For every 100 power stones, there will be a bonus chapter!
×××
My physical strength is really difficult to keep under control.
Every movement I make has to be carefully calculated, or I end up destroying things unintentionally.
Even so, I'm pretty fast. The scene around me blurs as I run through the deserted streets at night.
The lampposts pass by like streaks of light, and the houses... Well, all I see is a blur of movement, so I can't describe much.
Then I see a house right in front of me.
And I realize something.
I'm going to crash into it.
If I crash at this speed, I'll go right through the wall. I'll probably end up in the living room of some family who will be sleeping peacefully.
"Shit!"
It's too late to stop now. My legs are moving too fast. So I curse and jump with all my might without thinking about the consequences.
—Craaaack!
The street beneath my feet shatters like glass as cracks spread in all directions, forming a small crater where I was standing. And I shoot upward.
Up. Higher. Even higher.
Seeing that I'm too high, I wave my arms frantically in panic.
"Waaaah! Shit, shit, shit!"
But I'm not a bird. You know how I realized that? Because I don't have wings. So I'm still a mutated zombie.
Gravity does its thing and pushes me down mercilessly.
"Uaaahhh!"
—Wuuuooomm!
I fall heavily onto the roof of a house. Luckily, the roof doesn't break and I don't fall through it. That would have been really embarrassing if I had been found.
How would I explain it to the police in that case?
"Ouch..."
Ah, right, it doesn't hurt.
"Damn cats! Stop running around on the roof!"
I hear an old man cursing in the house below me. He sounds very angry and sleepy.
"I'm not a cat, sir!"
I shout those words.
There is silence.
Then more shouting.
"WHAT THE HELL!? WHO'S THERE!?"
"I'm sorry!"
I run again before the old man comes out with a shotgun or something.
I jump off the roof and land on another roof of the house next door.
—Pump!
Then I jump to another.
—Pump!
And another.
—Pump!
It seems that jumping from roof to roof is helping me understand my superhuman strength a little better. I'm learning to control how much force to put into each jump so I don't fly off.
"Fufufu..."
Soon I'm laughing in the night as I run and jump like a grasshopper.
I find it fun to jump from one roof to another because it's liberating.
Soon I arrive at Rei's house after jumping across the rooftops and getting scolded a couple of times by people who mistook me for a cat.
The house in front of me is not much different from the surrounding houses, even though Rei's father is a police officer. It is a two-story house with white walls and a dark roof.
However, it has more security than the other houses in the neighborhood. The wall surrounding it is high, probably about three meters, and I can see that the windows have bars.
Rei's father takes his family's safety seriously.
But for me, with my new physical powers, jumping over the wall is easy.
"Hup!"
I jump and land in the backyard. My feet touch the grass softly despite having jumped three meters high.
I'm getting better at controlling my strength.
At that moment, I peek through the glass windows where Rei's father's room should be.
I see that the window is slightly open. It makes sense. It's winter, but tonight it's hot weather after all.
However, I think that in this situation, it's very risky to leave windows open at night.
I don't want my friend's father's head to be eaten by worms.
Rei would be devastated if that happened. She would cry a lot. And surely the parasite would kill her to keep its identity secret.
Thinking about this with concern, I look into the darkness of the room using my enhanced vision.
I see a strongly built man sleeping in the bed. His breathing is deep and regular.
He doesn't seem to be possessed by a parasite as there are no strange movements and there are no glowing worms crawling on his body.
I sigh in relief and silently jump through the open window into the room.
Then I close the window carefully to make sure no damn worms get in.
My footsteps make no noise as I walk through the dark room.
I have greatly improved in controlling my weight and movements. However, I still struggle to control my absurd strength.
Sighing internally, I grab the door handle and do my best not to rip it off by mistake.
I turn it very carefully as my arms tense up.
Calm down, arm! Don't use too much force! We're in a police officer's room!
I'm not a thief, but still...
I feel a little bad entering someone else's house at night.
But it's for my friend's sake! There's nothing wrong with that!
As I said those silly words to myself in my mind, the door opens without making the slightest sound.
Then I step out into the hallway, closing the door behind me.
I've been inside Rei's house a few times when his father invited me over for lunch. He's a good man. He always treats me kindly, even though other adults look at me with fear. That's why I know where Rei's room is.
I walk quietly down the hallway, clenching my fists nervously.
I don't know what I would do if I found Rei not being Rei, but a parasite who took her identity.
I'd probably go crazy.
The door to her room is locked from the inside. I can see the pink light from her night lamp seeping under the door.
One of my fingers transforms into a knife.
I insert that transformed finger into the lock and carefully turn it.
Hehe... a lock pick integrated into my body. With this, it's easy to break in.
Uhum! I mean, meow.
Just then, I hear something inside the room.
My senses also became very sharp after eating the two alien worms. That's why I can now hear the sound of something wet sliding on fabric.
It's the sound of the worms.
'No!'
My face wrinkles in horror and I quickly open the door without worrying about making noise.
On the pink bed with sheets decorated with bunnies, a girl with orange-brown hair sleeps as moonlight streams in through the open window.
It's Rei, my first friend in this world.
She has helped me a lot in not trying to kill myself.
But my eyes quickly spot a green worm emitting a fluorescent glow.
That ugly thing quickly slithers across the pink blanket before dangerously approaching Rei's face.
I turn pale.
'Rei!'
I run over there as fast as I can, destroying the floor.
The parasite jumps toward Rei's nose. Did it spot me?
I jump too.
Time. I need more time.
Just as the worm is about to reach her nose, my palm closes around the slimy insect, catching it in midair.
"Gotcha..."
I stare coldly at the insect writhing violently in my closed hand, desperately trying to escape. I can feel its panic frequencies.
Then I crush it mercilessly.
—Squish!
At that moment, Rei opens her eyes to the noise and movement in her room. She rubs her eyes sleepily and looks around in confusion.
"Huh...? What was that noise...?"
But she doesn't see me.
Because I've already jumped out the window and hidden outside, clinging to the frame and the wall. Tomorrow they'll probably find finger marks digging into the brick.
I peek carefully through the window and see her yawning. She looks around her room once more with sleepy eyes. Then she shrugs and lies back down, muttering something about annoying cats.
Cats again...? They have a bad reputation around here, huh.
Within seconds, she's fast asleep again.
I breathe a sigh of relief and close the window from the outside carefully so as not to make any noise.
"I'll have to tell Rei tomorrow that she should close the windows when she sleeps..."
It's dangerous to leave them open with these parasites falling from the sky.
If I hadn't arrived in time, the parasite would have already entered her head. It would have devoured her brain, and Rei would have ceased to exist.
Thinking about that, I regret killing the worm in my hand so quickly.
It would have been nice to torture it a little more for daring to approach my friend.
Anyway, I look at the squashed worm in my palm. It's dead but still glows faintly.
I throw it into my mouth and eat it.
It tastes the same as the others.
I was curious to see if I would receive any additional physical improvements or gain any new abilities.
Some laser beams from my eyes or something cool like that? Please.
However, that doesn't happen.
I don't feel the burning heat from before.
I guess then that it only works at the beginning when you eat the first few parasites. Which is a little disappointing but makes sense.
You can't become infinitely stronger by eating infinite worms. That would be absurd even for me.
"Now... I must hurry to get to Saya."
Her house is further away on the wealthy side of city. Probably about twenty minutes running at normal speed.
I'm worried that the same thing happened to her as to Rei. That a parasite is trying to get into her head while she sleeps.
If I don't get there in time, I'll lose her.
And I can't allow that.
"Let's go!"
I jump over the wall of Rei's house and start running through the deserted streets at full speed.
The world around me becomes blurry.
All I can think about is getting there in time.
But that doesn't happen because I didn't make it in time.