Louis looked up, his face twisting into a grimace of pure disbelief. He pointed a clawed finger at the heap of leather and iron.
"Are you serious?" Louis asked, his voice rising. "I just told you that guy is a walking infected. That armor is soaked in his sweat. You want me to wear a armor full of infection?"
Han looked up, unimpressed. "The Black Peak Sect archers don't care about sickness. They shoot to kill. That armor is reinforced leather with iron plates. It will stop an arrow. Your skin will not."
"But I'll catch the—"
"You have a week," Han interrupted, his eyes cold and pragmatic. "The ride to the mountain takes half a day. The climb takes another. If you succeed, the Emperor's physicians can cure you. If you fail, you die anyway. The math is simple."
The math is insane, Louis thought, staring at the City Lord. Is he actually stupid? Or just evil?
He looked at the armor again. In his mind's eye, he could practically see the microscopic virus particles swarming over the leather, waiting for a new host.
Is he doing this on purpose? The thought struck Louis with a chill. Does he want me infected so I don't come back? No, that doesn't make sense. He needs the message delivered.
It was just desperation. Blind, ruthless desperation. Han didn't care if Louis died of the plague next Tuesday, as long as he delivered the letter on Monday.
"I said, put it on," Han growled. He reached into his desk drawer again, his hand hovering near the crossbow. "Or I can save the plague the trouble and put a bolt through your eye right now."
Louis grit his teeth. His survival instincts, the ones that had kept this body alive for years, screamed at him to comply.
Fine. Screw it. If I'm dead, I'm dead.
Louis knelt by the pile. He held his breath as he picked up the chest piece. It was heavy and smelled of stale sweat and unwashed body. He pulled it over his head, shuddering as the warm, damp lining touched his bare chest.
It was tight in the shoulders and loose in the waist. He cinched the straps until he could barely breathe. He strapped on the bracers, ignoring the sticky feeling against his wrists.
He grabbed the spear. The wood was slick with the previous owner's fear-sweat.
"The letter," Han reminded him, pointing to the parchment on the floor.
Louis snatched up the red-sealed letter and shoved it into a pouch on the belt of the infected armor.
"Go," Han said, already looking back at his papers. "And don't come back without help."
Louis didn't say goodbye. He turned on his heel and marched toward the door. The armor chaffed against his skin.
He pushed the heavy doors open and stepped out into the gray, dying light of the city. The fresh air hit his face, but he couldn't enjoy it. He felt dirty.
As he began to walk toward the city gates. He adjusted the heavy spear on his shoulder.
If I survive this, I'm going to kill that City Lord.
The heavy iron gates of the inner city groaned as they closed behind him, separating the Lord's district from the slums. Louis walked alone down the main thoroughfare, his boots kicking up clouds of gray dust.
The armor felt suffocating. Every time the damp leather lining rubbed against his bare chest, he flinched, imagining invisible, microscopic spiders burrowing into his pores. He tried to hold his breath, tried not to inhale the scent of the previous owner's stink, but his lungs burned.
"One week," he muttered to the empty street. "I have one week before I start coughing up my own lungs. Fantastic start to a second life."
Ding.
Louis looked up, The blue square materialized right in front of his face, bright and cheerful against the drab gray sky.
[ ALERT ]
[ Pathogen Intrusion Detected ]
[ Source: Dermal Contact (Infected Armor) ]
[ Status: Entering Bloodstream ]
Louis stared at the text, his heart sinking. "Well," he whispered, a dry chuckle escaping his throat. "That didn't take long. Official record: ten minutes."
He waited for the dread to set in.
But before he could even finish the thought, a second chime rang out.
Ding.
[ Analyzing Intruder... ]
[ Host Physiology: Demonic ]
[ System Response: CONSUME ]
Louis blinked. "Consume?"
Suddenly, the gnawing, scraping hollowness in his stomach—the starvation that had been tormenting him since he opened his eyes—stopped.
It didn't fade away gradually. It slammed shut.
A wave of warmth washed over him, starting from his chest where the infected leather pressed tightest. It wasn't painful. It felt thick and heavy, like warm honey pouring into his veins.
The trembling in his hands ceased. The lightheadedness from low blood sugar evaporated.
Louis gasped, his hand flying to his stomach. full...
[ Threat Neutralized. ]
[ Viral Load Converted to Bio-Energy. ]
[ +5 Biomass Obtained. ]
Louis stared at the floating blue text, his mouth slightly open.
Nothing.
A comfortable, rhythmic warmth pulsed from the armor, seeping into his skin like he was wearing a heated vest on a winter day. The constant, gnawing hunger that had defined his existence since waking up—the feeling of his stomach eating itself—was gone.
He felt... good. Better than good. He felt fed.
"What the hell is going on?" he whispered, his voice trembling not with fear, but with sheer confusion.
He looked down at his clawed hands. "Am I immune? Are... are all demons immune?"
He dove into the scattered memories of the body's previous owner, searching for answers.
No.
The memories were clear. He saw images of demons—massive, hulking laborers—collapsing in the fields, black veins tracing up their thick necks, coughing up bile until they died. Demons were stronger than humans; they lasted longer. A human might die in three days; a demon might last two weeks.
But they still died. The plague didn't discriminate.
But there were very few demons left to begin with. After the extermination campaigns by the humans, their numbers had been decimated. He even suspected that he might be the last remaining demon in the world.
"So it's not the species," Louis muttered, pacing in a small circle, the heavy boots crunching the gravel. "If this body was immune, the original owner wouldn't have been hiding in an alley, starving to death. He would have been out here..."
He stopped.
"He would have been out here eating."
Louis looked at the blue screen again.
[ System Response: CONSUME ]
"It's you," Louis realized, pointing a finger at the interface. "The previous guy... he didn't have this. He was just a starving slave. But I have the System."