It didn't take long to catch up to Stanley as I ducked around a corner out of sight of the fortress. He owed me some answers. I recalled what the UI had said when the scenario was first beginning. If Stanley was a parasite when his regard had been set at high towards me, was it possible the parasite also had its regard changed as well? If that was the case it explained why I hadn't been attacked, but not why the other parasite Rose hadn't attacked us. The only explanation I could come up with is when Stanley had first run after her, he had somehow convinced the girl to not attack me as well.

He was waiting for me to catch up behind the house, looking chagrined at his secret having been found out. "I'm sure you've figured it out by this point, but in case you are that dense, yes I'm a parasite. Sorta. It doesn't feel like it has full control of my body yet. My gains and bodily purity protected me dude."

"I'm gonna need a better explanation than, don't worry, I'm still me, just a parasite version of me that could at any point turn fully and eat you."

"Okay.... remember when I burst into our room and started yelling about the girl getting totally mauled outside? Before that I had just finished up class and was walking back to the dorm when I got tackled by something. I felt a sharp pain at the small of my back, and then heard gunshots. Hurt way worse than the pain I felt when I first started lifting broski. The thing got knocked off my back and blasted multiple times by some guy who had gotten a shotgun and a chainsaw from somewhere. He kept shouting about how this whole thing was the fault of some necronomicon. Dude was out of his mind bro. Anyway, the thing that got injected. I still feel it in my head, but it's in the background. My bodacious self is the one in control. It's all in the mind over matter."

"Okayyyy. So, you got injected with a parasite, saved by someone halfway through the transfer, and you think it was your gains that saved you? Not maybe the fact that it didnt get to fully infect you, but that you eat healthy and lift weights?"

"With a strong body, you can do anything. You just gotta believe that you can, set attainable goals and get there" Okay this wasn't going anywhere.

"Does being pseudo infected do anything for you? Besides prevent you from ever rejoining any human settlement?"

"Oh right, forgot to mention that. My bad dude. I'm like, completely wired into their network, meaning I get the all call every time one of them dies, and I can sometimes communicate with them with my mind. That was how I got Rose to not eat you like a jalepeño popper; although I don't think it will work on an older one. Pretty sure the parasite uses its host's brain, so she was easier to trick. I told her you were a special type of parasite that isn't on the network. What else is there? They totally think I'm one of them, so I don't get targeted. But that's about it."

I didn't know if the system had intended to give me this powerful of an advantage or if luck had been in my favor, but I'd take what I could get. The information that the parasite made use of it's host's brain was important, if only because it meant we weren't dealing with a being that had higher than human intelligence. It also made sense how Rose was able to be tricked into entering the containment room by her parents. Now to hope no super geniuses had been infected.

Stanley had also confirmed Rowen's theory that the parasites were communicating through some sort of psychic network. If he could tap into it, maybe we could use the information to avoid the parasites indefinitely. If true, it would only become a matter of finding food and water enough to survive until time was up. It seemed the connection was spotty given his circumstances though, so I doubted the reliability of Stanley becoming a parasite radar for us.

Question was, where to go from here? We weren't able to return to the fortress, and wandering the streets alone was asking for us to get killed. Our only option seemed to be secure our own spot, and use Stanley to weed out any potential dangers to us. It was more risk to bring in a larger number of people, but more people meant more areas we could potentially scavenge at once, so I wouldn't be turning away anyone who wanted to join us.

Stanley knew of a place nearby that would suffice for what we were looking for. It was another old factory; close enough to residential areas as well as a major shopping center that we could loot it and be back quickly. Using some of the random bits of machinery, we fortified the building and tried to leave only a single entrance available. It wouldn't stop a determined intruder, but it would at least slow them down and give us some time to react.

While putting up the barricades, which were mostly made of wooden planks across windows and heavy machinery pushed up against entrances, we came across another gun to add to our armory. A pistol had been stashed in the locked desk drawer of the managers office. What was arguably more important though, were the two bottles of vodka that were also stashed there. With those, we could make Molotov Cocktails that would be of more use against the parasites, or use it to treat wounds when they happened. I wasn't experienced in medicine beyond basic first aid, but I knew alcohol would make a good sterilizing agent for any wounds we ended up suffering before the end.

Having made our new shelter as secure as it could be, we decided to go for a scavenging run at the shopping center. It would have likely been looted already, but no one could take everything out of it, at least not this quickly. I hoped it wouldn't turn out to be as deadly as what we had gone through so far.