The Z Gene - Chapter 14：Costil's plans and dwarf city

While the mayor was patting himself on the back for his good reasoning Daniel was making his way towards his office to cement the cooperation contract so they can become allies officially. The mayor knew that he had to help city Magenta now but he was too happy to care about that, the dark district left quite a big stain on his reputation and now that it was gone he was going be loved even more by the population.

He was also glad that now he could intervene and help the poor souls of the dark district that wandered there and were stuck there as a consequence. He didn’t have enough military power to help them but now with the big shots gone his guards could clean everything up!

Daniel was walking at a leisure pace towards the mayor’s office as he saw the guards of the city rushing towards the dark district to clean the place up, even though the district ‘housed’ 2 million people most of them were poor civilians with nowhere to go, not everyone was a criminal there.

Daniel finally got to the mayor’s office after a five-minute walk as he didn’t hurry at all, the mayor welcomed him in the office with open arms and a wide smile on his mustached face, he was extremely glad about the job Daniel did and he said:

“Good job boy, very good job indeed you made me a big favor and I’m ready to ally with you and your city, I already made the needed paperwork we just have to sign it.” He fished out a piece of paper with the terms that Daniel and he talked about before and signed it directly, at Ropego’s insistence Daniel read the paper twice before signing it after seeing that everything was in the proper order.

Daniel smiled towards the mayor and thought to himself that he did a great job in the city, even though he wasn’t brainwashed anymore Daniel grew to like saving people, he felt warm and fuzzy inside every time he saw someone who was down on his luck being helped by him, Ropego smiled inwardly at Daniel’s facial expression, he thought the brainwashing was still holding fast.

After Daniel finished signing the paperwork he waved his hand at the mayor and said:

“Well since I’m done here, I have to go now there are more cities out there that need my help just like yours, hopefully, all of them will agree with my allying plan we can save the remains of humanity this way!”

The mayor was inspired by my words but he was realistic, humanity couldn’t be saved, the planet was dying and he just took my words as the ramblings of youth who didn’t see the world, even though Daniel was strong the mayor still thought he wasn’t experienced.

Daniel exited City Silver Forest leaving everyone else behind, suddenly his communicator rang!

Costil thought of himself as a man who knew what he wanted, that’s why he created the Zeta Church and led it towards conquering the planet, he wanted to enjoy the remaining life earth had in opulence, he had the power and the means to do it so he thought to himself why not?

He started to remember some other things from his childhood and knew that Daniel was one of his best friends since youth, Costil decided that if he met Daniel again he would ask him to join his church, he needed a right-hand man right now as he was lacking in true elites.

Even though the people he awakened with the Z Gene were getting stronger gradually he still felt their power was way behind his, and it was true, their genes were impure and unrefined compared to Costil’s, they didn’t take the true awakening serum in a high quantity like Costil did so their power was impure and of low quality, of course, it was still better than most of the other genes out there since it gave increments in mostly every aspect of the human body.

Seraphima was teaching Costil martial arts and other techniques and she also told him the secret on how to strengthen his gene, he needed energy, tons of energy to strengthen his gene and awaken his DNA genetic branches to fully awaken the tree, right now his first gene branch of the DNA tree was fully glowing a bright deep green indicating that he had a different attribute compared to Daniel.

Everyone who awakened the Z Gene with the high-quality Z Gene serum would get a special ability based on the quality of their body, Daniel’s special ability was faster growth while Costil’s was his ability to infect people with the Z Gene, unlike the original Z Gene serum injection, if the people didn’t have the talent to awaken the Z Gene they wouldn’t die.

Costil’s talent for martial arts and fighting was pretty much equal to Daniel’s if not a bit lower, it took him a while to learn how to punch properly before he just fought and intimidated people with brute strength combined with his Z Gene infestation ability which could albeit sway the emotions and thoughts of the people he infested, he became the pope of the newly created Church!

He didn’t care about much besides living his life as he wanted after he conquered the remains of Earth’s civilization, he shared his plans with Seraphima not caring of the opinion of the Iron Bunker, for him it was obvious that he had an advantage over the Iron Bunker since they came to him for a partnership.

Baidoa didn’t care about the dreams or plans of Costil, all he wanted was to practically ‘fatten up’ his two ‘sheeps’ before he made them eat each other!

The fatter ‘sheep’ would get to decide if humanity continued to survive or not, Master Litoa was still improving upon the Z Gene trying to remove some of the drawbacks but it was pretty much almost impossible to do it, he would destroy the balance of the formula if he changed anything and thus it would have the reverse effect instead of what he wanted.

City Barrow was comparable to City Magenta making it a low-level city it’s population bordered on two million or so and fifty percent of it was already converted to the Zeta Church!

The other people were hunted down and eaten by the now cannibals of the Zeta Church strengthening their Z Gene and making it inch closer towards the first branch of the DNA genetic tree.

The most elite of Costil’s people was already halfway towards the first branch, of course, compared to Costil he was as weak as a little chicken, the quality of Costil’s gene was way ahead of his and he also unlocked his first branch of the nine from the helix tree.

Costil was sparring with his right-hand man known as Sparrow Bartholomew, Costil was yawning while fighting with him, Seraphima was watching from the sides instructing the both of them, Costil was going easy on Sparrow so he could train his technique, even though he didn’t want to enter the field unless necessary as he was quite the lazy individual but that didn’t mean he was going to not train at all!

He wasn’t dumb what if Daniel refused his proposal of joining forces? If he did that he needed to fight him and subdue him! He was still pondering if to kill him or not if he refused. The Z Gene already altered his personality so even though he regained some of his memories from the past about his childhood they didn’t affect his emotions much.

Daniel opened up his communicator and watched as the image of Silvester appeared on the communicator’s interface, Silvester opened his mouth to say something but Dabo interfered from the side by saying:

“Boss, there are two babes outside the city saying that you sent them here, should we let them in?”

Daniel nodded his head at Dabo’s words and said:

“Invite them in and start the trading plan with City Silver Forest I’m sending you the information with the communicator right now.” Daniel inputted some numbers in the communicator and information streamed from his device towards Silvester’s in few tens of minutes.

Silvester read everything then bowed and closed the communicator with Daniel’s approval.

Back in City Magenta Silvester let Berarizo and Little Bai-Bai inside the city then informed them of what they needed to do. Silvester gave them giant backpacks full of resources which they could trade with City Silver Frost then let them go on their way, they were strong and their defense was exceptional thus Silvester wasn’t worried about it.

Daniel walked away from the tree that housed City Silver Frost and started to walk aimlessly in the jungle, as he walked Ropego yawned on his shoulder and slithered down Daniel’s body and took a map out of his pocket then said:

“Ok now for the next city I have something different in mind, do you remember the little guys from before?”

Daniel nodded his head, he remembered how the dwarfs from before tried to threaten him then ran away with their tail tugged between their legs.

Ropego nodded then continued while observing the map with an analytical eye:

“We should conquer the dwarf’s village next, they are a special mutated race of people that aren’t included in the normal population of the planet, they all live in one big city underground and their numbers are increasing yearly! There were already twenty million dwarfs the last time the Iron Bunker made contact with them, they are an umm how could I put it properly?”

“Hmm they are a peculiar race that’s what I can say the least, we have the correct coordinates of their city they live underground on the borders of the jungle, you have to go back from where you came from then try to find their underground entrance.”

Daniel shook his head at Ropego’s words then said:

“I don’t know Ropego, we haven’t even finished with the surface and now we go underground?”

Ropego liked that Daniel was still thinking about the surface and he tried to manipulate Daniel trying to make him think that the dwarfs were as important as the surface:

“Daniel the dwarfs are a peculiar race because they live even worse than the surface people, you saw how they tried to rob you back then? normally dwarfs don’t leave the underground at all, do you know how desperate those little people were to leave their nests?”

A pondering expression appeared on Daniel’s face as he thought on what to respond to Ropego’s words. After a little while he said:

“Ok then since things are worse in the underground I guess we should be able to help the dwarfs first, afterward however we need to rush directly back to the surface, I’m not sure how Costil is doing but I can’t let him strengthen his army too much.”

Ropego sweated inwardly, he sent Daniel underground more because Costil needed more time to grow stronger, rather than the idea of conquering the dwarfs being appealing, the dwarfs weren’t a useful race, they could do labor, but they weren’t smart so all they were good for was being slaves.

Ropego’s plan was pretty good considering he came up with it on the fly, he just remembered about the dwarfs after he heard that Daniel wanted to go to other cities when he talked with the mayor.

Daniel started running towards the edge of the jungle as he fought off animals that were dumb enough to attack him then he ate them while sharing some of the meat with Ropego who ate with small bites due to the disgust he felt towards the meat of the mutated animals.

After a few hours of running at a moderate pace, Daniel got back towards the edge of the forest where Ropego told him to stop.

Ropego nodded to himself then opened the map again while saying:

“Ok move four hundred meters east then two hundred meters north afterward directly start digging, by tomorrow we should be able to get to the dwarf’s city entrance!”

Daniel did as he was instructed while thinking to himself:

“Dumb cat go do that go dig the other thing, I can’t wait to be strong enough to destroy your Iron Bunker and get back my memories!”

After he walked east then north he started digging in the ground using his hands like shovels and it was surprisingly effective!

In no time Ropego was almost buried alive in the dirt that Daniel threw from the already sizeable hole.

Ropego coughed a mouthful of dirt and looked at Daniel with angry eyes before he started to lick himself clean of the dirt that now marred his white fur.

Daniel snickered to himself as he took a quick look at Ropego then continued to dig at the ground.

Ropego coughed from outside the hole and said out loud:

“Daniel I think you need to dig till one thousand meters and afterward I think we will reach the dwarf’s city.”

Daniel nodded to himself and continued to dig at high speeds, he will get into the city in no time at this pace!