บท 34: Enhanced Human I
"Aghh." I gritted my teeth and rolled down the bed as the extreme pain went through my whole body.
This pain. I remembered this pain. How could I forget it. How could anyone ever forget it.
I looked around but everything was a blur because of the pain and even if I saw anything, I would not have been able to register it in my mind anyway.
"GGhhhh." I groaned as the pain reached a height that I had never experienced before.
I had went through a lot in past week or so and my will had become far stronger than before. But the pain was still just as unbearable as before.
I heard someone holding my hand and saying something in my ears. But could not make out her voice properly.
'I cannot fall here. I have a family to take care of.' I held on but the pain only became worse and worse.
Because of the intense pain, I almost felt my consciousness fading. I struck my hand against the ground so that I could hold on to my consciousness a while more. But then the pain struck once again.
This was the worst I have ever felt in my entire life.
I even started to question if fighting against it was really worth it or not. But as the fight was going on inside my mind, I saw a figure from the corner of my eyes. I could only make out faint silhouette and did not knew who the person was. But I was reminded of my family once again.
'I will no fall.' I clenched my fist and felt the extreme pain in my whole body reach it's peak before it softly subsided once again.
As the pain went away, I was hit with an extreme exhaustion while took away my consciousness regardless of how I fought against it.
Before I fell asleep, I heard the faint voice of Sera coming from a distant place. She was taking my name again and again and she sounded worried.
'What's she worried about?' I thought faintly before the exhaustion took over and I lost my consciousness.
—————
I woke up when I heard Neha's voice around me. She was talking with Sera about something but I could not make out what they were saying.
Before I could move, I felt the extreme fatigue in my body. I wondered if this is what people who just finished a marathon felt like.
I had woken up but the exhaustion took over once and before I could even open my eyes, I fell asleep once again.
—————
I opened up my eyes slowly but nothing but saw nothing but darkness around me. If it had not been for the faint moonlight coming from the window, I would have thought that I was in some kind of simulator once again. Except this time, the surroundings were dark instead of being bright.
But the moonlight assured me that such was not the case. It was only night time.
Ever since the electricity of this area had been cut off, we had started to use lamps and candles at night. But right now, the whole room was plunged into darkness.
'How long have I been out for?' I thought in puzzlement and tried to get up but felt a heavy weight on my chest.
I looked down to see a faint silhouette of a girl who was sitting beside my bed. She had rested her hands on top of me and was soaring loudly.
"Neha…" I said and heard her wake up in response.
'No… Not Neha.' I thought.
'Advanced Vision Skill. Activate. Night Vision. Activate' I said and everything around me became clear once again.
"Sera?" I asked in puzzlement.
"Ashok. You woke up?" she replied dazedly in her sleepiness and tried to touch my face in the darkness to check if I had really woken up or not.
'Sigh! This girl.' I thought and held her hand.
As soon as I held her hand, I saw her eyes go wide in surprise and all of her sleepiness went away at once.
"Ashok. You woke up." She got up at once and distanced herself from me in embarrassment.
"Yes. I've woken up." I said with a smile. I removed the blanket laid on top of me and got out of the bed.
The exhaustion I had felt earlier had washed away completely. In fact, I don't think I've felt so fresh ever before.
Not only fresh. I felt full of energy. I suddenly had the urge to go and find a few 2nd tier abnormals so that I could fight them and use this energy somehow. I had a strange feeling that killing a 2nd tier abnormal in my current state would be very easy for me.
But I held my emotions in check and went and lit up the lamp before doing anything else.
Just because I could see well in darkness doesn't mean everyone else could do so as well.
The room became bright once again and I deactivated my Night vision.
"I… I will go and tell everyone that you've woken up." Sera suddenly said and went out of the room before I could say anything else.
I wasn't really in the mood to talk with other people right now and wanted to stop her but… oh well. Rahul and Neha must have been worried about me so I owe them a few explanations I guess.
After a few seconds, I hear footsteps from outside the room before Neha entered the room. The looked me and her worried look turned into elation and she jumped at me with a hug.
"You've woken up. That's so good." Then she continued to hug me in silence for a few more seconds before she raised her head to look at me with an angry expression and said "Do you know how worried we were today?"
Before I could say anything else, Rahul entered the room along with Sera. The guy named Raka followed after him along with a few more people but they all stopped outside the room and didn't enter.
"You feeling alright." Rahul asked me with a smile.
"Never felt better." I said.
"Never felt better?" Neha asked with an irritated voice "Let me make you feel even better then."
Saying so, she went ahead and started punching at my stomach but strangely, none of her hits did anything to me.
It felt as if I was hit by some 2 year old kid.
Although my strength had increased greatly before this, I knew that Neha also had a strength of more then 2.0 so I should feel at least some amount of pain.
But I felt nothing from all of her punches and kicks.
I had a confused expression on my face. "Is this because I evolved into an Enhanced human?"
After a while, Neha got tired but looking at my confused expression, she became even more angry.
"Big bro" she turned to look at Rahul and said "Lend me your sword for a moment."
"Oi!!!" I woke up from my introspection and rushed to stop Rahul from doing so. I ran ahead and hugged Neha tightly so that she would not be able to move anymore. After that, I took her to the bed and sat her down beside me.
"Little sister. Why are you so vexed. Let's talk and settle this in peace alright."
"Why am I so vexed?" she looked at me with displeasure and said "Is this something you should ask after. Do you not know how worried we were for the entire day? And you ask why I am so vexed. Big bro, give me your sword, let me chop a few fingers from this irresponsible brother of mine."
"Calm down Neha." Rahul said with a smile as he rubbed Neha's head gently. "Let's hear your brother's story first. If you don't like his explanation, then it still won't be too late to chop his fingers, right?"
"Yeah. I guess you are right." Neha then looked at me with her cute yet angry expression "Speak. Why did you worried us so much for the entire day?"
"I… I will explain." I wiped the sweat from my forehead as I looked at this fierce little sister of mine. 'God, why didn't you made my sister a bit more gentle.'
I could see Sera trying to stifle her laughter from behind Rahul. Rahul also had an amused expression as he was taking pleasure from my misfortune.
'Why no sympathy for me :'( '
After that, I went ahead and explained everything to them. From how I chased after the soldiers. To how I stopped their reinforcements. How they fought against the abnormals and how I benefited from their fight.
Of course, I toned down all the aggressive parts and didn't tell them about the fight against the dogs which left me heavily injured in case they worried about me even more.
After that, I explained what happened when I increased all of my stats to 4.0 points. The fight with the abnormal in the simulation, the black fog and the talk about evolution and so on.
"So you see… I'm innocent and you can't really blame me for all of this." I said in a pleading tone and observed Neha's expression carefully.
She had a thoughtful expression for a while before she said "Alright. I guess I'll forgive you this time. But don't be so reckless the next time."
"Of course." I said and sighed in my heart. 'Looks like I'm lucky this time and won't be rebuked by little Neha anymore.'
"Rahul." I then turned to look at him and said "I used the white coins and bought this spatial ring. There are three rifles, three crates of ammunition and some other stuff inside of it."
Rahul took the spatial ring and emptied it's contents on the ground. I could see a shocked expression on Sera's and Neha's face when they looked at the stuff on the ground.
Although Abnormals were scary, guns were scary as well.
"Here." Rahul said and gave the Spatial ring back to me.
"You're not keeping it?" I asked.
"No. You got it with your own efforts so I cannot keep it for myself." He said with a smile.
"Alright then." I said and wore the ring back in my finger.
"Hmm… Good." Rahul said and then opened his hologram.
He then did something in his interface and all the Guns and ammunition on the ground turned into white lights and entered his Black Watch.
"What was that?" I asked in surprised. It was the first time I had seen such a thing happen.
Although the Black watch could take the Cores in a similar manner and materialize stuff like swords and suits out of nowhere, I had never seen it take anything like guns and ammunition before this.
"This? Oh! This is a new option of the Black watch." Rahul said and showed the interface to me as well.
In the interface, one of the icons which had an question mark earlier on had now become clear.
It was a globe as an icon below which the words 'Buy and Sell Worldwide.'
"Why don't I have such an option in my Black watch?" I asked in confusion.
'Actually you do.' Lily said in my mind.
'I do?' I opened up my hologram and checked up my interface and true to her words, there was indeed a new usable icon in there as well.
'This icon only opened up today.' Lily explained.
'Why?' I asked.
'Well… Today is the eighth day of the Apocalypse. You've survived a week in this place on your own so this is a kind of gift for you guys… I guess.'
'Is that it.' I blanked out for a moment at this information before I came back to myself. 'Well… Whatever then, I guess.'
"Should we sell those grenades as well?" I asked.
"No. They are useful but… yeah, I'll sell four of them." Saying that, four of the eight grenades turned into light which then went inside the Black watch.
Till this day, I've not been able to figure out how something can just go inside the Black like that. But since I was not able to figure it out, I threw it to the back of my mind and got used to it pretty soon.
"Neha and… Sera right?" Rahul asked as he looked at Sera.
"Yes."
"I want to talk with Ashok alone for a while. Can you give us some space?"
"Yes." Both nodded and left the room. Although Neha seemed to be a bit disgruntled about being sent outside like this, she went out quietly nonetheless.
After everyone left, only me and Rahul were left in the room.
"How long was I asleep?" I asked.
"Not long." Rahul replied and checked the time once again "Seven or eight hours. Give or take."
"Is that so." I said and thought 'If I had done this while I was outside, I would be in grave danger. Lily why did you not tell me about this?'
'You were already in a safe place when you increased all your stats to 4.0 points. There was no need for me to tell you about the after effects of the evolving procedure.'
'Sigh! Well… I guess there's that'
"You said that you were taken to a simulation room after the black fog covered your body?" Rahul asked with a deep frown.
"Yes. It was not really a room, but a whole world. Something wrong with that?" I asked as I looked at his expression.
He stayed silent for a while before he spoke once again "No. Not really. Anything else except for the simulator?"
"No. That was all." I replied.
"Good." Then he went ahead and laid down on the bed.
"I'll going to evolve now. Don't tell Neha about it. But inform Raka and Vivek to come and protect me while I'm asleep. They'll know what to do."
"You're going to evolve now?" I asked with a frown. I knew that the evolving was a deadly process and anyone with a low amount of will power would most likely not survive it.
I knew that Rahul had a strong will power but that didn't stop me from worrying about him.
"Don't worry about me." Rahul said with a chuckle when he looked at my expression. "I'll be perfectly alright."
"Okay. I'll go and inform the Raka guy and the other one… whatever his name was."
"Vivek."
"Yeah. Raka and Vivek. I understand." Saying that, I went out to find the two guys Rahul had told me about.
After finding them, I brought them back to Rahul who gave them instructions to guard the room while he goes through the procedure.
After Rahul ate a few crystals, I saw the Black fog coming out of his Black watch and covering his entire body.
But unlike when I had seen the Black fog and freaked out, Rahul had a calm expression.
Raka and Vivek on the other hand had fallen to the ground with a fright. Looking at their scared expression, I understood that the Severe Pain must have scarred them for life.
"Don't worry. It won't hurt you." I consoled them. But I was a bit amused by their expression.
'I guess this is what it means by the idiom 'Taking pleasure in other's misfortune'.'
The Black fog soon covered Rahul's entire body and my expression turned solemn.
I stood beside the bed and looked the Black intensely.
One minute passed… Nothing happened.
Two minutes passed… The black fog was still there with no changes.
Five minutes passed… I was getting the urge to blow away the Black Fog as I was worried about Rahul's safety but decided against doing such a thing.
Ten minutes passed and finally, the black fog dispersed into the air.
Raka and Vivek freaked out when the black fog dispersed but I paid them no mind. Instead, I looked at Rahul intensely. His face was calm just like before. But I knew what was going to happen next.
After a minute passed, Rahul opened his eyes and his expression suddenly contorted with pain.
I could see him gritting his teeth and clenching his hands in pain.
I went ahead and gave him hand to hold. He took my hands instantly and looked at me with pained expression.
"You can do it." I said as I tried to bear with the pain of my hand being crushed.
After evolving, I could feel that my physique had become far better than before. But I could still feel an intense pain when he gripped my hand tightly. This only goes to show how painful this was for him.
"You can do it. I know you can." I said with a solemn tone. "You've to take care of Neha and me. So hold on. It'll go away in just a few seconds."
I didn't knew if he could hear me or not. Or if he could even understand what I said. But he looked at me with and nodded his head slowly.
I was shocked when he did that.
When the pain hit me, I was not able to hear anything clearly. Nor was I able to think clearly.
The fact that Rahul was nodding his head could only mean that his condition was far better than mine.
This brought me great relief because now I understood that Rahul will able to deal with this pain.
I held his hands tightly and we both looked at each other for a few more seconds when suddenly, the tight grip on my hands loosened and he took a deep breath.
"You survived." I said with a smile. He smiled back at me before he closed his eyes and fell asleep due to the exhaustion that comes after evolving.
I looked at him for a full minute and when I was finally convinced that everything was alright, I turned to look at Raka and Vivek.
"You know what to do right?"
"Yes." Both of them replied.
"Very well then. Guard this place properly. I'm going out for a while." I said and went out of the door.
"Where are you going?" the guy named Vivek asked from behind.
"Out of the town. For a hunt." I said and jumped down from the roof.
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