Sci-fi yet beautiful in appearance, like mechanical angels.
This easily caused people to forget that these were weapons—instruments of killing.
Only when they unleashed their power did one realize just how dangerous these things were.
So everyone still looked with some lingering fear at the chunks of flesh scattered all around.
The heavy smell of blood and the scent resembling rotting meat also attracted various animals to approach.
"What's wrong? What did Yuko-nee say?"
Mikoto Kiba, who had retrieved the satellite phone, asked with slight curiosity.
After Yuko-nee had contacted them earlier, she had asked her to hand the satellite phone to him, and she had seen him furrow his brow slightly.
Clearly, something had happened to the other team.
Rather than immediately answering this question, he looked toward a pink-haired girl wearing glasses.
"Why are you looking at me?"
Saya Takagi frowned as she said this, but her voice already carried a hint of unease.
"Your father is dead."
His concise answer—Ejie had no intention of hiding it longer, letting her find out only after returning home.
Knowing early or late made no difference; it wouldn't bring him back to life anyway.
So he chose to let her know early, to get through it sooner.
"Is that so? I understand."
The girl who answered seemed very calm as well, turning around and walking toward the room where the Panacea was still being manufactured.
"What are you all standing around for? Hurry up and make the Panacea!!!"
Her voice came through, sounding somewhat calm yet somewhat indifferent.
She appeared extremely rational—so rational that she seemed to lack any emotion, showing no trace of sadness for her father's death, appearing cold and heartless.
This scene made Ejie furrow his brow even deeper.
He didn't think Saya Takagi believed he was joking; she had believed his words.
Moreover, Saya Takagi wasn't the type of person who lacked feelings for her parents—her feelings were incredibly strong. If her parents died, she might not want to live either.
And while she was indeed very intelligent, a genius, she shouldn't be able to maintain rationality to this degree.
Could there be a problem with the Panacea?
Ejie suspected the Panacea might have side effects that suppressed human emotion, which would be very bad.
Absolute rationality would be more troublesome and dangerous than people who possessed emotions and feelings.
As long as their thinking became even slightly twisted, especially for someone with such a brilliant mind, they would become extremely dangerous and terrifying.
Wait, that didn't seem quite right either.
If it suppressed emotions, then the others who had used the Panacea should show normal emotional responses. The evidence for this judgment was how they looked at him and at the massive chunks of corpses—those looks were full of emotion.
Or perhaps the more intelligent the brain, the faster one would lose emotions?
So he began discussing with Saeko Busujima, Mikoto Kiba, and others whether the Panacea had such side effects.
"Um, I'd like to ask if there's such a possibility..."
Rei Miyamoto, who had thought of something, wanted to voice a speculation of her own.
This came from her putting herself in someone else's shoes.
"What possibility?"
"Earlier, didn't you use five doses of Panacea, Ejie-san? Your arm regenerated completely. Is there a possibility that if you use more Panacea, no matter what injuries you suffer, they could all regenerate? Even if you became a dead body and were killed, you might be able to revive..."
Rei Miyamoto voiced this seemingly absurd speculation. But having witnessed him regenerate a limb using five doses of Panacea, this didn't seem impossible either.
"That's different. The reason I can regenerate limbs isn't due to the Panacea's effects—for me, the Panacea is just a nutritional supplement rich in regenerative substances the human body needs. Also, don't try to use more than two doses of Panacea. If you exceed that, your bodies will have problems. It's like how people can't drink too much water—excessive amounts cause water poisoning."
Ejie issued this warning.
As for Rei Miyamoto's speculation, it was probably correct.
The current Saya Takagi wasn't being rational; rather, she had become obsessed.
She wanted to make more Panacea to save her father.
Even if he told her now that it would be ineffective, she definitely wouldn't listen. Instead, she would only think he didn't want to waste a lot of medicine on her father.
In a sense, Saya Takagi had gone a bit mad.
"Th-then, how did Takagi-san's father die?"
Rei Miyamoto couldn't help but ask, receiving a somewhat playful look from the person before her, which made her inexplicably uneasy.
"Takashi Komuro—your childhood friend killed him."
"Huh?"
Rei Miyamoto was stunned. What was he saying?
Takashi had killed Saya Takagi's father?
How was that possible? She knew that the Komuro and Takagi families had a relationship, and Saya was also Takashi Komuro's childhood friend.
All three of them could be called childhood friends who knew each other inside and out.
So Rei Miyamoto couldn't believe that Takashi would kill Saya Takagi's father.
Unless... thinking of something, Rei Miyamoto's lips began to tremble, and her body felt weak.
One possibility was that Takashi had turned into a dead body and attacked Saya Takagi's father.
So Takashi was also—
"Takashi Komuro is still alive."
"Huh?"
"Takashi isn't... isn't dead? Then how could he possibly kill Takagi's father?"
"Impossible? Human nature often can't withstand the test when facing death. Especially when two people are both infected with the virus of the dead and there's one dose of medicine that could save them—what choice do you think would be made?"
Ejie said this with amusement.
"You're saying Takagi's father didn't use his dose of medicine? He gave it to Takashi?"
That must be the truth.
But this person was too malicious, deliberately saying it this way would put Takashi in a bad position.
"Do you think Saya's father is such a foolish person? If this weren't a collapsed world, he might indeed sacrifice himself to save Takashi Komuro's life. But in such a collapsed world, he carries on his shoulders not just his own life, but the lives of many more people—he's responsible for them. Would he choose to trade so many lives for the life of an ordinary high school student?"
Ejie's tone gradually became somewhat mocking.
Seeing this, Saeko Busujima somewhat understood why he was acting this way—he was deliberately giving Rei Miyamoto a little hope bit by bit, then destroying that hope bit by bit, making her even more desperate.
From the beginning, Saeko Busujima had somewhat sensed that he didn't seem to like Rei Miyamoto very much, or even Takashi Komuro.
Oh, that's right. According to Black Cat's account, in the manga Black Cat had read about their world, according to the plot development, she should fall in love with Takashi Komuro and become part of a harem-like situation.
So his dislike for Takashi Komuro—was this jealousy?
Honestly, Saeko Busujima couldn't imagine herself falling for that type of boy either.
Because this boy was somewhat famous at school—to put it bluntly, he was a delinquent student.
So the so-called work descriptions were definitely somewhat unreliable in their information.
"So Takashi killed Takagi-san's father? How is that possible? Takashi couldn't be a match for him either. A sneak attack? How could Takashi do such a thing?"
"Koichi Shido—you hate this person very much, don't you?"
The sudden shift to another topic left Rei Miyamoto stunned, and then she nodded.
"Saya Takagi's father discovered him and indeed immediately rushed forward to kill him."
This statement left Rei Miyamoto stunned again. That bastard was finally—
"He didn't die."
Rei Miyamoto's joyful excitement was immediately extinguished.
Damn it, he actually escaped.
"He should have died, but because of student Takashi Komuro's kind heart, he blocked Saya Takagi's father's blade and lived."
This mocking content made Rei Miyamoto's face harden again.
What was this?
Her childhood friend had saved her enemy?
"What's even more interesting is that a dead body fell from the building beside them..."
Ejie gradually revealed how the girl's childhood friend had operated, essentially a story of the farmer and the snake, with her childhood friend cast as the snake.
So after hearing it all, the girl before him was somewhat broken.
Her psychological resilience really wasn't good.
As for the Syringe base he had just dealt with, Ejie had deliberately compiled that psychologically devastating video as an open and brazen intimidation.
This way, the Syringe organization, without certainty, could only cower like rats, not daring to attack recklessly.
After all, Ejie couldn't stay for long periods to search.
As long as he left this video, if they weren't stupid, they wouldn't cause trouble in the short term.
And during this short period, Saeko Busujima's side could develop their strength rapidly.
By the time the other side felt confident enough to emerge, this side's power might have expanded to unimaginable levels.
Finally, leaving such a video also had a somewhat show-off flavor to it.
"You really are quite malicious."
Mikoto Kiba couldn't help but say this.
This person didn't finish speaking cleanly and directly, instead torturing the other party like this.
"Malicious? I was never a good person to begin with. Good people can't survive in hell."
"True enough."
Mikoto Kiba nodded.
She had joined Black Label precisely because she couldn't be a purely good person either.
Although the people she killed were also embodiments of sin and darkness, she never considered herself to be on the side of justice.
So what kind of hell was this man talking about?
It certainly wasn't the threat of dead bodies.
His severed arm and the previous chest wound, combined with possessing such armaments—she couldn't imagine what kind of hellish encounter would cause such injuries.
Moreover, based on the information she currently knew, he should have had these injuries before the dead body crisis, so the commotion should have been quite large. But at that time the world hadn't collapsed yet, and with such developed networks, any disturbance should have been discovered.
Yet everything was quiet.
So was the possibility mentioned by that military otaku really true?
This man was too mysterious, making her increasingly want to understand him.
...
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