"Oh, well, it's nothing really, I just thought that now that you were reunited with the other members of Metal Body, it's no longer necessary for me to keep being here." Jay replied, expressing his desire to part ways with them.
While it was true that he wouldn't have made it this deep into the South Zone without the help of the others, he hadn't forgotten for a moment that the people who kidnapped Noah were Metal Body people in the first place.
Thus, Jay really didn't consider them his allies, simply people necessary to accomplish his goal.
"To be honest I'd like you to keep accompanying us, your ideas would be very useful to us." Larce said, placing a hand on his chin, "However, if you don't feel comfortable right now, then I can't force you."
He had noticed from Jay's demeanor that he truly was in a hurry, so while he wanted to talk to him for a while to recruit him, he also had to make sure he didn't harass him too much.
"Though of course, that doesn't change the fact that it's still dangerous to traverse the South Zone, especially at this time, so I was wondering if you'd let a subordinate of mine accompany you?"
Then, a man approached the two of them. Although his appearance was ordinary, Jay remembered that he was a rank (D+) esper with the ability to throw small fireballs.
Since Larce didn't have the time to personally convince Jay right now, he decided to let one of his subordinates accompany him towards the exit of the South Zone, taking advantage of the moment to also try to recruit him while making sure nothing bad happened to him.
After all, at a tense moment like this when Metal Body and Wolf's Fang were facing off, a weak rank (D-) super could get hurt very easily.
"Hm..." Seeing this, Jay couldn't help but frown internally.
Now that he planned to go towards where he felt Noah was, he didn't want to expose the real reason why he was in the South Zone to any of the Metal Body members as that would basically be telling them what his weakness was.
Unfortunately for him, faced with Larce's suggestion, he couldn't think of a good excuse to turn it down without leaving a bad impression with them.
While he planned to cut all ties with them after getting Noah back, it's not like he wanted to offend a Metal Body executive either, much less now that it looked like said organization was going to get stronger after eliminating so many of Wolf's Fang's guardians.
"Boss, I think it would be better if I were the one to accompany him!"
Suddenly, everyone heard the voice of Colt, who had been carefully paying attention to the conversation between Jay and Larce.
"Right now Metal Body needs every strong fighter it has, so if anyone here leaves, it will be a diminution of the power you have as a group. However, if I go alone, it really won't make a difference." Colt continued as he looked at Larce.
Hearing this, Larce couldn't help but think that Colt was right. Moreover, he had also heard from Chuck that the first person this hooded man had contact with of all those present had been precisely Colt.
Taking that into account, although the security would not be as good as if Jay were with a rank (D+) esper, Colt would undoubtedly have a better chance of convincing him to join Metal Body, so he nodded towards Jay's proposal.
Now all that was missing was Jay's approval.
"Well, let's go then. With that said, good luck everyone." Jay said with a smile before slightly bowing towards Larce and then heading towards the South Zone exit.
Seeing that Jay wasn't waiting for him, Colt also had to hurry as he quickly said goodbye to Larce and the others.
***
After they had both walked away from the Metal Body group, Jay was getting a little anxious.
The reason for this was because even though he had been constantly trying to reconnect with the parasites inside Noah, he was not succeeding.
He had also tried to ask the system about this, but unfortunately, the answer he was given was the same as always.
Faced with such a situation, Jay couldn't help but wonder why he had been able to momentarily connect with the other parasites.
He had thought of several things, such as that he had to have a minimum number of parasites for this to work, that perhaps he needed to be at a certain distance from the host, and finally, the reason that seemed most feasible to him.
It was a desperate method of calling for help from his parasites.
Because he could partially sense what his little ones were feeling, he was sure that among the amalgam of emotions they conveyed to him, concern was undoubtedly present.
He already knew how his little ones had acted when he was on the brink of death, resolutely willing to sacrifice themselves just to give him even a small chance of survival.
So, in the event that they couldn't give Noah energy to keep him stable or that they couldn't fuse with him either, the only thing they could resort to in order to keep him from dying would undoubtedly be to call for help.
'Anyway... the only thing I can do for the moment is to go to where I felt he was...' Jay thought as he let out a sigh and stopped walking.
"Is something wrong?" asked Colt, who had been walking a little behind Jay.
The next moment, Jay walked over and suddenly put his right arm on Colt's neck, pulling him a little closer, "How nice of you to ask, my good friend, Colt~! It's just as you said, something is wrong and I need your help for this~"
At the same time he said that, all the parasites on his arm came out to enter into Colt's neck, while there was a bit of distance, the parasites were able to withstand this easily.
Despite the fact that he had already convinced Noah to help him before, Jay knew that it would take a good amount of convincing for the latter not to report anything to his teammates while not refusing to accompany him.
As for why Jay used 20 parasites instead of the usual 10, he also wanted to test whether the power of his convincing would increase proportionally to the number of parasites in the body of the person he wanted to convince or not.
***
At the same time that Jay was convincing Colt, someone in a large apartment complex deep in the South Zone was having trouble.
"Haa... haa..."
A person's agitated breathing could be heard coming from one of the staircases leading up to the 4th floor.
This person was Noah, whose appearance was undoubtedly much worse than when he escaped from the abandoned warehouse where Wolf's Fang's boss was holding him captive.
From his hair which was now full of dust, to his incredibly pale and thin appearance, and finally to the extremely painful bloody wound on his right arm, which appeared to be a bite that had torn off a considerably large chunk of his flesh.
Although the wound no longer bled and was healing slowly, this very process was weakening Noah more and more, his energy now being practically non-existent.
After escaping from the abandoned warehouse, since he had no clothes and didn't know exactly where to go either, he had been looking for somewhere to take shelter so he could get some rest and hopefully find some clothes to wear, as this night was especially cold.
In the process, he came upon this apartment complex, which was just what he was looking for, not only could he take shelter here, but it was also quite likely that there would be clothes, something he desperately needed if he wanted to get to the South Zone exit on foot, a trip that would take an hour at least.
So determined and hopeful, he began to check room by room in search of something useful, since he had no proper tool to force the doors, the only thing he could do was to break the locks with a stone.
While it was going to make quite a bit of noise and would take him a long time to do this, he had no other choice.
Fortunately for him, the first room he entered had no lock, so he was able to open the door without any problems, finding clothes inside, although they were somewhat torn due to the long time they had been abandoned, it was better than nothing.
As for any bed in which he could rest, even after searching several rooms, he couldn't find any in good condition. When he found them, they were destroyed, as if someone had removed everything inside.
This seemed very strange to Noah, so he decided to stop his search for a bed and go back towards the first room he saw so he could rest even a little on the floor. While it was true that the room was in bad condition, at least it seemed safe enough for no one to enter without him noticing.
Strangely, when he returned to the room and sat down, he felt weird, as if something was watching him, so he immediately got up and headed for the door, not wanting to risk being in danger.
However, just at that moment, something came out from inside the shattered bed, it was almost three feet tall and it was completely surrounded by gray fur along with a long pink tail and red eyes, it was a large gray rat.
While the authorities of Nighttown City were in charge of cleaning up periodically any kind of monsters that could threaten the citizens, the same could not be said for the South Zone.
Here the ones in charge of cleaning up the monsters were Metal Body and Wolf's Fang, although in the case of the latter, due to their lax vigilance over their territories and lack of manpower, there were several lesser monsters which had made the South Zone their home.
Before Noah could think of anything, it lunged at Noah, biting down hard on his arm, causing the latter to let out a cry of pain.
The next moment, Noah clearly didn't stand still while this happened and gritted his teeth to withstand the pain before kicking the rat and quickly exiting the room, locking the door behind him.
Thereupon, he quickly made his way towards the exit of the apartment complex. Unfotunately for him, at the exit there was not one, but several more rats, what was worse, they all seemed as if they were searching for something.
With no other option, he could only go to a place where he had enough visibility to avoid a surprise attack or being surrounded, the rooftop.
However, his body was in a completely deplorable state, so even though he didn't want to, his body stopped responding to him halfway to the roof, collapsing on the stairs.
At this point, even if any other rats arrived, he could do nothing but watch.
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