The next morning, back at Jay's house, two people were in the living room of said house, although they both had different expressions, one thing they had in common was the visible tiredness written on their faces.
'...I definitely need to get some exercise...' Noah thought, who was currently lying on one of the couches in the living room.
Since he had had to carry Jay all the way from the South Zone to here, he had again realized that while his skill had advanced in rank, his strength was still rather lacking, as even with Jenny's help he was barely able to complete this task.
As for Colt, while he also seemed to want to help bring Jay home, both Noah and Jenny thought it would be best for them to split up at this point, so he stayed in the South Zone helping his teammates after sending the location of the fight to his superiors.
Thinking about this, Noah couldn't help but wonder simply what Jay had done to make Colt willing to help them. This was especially true when he remembered that Colt's reputation in the South Zone was that of a person who didn't like to interact with anyone, simply focusing on his own business.
However, said person did not ask about Noah's identity nor did he try to find out what kind of relationship he had with Jay in all the way to the exit of the South Zone, it was as if he was not interested in this at all, just focused on doing what Jay tasked him to do, to take him to the exit.
Once at the exit, they both started to wait until Jay's message or he himself arrived, but even though they waited for almost half an hour, neither of them arrived, making them worry.
It was at that point that they received a message from Jenny saying that Jay had passed out, along with the location of where he and the Wolf's Fang and Metal Body bosses were.
Upon reading this, Noah expected Colt to immediately alert his superiors, however, instead of doing that, he simply told him to wait there before starting to run back deep into the South Zone.
After an agonizing hour of waiting, he finally saw Colt again, only this time carrying Jay in his arms and with a drone flying above him.
Colt's appearance at that moment looked extremely tired, making it clear that he had been giving his all in order to carry Jay as fast as he could.
Noah could simply imagine just what it was that Jay had done for Colt to make the latter so trustworthy, going so far as to risk himself in order to rescue him.
"Hey, I made some coffee, here."
At that moment, Jenny's smiling face suddenly appeared in front of him, causing him to immediately stand up because she was so close.
"Ah, um, thanks!" He said quickly as he took the cup of coffee Jenny was offering him, his red turning slightly red.
In response, Jenny just smiled and sat down on another couch while also drinking some coffee.
Although her appearance was quite a bit better than Noah's, the dark circles under her eyes were still visible, a product of not having slept all night.
As for her clothes, she was no longer wearing the same dress as yesterday, but now had on a black t-shirt along with a pair of black sweatpants, which obviously belonged to Jay.
Because Jay had anticipated that she would be spending the night here, he had selected clothes that she could wear in case she decided to take a shower or change.
Jay had also suggested that she could take the time to bring a change of clothes, but Jenny strongly insisted that things were fine as they were and that they didn't have that much time to worry about minor details.
Unlike Noah, who was trying to organize his thoughts and emotions regarding the previous night, all Jenny was feeling at the moment was happiness.
Whether it was for having helped rescue Noah, for having participated in something she had previously only seen in series or movies, or simply for the fact that everything had turned out well, she was happy.
Only she knew the exact reason.
"How do you feel?" Jenny asked, genuinely interested to know about Noah's condition while leaving her coffee cup on the coffe table.
"Oh, u-um... I'm fine... just a little tired and trying to organize my thoughts about what happened last night..." He replied, averting his gaze at the end of the sentence.
It would undoubtedly take him some time before he could process what he had experienced, especially the time when he was held captive at the hands of the Wolf's Fang' boss, and also when a Grey Rat nearly devoured him alive.
"Don't worry, it's completely understandable considering what you had to go through~!" She said again as she stood up and headed towards the kitchen, "So, you just focus on resting while I take care of everything else for today!"
After saying that, a small plate with a ham and cheese sandwich on top suddenly landed on the coffee table in the living room.
Seeing this, Noah couldn't help but feel a warm feeling spreading inside him.
"...Thank you..." He said, smiling awkwardly.
"It's nothing~" She replied while maintaining the same smile as always.
At that moment, Jenny suddenly pulled out a small white towel from her pocket and picked up a small bucket that she had been filling with water in the kitchen sink.
"Now then, I'll go wash Jay~"
Then, she quickly walked towards the stairs carrying the bucket of water.
"!"
Seeing this, Noah immediately got up from the couch and also ran towards the stairs, arriving just in time to grab Jenny by the arm.
"...Yes?" She asked, slowly turning her head to look at Noah, though she was still smiling, Noah could feel that her gaze held not even a hint of the kindness she had shown only seconds ago.
This caused Noah to let go of her almost instantly as he began to explain why he had stopped her.
"U-Um, it's just that.... I think... you don't need to go to such extremes..." He said in a weak voice, clearly intimidated by Jenny's presence.
Although his nervousness around women had diminished somewhat thanks to the events of last night, Jenny was undoubtedly causing it to resurface.
"Of course it's necessary, especially at this time when he can't move and isn't able to take care of himself!" She said with a tone that indicated she was dead serious, "I'll take care of cleaning him up, so you just rest!"
The moment she said that, Noah could feel a slight pressure suddenly increase the weight of his body, apparently Jenny had even momentarily used her ability on him.
However, this time, faced with a such a stubborn opponent, Noah had a technique that had worked before with Jay, if you can't against them, join them!
Noah then gritted his teeth and also raised his voice, "If you insist so much, then I will also accompany you to do it!"
"...Eh?"
***
While Jenny and Noah were arguing on the stairs, the person mentioned in said argument was lying face up on his bed with an indifferent expression on his face.
"...I wonder how long this will take...?" He said letting out a sigh as he looked at the system interface, or rather, the only system message he could see at the moment.
_____________
Currently all system functions have been temporarily halted due to the [Upgrade] process.
The [Carrier] is strongly requested to be patient.
_____________
After he woke up in his bed and Noah and Jenny told him a summarized version of how he got home, the first thing he did seeing that he couldn't move at all was obviously check the system to claim his reward.
After all, he had also made sure to infect Garel just before passing out, not forgetting of course to be touching Garel and Jared's ankles so that the parasites could quickly return to his body when they finished assimilating their Cores.
Although this message undoubtedly meant he had completed the mission, it had been too sudden for him!
It hadn't even given him time to collect his reward, which was something he was counting on so he wouldn't be in this deplorable state.
However, what was undoubtedly worse was the fact that he couldn't feel not even one of his little ones!
Normally he could feel where they were thanks to some vague connection he had with them, being able to locate them no matter what part of his body they were in, however, at this moment, it was as if each one of them had disappeared!
'Haa... I guess the only thing I can do right now is wait...'
Without much else to do except lay in his bed unable to move at all, Jay also started to think about last night.
Although he had been in considerable danger, it had undoubtedly been the most productive night of all.
Not only did he think so because of the fact that he had completed the mission, but also because of the incredible mental suggestion abilities his little ones had demonstrated.
This was also a subject that he had wanted to investigate in depth from the moment he observed Carl's behavior, but due to the same obstacle as always, the lack of test subjects, he had been unable to do so.
Of course, this changed last night, were what he definitely had no shortage of were people on whom to put this quality of his parasites to test. He also took the moment to observe the abilities of most Metal Body members but finding nothing valuable or particularly useful to him, he simply put it aside.
Returning to the subject of mental suggestion, Jay had finally been able to figure out more or less how this worked.
At first he thought that perhaps this ability had to do with the amount of parasites and how long they had been on the host to be able to display it, but while this was true to some extent, this was governed more by the opinion that said person had of Jay.
The perfect example of this would be Colt, who despite not trusting Jay at all when they first met, gradually, as the latter's trust of Jay increased, the easier it was for Jay to influence Colt's actions and attitude.
In contrast, on those who had only a slight impression of Jay, such as most of the people he tried to recruit at first, the effect of suggestion was minimal, hardly helping Jay to make these people trust him more.
In fact, if it weren't for the fact that he created a strong impression with Damien's group by helping them when they first met, making the other Metal Body members trust him more by seeing them together, along with fortunately running into Chuck, Jay wasn't sure he would have been able to gather such a large group.
Of course, even in Colt, Jay was still pretty sure that he wouldn't obey everything he told him just because, he needed at least one compelling reason for it.
Still, Jay was quite pleased with the fact that he was able to figure out how to properly use this incredible ability of his little ones, something that would undoubtedly come in handy in the future.
'But man... it really was lucky that the Metal Body's boss agreed to cooperate with me...' Jay thought, putting aside the subject of his little ones.
Although Noah and Jenny had different thoughts about the previous night, Jay had only one word to describe it all.
Disaster.
The time could not have been worse for Noah to be kidnapped, with him being weakened, preparations made at the last minute, thinking about what to do on the march and mainly the battle between the two gangs, it had undoubtedly been a disaster.
Luck also played a big role here, both with the large number of Gray Rats he encountered in District 4 as well as the Great Rat, but mainly, where he got the luckiest, according to him, was with Metal Body's boss, Garel.
Since he crossed paths with both bosses, Jay hadn't stopped watching them from the sky with the help of the drone as he thought about how to use the environment as best as possible.
Originally Jay was having some trouble thinking about how to make contact with both of them in order to assimilate their Cores, either because it was too risky or because the effect was not as desired, he could not come up with a satisfactory plan.
However, that changed the moment he saw Garel's sudden change of form, becoming an armor-like cage that limited Jared's power to the maximum, with the only flaw being its low lethal capability.
Seeing that, Jay knew he had to move quickly so as not to lose the little time that the Gray Rats that opportunely appeared gave him, so he immediately moved to gather all the rats he could using the District 4 view that the drone had, finally ending up in Jay infecting Jared and the latter throwing Garel into the sky.
It was from that point on that everything started to depend on luck, he had instructed Jenny to catch Garel no matter where he landed, all so that Jenny, using the small microphone built into the drone to tell the Garel that they were his allies and that Jay was currently setting a trap for Jared, along with what he should do.
Even though Jay had obviously helped Garel before, that didn't take away from the fact that it was all up to what he decided.
Fortunately for everyone, Garel quickly understood the situation and cooperated without saying much, making everything even easier.
"Anyway, I think it would be best not to go back there for a good while..." He said as he let out a sigh and closed his eyes to rest for a while.
*Bam!*
However, just then, the door suddenly opened, revealing a girl with her hair tied in a ponytail and wearing black sportswear, in her hands a small white towel and a bucket of water.... it was Jenny.
Behind her, Jay also caught a glimpse of Noah outside his room, specifically, on the floor, his hands and feet bound with his freshly washed bandages and looking pleadingly at Jay.
Without giving him time to see anything else, Jenny quickly closed the door.
"...Jenny?" Said Jay, a sense of danger growing inside him, "...Could you please explain to me why Noah was tied up...?"
But as if she hadn't heard his words, Jenny simply began to walk slowly until she reached his bed, putting the bucket on the floor.
"J-Jenny?"
"Don't worry, I just came to take care of you!"
"EH?!"
Immediately, the sheets covering him began to float in the air, exposing his bruised body, only covered by the same sweatpants he had worn last night.
The towel also began to float above him, wringing out and dropping some cold water on his body, causing Jay to inevitably shiver for a moment.
"In the first place, I don't need it, and secondly, I seriously don't think that's how you should clean a person!!!" Jay shouted, feeling truly in danger, on his face large beads of sweat due to nervousness.
In response, Jenny moved even closer to his face as she placed a finger over Jay's lips, "Shh, just let me take care of you~"
Without removing her finger from his lips, her other hand grabbed the towel and began to run it down Jay's naked torso, slowly tracing her way down to his lower abdomen.
*Crack!*
But just then, the sound of glass breaking was heard coming from the window, causing them both to turn to see what had caused it.
"!"
Outside the window, all that could be seen was the expressionless face of a girl whose light blue hair was currently waving in the air.
A second later, chaos erupted in Jay's room.
