Chapter 15. Dead Man Blues (4)
“… Ah. That is… therefore… Oh, so… “
I mumble to myself and stare at the screen frantically, as if I’m about to get sucked into it. The state of the foal. Immersion… But it didn’t last long. 5 Minutes. Or 10 minutes.
“I think I know a little bit.”
Finally, Cassandra leaned back in her chair. She must have been very tired, and her body went limp.
“There were patients like this in the beginning, but no one thought it was a bacterial infection. I thought it was something like delirium or a drug side effect. “Cassandra was just looking for examples and saw them in passing, so she probably didn’t connect this to that.”
This means that the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency does not know about the relationship between the Goddess Statue, Limos Virus, and Cybele.
“But Cybele must have known what this virus was. “High-ranking government officials must have known.”
“… “Both sides probably didn’t know the details.”
“No way. “You can’t not know.”
But Cassandra was stubborn.
“No. I did not know. Cassandra knows. “They don’t know.”
“How do you know that?”
Cassandra lowered her head. She was silent for a while, then clenched her fists and let out her words as if exhaling.
“… There was a foolish girl. She was smart, but her father, her only biological child, had little interest in her. The only time she was interested was when the child had solved a complicated formula.”
I felt like I knew who the story was about.
“The child’s father gave the task without any explanation, saying, ‘We are trying to reassemble this virus like this. How can we do it?’
I don’t think she had high expectations, but somehow the child pulled it off. It was a simple cell recombination problem. The father stroked her child’s head once, and each time brought a new task.
Then one day, I brought a white gown. Then he put me in a group of people wearing identical robes and told me to solve the problem with them.
They did what the child’s father did. Without any further explanation, he told me to solve this or that, and gave me something delicious if I got the answer right.
Then one day, they stopped giving me problems. ‘Done. It’s thanks to you.’ That day, I just ate all day.
Someone sang a song, and someone patted the child and said, ‘You’re a genius.’ I’m going to become a big person. Well, there’s nothing to worry about in the future. My father was one of the founders of Cybele, so what could I lack?’
But the next day, the soldiers came. They say you have committed treason. They hid the child in a cabinet, but they could not save their own lives.
The child returned home, but his father was taken away and his house burned down. His father’s defenders gave up their arguments, and people who thought he was his father’s friends rubbed their thick fingers together.
The last time I saw the child’s father, he looked haggard. He looked on with his usual emotionless eyes. ‘You have no inheritance to pass on.’ He moistened his lips once and continued.
‘They took everything from me. If I hand over a share to you, I’ll kill you and take all of it. I can’t even pass my name on to you. Instead, you will be given a new name.’
The child’s father passed away like that. Fortunately, the people who worked in the child’s household had taken measures in advance, and he informed the child step by step about what had happened.
My father was one of the founders of Cybele and was famous for biotechnology. He had many stakes, and was particularly interested in artificially enhancing humans. It was a profitable research.
But later on, he was also a person who made money through illegal means.
‘That’s what it means to do business at Elsa. The state does not protect companies. You have to protect your own body. So my father was a good man. For he taught us how to protect ourselves and our property.’
The child hated it all, so he decided to live with a new name and identity. Everything he did in the past has been erased. It’s as if he disappeared from the world for a certain period of time or was kidnapped by some alien world.
But he wanted to know what happened. Why did my father die like that? Why did Cybele fall into the hands of a country called Elsa instead of being handed over to someone else?
Then, I looked up the puzzles his father had given me one by one. They were all fragmentary and fragmented, making it impossible to see the whole picture.
But in the end, the child figured it out. “What the father asked the child and his researchers to do was reconstruct the Limos virus.”
Did Camilla tell you? Cybele is a company created by nobles who were pushed out of the eastern country of Römer.
Cybele grew crazy, as if he wanted revenge on the country that abandoned him. From cutlery to streetcars, he controlled almost every industry.
Roemer had no particular reason to dislike her, so they supported her wholeheartedly, and eventually even made her the mother of Erza. Even if it’s what the abandoned child earned, money is money.
Probably, Cassandra’s father was in the biggest position among them all. Still, he must have been careful with his money.
He doesn’t know if it was eye-catching or if there was some other reason. After Cassandra and her researchers were done with adding hunger-inducing ingredients to Cybele’s canned food, they took his share.
“What the child did was to combine the Limos virus with beneficial bacteria. The goal was to change the microorganisms in the intestines that aid digestion so that the body would accept them without any rejection.
But that disguise doesn’t last long. So he kept mutating to evade the immune system. So to speak, it’s similar to continuously handing out fake IDs…
We solved the most difficult part, and other researchers did the rest.
The child’s father handled things that way. Jobs were handed out piece by piece to his subordinates, and only he knew the full picture. So he had no choice but to kill them all.
Then the zombie outbreak broke out. The child was astonished when he saw the structure of the Cro virus. The result of Ai and his researchers tinkering, creating, and fighting all day long. “Because it was similar to that structure in many ways.”
It was Cassandra.
The person who created the virus was Cassandra. Of course, she didn’t do it all on her own. No one can deny that she played her defining role.
“… I just believed that if we solved this, people wouldn’t be hungry anymore. Both the child and the researchers who worked with the child. “If that’s an excuse.”
“So the ‘child’ went to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency?”
In response to my question, Cassandra nodded her head.
“Because he thought he had to pay for a sin he committed without even knowing it was a sin.”
“Is this what you talked about with Camilla?”
“I apologized. “I’m sorry.”
“So what?”
“He didn’t know what to do, so I just hugged him tightly. “That’s it.”
Camilla must have been complicated in many ways.
And Cassandra must have known that it was not her fault alone. It seems that the relationship between the two is neither very good nor bad, but this kind of confession must have been heavy.
Cassandra now looked at me.
“For Cybele’s leadership and Erza’s government, the mere fact that it contained ‘hunger-inducing ingredients’ would have been enough. They probably didn’t know or didn’t care about the rest of the story.
You probably didn’t know about the original state of the Limos virus. That’s because only a very few people, like my father and the dead researcher, knew his true identity. Including Cassandra.
But since no one listens to Cassandra, it’s as if no one knows anymore. So Cassandra wants to talk about the results. Even if it means sacrificing her body.”
From Noble mtl dot com
Look at her hands and arms. The needle mark is clear. She comes up with ridiculous strength and poor physical strength.
“What happened to your body?”
“An experiment that turned out to be a failure. It was an experiment in which the body could eventually recover even after receiving an abnormal blow. Because my body was weak since childhood, my father clung to me.
But I don’t know if it was because she loved her daughter or because she was a good laboratory specimen. What. In the end, it was helpful in identifying the ingredients of Cybele’s treatment medicine and culture solution.
So Cassandra is okay with having the virus injected into her body. Because she can endure. But she didn’t become universal. She said another child who had a similar procedure died. However… “
“But?”
“… No. Nothing. “I don’t think that’s important.”
She was intoxicated with her own excitement and she went too far. Even if she spoke, it didn’t seem like she would be able to answer again. And I’m not that interested either.
Anyway, the important thing is now.
“Anyway, you didn’t create the Cro virus.”
“That’s not it. I don’t even know how it was made. All I can guess is that the cultured meat nutrient solution was infected, combined with some stem cells, and was exposed through some route.
As a result, a monster emerged. While constantly starving the infected, they also heal and care for the host so that it can spread and spread itself widely. Paralyzes judgment and strengthens instincts. “That way, I eat more based on impulse.”
Cassandra manipulated something again. Limos virus and Cro virus appeared on the screen. When time turned quickly, the number of Limos decreased, but the number of Cro increased.
“If you are in a place with a high concentration of Limos virus contamination, such as an unprotected area, the two viruses compete with each other and eat people. But in the end, it will be Cro who wins. Even if Limos dies because he cannot control his anger, Cro survives.”
“… “Is there a solution?”
“I don’t know. The Limos virus has no original, and the Cro virus keeps mutating. “I don’t know if it is possible to make antibodies to Limos, but even those are so toxic that the antibodies are meaningless.”
“So you’re saying there’s no answer?”
Cassandra’s eyes became clear at my words.
“No. I will find it. If you think it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist. If you think you need to find it, it’s there. Whether it takes a year or ten years. I’ll find it. This is a variation of the problem I solved. I can solve it somehow. That’s how it should be. As long as I survive until then… “
If I can live until then.
How do you avoid getting bitten while swimming with a school of sharks?
“Cassandra.”
“Yes.”
“Actually, I was experimenting with something without you and Camilla knowing.”
“… Experiment? What?”
“Zombies don’t attack each other often. Unless you perceive it as something to eat. Then I wondered what it would be like if the zombies stopped thinking they were going to eat us.
Animals are like that. “You can track it by making it smell a certain smell, but if it’s a familiar smell, you can reduce its aggression.”
Cassandra was puzzled.
“… That’s bold. That… so?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been using it for about 2 weeks and it doesn’t seem to have any effect. There was one good guy, chained to a telephone pole. But I was released from chains.”
I told a story about military police zombies. Cassandra quietly listened to my story.
“Cassandra thinks that if there were plenty of food, she wouldn’t move to another place. “If she were to be unchained, she would not go far to seek her freedom.”
“Then it’s still there. She gave me a hug before she came. If he thinks of me as a friend. Do you think this is possible?”
Cassandra knocked on her desk, still perplexed. But she soon shook her head back and forth.
“I’ve never heard of such a case. And, I don’t know what I just heard. I guess I’ll have to see it for myself to find out. But if you go, the zombie doesn’t know Cassandra’s scent, so I think she’ll show aggression. And I heard you’re still unfamiliar with Yohan’s body odor?”
Is this not possible?
“… Or not.”
It seems that Cassandra’s words are not over.
“Or not?”
Her fingers stab my chest.
“Yes, pheromone. “It’s not a pheromone, but whatever.”
“Is that what Cro in Camilla and I create?”
“It may be weak, but if it’s effective against dog zombies… There might be unexpected results. If he hates you, he’ll go out of his way to kill you, if he develops a crush on you, his aggression will decrease, and if he happens to like you… Probably um. “He’ll act like a dog in heat.”
“I don’t like that.”
“It might not just hit you. Just like a hungry zombie doesn’t ‘necessarily’ try to eat you. You eat what’s nearby. Threats are a different story, though… In theory, it seems worthwhile.
If your pheromones can become stronger, and if you can ease the hostility and vigilance, then I think something will work out. Zombies aren’t hostile, if that’s possible.
But as I said before, John’s ingredients are too weak. If you smell the perfume that a passerby is spraying, you sniff his nose, that’s it. “You have to become stronger.”
“What should I do to become stronger?”
“Well. If the virus needs to become stronger, it would be a good idea to overload your body with something. “Camila’s level of exercise is also excellent.”
That training program where you come in with both feet and crawl out.
“There… hmm… Fighting off mild external infections. To do that, we need to go out and fight more.”
They fight actively. I think that would be okay too. I also have a good excuse.
The laptop of the heretics who fought not long ago. In it, information was recorded on the excavation plan for the goddess statue, information on the expected location, and what measures should be taken when collecting the statue.
So, if you go to that area, there will be a lot of starving zombies that are relatively easy to deal with. Maybe we can save the contaminated statue of the goddess.
But that means I could be exposed to the Limos virus. It will be a very dangerous journey if you do not prepare your defenses quite well.
And I have no intention of getting into an unnecessary fight with zombies.
“But you can’t fight zombies every time.”
“Well, then there is one more… “
Strangely enough, Cassandra turned her face. But she held on to the hem of her dress with one hand. Why are you so embarrassed?