Anja watches with morbid facination as Afton executes Mark Dowager, and then proceeds to strip him clean and start looting his body... "W-what are you doing?" she asks, not having expected Afton to disgrace the man's body immediately after death.

Afton raises a brow at her, "This is combat armour and a well-maintained plasma rifle... Of course I'm going to take them!" he exclaims as if she were stupid for asking. ​​

"Do you not care about the man?"

Afton shrugs noncomittally, "We met in the past briefly, we weren't close enough for me to really care about his fate. He'd probably appreciate the fact we weren't letting his stuff go to waste, I'll kill a couple monsters with his rifle for him I guess?" he says, checking that its loaded before picking it up off of the floor and hefting it onto his shoulder with his single hand.

Anja just shakes her head and decides to not talk about it any longer, it was clear Afton had almost no remorse for the terrible thing he was forced to do.

Afton walks out of the room and they continue to search about the floor, occasionally running into creatures that sprint at them like demented demons. During this time Afton got a chance to test out Mark's Plasma rifle, finding that his [Uncivilized weapon] Perk caused most things hit by it to explode into glowing green goo.

He'd just finished off his fourth plant monster when his shoulder was starting to ache... Taking the kick from the weapon and its weight all on one arm was tiring him out fairly quickly. With a sigh he just straps it over his shoulder so it can sit next to his completely unused Anti-Material rifle.

Fortunately, most of the plant monsters didn't seem to be on this floor, if what Anja suspected was true then there'd be thousands of those plant creatures wandering around, all of which seemed to be way stronger than regular humans were.

They continue and head down the next floor, but halfway down the stairs Afton almost slips and falls when he starts randomly coughing. He holds a fist over his mouth as he weathers the storm, but notices a small spatter of blood on his hand... That's not good.

"I wonder if this is what it feels like to have asthma?" he quips while wiping the blood on his hand onto his side of his recon armour. He then glances at Anja, "I don't think Ghouls are susceptible to this..." he says after seeing her have literally no changes since coming here.

"We can still leave if you want... We can seek help from someone on the surface."

Afton shakes his head, "Trust me Anja, I'd know if anyone up there could heal this kind of affliction. No, if I'm going to avoid becoming one of those things I need to help myself." he says as he stands and continues down the stairs.

Anja sighs and intones the same thing that'd almost become habit at this point, "Yes sir."

Eventually, they make their way through to the next floor after fighting through more ravenous plant monsters and reach the overseer's office. Afton peeks inside the room to see what 'boss creature' might be inside, as usual his 'spidey senses' were correct as he spotted three plant monsters inside... However, these were different...

Instead of being completely naked, they were wearing combat armour... They must be Mark's infected men, this is confirmed when he spots the Dowager Mercenary Group logo on the chest of one of the armours.

Afton looks to Anja and whispers, "Their helmets'll be annoying to deal with but we don't have much other choice... I doubt any impact our bullets will have on the armour will affect them in the least. Aim for their faces and pray they aren't as fast as the others." he states as he points That Gun at the left-most target that was facing him and just standing there like a humanoid tree.

"Fire."

*Bang!* *Bang!Bang!Bang!*

It seems the duo were very lucky as two instantly go down, Afton fires at the third but they were facing the other way, causing the bullets to slam against the helmet and doing little to no damage.

The monster doesn't even need to turn its head as it leaps in his direction, smashing That Gun out of his hand as it tries to bite into his neck. Afton struggles and wrestles against it, doing what he can with his single arm.

Ah, he just realised! He quickly activates VATS and uses [Living Anatomy] on the creature. He'd almost forgotten about it since these creatures were noting more than monsters... But, if they were formerly human then his Perk would work.

[Spore Carrier]

Health : 90%

Stamina : --%

DT : 19

Strength : 8

Perception : 3

Endurance : 8

Charisma : 1

Intelligence : 1

Agility : 10

Luck : 1

Ailments :

[Beauveria mordicana] : Fungus that infects its victims via spores and rapidly mutates their body to suit its needs. Reduces Intelligence, Charisma and Luck to 1, reduces Perception by 4 and blinds the afflicted. Grant +3 Strength, Endurance, and Agility. Afflicted will seek to produce and spread spores to other organic creatures.

...

Is that it? No weaknesses, no glowing red 'shoot here' sign?... Well... Afton looks at the Spore Carrier that was snarling at him a few inches away from his face, he was wondering if he'd have to injure himself again to try and overpower it...

He readies himself and deactivates VATS, slamming his foot down at its knee as hard as humanly possible. His strength combined with his unarmed skill allows him to utterly destroy the creature's leg, it's knee bending backwards with a loud *Crack!*.

Now with room to move he unsheathes his knife and slams it into the crusted over eyesocket on its face, penetrating and stabbing into its brain.

Afton breathes a sigh of relief and slumps against the back wall, trying to calm his nerves against getting torn apart from that creature... He glances towards the frozen Anja and smirks, "Thanks for your help..."

She frowns before shaking her head, "You said to only shoot it in the face... I probably would have killed you..."

"Then why not help push that thing off of me?"

"I-err... Oh yeah... Sorry." she mutters, having gotten so invested in shooting she'd forgotten about that.