Who are you?

Explaining the route they were going to take to Takagi estate, Ryota sat back looking at the man with the cure.

"What's your name?"

"Ray."

"A code-name?" Ryota nodded, after all, spending time with his secrets bodyguards made him realize that most of them used undercover names to protect their identities. For two reasons, either they are protecting someone with a lot of liability or they are the liability. "So you're a spy or something?"

"No." The man shook his head, "It's better if you let me go because they are sure to follow me and you and friends here will only end up dead."

"But you were willing to lead those people in the bank to their deaths?" Ryota smiled as without warning he opened his gate of Babylon pointing his swords right at Ray's eyes, "Are you going, to be honest, or should I?"

His threats were clear as the man gulped. Shiba looked shocked but he had seen enough already so he didn't question it for now. Saeko too just stayed quiet while Alice looked at him with stars in her eyes seeing him pull the sword out of nowhere.

"What are you?"

"Someone you don't want to mess with." Ryota said coldly, "Now will you start?"

"After hijacking your vehicle, I planned to move separately from the group since I didn't want to harm them." Ray sighed as Ryota withdrew his weapon, "I had caused them enough harm already."

"You can say that again. So what's the deal with the cure?" Ryota asked, "I don't think you purposefully planted it."

"It is really the cure, but it still has some defects in it." Ray seriously said, "First of all it can never cure anyone that has already turned. After all, they are already dead. Second, the cure seems to only work when provided within 30 seconds after the infections spread."

"So the cure transforms people to that giant monster, if not provided with time?"

"No." Ray shook his head, "Sigh! Let me start from the beginning. Since the world is going to shit already and there's no point in hiding it. I work or used to work for a corporation back in the US called, MAIN as a Biochemist. It's a private company owned by a billionaire and a group of not so friendly people. The company mostly revolved in producing medicines and cures for new diseases and that was one of the reasons I joined, to help people."

"2 years, after working I had gained quite the favor from the higher-ups for my work and they asked me if I was interested in the 'SS project' or the Super Soldier project. A project designed to increase a human's limit to its max capacity. The strongest, fastest, and most intelligent soldiers. That was our goal and everything seemed feasible and perfect the way they laid out the plan."

"But soon after initial testing, we realized the drug that we created not only didn't work but it turned people into these flesh-eating creatures. I should have realized something was wrong when we started the damn experiment with a human trial but we were too blind to see it. We were seeking something that would change humans forever. The company decided to stop the experimentation for the moment and had us prepare a cure for the disease first. So the initial research team was sent to different parts of the world, like me in Japan to conduct experiments on the cure."

"We infected a couple of dying humans with the virus and started making the cure, as far as I've heard from my colleagues I was the closest to coming up with the cure and my cure did work. I could save the infected human within 30 seconds but that's where the other thing came up. After 30 seconds the virus did enough damage to the body to make the process irreversible and giving the person the cure would only act as a catalyst and turn the infected person to that giant monster. Normally I would say that's a great leap towards the SS project but it doesn't seem to be the case now when your life is on the line."

"And I thought I was the fucked-up one here." Ryota looked at the man with a bit of disgust, "So you're telling me there's another monster running around?"

"Yes, but he is secured at least for now."

"So why did you give the person the cure in the bank then? Even the dead one when you knew it didn't work?"

"I had tried to improve the cure, so I needed a human subject to try it on. And for the second one, I just didn't realize it had been 30 seconds since I was already panicking with the first one but as soon as I started seeing the symptoms I had lead the group to safety inside the bunker before he could turn. Then we stayed there for a while until we heard the sound of the car and decided to move out to a safer spot. The manager of the bank had been using the bunker as his 'sex-dungeon' and had already eaten most of the food so we had no choice."

"Wow my hero!" Ryota said sarcastically, "Let's be honest, you just wanted to save yourself."

"Of course, even in a normal case I would do so and why shouldn't I do it here when I am the most important person currently alive. I have the cure and I know how to create more and furthermore, I can improve the cure to be more so effective and not cause side effects like creating a monster too,"

Shiba looked angry and the man and so did Saeko who didn't have any sign of pity on her face. But the only one different in the group was Ryota, who didn't mind Ray's language and tone. After all, he was thinking practically rather than with his heart.

"So how did this SS project spread all over the world?"