Era of Disaster Chapter 28: Rational Analysis

Chapter 28: Rational a.n.a.lysis

“After gene fusion and turning into monsters, would we lose our minds?” Bai Yi said gravely.

“What do you mean?” Woolf didn’t understand while Hong Qi Hua and Heloise were deep in thought. Both of them were very smart and could guess what Bai Yi had meant from just a sentence. However, Bai Yi still needed to explain things to Woolf.

“This is very important! Martin said that after being infected with activated cells, evolved lifeforms and humans would fuse with genes from the other organism and experience changes in their bodies. These kinds of changes have already been proven, so there is no need to doubt them. Then the question is, do the changes only affect our physical bodies or our memories and rationality too? If we will lose our minds and turn into monsters completely, then we need to make many more preparations.”

“It…shouldn’t be? I’m still very normal right?” Woolf said hesitantly. His appearance changed the most among them. If it was in the world before, then he was 100% a monster. However, apparently his rationality hadn’t been affected.

“We can’t be sure of that.” Bai Yi shook his head.

LV0: Nascent Stage

◆ Awakening

LV1-1: Binging Stage

LV1-2: Brutal Stage

LV1-3: Hypersomnia Stage

◆[Metamorphosis]

LV2 – Metamorphose Stage

“Remember what Martin said? The names weren’t randomly chosen but based on the changes of the experimental body. In other words, the names are representative of the changes happening to the evolved lifeform. Apparently, we are currently at the LV1-1 Binging Stage. For the LV1-2 Brutal Stage… I suspect that we may lose control.” Bai Yi said heavily.

“Then what do we do? Are we not fusing genes anymore?”

“No, gene fusion must go on.” Bai Yi shook his head. “It doesn’t matter if we try to actively fuse genes or not. Based on the strong power of the activated cells, gene fusion is an unavoidable thing. Hence, it is better to do this under our control. I only raised this issue so that you guys will be mentally prepared for it. In any case, even if we do not lose our reason, we will also have another problem.”

“What’s the problem?”

“As you know, the experiments that Martin talked about are split into a few categories as well. 1. Animals fusing genes from other organisms and turning into monsters. 2. Humans fusing genes from other organisms and turning into monsters. For the latter, if gene fusion does not cause us to lose our reason then what we will face are… evolved humans that have human memories, but the bodies of monsters.” Bai Yi lifted up 2 fingers and explained one by one.

“How is that possible!” Woolf said in shock.

“How is that impossible? Aren’t you one right now?” Bai Yi made fun of him.

“These kinds of monsters had experiments done on them by other humans but still retain their human memories… we cannot treat them like monsters since they are our… predecessors… I guess. At the same time, we must be wary of them since n.o.body knows if they will be friendly or hostile.” Bai Yi said solemnly.

After that, the few of them discussed at length about what genes they should choose to fuse with until suddenly, the fluorescent lights in the room went out. Hong Qi Hua’s laptop was still on, but it has switched to using its internal battery.

“The electricity has been cut off, but I guess it’s about time this happened.” The few of them were surprised for a moment, then Bai Yi spoke.

“My laptop can still be used for a period of time since I have a solar powered charger, but without the internet there isn’t much use for it anyway.” Hong Qi Hua said.

“It doesn’t matter too much. There won’t be too many things that we need to use a laptop to record.”

“Since the electricity has stopped and it’s getting late, let’s just retire for the night and then head for Otorohanga with Yu Han’s group. From the looks of it, this area hasn’t been affected yet so there shouldn’t be too many monsters.” Bai Yi looked outside at the city. He could vaguely see some fires in the distance, but there weren’t any monsters coming here.

“Oh right, do you think we should tell Yu Han about our plan for the active fusion of genes?” Bai Yi suddenly asked just when the few of them were about to exit the room. Woolf and Heloise who were already at the door instantly looked at Bai Yi in surprise. Did they hear wrongly?

“What did you say?” Woolf asked in shock.

“I said, should we tell Yu Han about our plan to actively fuse genes?” Bai Yi repeated again. Faint moonlight s.h.i.+ned on Bai Yi’s face and they could see that he wasn’t joking.

“Bai Yi, are you stupid? Can’t you tell from how Yu Han does things?” Woolf asked, not understanding.

“I know, of course I know.” Bai Yi lightly nodded his head and continued.

“Yu Han can be considered to be somebody who’s very ambitious and desires to be the leader of the team. However, aren’t people like that even during normal times? Once people have a chance, they would try their best to climb upwards. He’s not actually doing something wrong. If we don’t like it, then we can just keep our distance in the future. The reason I’m saying this is not because of him but for the others. In the end, a lot of them are still our friends, letting them know this information gives them another piece of power to protect themselves. As for whether they listen or not, that isn’t something we can control.” Bai Yi explained.

Woolf and Heloise became mute for long a while, and then Woolf finally opened his mouth.

“Bai Yi, you really are a good person!” Woolf said with a weird grin on his face.

“Scram!” Bai Yi wanted to kick Woolf but moved his left arm in the process, causing him a burst of pain.

At this moment, Woolf had already run out in a hurry. Heloise felt nervous at the start but she couldn’t help but to laugh seeing Woolf fooling around. In the beginning when she saw Woolf’s dog head, cow horns and stout body she was quite afraid. However as they interacted, she realised that Bai Yi, Hong Qi Hua and Woolf were all good people.

As for Bai Yi’s words, they did not answer him immediately, but slowly thought about what he said. On the surface, Bai Yi’s suggestion seemed foolish, but this was also representative of Bai Yi’s personality. Bai Yi was right. After all, a lot of them were still their friends, such as Khina and Dai Yu Yao. Friends.h.i.+p wasn’t something to be abandoned so easily.

Moreover, honestly speaking, if Bai Yi was really such a selfish person, then they wouldn’t stay on his side so willingly either.

Such as…Yu Han!

In modern society with so much freedom, n.o.body would just bow down and follow another person so easily. If that somebody didn’t have any attractive characteristics, then the individual wouldn’t be able to obtain other people’s support.

_________________________________________________________

As night arrived, n.o.body could sleep well as they were all too hungry. They’d eaten a lot just before sleeping but very quickly their stomachs became empty again. Of course, another reason would be the city right at their doorstep. Everyone was worried that a monster from there would attack them anytime. Luckily, it seemed that the number of monsters appearing this time wasn’t too high. After a night of being on edge, morning finally arrived.

Waking up in the morning, Bai Yi found that he had changed even more. Momo had also grown soft fur on her face like the kind that grew on b.u.t.terflies.

“Daddy, I became furry.” Momo said to Bai Yi.

“En En, it’s ok. You look cuter like this.” Bai Yi said smiling.

“Is it?” Momo touched her cheeks and leaned towards the mirror to observe herself. In Momo’s innocent heart, she didn’t quite understand what a monster meant yet. At this moment, Sharpei who’d also rested for the night stood up and barked towards Bai Yi and Momo. Momo immediately snapped back to reality upon hearing Sharpei’s bark, appearing very overjoyed.

“Sharpei did you recover??” Momo ran over happily.

Bai Yi saw that Sharpei’s wounds had already started closing up, and that there was no more danger to his life… Activated cells were really powerful!

Bai Yi brought Momo out and found that Khina was trying to cover and hide herself. Bai Yi looked briefly and found that Khina had also changed. Two short feelers appeared on her forehead and her face turned into an earthly-yellow colour. Bai Yi wasn’t too sure what genes Khina fused with, but combined with her fat body, she became even less pretty… or to be blunt, ugly.

“Mole cricket and locust, the insects that bit Khina on the road.” Hong Qi Hua said softly when she walked past Bai Yi.

Apparently, Khina’s change vindicated Bai Yi and Hong Qi Hua’s worries last night. The activated capabilities of activated cells were too powerful, just a brief contact would allow them to fuse with genes from other lifeforms. Most of these genes, other than transforming people into monsters, didn’t bring about any powerful or useful abilities.

Although Woolf, Hong Qi Hua and Heloise did not object to Bai Yi’s plans to tell Yu Han about the active fusion of genes, Bai Yi could tell that from Woolf’s mischief that they just didn’t want to say it explicitly. Bai Yi thought about it for a while after that, and felt that it was better to temporarily hide this information.

“Did you prepare something to eat?” Yu Han asked, though he didn’t really mean it as a question.

“Of course!” Bai Yi nodded. After an entire night they were all unbearably hungry. The hunger in the binging phase wasn’t something that could be described with words.

After hearing the word ‘eat’, everybody started to get busy bringing the food over from the car. After an hour of cooking and moving things the group was finally about 80% full. With this meal, their food stock that seemed abundant at first was cut down by half. They probably wouldn’t have enough by their next meal.

Looking at their current situation, although they knew about the reason behind it, they were still shocked at their appet.i.tes during the binging phase.

“Let’s set out then!” Bai Yi said.

In the car, Bai Yi found that Woolf was walking over with two steel bars in his hand. The steel bars were as thick as forearms with spiral patterns on them, it were those steel bars that were used as piles in construction work.

“You found those?”

“En, I just found them. Not sure what we would encounter in the city, so these will make do as weapons.” Woolf said, starting the car after throwing the steel bar on top of it.

Bai Yi nodded and checked his handgun. This handgun was taken from the bunch of sc.u.m in Te Awamutu, and there weren’t a lot of bullets left but it could still be used a few times. However, Bai Yi didn’t think that this handgun would cause much damage to those giant monsters unless he hit their vital points.

“This thing probably won’t even break the skin of a great devil snake.” Woolf said, apparently thinking the same thing as Bai Yi.

“En, but it’s better than nothing.” Bai Yi nodded.

Woolf started the car and drove out while the others followed behind. The group headed towards the city of Otorohanga.