Petrification

'Petrify.'

Cyanide's eyes flashed silver momentarily, and in that single instant, all of the mutants who met his gaze were frozen. Not by ice, but by fear.

This Soul Art couldn't restrain Stage Two Mutants for long, however, so Cyanide didn't waste what little time he had and grabbed two pistols from the temporarily disabled mutants' hands, then unleashed a flurry of bullets onto them before they could break free from the petrification.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

All seven projectiles struck true in rapid succession, knocking the horde of mutants to the floor within seconds with newly-busted holes in their foreheads. Electrical sparks flew out of their heads as their buried central processing units were destroyed, and their eyes rolled up over their heads.

Being a profession assassin, Cyanide has used all kinds of guns before and has been trained to control each's recoil. Shooting these lightweight pistols accurately were of no difficulty for him at all.

After several seconds, the seven mutants' bodies disappeared along with the three he took down earlier, and the rewards he received were nothing short of extraordinary.

[Level Up.]

[Level 20 -> 21.]

[You gained 10 CP and 1 SP.]

[Obtained Mutant Blood (Mid-Grade) x10.]

[Obtained Metal x46.]

[Obtained Polyester x24.]

[Obtained Wires x 70.]

[Obtained Solar Panels x 12.]

[Obtained Infusion Modules x6.]

[Obtained Glock 17M x 10.]

[Obtained Handgun Ammo Pack x 20.]

[Achievement Complete: Firepower.]

"Hm, polyester?" Cyanide raised an eyebrow. "That's a new one."

"Any mutant Stage Two and above wearing polyester clothes will drop them," Luna said. "It is an essential material for clothes and some armor. The abilities of Infusion Modules are limited, and every once in a while, you'll need to fully craft a new armor set to reach a higher level of strength."

"Huh… noted."

As the messages faded away, Cyanide glanced down at the two glistening black pistols in his hands, then decided he only needed one.

"Luna, store this one into my inventory as back-up."

"Erm… actually, about that… your inventory is full, Cyanide," Luna replied awkwardly, scratching her own cheek. "In fact, it's slightly above capacity, rendering you overweight."

Cyanide raised an eyebrow. "Overweight? What do you mean?"

"Try moving."

Frowning, Cyanide took a step forward, and…

… Couldn't.

[Warning: Survivor is encumbered. Discard or dismantle some items from your inventory to regain linear movement capabilities.]

"… Well, this is embarrassing."

"I remember warning you in the past that your inventory has limited space," Luna said with a shrug. "You can't exactly blame this one on me."

Cyanide sighed. "I'm not. Open my inventory, Luna. I'll get rid of what I don't need myself."

Luna nodded and did as told, showing Cyanide his INVENTORY screen. It was indeed loaded with tons of junk, and the horizontal bar near the bottom of the screen labeled 'WEIGHT' was flashing red.

"The small number near the top-right of the item displays its weight, not to be confused with the number near the bottom-right which shows the quantity of the item you have," Luna explained. "I've also organized your inventory from greatest to least based on weight to make it easier for you, Cyanide."

Cyanide traced his eyes over to the first item in his inventory, in the top-left corner of the screen. It was, without a doubt, metal, and the number in the top-left (quantity) read [x1046] while the number in the top-right (weight) read 10,460. Yep, this was definitely what was weighing him down most.

Before gaining the 46 from these ten Stage Two Mutants, he had just barely been under the weight limit. But after obtaining the items from those ten… well, the results speak for themselves.

Cyanide tapped on the Metal in his inventory, bringing up a details pane on the right half of the screen. Below all its information were three options that weren't there the last time he checked his inventory — which, to be fair, was when he first obtained Mutant Blood. Since then, all he had to do was tell Luna what to do and she would do it for him without him even having to manually use the system, so naturally, he was unaware.

In any case, the three options were as follows, but the middle one was greyed out:

[Crafting] [Dismantle] [Discard]

Sensing Cyanide's hesitation, Luna helpfully began explaining once more.

"Crafting takes you to the Crafting screen, where you can see what items this item can be crafted. Dismantle refers to breaking down an item into raw materials, but since Metal already is in its raw form, that is impossible here. And as for Discard, that's self-explanatory — you just throw it away."

"Hm… I see."

"There's also another option you can choose to do here, and that's to simply upgrade your Strength stat. Your weight capacity is directly influenced by that, so if you put the CP you received just now into STR, you should be able to move again without any problems."

After some thought, Cyanide agreed.

"… Let's do that."

After putting all 10 CP he just received into STR, he saw the weight meter at the bottom of his screen return to normal, with a little bit of room at the right-most end to spare. His inventory, however, was still quite messy, and it definitely needed to be cleaned out soon. But now was not the time.

"Well… we got what we came here for," Luna said. "Are we leaving now, Cyanide?"

"Not yet," he replied, narrowing his eyes. "Since we eliminated the main threat here and I can take on Stage One mutants with no problem now… I want to explore this building a bit more. This is a Point of Interest according to the map, no?"

Luna nodded, smiling wryly. "Yes. I was actually going to suggest that if you didn't bring it up yourself, Cyanide."

She seemed impressed at her creator, but Cyanide paid that no heed and began by exploring the security guards' offices. He didn't feel bad at all, rummaging through someone's things right after killing them. They weren't human anymore, so there was no point in showing human compassion towards them.

And besides… well, even if they were human, Cyanide wouldn't show any compassion anyway. He was selfish, through and through.

That's also why he chose to have an AI companion—so he didn't have to worry about her 'dying'. So long as her code existed in a console somewhere, she would continue to live—forever.