Now that she was heading out of the Defense Force HQ, Francis felt a little disappointed. He wanted to learn more about it.

Unfortunately, he could not really influence her aside from causing minor stomach aches.

This was the limitation of his parasitic ability. Still, the experience wasn’t for nothing.

For one, he saw firsthand the advantage of having a human host.

At the same time, he now had direct access to several valuable persons of interest, such as the Director himself, the senator, and possibly other strong Special Categories on the same level as Lex.

This was an important factor, because no matter how skilled a driver was, one still needed a high-performance car to fully utilize it.

It was a classic software and hardware comparison. Right now, his mind and experience operated on a level far beyond anyone he had encountered so far, but he didn’t yet have the hardware to bring out his full potential.

She took a cab back to her apartment, which gave Francis more time to gather his thoughts.

Like an experienced veteran, he reviewed every mission, even successful ones, to see if there was room for improvement.

His priority shifted to recalling his encounter with Lex and seeing where he could have done better.

One of them was his Mutated Zone.

He no longer saw the world in third person. Even if he tried, he could not force it back.

But at least now, he understood how it happened, which meant he had a better chance of triggering it again.

One requirement was adrenaline. He needed enough of it to activate his survival instinct and enter the Zone.

Second, he needed to use his parasites eyes to create a field of view with no blind spots.

Without entering the Zone, he would only get a basic 360-degree view, because his mind could not keep up with all the incoming information.

’That was a powerful tool if I could use it at will,’ he recalled, thinking back to how he managed to dodge Lex’s attack thanks to his wider field of view.

A jet fighter breaking the sound barrier came to mind. Up close, it seemed to vanish in an instant, but from the ground, it moved slowly across the sky.

’I’ll try to practice once I’m out of my weakened state. How long is this thing anyway?’

There was no countdown, and he didn’t even know how long he had been out, so he couldn’t get an exact answer even if he wanted to. That made Berserk Mode far from the best option for escaping.

The only reason he was inside her now was pure luck. Leaving his life to chance wasn’t a good feeling for a strategist like him.

After finishing with the Mutated Zone analysis, he returned to studying Lex’s tactics.

Meanwhile, Samantha reached her unit and quickly headed to the kitchen.

"I’m so thirsty and hungry," she grumbled, holding her stomach.

She ordered food earlier, and even the amount surprised her, but she kept eating anyway. For some reason she couldn’t explain, her appetite had increased far beyond normal.

After finishing the meal, she didn’t feel full at all.

Instead, she reached for drinks and started downing cokes and soda one after another, as if her body couldn’t get enough.

Eventually, she moved to the sofa, still restless. She grabbed a pack of snacks and began eating.

"Maybe I’m just stress eating?" she mused aloud as she took another bite.

Francis noticed that his weakened state was actually improving slightly.

’Don’t tell me there’s no time limit... but she has to consume a lot to restore my energy?’

This discovery made things more complicated, because the increase was too minimal.

Then an idea came to him. He began feeding on the food himself, which made her feel hungrier in return and pushed her to order even more.

After the second batch, he stopped to avoid making her more suspicious.

She went to her bed and slumped down, feeling drowsy.

Nine hours later.

"Did I sleep the whole day?" Samantha woke up and saw that the night sky had already turned dark.

Just as she was about to stand up, she noticed she was wearing a different set of clothes.

’Was I that tired... that I forgot?’

She wondered for a moment, but didn’t suspect anything strange. She felt too safe and comfortable in her own place, and that made her less alert and less careful about small details.

When she checked the kitchen, it was very messy, so she started cleaning now that she felt rested.

She was the type of person who didn’t like strangers going through her space.

Because of that, she never hired help for chores like this. It felt more comfortable to do everything herself, even if it took more time.

She rolled up her sleeves and began wiping the counters, moving things back into place one by one.

Next, she opened her personal phone and was surprised to see a message from the Police Department.

They only contacted her when they needed help with a difficult case.

Her phone rang.

She answered the call. "Hello."

(Lieutenant Samantha, thanks for picking up. We actually need your help.)

"What’s the matter, Chief?"

(I’m at a crime scene right now, and we need your help. We found twelve dead bodies in an alley. They were gutted, so we need you to help track the perpetrator.)

She didn’t reply right away. Not because she didn’t want to help, but because she couldn’t.

Her ability was powerful for cases like this, but it needed a long recovery time.

The last time she pushed it too far, she had ended up in a coma for three days, an experience she would prefer not to go through again.

"I’m sorry, Chief, but I can’t help you right now. You must have heard about yesterday’s incident, so I overused my ability. I’m actually on leave right now to recover."

It took the person on the other line a couple of seconds to reply.

(It’s alright. You’ve helped us a lot already anyway. Just take your rest and be careful. The incident happened near your district. They were a bunch of thugs, so there’s a chance this is some kind of gang war.)

"Gang war? Then why did you call for me?" she asked. She assumed it was a high-profile case.

(It’s because all of them were gutted and missing organs, so we also suspect that the perpetrators are operating some kind of organ harvesting operation.)

Her eyes narrowed. Such incidents were actually not uncommon, since human organs fetched a high price in the underground market.

But these criminals usually targeted healthy, young people—not thugs who were practically killing themselves through drugs and illegal substances.

No wonder the Chief was leaning toward it being a gang war.

(Alright, Lieutenant, I won’t take much of your time.)

The Chief ended the call before she could ask for more details.

"What is happening in this world? There are already monsters to worry about, and there are still people sick enough to commit heinous crimes like serial killing and organ harvesting?"

She shook her head, disappointed with humanity.