24. SHUT-THE-FUCK-UP AND PAY RENT TENANT.

「A few days later, somewhere else in the Mediterranean server, at recruit difficulty:」

Luz was still lying in the tank while his body got supplied with nutrition, oxygen, and mana.

In front of him stood a tired and demotivated elf, who had dark rings below her eyes. Yawning, she documented a few measurements with a grim face while muttering, "Luz… Come one. Wake up so that I can finally sleep, yawn."

As one might expect, words of pleas don't really have an impact as long as they aren't wrapped with plot armor. Luz's body didn't react to her words, and she fell onto a seat to drink a caffeinated sugar-free beverage. 'Maybe that will help me with staying awake.'

Author note: big sugar industry is canon now.

But upon taking her first sip, Liv immediately frowned. "It tastes… weird…," she muttered before cursing that she tried the sugar-free option instead of the original one.

"JODOC. Please document that I shall never drink sugar-free beverages again," she shouted to the eagle, who was sitting half-sleep on a twig.

Irritated by her words, the latter cried, "I'm not your pet, so NO!"

But Luz couldn't accept no as an answer. "So you admit to being someone's pet?"

"Listen here, you little shit," cursed the eagle loudly as he spread his wings wide.

「the two started quarrels whenever they got bored and wanted to kill some time.」

Over time, the group of three consisting of, Jodoc, the eagle; Levi, the elf sister; and Master Simon had to intervene regularly once a day to prevent Luz from dying due to organ failure.

Inside Luz's body, the parasite hive slowly began repairing his mana core as much as possible since they couldn't change the host in the foreseeable future.

The analogy to what was occurring with Luz's mana core would be, "If you can't find a new car, then maintain the one you have until you can replace it with a new one. A broken mana core is a liability if one can't find a new host."

Therefore, the hive directed most of the newly refined mana to the host's mana core to solve the problem as quickly as possible.

As one might expect, nothing truly goes right in this novel. The parasites living in the host's mana core came into contact whit a high amount of mana, which accelerated their development tremendously. As a result, these five gained rudimentary consciousness/ego and could communicate on a level above the rest of the hive.

Information and general communication between hive members were generally conveyed over impulses and via hormones. If one had, for example, refined mana in excess or lacked it, send a signal to the hive.

This system works fine, as long as there aren't any malicious players in the game. However, the parasites in the core were quite different, as they had a mental maturity above the rest.

Through their consciousness, their impulses and hormones got more potent, giving them the ability to inhibit the communication of others. Thus they forced the hive to prioritize their orders, and their first command was, "Any surplus of refined mana is to be sent to Luz's mana core."

Even though they acted for their own benefit, Luz was probably the primary beneficiary of their action since mana of a higher purity shot through his body, mending his crack-filled mana core as they became smaller over time and reducing his mana leakage.

Days passed, and Luz slowly regained consciousness as his thoughts got clearer with time. 'My body… itches…it hurts… I feel impulses…shooting through my body.'

As Luz slowly awoke from his self-induced slumber, parameters immediately began shooting up as his heartbeat quickened.

Liv was looking half asleep on a few displays, and upon hearing the parameter changing, she immediately shouted in fear, "Simooooon! Some funny parameters are shooting up. What the hell is going on!?"

A tired Master mage immediately ran up the stairs to Liv, cursing loudly, "Don't tell me that he's facing another organ failure. I've just started repairing the kitchen."

"No, no, no," it looks different," commented Liv while adjusting her reading glasses on her nose. "His puls is increasing to normal levels."

"Eh!?" commented Simon as he gazed at the graphs before widening his eyes. "FINALLY," he shouted before grabbing the elf's hip and throwing her up.

"EH?! Uncle, what the hell is going on?" exclaimed Liv while getting thrown into the air.

Simon smiled from ear to ear as he explained to her, "These charts indicated that Luz is slowly gaining consciousness. We won't be facing Master Brian's wrath yet, hahaha."

"Does that mean I can sleep now?" Liv asked while yawning loudly.

"Yes! WAIT, NO! You, my girl, will be staying awake till that greenhorn leaves his tank," shouted Simon while gripping the shoulders of Liv, who had already fallen asleep.

"Is that brat serious!?" Simon cursed before putting the girl gently onto a chair and sighing. "Fine. I will take care of Luz."

Hearing all these noises, Luz merely thought, 'So noisy… I wish I could continue sleeping instead of hearing these two freaks.'

But before he could continue contemplating it, he heard strange voices inside his head telling him telepathically in disarray to 「EAT.」

The messages he received were rudimentary but still clear enough to understand their desires.

「Food」,「Mana」 were the other two messages he received.

Upon hearing these voices, Luz's face immediately turned grim. 'So… people now live inside my head without paying rent. I thought only politicians lived there rent-free. How much should I charge for rent, hmm.'

Even if Luz wasn't the brightest in the room, he immediately realized to whom those voices belonged and therefore didn't take them seriously. The new guests inside his body were parasites, and somehow these filthy creatures gained consciousness.

But before he could continue thinking, they began chanting in unison 「Biological matter」, infuriating Luz even more.

Gritting his teeth, he thought, 'SHUT-THE-FUCK-UP AND PAY RENT TENANT.'

The parasites slowly grew quiet.

'Hopefully, they can understand that,' sighed Luz before feeling the uncomfortable gaze of someone.

Upon seeing the face of a tired man with bloody red eyes and deep rings below them pressing against the tank glass, Luz got frightened to such a degree that he wanted to jump out of the tank.

However, the man gently knocked on the glass while telling Luz, "Yo… It's great to see you lively, but please don't rip any tubes out of your body. Do you want anything, by the way?"

Luz moved his head out of the water before removing the mask that supplied him with oxygen to say in a croaked voice, "Food."

The latter nodded before increasing the nutrient intake tremendously while draining the water from the tank.

The loud gurgling sound of water was heard in the background, while Luz immediately got overwhelmed by cold and fatigue. Weakly, he pointed his finger towards Simon while weakly stuttering, "c-cold."

Simon smiled gently and whispered into the latter's ear, "Luz…I hope you sleep well since you definitely won't be sleeping well in the future upon seeing your medical bills."

Fortunately, Luz could not hear any of Simon's words as he fell asleep in the fetal position.

After whispering the price tag of Luz's medical bill into the latter's ears, Simon put a coat over Luz's wet body that would dry and keep him warm while he called Brian.