Chapter 15. Dead Man Blues (3)
I had a question.
According to Cassandra’s words, this virus alone is enough to turn a person into a zombie. However, this virus was introduced long before the zombie outbreak occurred. The accident should have happened long ago.
Camilla seems to have the same thoughts as me.
“I and other people often just forget about canned Cybele. “You said you felt hungry even after eating it, perhaps because the portion was not enough, but it wasn’t to the point where you wanted to eat the person next to you, right?”
In response to our question, Cassandra tapped on the keyboard. They compared and contrasted two similar-looking viruses and presented the results to us.
“To put it simply, Cybele modified the Limos virus. Because they know that the original version is too dangerous. “The level of hunger induction has been greatly reduced, but it seems that several variants have been created instead.”
Cassandra scrolled down her scroll. A certain video was shown. On the outside, it was just a beaker full of water, but when it accelerated 10 times, a lump of squishy flesh was seen growing inside.
“This is a screen of cultured meat research data. You said that you create flesh by putting stem cells in a nutrient solution and growing them. This is the picture. However, Cybele tampered with the nutrient solution here. “Here, this water droplet dropped with an eye dropper contains an improved Limos virus.”
“What are you doing? To make stem cells ‘hungry’?”
Cassandra nodded her head in response to my question.
“That’s right. Cybele wanted to greatly reduce the meat growing time. A longer production period means increased costs.
To do this, we had to artificially speed up the division of stem cells, while also supplying enough nutrients to prevent the cell structure from collapsing. “For that to happen, he would have had to feed a lot of stem cells.”
This meant that they hoped the stem cells would grow quickly by containing a lot of nutrients.
“You look like a zombie.”
Cassandra and Camilla both looked at me. I organized my thoughts and released them step by step.
“Think of the zombies you’ve met so far. Some had huge wounds on their bodies, and others had half their heads blown off. But the Cro virus made them all move.
It stimulated their appetite and made them move around and eat anything. If the body was injured, the cells would divide to the point where it would be indistinguishable from a tumor, filling up the flesh.
As long as the host could move, it wouldn’t have mattered whether the brain functioned properly or not. Right?”
Cassandra nodded her head wordlessly.
“Before the situation escalated to what it is now, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency secured zombies and conducted various experiments on them. Although it was stopped after several researchers and bodyguards turned into zombies.
That’s right. The Cro virus boosts the body’s resilience and constantly gives orders to search for food. This guy will do anything to save his host.
If the host survives for a long time, the Crovirus itself can survive for a long time. And in the process, he seeks to destroy anything that prevents his host from surviving.”
“… For example?”
Camilla asked in a tired voice. She felt afraid to even listen.
“Rational judgment. Ability to detect pain. Zombies become numb from pain and lose their minds. People can control their actions with their thoughts, but they just erase them. So that… “
“So?”
“Because you stop seeing the people next to you as people and start seeing them as food. Only the survival of oneself and the host. “The Cro virus wants only that.”
It was so absurd that I burst out laughing.
“What on earth does Cybele do? “What were the researchers thinking?”
Cassandra, who was also a Cybele researcher, bowed her head.
“There were many researchers from Elsa in Cybele. There were some unlucky people and some with broken personalities, but they were all smart and had a strong sense of responsibility and mission.
A sense of mission to free Elsa from starvation. Ensuring that everyone can live equally, without starving, or at least without regrets about eating.
Elsa The land is large, and although the main industries are ranching and agriculture, there are too many people who are starving. There is so much land devastated by war and everyone is so poor that they can’t buy enough food.
That’s it. Let’s make a living for many people at a low price. That was it. But neither Cassandra nor any of the researchers there wanted her wish to have no one starve in Erza to be granted in such a cruel and terrible way.”
What did Camilla say? To the people of Erza, the food from Cybele Company was like a gift for the poor.
It was true that Elsa’s land was large and the prices of agricultural products and meat were cheap, but the reality was that most people in Elsa could not earn that much.
It wasn’t that the Elsa people were poor or lazy. They were simply losing what they had to Römer, the eastern country, and Minsk, the western country.
Now, Elsa, Roemer, Minsk, and other people will slowly turn into zombies. Everyone suffered from the same curse of hunger that the people of Erza suffered from.
“Where on earth did this monstrous virus come from? Cassandra, you said that. “If we look at the data, we will be able to find out who entered the information about this virus.”
Camilla could not bear it anymore and pointed at her laptop. Cassandra shook her head in confusion.
“It is true that the input itself was done here in the lab. “The problem is where this virus came from.”
“But?”
“There is no data. “I don’t know if she typed it and deleted it or if she didn’t type it at all.”
I looked at the laptop monitor. As Cassandra said, the relevant information had been neatly erased.
“Can’t it be restored?”
Camilla cheered, but Cassandra shook her head as if embarrassed.
“The possibility is small. It was so long ago. Even if we could do it, it wouldn’t be possible with this laptop, and even if we turned on the generator and mobilized all the computers here, it would be difficult.
I created the current algorithm because Cassandra had worked at Cybele and I knew how her data system was structured. “For her, finding and recovering deleted data is a bit different, and even Cassandra isn’t confident about that.”
In that case, I think it should be considered difficult.
But somehow, I felt like I knew. Where does this Limos virus come from?
“Cassandra. “I’ll have a quick talk with Camilla.”
“Huh? Yes… “
I came into my room with Camilla.
“Let’s show it to Cassandra.”
“What?”
“Video in Hoot’s cell phone. “I’m talking about the video where the statue of the Goddess of Hunger was sprayed with blood and the owner of the cell phone said he was hungry and bit someone else.”
“… Uh?”
Camilla covered her mouth with the back of her hand, as if embarrassed.
“Camilla, Cassandra also said it. This virus survives tenaciously. What if the virus was in a statue dug out of the ground and was activated by the blood being sprinkled on it… “
“Wait a minute. Wait, John. “Do you know what you’re talking about?”
I know.
The Goddess of Hunger is the spiritual pillar that unites the people of Erza. When Camilla was still eating dinner, or when she needed to focus and pull her trigger, she would share her love and each light dawn, she would say a prayer in a low voice.
However, if the statue of the Goddess of Hunger contained a virus that could cause the destruction of the world, then Camilla and other people of Elsa were worshiping and relying on the destroyer of the world.
This means that the god of faith they believed in and relied on was actually trying to eat everyone.
But.
“No. Camilla. Maybe not. Someone may have polluted the goddess statue. Cassandra also talked about anthrax. Anthrax is often used as a tool of terrorism. There is also a possibility that the goddess statue was used for the same purpose.”
“Who on earth?”
“The person who excavated it will know the whole story. If you’re still alive. And if we can meet.”
Joanna Mustaine. An archaeologist and paleontologist, he is said to be the youngest ever appointed full-time professor at the National University of Elsa.
The hidden card of the Elsa Liberation Corps, which took charge of the national project from the Elsa government and led the excavation project, and was called the ‘Fulcrum.’
Camilla sat down on the bed. Her sheets were clenched in her fists.
“… “My heart hurts so much.”
He lifted Camilla up and hugged her with all his might. One by one, everything she believed in and relied on, everything she leaned on, is falling away.
Swimming was the past, present and future. The liberation struggle is just an excuse to take advantage of people. And now even the goddess that was her faith.
“What should I live by now? Why is everything I took for granted just leaving me? Why?”
Camilla did not cry. It seemed like she didn’t even have the energy for it. She gently patted his back.
“One really good thing will remain.”
Camilla looked at me with her red eyes. I smiled as I promised.
“The really good things will remain. In the end, only the most solid and solid will remain.”
“What, why does that sound so cool all of a sudden?”
Camilla laughed, wiping her eyes with her palms.
“That’s what I heard too. Something a teacher I know said. Actually, I’m not sure what it means either, but I lived with those words as comfort. Even if it seems like everything has collapsed, there’s definitely something left behind, and that’s it. ..Even though I went through something so terrible, it’s still something precious to me.”
“Johan, will you stay? Next to me?”
“Yes.”
Camilla hugged my back until it hurt.
* * * * *
Cassandra seemed quite shocked after watching the video.
“What is Cassandra looking at now? “How does this happen?”
But before returning her video, I held Cassandra’s hand still. Camilla slightly bowed her head and said sorry as she went upstairs.
“Sorry. “Camilla is having a hard time.”
Cassandra didn’t say anything else.
I looked at the video again, coldly, mechanically, until I got bored. I looked at it in bits and pieces, and also amplified certain sounds to listen to them.
“What do you think?”
“This boy, the one who bit the medical staff in the ambulance. It’s a symptom of an acute infection. “There were many types like this in the early days.”
But this video is from 4 years ago. And it was much shorter than that before the zombie outbreak spread in earnest.
“Symptoms of this type of acute infection appear almost immediately. And there is no one who will sit still and watch this happen. So in the beginning, the suppression was very quick. After the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency sent out active guidelines, quarantine was effective. However, …Huh? Uh huh?”
Suddenly Cassandra started typing her words.