The words Milarel said next shocked Aiden. So much so, he forgot all about Old Joe and his troubles.

"Deal with him as you see fit," he said, walking back inside the building.

Once inside the elevator, he continued the conversation with Milarel.

Are you sure? There’s no mistake?

[None, My Lord. Joan has found a way to turn ordinary people into evolvers!]

Milarel wouldn’t lie to him, but the truth was too strange for him to believe. Even he, with all his resources, had barely managed to give the tenants a fake system. How come Joan got her hands on infinite true awakenings?

The system was just as clueless as he was. If there were such an ability, the system would have granted Aiden that first.

"It’s clearly not something you’re capable of," Aiden mumbled. "Then it must be something else. Something that’s inherent to Earth... but what could it be?"

[I... don’t know, Host.]

This time, Aiden didn’t rebuke or retort. Instead, his mind immediately went to his plan of having women attack Joan. She might hesitate before chopping them down, but what about the people she had evolved?

Even with numbers on their side, Aiden would lose too many people fighting her. He needed to change the plan first. As for Milarel, he was wondering about something else.

"What about you? Did Joan mention anything about wanting you to awaken?"

[No, My Lord. So far, only the women closest to her have been granted the opportunity. No one other than them even knows how she did it.]

"So, she’s being cautious," Aiden nodded along. "I would’ve done the same in her stead."

In hindsight, sending Milarel to the enemy camp was a good thing. If not for her, Aiden would have fought her blindly and incurred heavy losses, as by the time Joan would naturally find out about him, she would have an army of evolvers on her side.

"The evolvers, how many of them are there?"

[Seven for now. She’s only making three a day. Once in the morning, once at noon, and once at night.]

"So it must be a skill with a cooldown..."

Aiden had planned for the women to train for a week. By then, Jewell would have tested the augmentation for any side effects. He would have had the women take the injectors, multiple of them, and then push them into the fight.

He was confident his army of pseudo-evolvers could take down Joan’s forces. However, he wasn’t sure about it anymore.

"Three a day... in a week she would have over twenty evolvers," Aiden mumbled. "Even if half of them got combat professions, things would get difficult for me."

Aiden realized only Karina and half of the wolves had combat professions. Even if he fitted them with Evo-Gear, they might lose based on numbers.

The only thing they had was experience. Unlike the recently evolved women, Karina and the wolves had extensive combat experience.

Not to mention, he now had Carmila on his side, too. She alone could kill them all... as long as Joan didn’t target her first.

"Which she would the instant she finds her," Aiden sighed.

Joan wasn’t an earthling. She wouldn’t be surprised upon seeing a vampire. Besides, she knew all the weaknesses of a vampire, which made things worse.

"There’s not a lot to be done."

As he said so, he quickly crafted a building-wide quest. Even Karina, Alisha, and Carmila got one.

+++

You have been assigned a mission!

• Mission type: Gathering.

• Objective: Deposit as many corpses into the vault as possible.

• Bonus objective: Any corpses would work as long as they are intact.

• Progress: 0/- corpses delivered.

• Reward: Wish fulfillment by the Landlord, Evo-Gear selection chest, Shop discount tokens, and more (progress dependent).

• Bonus Reward: Additional Evo-Gear selection chest, Shop discount tokens, and more (progress dependent).

• Upon failure: None

• Failure condition(s): None

• Time Limit: 4 days

Note: This is a competition-based reward system. The higher your rank, the better the rewards.

Note #2: Forming parties is allowed. The score would be given to everyone in the party.

Note #3: The rarer the type of corpse, the more points you’d receive.

+++

The moment people received the quest, their eyes widened in disbelief. The hunters were already thanking the stars. After all, it was a job they usually did, but the rewards were incomparable to the daily rewards.

Even the people who never stepped outside to hunt were enticed by the reward. Especially the wish fulfillment. They had seen the things Aiden was capable of and knew they could fish for anything, and he would make it happen.

Suddenly, no one cared about being safe or saving caps for food. Everyone, regardless of age or gender, dove right into the shop and bought whatever weapon they could get their hands on.

Since it was a party quest, even if they all had makeshift spears, couldn’t they kill goblins?

Meanwhile, a completely different thought was going through Aiden’s head. If his normal army wasn’t enough to deal with Joan’s, he would expand.

No matter how strong Joan’s selected people were, everyone was afraid of the walking undead creatures. Besides, the ghouls won’t care about any abilities Joan’s group might have.

"They would make the perfect cannon fodder," Aiden nodded, stepping out of the elevator. "I’ll be killing three birds with one stone."

Not only would the people gain exp from fighting monsters to pay rent, but they would also help him track that bone-turning creature. The more death drops he got, the sooner he would find that thing.

That monster might even attack Joan’s crew as they get closer to the apartment. Either the creature would deal a heavy blow to Joan’s group, or Joan would kill it. Either way, it would be good for Aiden.

"Hm... perhaps this was a blessing in disguise," Aiden smiled. "I was thinking of eliminating Joan because of our shared past. However, keeping her alive to farm evolvers didn’t seem too bad."

[Host... sometimes I’m scared of you.]

"Only sometimes?"

[...]