Ch8

Ted got out of the truck and, hoisting his weapon of choice, a large hammer, onto his shoulder, he motioned for everyone to gather.

"Okay, we're all here on a mission," he said, straight to the point. "And I've briefed it to you guys before this, but..." He gestured at Charles and Shaquille, his tone stern and his demeanor not unlike a soldier. "I'm speaking on behalf of the Squad Leader; be safe, and protect these two, even if it meant your life.

"The Research Guild basically paid us to protect these two. Now, I'm pretty sure that you all know the drill by now; no matter what these two do, you are not to question it, and neither are you gonna speak of it to people unrelated to the mission. Now that everyone's memories are refreshed, are you all ready?"

Everyone nodded silently.

"Alright, let's go," he motioned. "Any resources you find, take it. No one knows when and who might need them."

Everyone followed him into the building-- that looked like it came straight out of a horror movie. Walking beside Charles who looked around as he noted down everything he saw onto a paper on a foldable clipboard, almost not watching his step as he did so, Shaquille used the Manna in the air to get more information.

As he was concentrating on digesting the information obtained, Spade walked up to him and poked his side, making him look at her with an obvious question on his face.

She didn't say anything, just observed him carefully, before she smiled and walked away.

Charles looked at her in confusion, while Shaquille blinked at her actions, not really minding what she'd done, before going back to digesting the information from the Manna around him.

According to the energy he's been absorbing; after taking refuge in the abandoned building, the survivors had stayed there for a while. Zombies were everywhere, and everyone was frightened. Yet, no help came, whether it be from the army nor from other teams passing by.

Day by day, the food decreased, and rationing everyone's food had also become a problem. And an even bigger problem was that the more capable and brave people had gone out in search of food, but haven't yet come back. The people left behind were mostly the elderly and children, and they could do nothing but starve as they waited for the team outside.

And yet, one child saw a few rats, and thinking that rats are edible animals too, proposed that they raise these rats as food until the teams sent outside came back.

Driven by hunger, everyone thought that it wouldn't be a problem to eat these rats, right? They were very, very hungry, the food left for them had all been eaten already, it should be fine… right?

Besides, rats procreate quickly and in large amounts too; there should be enough for everyone, right?

Feeling optimistic, they decided to thoroughly cook, to the point of charring the rat meat, before they started eating them, deeming them safe enough to eat without getting sick. It was fine at first, until ten days later, everyone's complexion started to turn grey, and their hunger grew and grew, until they couldn't take it anymore.

And one of them turned and started to eat the weakest person in the base.

Killing them, that person had cut their body up into small pieces, including their organs, and buried the head. That person still had a smidgen of guilt in their heart; someone killing for the first time in their lives; who wouldn't feel guilty?

Returning to the place where everyone had gathered, that person claimed to have found a nest of rats, so there's a lot of meat to go around.

No one noticed that one person was missing.

That day, the meat they ate was by far the most delicious meat that they'd ever eaten. Feeling elated with underlying guilt, that person kept on killing the people in the base, one by one, to feed the others their meat.

Somehow, that person succeeded in killing everyone, until that person was the only one left. By that time, even that person didn't realize that the more they ate a person's meat, the more they resembled zombies; grayish skin, their bodies getting skinnier and skinnier, and their hunger magnified so much that they couldn't settle with eating just once per day.

But what choice did they have?

The team sent to find food had returned weeks after almost everyone was killed.

When they returned, that person had reported that everyone else turned into a zombie due to a rat bite.

That person was the only one that escaped the 'tragedy'.

Though that person had resembled a zombie at first glance, the fact that that person still kept their mind had shown how the 'rat bite' had affected everyone.

They thought that those that had turned into a zombie had been killed and buried by that person, and sent a message to the Research Guild, relaying to them what that person had said as the truth.

… The moment the team let their guards down, that person striked, and everyone was massacred.

Shaquille was speechless at the knowledge he'd gained.

It wasn't that the whole cannibalism thing shocked him; he'd known tribes and the people of the past had eaten each other before, no.

He was surprised by the fact that he couldn't find out more about this 'person' the Manna had relayed. Thinking quickly, he had come to a conclusion; although he could absorb these 'zombies' Manna, there might be a limit to how much he could absorb at this moment.

Besides, a zombie that had kept a human's mind…

Isn't it far more dangerous than any other zombies that they'd encountered before? Even zombie hordes wouldn't have a zombie that he couldn't absorb.

Did the Chaos Manna… evolve?

Was it even possible for that to happen?

Rubbing his temples, the Fae frowned. There were still some things that he didn't understand, and he had a feeling that the answer laid behind the fog that is obscuring his memories.

Shaking his head to get rid of those dizzying thoughts, to let his mind rest a bit, he looked up and found that--

He had been left behind by the mercenary squad.

"..."

There was nothing much that he could say about that, but couldn't Charles had at the very least noticed him lagging behind???