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Chapter 64: Too Easy to Read
"Saeko-senpai, let's head back."
Suyan deployed his En and quickly located Saeko, who was hunting down stray zombies in the vicinity after finishing refueling the motorcycle.
Seeing Suyan approach, Saeko immediately dropped her battle stance. The delinquents' earlier presence had drawn most of the area's attention, leaving very few zombies to hunt. Furthermore, she hadn't yet learned the technique of En from Suyan. After two days of exhilarating, musou-style slaughter, hunting down these few scattered stragglers didn't even qualify as a warm-up for her.
Saeko dismissed her conjured blade, Reizan, and asked curiously, "Is it over?"
"Yeah," Suyan nodded.
Thanks to the generous assistance of those 'good Samaritans,' Suyan had fully deduced the infection mechanism of the zombie virus.
It wasn't transmitted through saliva, nor was it carried inherently in the teeth. Instead, located in the upper palate of the zombies, there was a specialized sac—much like a venomous snake's—that stored what he dubbed the Zombie Toxin.
Only when the zombie bit into prey would it inject this specialized toxin directly into the wound. The moment the toxin mingled with human blood, it triggered a bizarre chemical reaction that spread throughout the entire body at terrifying speeds. Even instantly amputating the bitten limb was useless; the infection window was simply too narrow.
Furthermore, this toxin carried a microscopic, nearly undetectable hallucinogenic effect. This explained why victims grabbed by zombies often struggled to fight back effectively. The virus rode the bloodstream straight to the brain, mutating the infected into mindless monsters that attacked any living thing in sight.
The most frustrating part, however, was that the toxin oxidized and rapidly neutralized the moment it was exposed to air, losing all of its infectious properties.
While this discovery drastically reduced their risk of accidental infection, the highly restrictive nature of the toxin left Suyan thoroughly baffled. If it degraded in air and practically required a direct bite to spread, how did the apocalypse spiral out of control so fast?
Aside from the direct intervention of the World's Will, Suyan couldn't think of a logical explanation. He decided to shelve the thought.
However, this rapid-oxidation trait made extracting the virus incredibly difficult. Fortunately, Suyan relied on his Conjuration Type abilities to manifest a highly specific set of medical tools, successfully extracting a small vial of the pure toxin from the zombie.
Saeko showed zero interest in Suyan's twisted experiments. She merely glanced at the vial of extracted toxin before looking away. "Are we heading back now?"
"Yeah. It's getting late. Let's head home, grab lunch, and rest up. I'll bring you back out to hunt this afternoon."
Seeing Saeko's lack of interest in the Zombie Toxin, Suyan didn't push the subject. Transmutation Type was adjacent to Conjuration Type on the Nen chart, meaning Saeko actually had decent potential to learn it. But he chose not to teach her.
First, he knew she had no interest in this kind of research; her passion lay entirely in the thrill of the kill. Second, training an affinity that didn't perfectly align with her natural talent would eventually lead to diminishing returns and wasted effort.
It was better if he handled it himself.
Through the power of his Contract, Suyan now possessed Specialization Type, the Emission Type synchronized from Marikawa Shizuka, and the Conjuration Type from Busujima Saeko. Given enough time, he would inevitably gather all Six Nen Types and possess peak talent in every single one. Because of this, no matter how much he experimented, it wasn't a waste of his potential. It was merely a matter of which of the six tracks he chose to run first.
Moreover, judging by his own progress in the Conjuration Type, Suyan suspected his true talent in Nen lay in his extreme versatility.
For example, in Hunter x Hunter, Kurapika's initial conjured chains possessed no special abilities. It was only after learning about Vow and Limitation that he managed to imbue them with unique properties. Even then, it took Kurapika three full months of grueling visualization training to manifest those chains into reality.
Perhaps due to his exceptionally vivid imagination, it had taken Suyan less than two months to conjure his first object—an exact replica of Saeko's White Oak Bokken. And after breaking through that initial barrier, his conjuration speed had skyrocketed.
This was especially true after forming the Contract with Saeko. Suyan's Conjuration Type abilities felt like they had been strapped to a rocket booster. Take the motorcycle he had only started riding last night, for instance. Suyan was confident that after a few more days of riding it, he could flawlessly conjure an identical replica using his aura.
As long as an object existed in reality, and as long as he could see it and touch it, Suyan was confident he could conjure it in record time.
But that was the absolute limit. Aside from Saeko's unique weapon, Reizan, he couldn't conjure weapons with supernatural abilities.
Similarly, although the Reizan Suyan conjured retained the property of absorbing aura from slain enemies, his Contract was his own ability, not Saeko's. Because of this, the aura Suyan absorbed by killing zombies with Reizan would not synchronize a copy back to Saeko.
This was the main reason he left the zombie-clearing entirely to her, rarely bothering to fight them himself. While he wanted to satisfy her bloodlust, it ultimately boiled down to optimizing their profit margins.
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"We're back," Suyan announced, stepping through the front door of Minami Rika's House with Saeko in tow.
"Mii!" "Mii!"
Unsurprisingly, the first to greet them were the two fluffy, adorable YukimiBotamon. Suyan scooped them up, placing one on each shoulder. It made him look like a budget cosplayer of the Toad Sage, Jiraiya, though his version of Sage Mode was significantly more handsome.
Bearing the two Digimon on his shoulders, Suyan swapped into his indoor slippers, walked through the genkan, and entered the living room.
"Welcome back, Suyan-kun."
"S-Suyan-kun, welcome back."
Miyamoto Rei set down her chores and approached to greet him, pulling Takagi Saya along by the hand. Saya looked incredibly stiff. Although she managed to stutter out a greeting, her eyes darted nervously around the room, entirely unable to look Suyan in the face.
"What's going on here?" Suyan looked at the two girls with genuine surprise.
Both of them were wearing the exact same style of apron Saeko had worn in the original story—the only difference being they weren't completely naked underneath.
Miyamoto Rei reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear and smiled softly. "Since it's difficult for us to help you in combat, we wanted to do whatever we could to assist you around the house. For instance, preparing the ingredients before you get back. That way, we can help save you a lot of time."
Suyan raised an eyebrow, nodding in approval. "Is that so? Thank you for the hard work."
"It's nothing really. Saya helped out a lot, too." Rei shook her head gently and nudged the pink-haired girl standing beside her.
Seeing Suyan's gaze shift to her, Saya instantly grew flustered and quickly defended herself. "D-Don't get the wrong idea! I wasn't doing this to score points with you or anything! I only helped because Rei said she needed an extra pair of hands!"
"Is that so?" Suyan looked at the pink-haired girl, a strange glint in his eyes.
When did those two get so close? They're already on a first-name basis?
More importantly, Saya's reaction was incredibly amusing to him. Was this the legendary 'tsundere' trope? How interesting. He wanted to pet her.
Smiling, Suyan reached out and gently patted Saya on the head. "Regardless, thank you. Leave the rest to me."
Although Saya forcefully turned her head away, wearing an expression of supreme reluctance, she made no move to push his hand away. If one looked closely, they would notice the pink-haired girl subtly rising on her tiptoes, leaning her head deeper into Suyan's palm.
If Saya had an ahoge on her head, it would probably be wagging back and forth like a happy puppy's tail right now.
Watching Saya's display, a singular, synchronized thought echoed in the minds of everyone in the room:
Takagi Saya is… entirely too easy to read!
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