The Discarded, Half-Eaten Apple Core New Life

In Soviet New York, Grass Touches You. From the inside out. Yikes.

While I designed holy weapons of cleansing fire, Marshall and Rta failed spectacularly at diplomacy. It turned out that New York's leadership already knew of the parasite seeds from some rare incidents of roots erupting from people a few years ago. They banished all the religious types from the city because of that. And by banished I mean assassinated in secret to keep appearances.

The bastards jumped on Rta, recognizing her divine powers. The Valkyrie summoned an armor of solid light and parried the attacks with her flaming sword while Marshall took a rapier from one of his rings and harassed the aggressors long enough to let the two reorganize and retreat.

That's when I shone a Domain Beacon right on top of the New York leaders. With all my demon-slaying Perks and powers. They screamed bloody murder and then fell down in pain. Three of them cut their bellies and shoved their hands inside their bowels, pulling out sprouts and intestines alike.

"Yikes!" Larry shouted out of sheer terror. "Why would they do that!?!"

Good question, Larry. Why, indeed. Roots sprouted out of them, some in the viscera they had pulled out of their bodies. Interesting.

Some guards inside the building also started to excise the germinating seeds from their bodies with little regard for their own safety. If the roots had a chance to grow, they would be dead anyway. They failed. All of them, without a fault, became planter pots for demon grass.

"Run away!" I shouted from the drone on Marshall's back.

Once they had a concrete wall between them I shone about five gigawatts of UV laser on the room with the infected leaders from the dirigibles in the sky. Honestly, that was my most merciful act of the day.

*

*

Marshall and Rta had no trouble escaping the vine-infested building through the roof, where the hovering robotic helicopter awaited them with steel cable ladders.

From that, I brought them back home.

"They are all infected," Marshall huffed his despair as he admitted defeat. "What are you going to do? Kill all of them?"

"No," I replied as Rta opened her mouth. She shut it and didn't say what she intended to. Knowing the Valkyrie, she was probably going to ask for a purge.

"Their souls were consumed by the vines. The Infernali are truly abhorrent," She commented instead.

"That's what almost happened to me back during the Apocalypse, when a massive monster killed me but was killed right afterward," I reminisced.

"Your human self?"

"Yes."

Marshall nodded with an empathetic smile. "But what are we doing regarding the plant monster and the people of New York?"

My favorite mental meal, moral conundrums. The people were infected with demon seeds. Every single one of them. We needed to trust the possibility they could be purified or cleansed and the seeds purged. The default solution was to purge the whole city. Kill 150,000 people who had no idea they were already dead inside.

I wanted to save the people. Not as much for my Quest but because I was human once, though my current nature didn't have the necessary chemistry for lofty feelings. Still, I was a rational creature and I knew where my loyalties lay. I stood for humanity and for my planet. Even if I had to turn it into my Dungeon. Could I do that?

No. No tangents. The "null hypothesis" was to burn Manhattan and everywhere that damn grass touched. Worst-case scenario, I would commit genocide.

Or a remote approach. The self-disembowelment of the leadership hinted that it was possible to extract the seeds. Perhaps they had already succeeded in it. I carefully removed the Perks that could cause the seeds to react and scanned the buildings. I wanted to find documents or reports that showed a cure was possible.

I found very little written medium. They didn't have any bookkeeping or accounting. The best thing I found was Mana stone ledgers but the economy was basically based on barter.

Next. I needed volunteers. Now, I knew how foolish it was to go and ask people if I could remove the demon seeds from their bodies. Us, a foreign power. Since we killed their leadership, we probably could take over the government but that would be a massive can of worms. I don't doubt the leaders instilled a distrust of all religious figures to keep them from triggering their seeds.

So, no volunteers. "I will kidnap people and experiment on them. Perhaps we can explain the situation and get their consent. I know. I will kidnap a few fathers. We can appeal to their love and ask them to do this sacrifice for their children. If we manage to save them, we get some random people, perfect the technique, then grab the kids."

Rta nodded. Marshall rubbed his chin. "That sounded horrible but the situation is twice as bad. Let's do this."

*

*

I created a power armor that would open up in the middle and grab a person. Of course, the passenger would have no control of the robotic suit. The armor would open up, launch some shackles tethered to cables, reel the passenger in and bring them back to us.

Stealth... was not an issue. Oh, how power indeed corrupted. The design was easy. Without any need for heavy armor or weapons systems, the power armor was rather simple. Most of its volume was jump jet fuel.

The blimps tracked most of the people and selected some prospective "volunteers". The disappearance of the ruling council rose several questions and they were rightfully blaming us for that. But they couldn't do anything. The people of New York were all below level 50. I bet the grass had some sentience and killed those who became too powerful to present any level of threat. The Infernali it spawned were also not that high-leveled. They were plant versions of common types, way weaker than the Spinehounds.

I gave up on kidnapping fathers. I had a much better target in the guards. The first hint things were messed up was the fact they didn't have either walls or patrols on the border. They really weren't worried about Infernali incursions because they were standing on top of a World Boss. But they still had some warriors who walked around, enforcing the late council's rules.

Large quadcopters with noise-canceling technology (basically microphones that captured the rotor sounds and speakers that emitted the opposite sound wave) hovered over the guards at night, carrying the open power armors.

I named these power armors, "Ion Ron Mayday End."

> For creating level 120 prison power armor "Iron Maiden ", you gained no Experience.

I figured you out, deaf System. Though I didn't intend the delta symbol, I'll take it.

The armors dropped on the unsuspecting duo of guards. Clamps shot from the arms and legs, tethered on steel cables and with micro thrusters to steer. They grabbed two or three limbs only but that was enough. Human anatomy would make sure the other limbs fell in place. This wouldn't work on high-level people but these guards were at most level forty. They stood no chance. The armors reeled them in and clamped shut when the sensors detected the respective body part was inside. Soon, the actuator action pushed the armor upon the person and it closed. A hook was shot from the back and the quadcopter picked it up. While the quadcopter tugged on the hook cable, the armor fired its jump jets and helped provide the energy necessary to gain altitude.

This happened five times during the night. Some people noticed the glare of the jump jets and the smoke but nobody could do much. When the sun showed up next, I had ten people to test whether or not I could remove the seeds.

I crystallized another point of base DM and used Daydream.

> You received the Stardew Valley "Bigger Greenhouses" Mod.

I would love to play the game again. Oh, boy.

*

*

With my test subjects sedated and secured in an operating table, I opened Blackjack Six's hatch and flew out. What I was about to do required direct contact. While the Mecha counted as an extension of my body, it required even closer contact. Larry waved from the open cockpit.

Touching my core (I mean, me) to the man's stomach, I used the Sturdy Domain Perk to see inside the man's body. Bodies were opaque to my Domain because of their aura's interference. But that Perk gave me the clarity necessary to see through their flesh.

It was worse than I thought. The man had several dozens, perhaps a hundred seeds inside him. They were glued to his intestines, inside his gall bladder, appendix, and some even somehow escaped the digestive tract and lodged inside his abdominal cavity.

The next man was even worse. He had two seeds attached to his heart. At least I saw how they got there. It seems he had some badly healed internal wounds including a puncture in his diaphragm. The seed must've moved through there to find its way to the heart.

I checked all ten. Only two others had seeds outside their bowels. While that was forty percent, it shed some light on why the council disemboweled themselves. Unless you had an internal wound or punctured intestines, the seeds would remain inside the digestive tract.

Now, the really hard part. Surgery. I chose the guard with fewer seeds. He only had forty-two. What an ominous number. Engineering allowed me to plan how to remove the seeds causing the least amount of damage to the man's body. I also designed a machine specifically for his issue. With sharp clamps that would double as scalpels and punch through his flesh and grab the seeds.

With potions and healberries ready, I didn't really need to worry about making a mess out of his bowels. So long I kept the punctures to a minimum, I could prioritize speed. I had no idea if the seeds would become distressed by the attempt to remove them.

I Replicated the machine in place. Forty-two scalpel clamps on extensible arms, angled to do the least damage to his organs and grab the seeds. I had to open holes in the operating table.

Just for safety, I isolated the man from his other nine companions with Dungeon Walls. Then, I engaged the machine. The clamps punched into his body all at once. They cut flesh and organ, reaching the seeds in less than a second. They grabbed the seeds and pulled. They immediately attempted to germinate. As they started to do that, I sensed them as separate entities from the man.

I cast Banish the Iniquitous forty-two times It took a bit of time but each casting gave the remaining seeds a few more moments to germinate. I hadn't messed much with my spells because they carry a little issue. Their range was based on my physical location. At least this one worked anywhere inside my Domain but to aim the magic with this level of precision I needed to be physically close. The spell incinerated the seeds. though the last ten had already dug their tips out of the man's chest.

> [...] 42 kill messages suppressed. You gained 126 Dungeon Mana.

The guy was barely alive. I had to heal him now and I bet the man's immune system could deal with some ash inside his body. The clamps retracted and the machine sprayed healing potion on the wounds. I put four healberries inside his mouth and squeezed them with metal pliers. His internal wounds healed. Magic was awesome.

I also noticed that I could measure the resistance a person's skin offered to a standard scalpel and get a reading on that person's Constitution score. Once I had a good baseline on how tough a person's skin should be, I could calculate the effect of Constitution on their toughness. A project for later.

Using one Domain directive, I restricted my anti-demon Domain powers to this man alone. I let him simmer in it for five minutes without any detrimental effect.

I had saved one of them.

The next patient had an even simpler machine. The arms now just stabbed the seeds where they were, with a needle that could open prongs from its tip with some minute coils. Stab the seeds, see them panic before me, and hear the lamentation of their sprouts. I needed to get better at spellcasting, churning my magic faster. Each incinerated seed took 2,000 MP because each of them was a separate entity. I had a lot of MP to spare though I needed to let it regenerate between patients.

Perhaps I didn't even need to keep the ribbon Perk equipped after my evolution. The damn thing kept using up one of my six active Perk slots. But it was necessary, so far. I didn't want to have my normal MP regeneration in the negative and become dependent, rather than reliant, on Green Energy to pick up the slack.

While working on the third patient, things went awry. One of the roots shot toward the man's brain and when it touched the nervous tissue, he started to seize just like the envoys. His movements jostled the prongs I had so carefully aimed, causing several seeds to slip from the grabby arms. I lost my focus, delaying my spellcasting. Though I incinerated all the blooming plants, he died. The others behaved like that. If a seed touched their brain, they seized and died.

Ten people, four healed, six dead, only 149,990 to go.

"Contractor?" Larry called from inside Blackjack Six. Somehow, during the surgery sessions, he had typed the code to close the Mecha. I needed speakers to talk so I just typed on one of BJ6's keyboards, using the internal ones.

"What?" I was mildly irritated for losing sixty percent of the time. All these deaths.

"Are these seeds plants?"

"Yes, Larry. They are. Why?"

"Doesn't your powers make plants grow faster?"

I let myself (the crystallized apple Core) drop on the floor. Yes, it did. It was one of the Perks I always kept on because people in Speranza were always growing food. I could've doubled the time I had to remove the seeds.

"Contractor! Are you okay?"

"No, Larry. I'm not. But I am very grateful for the tip."

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