The Eternal Winter - Chapter 22 - Hate (Patreon)

                                                                        Alexander North

An awkward silence ensues for a few minutes after they leave before captain Andrew points at my claws and says, “Bet those are helpful.”

I move my hand in front of my face with the claws still extended.

“Yeah,” I answer while staring at the sharp, black claws sticking out of my pale hand. “Honestly, these might just be better than a sword.”

“But?” captain Ruthers asks while sitting down on the table and looking at me.

I glance at him before looking at my claws again and saying, “A sword still has its uses.”

Particularly the longer range that they offer me as compared to my claws.

Silence once again fills the room with none of us really knowing what to talk about as we stare at the entrance to the room. Eventually though, I feel a gloveless hand grab my bare arm in one of the locations where my armor and clothes are wrecked.

I turn to see captain Andrew frowning at my arm before removing his hand and looking at it.

“What was that about?” I ask him, a little bewildered by his actions.

“Just sating my own curiosity,” the captain mutters while still staring at the very light frost that had started building up on his hand.

I raise an eyebrow at that, but before I can say anything, captain Andrew looks up at me and says, “Your arm is cold. Very cold. Is that normal since the change, or are you freezing alive due to how exposed you are now?”

My mouth parts open slightly at that, only to close again. At the same time, captain Ruthers turns to look at me without saying anything, likely curious to hear about my condition as well.

That’s a strange question, considering that touching my skin made a frost begin to cover his hand. Albeit a lot less than it did on other things I touched. Which I guess means that symbionts make people more resistant to more than just the icy liquid inside of those spiders when it comes to the monsters.

“Honestly? I don’t feel cold,” I answer the two of them with a shrug after a few more seconds. “In fact, this room feels really nice to me whereas the bunker downstairs felt too hot.”

They both look a little surprised at that, but I explain my theory about my body being built now for this type of environment, making them instead look down in contemplation.

None of us speak again until we hear the sound of someone climbing the stairs behind us.

When I turn around, I surprisingly find Phillip reaching the top of the stairs while lugging around a bag. And the moment he sees me, he stops to wave before dragging it across the frost-covered ground to me before dropping it, making it spill a few pieces of cybernetic armor.

“Thanks,” I tell him with a nod before kneeling down and beginning to take the armor out of the bag.

However, after I finish laying the set of armor out on the ground and look up, I find Phillip still standing there staring at me with his helmet held under his arm.

“What is it?” I ask him while taking my current damaged helmet off and placing it in the bag.

“Well…” he starts before twiddling with his thumbs and going silent.

I let out a sigh and wave my hand at him, “Just speak your mind.”

“Well, I was wondering what it’s like to not be human anymore?” he asks with a very eager expression on his face.

Just for that expression to go away when captain Andrew slaps him in the back of the head.

I chuckle at that before saying, “Don’t worry, captain, it really doesn’t bother me. I was already raised with the understanding that I would become a symbiont host in the future, so I just think of this as a different path. Albeit one without any prior information about it.”

Both captains look surprised by that, but I continue talking while looking down at my hands, “I’m now stronger than a human being, with new abilities that will help me survive in this apocalypse, even if I don’t fully understand everything yet.” I then clench both of my fists and look up again with a faint smile on my face that they can’t see through my helmet. “I even have a way to continue getting stronger. One that’s on my own and not with the help of some artificial creature surgically joined with me.”

And that’s really all I’ve ever wanted.

A path for myself. One made by myself for myself. Even if it was technically due to a combination of my heart and this strange apocalypse.

Not the path dad set for me, regardless of why, and not the one that got mom killed.

“Before now, the symbionts were my only path to getting stronger,” I mutter with a frown before unclenching my fists and going back to putting on my armor. “Mutation or not, this still somehow seems more natural than the symbionts. So I would take this over getting one of those things planted inside of me.”

I never really thought about this before. But I really hate the symbionts.

After all, it was because of the first version of the symbionts that mom died.

All three of them stay silent as I continue switching my armor out for the new set until I eventually stand back up fully equipped again and focus on the small spider corpses in the room. Or more specifically, on the energy that’s still in their corpses.

At least, the ones that didn’t self-destruct, that is. Because apparently that uses up all of their energy to do?

Either way, it looks like the monsters’ energy doesn’t simply fade away after a period of time. So something was absorbing the energy of the monsters up above that wasn’t just me.

I should mention that to the lieutenant colonel later.

But for now…

I start going from spider to spider, just absorbing the energy in their bodies before checking my new stats after I finish getting every last one of them.

/ Current Analysis of user Alexander North \

Strength: 1.60
Speed: 1.70
Reflexes: 1.54
Constitution: 2.01
Immunity: ???
Senses: 1.73

Body Malfunctions: ???
Error: Cannot determine Immunity or Body Malfunctions of user’s current species.
The average of a human being without a symbiont is a 1 across all stats.

\End of Analysis/

My eyes widen at the results.

That’s quite a boost. Or at least, it’s a big boost to my speed and reflexes.

The rest of my stats only raised by like 0.01 or so.

Which makes sense considering how physically weak the spiders were.

My thoughts are interrupted as I feel a twitch in my head behind my ear, where the terminal is implanted, followed shortly by the appearance of a notice in the place of the analysis.

/ Notice \

Terminal has finished updating the database to include current user’s species’ information.
Analysis page will now be updated.

\End of Notice/

I stare at the notice for a few seconds before another analysis appears at the edge of my vision. One that brings even more questions with it.

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