the soldiers near me messes up and lets one of the spiders suicide bomb on him, making some of the icy liquid spray my arm. However, what surprises me is that the liquid simply freezes the armor covering it but doesn't do anything to my arm underneath after soaking through, so I simply rip that part off and continue attacking the spiders.

It ends up taking us several minutes before we finally get rid of all of the spiders, following which the captains order the medics amongst us to begin looking over everyone's injuries. And once the medic for my new temporary squad reaches me and tries to examine my arm beneath the now- torn-off sleeve, I simply wave them off and tell them, "Don't worry. It was just leftover splash from one of the monsters that self-destructed on someone else."

The medic looks at me with obvious suspicion for a moment before checking my arm anyways, finding nothing wrong, and moving on to the next person.

Guess she couldn't just believe my word on it?

I turn around to look for Phillip, only for my eyes to quickly find Captain Ruthers staring directly at me with suspicion in his own eyes.

Oh. Wait. Did he see what happened?

Because that'd be bad if he did.

After staring at me for a few seconds, he quietly whispers something to the medic that had just inspected my arm. The medic then says something back to him and moves on, leaving him to get up and approach me.

Shit. He knows something's up.

I anxiously wait as he gets closer and closer until he kneels down next to me and whispers to me, "You got a symbiont from your father, didn't you?"

My mouth drops open at that question, but he doesn't even give me a chance to respond as he nods with a disappointed look on his face before he stands back up again, says, "Looks like I was wrong about you, second lieutenant," and walks away.

Wait... what?