17. SHUT-THE-FUCK-UP AND PAY RENT TENANT.

Only after Master Brian was far away from the tower did Simon even dare to open his mouth.

The first thing that left his mouth was: "Jodoc and Liv… I think we've fucked up big."

The two nodded, and Liv slumped into her chair before muttering: "I'll never financially recover from this."

Hearing her words, Simon chuckled before trying to lighten the mood: "You know… We haven't lost everything. The two of you might be stupid enough to convince me of your horrific ideas, but we haven't lost yet. We just gotta make sure that Luz's condition improves. Also, we can just put the dept on Luz since he convinced us, hehehe."

Liv immediately nodded, and she looked now way more energetic than before.

How could she not think about such a genius idea? Luz's hospital bill might even put your average American's medical bill to shame, but at least she doesn't have to pay it.

Upon seeing the latter's smirk, Liv suspected that the latter planned nothing good. Hastily she raised her teacup and asked: "So, what do we do now, uncle~?"

Simon chuckled before proposing his plan: "Well… Master Brian's punishment may cost you up to two years of hard-earned money, but my punishment will cost you a few nights as the three of us will stay awake until that young lad wakes up and sees the bill."

The elf-eagle duo looked horrified when they heard Simon's suggestion and immediately screeched loudly in discontent. You might take their money, but not their sleep.

"Y-You c-can't d-do t-that," stammered Liv in frustration, only to see an evil grin on Simon's face as the latter replied casually: "Oh yes. I'll even make sure that none of you will fall asleep, heheheh. YOU TWO WILL BE SUFFERING WITH ME SINCE YOU ARE ALSO TO BLAME FOR TODAY'S SHITSHOW."

「Days passed」
The days passed, and Luz was still lying in the tank while his body was supplied with nutrition, oxygen, and mana.

In front of him stood a tired elf, who had dark rings below her eyes. Yawning, she documented a few measurements with a grim face while muttering: "Luz… Come one. Wake up so that I can finally sleep, yawn."

As one might expect, words of pleas don't really have an impact as long as they aren't wrapped with pot armor. Luz's body didn't react to her words, and she moved to a seat to drink a caffeinated sugar-free beverage.

Liv frowned after taking her first sip. "It tastes… weird…," she muttered before cursing that she tried the sugar-free option instead of the original one.

"JODOC. Please document that I shall never drink sugar-free beverages again," she shouted to the eagle, sitting half-sleep on a twig.

Irritated by her words, the latter shouted: "I'm not your pet, so NO!"

Hearing such an answer, Liv smiled before shouting: "So you admit to being a pet."

"Listen here, you little shit," cursed the eagle loudly as he spread his wings wide.

「the two started quarrels whenever they got bored and wanted to kill some time.」

Over time, the group of three had to intervene to prevent Luz's death from organ failure, which occurred almost regularly, once a day.

Inside Luz's body, the parasite hive repaired his mana core as much as possible since changing the host wasn't possible.

The analogy to what was occurring with Luz's mana core would be: "If you can't find a new car, then maintain the one you have until you can replace it with a new one. A broken mana core is a liability if one can't find a new host."
Therefore, the hive directed most of the newly refined mana to the host's mana core to solve the problem as quickly as possible.

As one might expect, nothing truly goes right in this novel. The parasites living in the host's mana core came into contact whit a high amount of mana, which accelerated their development tremendously. As a result, these five gained rudimentary consciousness and could communicate on a level above the rest of the hive.

While hive members requested via hormones and impulses member cells to share nutrients or refined mana with each other, the five parasites could suppress those communications.

Thanks to more powerful impulses and more potent hormones, these five were capable of inhibiting the communication of the rest in the hive.
Thus they forced the hive to prioritize their orders, and their first command was, "Any surplus of refined mana is to be sent to Luz'a's mana core."

Luz benefited from the flow of mana with a higher degree of purity through his body. Eventually, the cracks became smaller and smaller, preventing the five from leaving the mana core forever.

Days passed, and Luz slowly regained consciousness as his thoughts got clearer with time.

'My body… itches…it hurts… I feel impulses…shooting through my body.' went through Luz's head as he slowly opened his eyes.

As Luz slowly awoke, parameters began shooting up as his heartbeat quickened.

Liv was looking half asleep on a few displays, immediately jumped, shouting: "Simon! Some funny parameters are shooting up. What the hell is going on!?"

A tired master Mage immediately ran up the stairs to Liv, cursing loudly: "Don't tell me that he's facing another organ failure. I've just started repairing the kitchen."

"No, no, no," it looks different," commented Liv while adjusting her reading glasses on her nose.

"Eh!?" commented Simon as he gazed at the graphs before widening his eyes.

"FINALLY," he shouted before grabbing the elf's hip and throwing her up.

"EH?! Uncle, what the hell is going on?" asked Liv while getting thrown into the air.

Simon smiled from ear to ear as he explained to her: "These charts indicated that Luz is slowly gaining consciousness. We won't be facing Master Brian's wrath yet, hahaha."

"Does that mean I can sleep now?" Liv asked while yawning loudly.

"Yes! WAIT, NO! You, my girl, will be staying awake till that greenhorn leaves his tank," shouted Simon while gripping the shoulders of Liv, who had already fallen asleep.

"Is she serious!?" Simon cursed before putting the girl gently onto a chair and sighing.

Hearing all these noises, Luz merely thought: 'So noisy… I wish I could continue sleeping instead of hearing these two freaks.'

But before he could continue contemplating it, he heard a bunch of strange voices inside his head telling him telepathically to「EAT.」
The messages he received were rudimentary but still clear enough to understand their desires.
「Food」,「Mana」 were the other two messages he received.

Upon hearing these voices, Luz's face immediately turned grim.
'So… people now live inside my head without paying rent. I thought only politicians lived there rent-free. How much should I charge for rent, hmm.'

Even if Luz wasn't the brightest in the room, he immediately realized to whom those voices belonged and therefore didn't take them seriously. The new guests inside his body were parasites, and somehow these filthy creatures gained consciousness.

「Biological matter」

Gritting his teeth, he thought: 'SHUT-THE-FUCK-UP AND PAY RENT TENANT.'

'Hopefully, they can understand that,' sighed Luz before feeling the uncomfortable gaze of someone.

Upon seeing the face of a tired man with bloody red eyes and deep rings below them, Luz got frightened to such a degree that he wanted to jump out of the tank.

Simon gently knocked on the glass while telling Luz: "Yo… It's great to see you lively, but please don't rip any tubes out of your body. Do you want anything, by the way?"

Luz nodded and wrote: "Food, meat." onto the glass with his fingers.