Chapter 11 - Black
Alita was in a deep sleep as James had snapped his fingers a dozen of times. He even went extreme to clap aloud, but she won't budge even a little from her dreams.
He didn't wake her up, as he knew that being able to heal a trauma in the apocalypse was only natural when a person had a good sleep.
James asked the tree roots to reach outside from the ground and carry the suitcases. He grabbed the neighbor's waist and carried her to his house.
After putting her on the bed, he went out again.
The tree roots came out and started moving in a circular motion. He couldn't figure out this strange behavior of his house. Before he could question the house, the roots stopped moving.
They all combined into a huge root which soon turned into a tree like humanoid looking shape. The only difference there was to spot on this sudden improvement of tree roots that it only had the structure of a human, but there were no eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and hair on its face.
The humanoid root suddenly knelt down and didn't move.
James was now confused of this sudden situation, and he told the humanoid tree to rise.
There was a sudden request from the tree humanoid, "Master, please bestow a name upon me."
James figured out that his house was not an object that only obeyed his commands, but it grew at its own pace, let it be its roots or its sentence.
The roots grew a meter every day because of the constant nutrition from Earth's soil. But the mystery of its spirit's growth was not cracked yet.
After a careful thought, James mentioned a lot of names and asked it if there was a one it liked the most.
After a few minutes, it chose the name 'Black'.
Black stood up and asked for the permission of James to show something to him.
James agreed with a hint of excitement in his eyes.
Black waved its hands and there were small roots that went inside the fence in the front house. After a small-time the fences were now turning into that of its root's texture turning into a part of the roots.
If James was confused earlier, then the current situation has already startled him speechless. Noticing that he didn't speak anything for minutes, Black thought that his master was disappointed with its performance.
Black immediately extended huge roots from underneath the ground, forming into a length similar to that of its height. The roots were maintaining their shape into sticks, and they were cut down from the ground.
Black piled the sticks and presented them to James for appraisal.
The speechless James was observing the whole process, and now he was holding the bundle of sticks. To his surprise, the sticks were not heavy. He tried exerting a little strength that was enough to break a normal stick, but it didn't budge.
The texture of the stick was similar to that of a normal stick, but its durability was equal to that forged metal bar absorbed by Black previously.
James was now scared of Black's growth potential. It could be a disaster if it was left alone just to take over the world, as it could now turn the other woods into its own roots.
James suddenly thought, "What will happen if it is brought to a forest!?"
Just the thought of its endless capabilities in a familiar environment would produce a shocking increase in strength.
It was not a bad idea to turn his house into a shelter that could grow in its own accord.
His plan to go and find other zombies was no longer feasible if he could attract the mass of them here, trapping them and killing one by one without any life-threatening measures.
James told Black to control the roots and convert everything in the neighborhood into its own body.
Black broke down into smaller strands of roots and went towards the houses in all directions.
To James' surprise, even the concrete walls were turning into the roots' nutrition. Black was now in all the directions in the neighborhood and every single house was turned into its nutrition except Alita's house. Only the exterior of her house was being absorbed, leaving the interior unscathed, as per his orders.
"It would take a day to absorb the neighborhood, master." said Black with a hint of joy.
If the profits were counted, Black would be the first one to benefit as it had now a lot of food to eat, and it's range of roots would expand nearly ten times the actual number.
James had already thought of the time period to absorb the neighborhood would not be short, but one day was really short if the size of the neighborhood would be considered.
He sighed and praised Black, "Take your time to digest." for its efforts and hard work that were just to please him.
He went inside his room and jumped upon the bed to sleep.
Everyone in the house was sleeping soundly without any worries.
If the apocalypse had a living body of its own, it would cough out blood after witnessing James and his companions sleep peacefully in this dire world where people even struggled to breathe.
Only half of the month had passed after the start of apocalypse, and the government had already implemented a force to build a shelter that was not far from James' neighborhood.
There was already an awakened soldier in this force, which had helped her jump to the post of a commander in a short span of time.
Under her guidance, the soldiers' morale peaked, and they had succeeded in securing a mall for their shelter plan.
Her name was unknown to everyone, but her beauty was top-notch or similar to that of Alita's.
The sudden appearance of an F-rank zombie had cost her the death of her comrades at the start of apocalypse that made her go into a frenzy state.
She ended up killing the F-rank zombie and awaken her natural elemental talent that explained her strength.