Parasyte System

After a couple of hours, Jay had finished cleaning up the yards that were his daily quota, so it was finally time to return to his room.

It didn't take him long to wander the long corridors of the Training Center until he reached his small residence, which for some reason, didn't have a single one of its lights on.

'Looks like Sylvis isn't back yet...' He thought, inserting his key into the door of the building before entering without making much noise.

As expected, one could appreciate the darkness inside the building much better than from outside.

Turning on the living room lights, Jay then made his way to the second floor before entering his room and beginning to undress.

Thanks to the fact that today had been a hectic day, his body had been sweating constantly, if one added the fact that he had also been covered in dust thanks to sweeping non-stop, taking a shower was his number one priority right now.

That's also why he didn't even bother to turn on the lights in his room before he went into the bathroom.

Fortunately, he didn't have to check to see if anyone else was occupying the bathroom or wait for them to get out, as his room had its own bathroom, which was even a little bigger than the one he had at home.

Turning on the shower faucet, Jay then began humming a tune.

There were several things pending that he had to think about, but at least for this short time, he wanted to keep his mind clear of anything.

Also sensing that Jay wanted to relax, the parasites inside his body automatically went into sleep mode, greatly weakening their vitality radar, now only covering 1 meter around Jay.

*Creak*

However, at that moment, the sound of wood creaking echoed in the hallway outside Jay's room.

The sound was quite low, as if the movement causing this sound had been made very carefully, even people with sharpened senses, such as Jay, would not be able to hear this sound.

Which just happened, as Jay simply continued to clean his body in the shower, taking his time to complete the task well, completely unaware that slowly and quietly, someone was entering his room.

After a few minutes of scrubbing his body properly, Jay then proceeded to walk to the bathroom door that connected to his room, grabbing the knob and flinging the door open, not before grabbing a towel, though not to cover himself, but to dry himself off.

His mood was still good and relaxed, which could be reflected in the fact that he was still humming the song from the beginning, even as he was toweling his hair dry.

But the next moment, just after he had left the bathroom, a person's voice, coupled with the fact that his parasites just detected a strong sign of vitality in the surroundings at the same time as the light in the room came on, caused his alarms to go off.

"So you're back at last! Jay... Sacrest?" Said Syvis, who was sitting cross-legged on the edge of Jay's bed, directly facing the bathroom door, and at this moment, Jay naked.

Her words had begun with her usual tone of confidence and pride, but as her superhuman brain scanned the situation at the same time as her gaze dropped lower and lower, even the calm and confident Syvis began to get nervous.

For a brief moment, the atmosphere in the room froze completely, with Jay holding the towel over his head with one hand and the bathroom doorknob with the other.

"..."

"...Ahem, I um... I didn't expect anything less to tell you the truth..." Syvis said, looking away as her ears became slightly red.

Right away, in response to what Syvis had just said, Jay took a breath of air, and using his strong lungs, let out a scream.

"AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

"SHUT UUPPPP!!!"

In the following days, this scream would start a small buzz among the students at the training center, who thought that a student had trained so hard that he couldn't help but scream out of excitement, which slightly encouraged them to train hard.

***

"Why the hell did you have to shout so loudly?! Surely the whole damn training center heard you!" Said Syvis, who was pacing back and forth in Jay's room, her ears still a shade of red.

It was rare to see someone like her being so nervous, but that only served to show how much of an impact this encounter with Jay had had.

Now the one sitting on the bed, with a calm expression on his face, and more importantly, clothes on, was Jay, who replied unhurriedly, "It's so you don't come into my room again without knocking."

"Who the hell gets out of the shower without covering up?!"

"Me."

In contrast to the scream he had just let out, it was clear that he really wasn't worried about Syvis having seen him naked.

Of course, there was an explanation for this, and that was that Jay had never been a person who was easily embarrassed, especially with people he didn't know very well, such as Syvis and Noah to give examples.

On the other hand, if the person who had seen him naked had been someone close to him, such as Sarah... it was very likely that he would have even activated Overload just to cover up faster.

Seeing that Syvis was still somewhat affected, Jay suddenly came up with something.

Standing up and walking over to his desk, Jay sat down before speaking, "Hm, well then, how about we just pretend that this didn't happen?"

This immediately caught Syvis' interest, who turned as she nodded with a relieved expression on her face, "Yes, that would be best!"

"However!" Jay continued, clasping his hands together as he looked at the girl, "I need you to do me a favor."

Regaining some of her calm, Syvis threw out another question, "...What kind of favor?"

While it had been a rather uncomfortable time for her, it wasn't like she was going to stay affected for too long.

"Tell me everything you know about the Baron."

The moment Jay finished this sentence, all the nervousness Syvis was feeling instantly disappeared, being replaced by a serious attitude.

Of course, this was a normal response, after all, the person Jay had just mentioned was not someone simple at all.

"Tch, don't tell me you were contacted by that smug guy?"

Unexpectedly, the first response Syvis bestowed on Jay about the Baron, while it was one of dislike towards said character, also answered other doubt Jay had.

That was, he had underestimated how well known this Baron was.

He had originally thought that he was simply an upperclassman with some influence, but if even Syvis, who was also a first year and not normally interested in others, knew of him, then it meant that his fame was not small at all.

"Something like that, that's why I was wondering how strong he is and what benefits he could bring me if I were to join his group." Jay replied.

This answer made Syvis' face turn into a grimace, making clear her distaste for the Baron.

Chuckling lightly, Jay continued, "Come on, give me reasons to dislike him as much as you do then, since I don't know anything about him."

"Haa..."

Letting out a sigh of resignation, Syvis sat down on one end of the bed and began to tell what she knew about the Baron.

Turns out that the "Baron" was the title used by a third grader of the silver city, though it wasn't simply a title, as he was actually part of a noble family.

Specifically, of the nobility of the Atror Empire, which was a prosperous and successful nation in all areas, whether in its economy, its military power with tens of millions of pugilists and other social aspects that were the envy of smaller countries.

It could be said that it was on a par with Altur, the world's ruling power, if it were not for one small detail.

The empire was a huge country, which gave it a lot of benefits but also had its own set of problems.

Thanks to the vastness of the territory, while the imperial family ruled over the empire and also over the central and largest part of it, the other territories were ruled by other noble families.

In this hierarchy, those who were closest to the imperial family, such as the dukes and marquises, had the largest territory, and those at the bottom were the nobles such as the barons.

However, even though the barons only controlled a handful of villages and the occasional town, that didn't mean that power disputes didn't occur.

"Hm, I see, so what this noble is doing is trying to recruit supers to secure his position as the baron of his family?" Jay said, coming to the most logical conclusion.

"No, he doesn't need to secure anything, he's already the head of his family."  Syvis let out a sigh before continuing, "I hate to admit it, but his abilities aren't bad at all, it's just... his style of fighting that I hate!"

After saying this, Syvis pulled out her smart watch and opened a video she had in her gallery before playing it in front of Jay.

In the video, two people could be seen in the center of what appeared to be a large combat arena, separated from the audience by a metal fence a few feet high.

"This is a combat arena located in the coliseum, each city has one, but it is only accessible through the instructors at each respective city's training center. The big guy on the right is Drek, a 4th grader and a pugilist coming from the empire, he is strong, mainly because of his superior physique thanks to the martial techniques he practices, although his power is not low at all either." Syvis explained.

Syvis wasn't lying when she said big guy, after all, Drek was a mass of muscles easily reaching 8'2'' (2.5 m), giving him an intimidating look.

What impressed Jay the most was that Syvis had referred to this student as 'strong', with her being someone confident and dominant, for her to refer to someone that way was indicative that this person truly was strong.

"And on the left... there is he, Adam Ossler, a 3rd grader from the silver city and also a pugilist hailing from the empire, though he is better known as the Baron." She continued.

Positioned directly in front of Drek, a stocky young man of about 6'3" (1.90 m) with short brown hair stood, his face a serious expression.

The next moment, a large figure moved at great speed.

Drek lunged forward, seeking to grab his opponent before he could flee so he could strike first.

While his body was focused on defense, his grip strength was no laughing matter, so if he wanted to avoid risking damage, what Adam should have done was either dodge or try to move away.

However, not only did he do neither of those two things, but he also lunged forward at an even faster speed than Drek.

*Crack!*

Then, the sound of bones breaking was clearly heard on the video, accompanied by Drek suddenly kneeling on the ground while holding his face with his large right hand.

Due to the distance, it was not possible to see exactly what had happened to him, but fortunately, the person recording the video noticed and zoomed in on Drek's face.

His expression had changed to one of pain, and between the spaces of his fingers, a stream of blood was escaping, quickly staining his whole hand and even a few drops falling to the ground.

At that moment, Adam appeared again in the video, standing again in front of Drek, and immediately, he held out his hand to help him get up.

Seeing this, Drek looked up to see Adam before taking his hand, but before he could get up, Adam moved.

*BAM!*

A strong axe kick, targeting Drek's chin, landed on the latter, forcibly pushing his head back until he fell backwards.

At that moment, the video ended.

"You see? Attacking when your opponent is down is cowardly...!" Syvis said, visibly outraged by Adam's actions.

On the other hand, Jay simply stared at the video for a moment before slowly, a smile appeared on his face.

Suddenly, he stood up from his chair and also took out his smart watch, "... Can you send me the video?! Please!"

"...Eh?"

Apparently, Syvis' action had had the opposite effect to the one she was looking for.