"Mutant...?"
The word didn't just hang in the air; it landed like a heavy stone dropped into a stagnant pond.
Chen stopped shaking. The primal terror that had dilated his pupils a moment ago evaporated, replaced instantly by a different kind of intensity. A feverish, scientific greed. He looked at the gun barrel digging into the loose skin of his forehead, then at the charred, smoking stump of the vine, and finally, his gaze locked onto Alex.
"Mutant meat..." Chen whispered. The words sounded wet. He licked his lips, which were cracked and stained with black soil. "High energy density. Complex proteins. The nitrates... God, the nitrates would be exquisite."
His shoulders slumped. The resistance drained out of him, replaced by a desperate hunger that had nothing to do with an empty stomach.
"You have the corpses?" Chen asked. His voice cracked, shifting from a scream to a conspiratorial wheeze. "The carapaces? The fluid sacs?"
"I have the fire," Alex said, his voice flat. "And I have the strength to drag them up here. Do you?"
Chen looked down at his own hands. They were thin, shaking, the knuckles swollen and caked in dirt. He shook his head frantically. Fast. Jerky.
"No. No muscle. Just brain. Just thumbs."
Alex holstered the pistol. The immediate threat of death vanished, but the pressure remained, heavy and suffocating like the smell of ozone and burnt plant matter that filled the room.
"Show me your value," Alex said. He stepped back, giving the madman space to breathe, but kept his hand resting near the hilt of his tactical knife. "If this dead weed is all you have, you're useless to me. I can burn this room to keep warm and loot the ashes for fertilizer."
"No! Not useless!"
Chen scrambled backward, his boots slipping on the slick, muddy floor. He didn't try to run for the door. He dropped to his knees, crawling through the muck toward a raised garden bed constructed from a hollowed-out mahogany bookshelf.
He dug like a terrier. Dirt flew over his shoulder, splattering the expensive wallpaper.
"Wait! Wait! You think I just feed her? No, no, no. She is the guardian, but this... this is the treasure!"
He plunged his arm deep into the soil, shoulder-deep, groping for something buried near the bottom.
"Here! Look! My masterpiece!"
He yanked his arm back.
In his hand, clutching it like a holy relic, was a tuber.
It wasn't a potato. Not anymore. It was a tumor the size of a grapefruit, translucent and throbbing. Under the harsh, bruised purple of the grow lights, faint blue veins pulsed inside the flesh, rhythmic and slow. It looked less like a vegetable and more like an organ harvested from a deep-sea creature.
Chen held it up. Mud dripped down his wrist.
"Gen 4," Chen panted, his eyes wide and unblinking. "The Crystal Tuber. Fast metabolism. Eats radiation. Grows in the dark. Three days. Seed to harvest."
Alex reached out. Chen flinched but didn't pull away.
Alex took it. It felt cold. Abnornally heavy. It felt like holding a wet stone wrapped in human skin.
[Item: Mutated Crystal Potato]
[Grade: Common (Mutated)]
[Effect: Restores Satiety. +0.1 Constitution (Max 10 stacks).]
[Side Effect: Taste -5. Mild Nausea.]
[Description: Survival food born from desperation and brilliance. It tastes like raw wax and despair, but it hardens the body against the new world.]
Constitution.
Alex's pupils contracted.
In the System, stats were gold. They were the difference between tanking a hit and dying instantly. Gear broke. Bullets ran out. But stats were permanent. Finding a renewable source of permanent stat-boosting food on Day 3 wasn't just luck. It was a jackpot. It was a glitch in the matrix of survival.
He squeezed the tuber. It didn't squash; it had the density of hard rubber.
"Edible?" Alex asked, his eyes never leaving the glowing vegetable.
"Yes! Yes!" Chen nodded so hard his neck cracked. "Taste is... rough. Texture is difficult. But it keeps the cold out. I ate two yesterday. Look! Look at me!"
He ripped open his dirty lab coat. Buttons popped and pinged off the marble floor.
Under the grime and the protruding ribs of a starving man, his skin wasn't the pale, sickly white of someone living underground. It was tough. Greyish. It looked like cured leather or the hide of a rhino.
"It changes you," Chen whispered, a mix of pride and horror in his voice. "It makes you hard. Tough. Fit for the ice."
Alex tossed the potato in the air. It spun, catching the purple light, and landed back in his palm with a solid slap.
"Three days?"
"If the fertilizer is good," Chen said, wringing his hands. "With neighbor meat? Three days. With bug meat? High mana concentration? Maybe two. Maybe less."
Alex nodded slowly.
The loop was closed.
He killed the monsters. He brought the bodies. Chen processed the biomass. Chen grew the power-ups. Alex ate. Alex got stronger. Alex killed bigger monsters.
It was perfect. A resource engine built on violence and botany.
"Good," Alex said.
He looked at Chen. The doctor was vibrating with anxiety, waiting for approval, waiting to see if he lived or died based on the weird lump of starch in Alex's hand.
Alex reached into his inventory.
Space warped. The air shimmered. A scroll materialized in his hand—black parchment bound in white bone, radiating a faint, sinister heat.
[Item: Lesser Slave Contract]
[Source: Starter Pack (Tyrant Route)]
He threw it onto the butcher block.
THUD.
The sound was heavy, final. The scroll unrolled itself, the bone weights dragging the paper flat. Red runes burned on the surface, smelling of sulfur and iron.
"Sign," Alex said.
Clause one... Owner holds right of life and death. Clause two... 90% of all harvest belongs to the Owner. Clause three... Betrayal results in immediate cerebral liquidation."
Chen froze. He jabbed a dirty finger at the 90% figure.
"Ten percent?" His voice climbed an octave. "I starve on ten! I die!"
"You get protection," Alex cut him off. "Heat. Unlimited biomass. You live."
Alex rested his hand on his knife hilt. Leather creaked.
"Or. I put a bullet in your brain. I take your notes. I hire a janitor to water the plants."
Chen didn't hesitate. Logic of the apocalypse: Value equals survival. Negotiating with a gun in your face wasn't business. It was suicide.
He grabbed a pen. Dry. Useless. He threw it into the mud.
He bit his own thumb.
CRUNCH.
Teeth tore through callus. Skin popped. Warm salt flooded his mouth. Dark blood welled up.
He slammed his print onto the parchment.
HISS.
The scroll burst into flames. It didn't turn to ash; it burned into energy. Two beams of crimson light shot out. One slammed into Chen's chest. One hit Alex.
[System Notification] [Contract Established] [Subordinate Acquired: Dr. Chen (Lvl 2 Botanist)] [Loyalty: 60% (Fear/Greed)]
Chen rubbed his chest. He gasped. He clawed at his dirty shirt. The mark—a black chain link—seared his skin like a fresh brand.
"Excellent." Alex kicked a plastic crate. It slid across the mud and hit Chen's knee. "Work. Harvest everything ripe. Crew is coming for bodies."
Chen scrambled. No longer a squatter. An employee.
He grabbed the basket. Started pulling tubers. Thump. Thump. Potatoes hit the plastic. He hummed a frantic, broken tune.
Alex turned to the balcony door. The wind howled outside. In here, the air sat heavy and still. He checked his map. Floor 14 next. Then 13.
He stepped toward the exit.
"Boss."
The humming died.
Chen stood near the back of the room. Manic energy vanished. His face was pale. Stripped of greed. Left only with sharp, lucid fear.
"You going downstairs?" Chen whispered. "For bugs?"
"Floor 14," Alex said. He checked his magazine. Full.
"Don't go past 12," Chen said. He pointed at the floor. Finger trembled. "My vine... she didn't just stop people coming in. She stopped things coming up."
Chen swallowed. His Adam's apple bobbed.
"The swarm isn't just a nest. It's a kingdom." He looked at the floorboards. "There is a Queen down there."