After dealing with the twins, he gave Mira and Glenn the task of getting them settled while he himself went to the basement. After all, he needed to do something about the brat there.

"If possible, I’d just tame him and make the guy the leader of the ghouls," Aiden mumbled, pressing the elevator button to the basement. "Then use the ghouls to look for bases and get those people here too."

[I approve of the plan, Host. It would be quicker and easier to recruit tenants then.]

"Of course. It wasn’t like I would have to be so desperate if you just gave more of those dweller search tokens."

[...]

Just then, the doors dinged open, and he immediately noticed all the wolves there. The moment they saw Aiden, all of them straightened up as if trying to look useful after the earlier blunder.

The wolves had set up a temporary containment zone in the far corner of B1. They had used some of the corpses to make a sort of border around the creature, and even the boy-like monster looked uncomfortable in the presence of corpses and ghouls.

Aiden looked at them and then nodded sideways. The ghouls left to do their farming duties, and the wolves followed, leaving through the stairs.

Marcus, Glenn, and Damian hesitated, but one look from Aiden, and they too left the basement, leaving the monster alone with Aiden and the ghouls.

Once they were gone, he pulled up a chair from somewhere, turned it backward, and sat down in front of the containment square with his arms folded across the back of it.

The creature saw him and crouched in the corner as if scared of him. It seemed that the monster somehow recognized him as the shooter who took out its legs.

"Oh, now you’re afraid of me?" Aiden chuckled. "Not going to lie, you interest me. The way you plan things in real-time and execute them is something I haven’t seen in a long time."

Aiden waited for a few moments for the monster to speak. Dexter had told him the monster did that, which was why Aiden began talking to it in the first place.

However, it seemed the creature had a habit of talking to only those it deemed weaker than itself. Since Aiden wasn’t that, the boy naturally didn’t want to talk back to him. When it didn’t talk, Aiden continued.

"You’re smarter than anything I’ve dealt with since getting here," he said. "Smarter than most things I dealt with before getting here too, and I’ve dealt with some genuinely impressive things."

The boy didn’t say anything, just kept staring at Aiden with a blank expression. He didn’t bother the creature or coax it to speak, just kept exposing his thoughts to it.

"You also had a run-in with some of my people before dumping them to be saved, I guess?" he continued. "Which tells me you knew where we lived much before anyone here knew you even existed."

"That’s either very brave or very stupid, and based on everything else you’ve done, I’m going with stupidly brave. You know, as someone who thought they were invincible until they got their butt kicked into oblivion?"

Once again, there was no reply. Even someone as mild-tempered and benevolent as Aiden had limits to his patience. Besides, it wasn’t difficult to know what the fool was trying to do.

"Look, as much as I enjoy chatting with myself, this isn’t one of those times. And your trick to buy time to pull a stunt? It ain’t gonna here. So, if you want to live, I suggest you start talking now."

"...hurts."

The boy finally said something, pointing to its missing feet.

Aiden smiled and called for Jewell. The doctor abandoned everything as usual and got to the basement. Aiden didn’t even have to tell him what to do. He saw the injured boy and the corpses lying around and got to work.

Five minutes later, its legs were fixed, but the demands weren’t over yet.

"...hungry."

Aiden nodded and placed a wide variety of things in front. From packaged food to raw meat. He wanted to see what the creature would pick, and as expected, it went for raw meat, gobbling it down.

As it ate, Aiden offered him more food to the point that the creature was even willing to eat off his hand like a child. The ghouls saw him feeding and immediately began acting like children, too, just to get some meat.

"Oh, for fuck’s sake..."

Aiden rolled his eyes and bought an entire mound of raw meat from the shop, turning it into a small hill for everyone to eat.

He was surprised at how well the boy was with the ghouls. Neither of them was showing any hostility towards the other, which was a good thing for what Aiden had in mind for them.

[Host, your plan seems to be working better than I expected.]

That’s because you have no idea what you’re doing half the time.

[I think what you mean is, I don’t have to work much because you’re such a reliable host, Host.]

Flattery won’t get you anywhere with me. I will only find you a body when I’m free.

[Hehe! I just like hearing that you’re looking for it.]

Oh really? Maybe I should stop then.

[Hooost!]

Shut it and let me focus here.

Suddenly, the boy lifted a piece of flesh and offered it to Aiden. He looked at the flesh before shaking his head.

"I don’t eat this," he said, only for the boy to grab a food pack and give it to him again. "...alright, I’ll take a bit for now."

Something felt off about the creature. Usually, Aiden would treat even humans as monsters and not give a fuck about them. But seeing the child offer him snacks made him feel like he was looking at Lily for a moment, and he couldn’t reject the child.

Maybe... the creature wasn’t as bad as Dexter made him out to be.