Mutagen

"What kind of place is this?"

Emika complained as she blew away the dust above some bedside tables.

Not only the old tables and chairs, but even the ragged beds were dusty. It seemed that this place had not received proper cleaning for a long time.

"You don\'t have to complain. At least, it\'s not as dusty as an abandoned house."

Mark said, ruffling Emika\'s green hair.

What he said was true. An abandoned house would be even dustier and, for the worst situations, had dead bodies lying about.

Still, for a dwelling inside a Military Encampment, this kind of thing was not acceptable. But what could they do?

"Gege, should I take out the beddings?"

Mei asked.

"Take it out. We can\'t use these dirty beds as it is."

Mark replied.

Of course, Mark\'s group was prepared for this journey. They knew that they would not be able to travel along the way in just one day. It was already surprising that they reached this place in one go. Actually, at a regular pace, they would need at least one and a half days to arrive here. However, they rushed it, going straight at this port even though the sun had already set.

Why?

They wanted a proper place to butcher the giant octopus. At best, they wanted it to be alive and fresh. Unfortunately, the shortest way to reach this place was going over several mountains where seawater was nonexistent. Thus, halfway through the journey, the food they wanted to stay alive already died and had to be stored inside Mark\'s ring. Although time was not stopped inside the ring, in the least, its body would be away from other elements that could hasten its loss of freshness.

After all, who would not want fresh seafood to eat?

As Mark agreed, Mei activated her ring, taking out several beddings made of soft fur. These were tailored from the skins of evolved animals that were hunted in the mountains. Most were large mountain rats and deers, though, and while some came from the same animal species, it had different colors due to the difference in their evolution characteristics.

"Let me help."

Pearl said, volunteering to help Mei cover the dusty beds with the fur beddings she took out.

"Wow, those rings are really convenient."

Emika remarked. It was the second time she saw this as Mark had shown his when storing the octopus. In the least, she was not spoiled enough to say that she also wanted one. Still, she was amazed at how Mark\'s group had such magical items. Nevertheless, it was not surprising considering Mark had Amihan, and there was also Pefile that was now in disguise.

Speaking of Amihan...

"Puha! Master! Are you not going to let me out?!"

Amihan yelled as her head popped out of Mark\'s backpack.

This sylph had already lost her ability to hide from the sight of humans. Thus, she could only hide inside the bag.

"My bad."

Mark replied as he put down the backpack and let Amihan out. Aside from Amihan, there was also Ivy that Mark had brought this time. As the two got out, the bag was practically empty. It was just something for disguise, after all.

"Why does she have to hide anyway? Uncle, didn\'t you just let her sit on your shoulder back then in Bay City?"

Emika asked, and she was not wrong. Back in Bay City, Amihan was out for everyone to see. That was also the case in the New Infanta Settlement. Now, however, he was making her hide. Not only her, but even Chaflar was also left in the mountains, waiting for his orders.

"It\'s because we don\'t know who is an ally and who is an enemy in this place yet," Mark replied. "The situation in this place is different from the other two settlements you had been before. It is better to hide our cards in the beginning just in case."

"Ah! A wolf in sheep\'s skin!"

Emika exclaimed. It seemed that she was rather enjoying it.

It was not hard to do, actually. Their group was composed of three men, two women, and four children. It appeared to be a pretty harmless group. Of course, that was if the opposite party forgot the part that this group actually traveled from Infanta to this place. A group that could do such a thing, even with a vehicle, was not your typical group of survivors. It was quite impossible to do in these times, even if all the members of the group were all grown men.

It did not take long, and the beddings were fixed. They even cleaned the place a bit.

"By the way, Uncle," Emika remembered something. "I\'ve read manga and novels giving packets of cigarettes and a pack of noodles to their guides. You\'re the first one I saw throw a can of tuna."

"Seriously, you can\'t zip your mouth, do you?"

Mark complained.

"Not everyone smokes, and a pack of noodles is not that good when the person can\'t boil water. Unless the guy wanted to eat it crunchy. Even if he managed to cook it, he won\'t be able to eat it alone since the smell would scatter everywhere. You should know what comes next after that. There\'s no way a good soldier would be able to reject his comrades if they asked him for some. In the least, an easy-open can of tuna could be eaten immediately in a corner."

"Ah, I see."

Emika nodded. She agreed with what Mark did.

"Gege, what should we do about dinner?"

Mei asked. In fact, there was no mention of dinner being given by the soldiers at all.

"Of course, we are cooking." Mark said as he pulled out a tentacle of the octopus from his ring. "Takoyaki would be good but we can\'t really cook something like that here. Let\'s just marinate it a bit and cover it with breading."

And with that, they started cooking inside the dilapidated barracks.

***

"How is that group that arrived earlier?"

The fat soldier, Captain Zacaria, asked one of the soldiers that were on patrol.

Captain Zacaria was currently sitting in the office area, looking closely at the letter that was still with him. He was trying to examine if this letter was real or not. Unfortunately, from the format to the seal, there was no doubt that it was authentic.

"Sir, that group is now at the temporary shelter."

The soldier replied.

"They didn\'t come out or ask anything? How about food? Most survivors that arrived here before were like starving dogs asking for food the moment they arrived."

Captain Zacaria said with eyes filled with contempt.

"Nothing of sorts, Sir."

The soldier replied with a little shake of his head.

"Oh well, no matter. It\'s better if they don\'t ask. We can conserve more food that way. You can go now."

The fat captain said as he drove his subordinate away.

With those words, the soldier turned around and left. The moment the captain could not see his face anymore, his expression changed, gritting his teeth in annoyance.

Captain Zacaria did not notice that since his mind was preoccupied with something else. As the soldier left his office, he started to rummage on his things. He soon found a radio. Strangely, though, it was not a model that was currently being used by the military.

He was supposed to report to the higher positions about the arrival of the messengers from Infanta Settlement. But for sure, it was not them that this fat man was trying to contact.

***

"Conserving food, my ass. You\'re the one who should conserve on food, you pig."

The soldier grumbled after he closed the door of the office. He then left, looking for his close friend.

Unexpectedly, the soldier did not find his friend in the usual spots. Looking around some more, he found his friend, Private Geronimo. He was hiding at the sandy part of the port below the deck.

The soldier was confused as to what his friend was doing here, sitting in the corner.

Geronimo did not notice him. As such, it was time to sneak on the guy.

"BUAH!"

The soldier cried out as he grabbed Geronimo\'s shoulders.

"SH*T!" Geronimo jumped, shocked. "F*CK! Padua! You scared me!"

Geronimo\'s face was pale as he received the scare of his life. However, he noticed that it was not only him who was surprised. Padua was staring at him, no, his hand. He noticed that he was still holding onto what he was eating sneakily.

"You want?"

Geronimo said awkwardly.

"S-sh*t, dude. Give me some!"

Padua said without shame. The two were friends since they were just cadets. Having a face between the two was history.

With that, the two sat down, sharing the can of tuna together.

"Damn! This is good. It\'s been a long time I got to eat something like this. The rations we recieves tastes like sh*t."

Padua said, munching on the flakes of tuna in his spoon.

"Seriously, pipe down." Geronimo complained. "You\'re already a soldier. Stop spewing curses everywhere and have some decorum."

"Who minds decorum in a private matter? Even our president curses in his speeches."

Padua replied, making Geronimo sigh.

"You really got this from those guys? If I knew, I would have volunteered to guide them"

Padua added after hearing where the can of tuna came from. At first, he thought that his friend stole it somewhere.

"It\'s not like I volunteered myself, alright?" Geronimo shrugged. "I just got lucky."

"Lucky, my ass." Padua retorted. "You\'re just being bullied by that fat bastard, and that is why he always calls you to do menial tasks."

That was right. While Padua was a person that was giving a decent front but was hard to control in the back, Geronimo was the opposite. Thus, he was easy to be targetted by bullying even back in the academy. Fortunately, Padua was there to shield him at those times. Unfortunately, even Padua could not do anything to the fat bastard that was ordering them right now.

Well, Geronimo was also right, though. Amidst the bullying, he received a large can of tuna to snack on. In fact, he only wanted to eat half of it and gave the other half to Padua sneakily. There was no need to do that now, however.

While the two were eating sneakily, a sudden commotion entered their ears. Along with the noise, a fragrant smell entered their noses, making their stomachs grumble.

"What the f*ck?!" Padua cried out. "Is someone cooking?"

Without thinking, Padua stood up, sniffing the direction where the smell was coming from.

"It is coming from there!" Padua started to follow the smell before turning back to Geronimo. "Let\'s go!"

Geronimo could only scratch his head and followed behind his friend.

Soon, they arrived at the place where the smell was coming from. To no surprise, not only the two friends were here, but there were also other soldiers. It was not wrong to say that all of the soldiers currently not on duty were attracted to the smell. It was expected since the port was just small.

The unexpected thing, however, the smell was coming from the dilapidated barracks.

And thus, everyone was confused. Mass hallucination? Maybe. After all, that place had no cooking equipment at all. And right now, only that group that arrived earlier was inside. However, none of them saw the group having large baggage at all. There was no way that they could have brought cooking equipment.

"What is going on here!"

A grouchy roar was heard and the soldiers parted to make way. Of course, it was no other than the pig captain, Zacaria.

The soldiers became silent, but the commotion did not die down. After all, the smell of freshly fried food continuously entered their noses.

It was torture on their stomachs that was used to eating tasteless food.