Five minutes later.
Amidst the vast Red Tide beneath the levee, there was a soft splash as Wu Erhun, whom Evans had casually tossed down, bobbed steadily on the water's surface.
Immediately after, under the astonished gazes of Ren Yi and Evans, that palm-sized wooden cross began to twitch violently.
A massive amount of flesh fibers, accompanied by the ear-grating sound of squirming bones, burst forth from the wood.
They rapidly intertwined, took shape, and hardened upon the water...
Ultimately, using large patches of pale bone and sturdy muscle fibers, it forcefully cobbled together an eldritch-looking flesh-and-blood speedboat.
That wasn't all. With several wet pops, several long oars made of mutated human arms sprouted haphazardly from both sides of the boat, like shoots growing from a branch.
Ren Yi's non-existent mouth twitched.
Wait a second. Riding in something like this... how were they supposed to look like good people? Or rather, good Anomalies?
Why did it feel like their aura as villainous henchmen was skyrocketing?
"Sirs..."
On the forward deck of the speedboat, the cross stood upright, now covered in a layer of flesh that formed facial features.
He forced a fawning, hideous smile and shouted to the two on the levee:
"Ahem, well, Wu Erhun is at your service!"
"Leave the rowing to me! Please, come aboard!"
He waved the "arms" on both sides of the boat, but in his heart, he was sneering.
Once we reach the middle of the water, I'll dump you both in and drown you!
Ren Yi and Evans exchanged a glance.
"Gotta say, this little thing's aesthetic... is quite unique."
Evans curled his lip, finding it a bit hard to look at.
He seemed to have completely forgotten that in his own True Form's out-of-control state, his own aesthetics weren't much better.
He was the first to leap onto the somewhat elastic flesh speedboat.
The white mist floating in the air also slowly drifted down. Instead of touching the hull, it settled on Evans's shoulder.
"Right then! Sit tight, sirs, we're casting off!" Wu Erhun roared.
Less than three seconds after that enthusiastic shout, Evans poured a bucket of ice water over his new navigator.
The youth crouching at the edge of the deck extended a finger, and his entire right arm instantly melted into a stream of black liquid.
This wisp of black liquid spread along the pale bone deck like a nimble venomous snake, quickly dispersing and merging with the entire ship.
One strand precisely tunneled into the core of Wu Erhun's cross.
"Ah...! W-what is this? Sir, let's talk this out!"
Wu Erhun's features instantly twisted in pain. The flesh arms that were rowing all stiffened simultaneously, nearly causing the speedboat to spin out on the water.
He could feel that the entire ship, made from his own flesh, had suddenly become somewhat foreign.
At the same time, a highly threatening sense of a foreign object appeared within his core.
"Don't be nervous. Just giving you a bit of double insurance."
Evans restored his arm to its original state and clapped his hands, revealing an extremely innocent smile.
"I left some cells in you. If you dare to try anything funny, I'll eat you."
The entire flesh hull shuddered.
For some reason, when this brat mentioned "eating," Wu Erhun suddenly felt like he was being stared down by an apex predator.
D-damn brat, and his bastard Anomaly pet!
Wu Erhun cursed in his heart.
But on the surface...
"I wouldn't dare! Absolutely wouldn't dare! My loyalty to you two sirs is as clear as day!"
Wu Erhun begged for mercy repeatedly, his flesh oars waving even more vigorously than before.
They kicked up large sprays of crimson foam, carrying the speedboat upstream and charging into the depths of the Red Tide like a bolt of lightning.
The speedboat plowed through the waves amidst the vast Red Tide.
As the levee gradually vanished at the edge of their vision, the high-temperature air began to be left behind.
At that moment, Ren Yi suddenly noticed something.
Ren Yi's non-existent gaze fixed on that weird-looking mushroom that was opening and closing its cap, puffing out tiny spores.
The "Honest Gift."
Now that he thought about it, there was only one way this thing could have ended up with Evans.
Back in the land ship, when Ren Yi had forcefully pulled out that female staff member codenamed B-117, a bunch of boxes and things had fallen off her person.
The situation had been too chaotic then, and those items were immediately swallowed by the completely berserk S-099.
It turned out that while this kid was transformed into a giant monster wreaking havoc, he hadn't forgotten to help himself to the mystery boxes on the ground.
But honestly, shouldn't those be Ren Yi's spoils of war?
If he hadn't fished out B-117, those things would have been taken back to the City of the Sky Lake long ago.
With that in mind, Ren Yi decided to uphold his legal rights as a "partner."
He would have a direct and serious discussion about ownership with this S-099 wearing a human skin.
【Evans, we need to talk.】
【I think it's necessary for us to straighten out the ownership of that pile of items first.】
"Hmm?" Evans, who was sitting with his legs crossed, raised an eyebrow at the words and casually pressed down on the mushroom.
"Huh? What items? What ownership?"
【Don't play dumb.】 Ren Yi sneered. 【Where are all my boxes?】
【You wouldn't have gotten those things without me. You have to admit that, right?】
Evans blinked, his youthful face showing an extremely innocent expression.
"You can't calculate it like that. Without me, you wouldn't have had the chance to snatch those things in the first place."
"And if I hadn't swallowed them, those items would be nothing but atoms in the nuclear blast right now."
"I paid a high 'venue protection fee' and 'salvage labor fee,' you know."
Ren Yi didn't budge an inch, the white mist even provocatively closing in by a few centimeters. 【The salvage fee can be considered, but returning items to their original owner is the basic bottom line.】
"Whoa, whoa, now you're just price gouging."
Evans scratched his hair in frustration and grumbled, "Look, it's not that I don't want to give them to you."
"By the time I realized what was happening, I'd already eaten quite a few of them. So, it's a bit difficult to 'return everything to the original owner.'"
Ren Yi: "..."
Rowing frantically and sweating profusely at the front, Wu Erhun—or rather, the entire piece of wood—was nearly dumbfounded by what he was hearing.
Since Ren Yi used text for this "encrypted conversation," Wu Erhun could only hear Evans's side of it.
What did he mean by swallowing things and then protecting them in a nuclear blast? What did he mean by eating Anomalies and not being able to take them out?
What kind of things was he carrying on his back?
After three minutes of extreme haggling, mutual mud-slinging, and precise calculation of their "debts" to each other, the two monsters finally reached a consensus.
"Fine, a fifty-fifty split. Does that work?" Evans sighed, then began to pull things out of his mouth.
Watching this, Wu Erhun at the front shuddered again.
The white mist shook comfortably in the air, expertly sweeping its half of the spoils into the depths of the mist.
【Deal. Pleasure doing business with you, Little Evans.】
Rate on N.U.
