"This is… information on Special Infected?" Megumi murmured, looking at the content on the sticky note. "From the description, the Special Infected we just encountered was a Witch."
It wasn't just this one sticky note; several others were also attached to the outside of the morgue cabinets, detailing other types of infected.
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"Special Infected: Boomer"
"Characteristics: Bloated body, slow movement, exaggeratedly large abdomen, covered in cysts, will vomit yellow-green viscous bile from the mouth"
"Strengths: The bile sprayed by the Boomer has a strong odor and will attract a large number of ordinary infected. Once contaminated by its bile, you will face a siege of zombies. If the abdomen is attacked, it will explode directly, spraying a large amount of bile, with a range of about ten meters"
"Weaknesses: Extremely low defense, extremely slow movement, self-combat ability is even weaker than that of ordinary infected"
….................
"Special Infected: Hunter"
"Characteristics: Relatively short stature, on all fours, usually does not walk on the ground, main mode of movement is climbing and jumping between buildings"
"Strengths: Extremely high speed and agility, and possesses a certain degree of thinking ability, will choose times when humans are alone to launch difficult-to-react pounce attacks"
"Weaknesses: Although the limbs have been mutated and strengthened, the defense of the body and head is no different from that of ordinary infected, and cannot continuously pounce"
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"These three types of Special Infected are all ones we have already encountered," Kotoko observed softly, examining the records.
"There are also Smokers, Jockeys, Chargers, Spitters, and Tanks, adding up to a total of eight types of Special Infected… All ordinary infected have been cleared out, but the Special Infected have been kept, with implanted locators in their bodies, and there is also detailed documented information. What exactly does the person controlling all this want to do…?"
Asagiri pulled open a morgue cabinet compartment while replying carelessly. "Either it's to create biological weapons, or it's to achieve human physical function evolution. These are all common old tropes in various zombie apocalypse themes."
Asuna, who was standing at the door, ostensibly keeping watch but actually afraid of ghosts or similar beings in the morgue cabinets, heard this and said thoughtfully. "Turning the people of a city into infected, and being able to screen them according to their will, what kind of world is this, and what kind of organization is the other party…?"
"Let's talk about expanding the worldview later," Asagiri chuckled, then looked at Kotoko. "Do you feel any strange aura?"
Kotoko pointed to a specific compartment in the morgue cabinet on the other side. "There."
"Okay." Asagiri walked over without hesitation and pulled open that compartment. Inside, a trembling male phantom in a white coat was curled up on the cold metal slab.
"You… don't come over!" Seeing his hiding place discovered, this spirit immediately wanted to shrink back into the morgue cabinet. But Asagiri immediately reached out, directly grabbed the back of his neck, dragged him out by force, and threw him onto the ground.
"Quickly confess honestly." Asagiri seemed a little impatient. The gray mask reappeared on his face, and on the mask, a dark red pattern, like a Hannya demon, was outlined, making people feel fear just by looking at it. "Antibody reagent, where is it?"
"Gwa… In… In the top floor of Building No. 2 Inpatient Department…" Hearing that the male spirit was so frightened by Asagiri that he made inexplicable sounds of fear, the corners of Kotoko's lips couldn't help but slightly rise.
As expected, it had to be the Diplomat.
Kotoko, who possessed an exclusive talent, actually had a certain degree of ability to negotiate with spiritual beings. But after all, this was not the world where everyone lived. The spirits here would not treat her as some princess to respect and worship. Moreover, as the saying goes, each profession has its own specialization. Compared to negotiation, Kotoko was better at finding subtle clues of the bizarre and inferring the full truth of the incident from the collected information. Negotiation should still be left to professionals.
"What exactly happened in this city? Can't you just confess sensibly? Do you have to make me ask one by one? Hmm?"
The male spirit trembled as if in extreme fear, and stammered. "That… Please don't be angry, I, I'll confess right away!"
Seeing this scene, Asuna, who was originally a little afraid of ghosts, was about to lose her composure. It had to be Asagiri. Although the Diplomat's profession characteristic was to enhance the effect of all types of diplomacy methods, based on Asagiri's personality, the method he was best at and most liked to use was clearly intimidation and threats. Coupled with his aura that made spiritual beings fear, and the enhanced effect on corresponding diplomacy methods brought by the "Ever-changing Mask," it was not surprising that this spirit would react in this way.
However… In the previous Hotel instance, when Asagiri tricked the strange entity in the form of a little girl named Alice into becoming his Persona, the set of coaxing and deceiving words seemed quite skilled, too.
Is there a possibility… that this guy actually has high emotional intelligence and can switch to the most effective negotiation method based on the different personalities of the target? No wonder his profession is a Diplomat.
"That… My name is Robin Diaz, I am thirty-three years old, and my profession is a Doctor in this hospital…"
"Get to the point." Asagiri directly interrupted. "Are you introducing yourself? Do you think I'm here on a blind date with you?"
"Yes, yes, I'll get to the point right away." The white-coated male spirit trembled and quickly sped up his speech. "About a month and a half ago, a plague with a mortality rate close to 100% suddenly broke out in this city. On the day it happened, we started developing antibodies for the virus, but less than twelve hours after the plague broke out, the deceased turned into monsters that would pounce and attack any moving creature they saw…"
Hearing this, Megumi couldn't help but ask curiously. "What about the army? In such a serious situation, there should be an army to control it, right?"
"The army… did come, on the twentieth day after the disaster broke out…" When he said that, a very complex expression appeared on his face, and he murmured. "But… they didn't just come to clear out those monsters. They took all the survivors in the city to this hospital, and then injected everyone with some kind of virus-like substance. Most people turned into those monsters within twelve hours, and the small number who survived for more than twelve hours… were taken away by them."
"What about you? Since you became a wandering spirit, it means you must have died a normal death."
"Huh?" Hearing Asagiri's words, the male spirit was suddenly stunned.
"What are you talking about? Spirit… I'm dead?"
"What do you think?" Asagiri pointed to the area of the other person's heart. The male spirit followed the direction of his finger and looked down, only to find a completely penetrated, fist-sized, bloody hole in his left chest.
"Holy crap, I'm really dead!?"
Kotoko spoke with a smile on the side, like a narrator. "Although you turned into a spirit due to strong obsession during your lifetime, you forgot the fact that you were already dead. Many spirits are like you; this is normal."
"Strong obsession…" Hearing Kotoko's words, the white-coated man seemed to recall something. His face suddenly became hideous and distorted, and two lines of bright red bloody tears flowed from his eye sockets, leaving two dark red marks on the originally clean and tidy white coat. "My daughter… my young daughter was also injected with that stuff by those guys. That's right… I was going to stop them… and then there was a gunshot, I remember everything…"
Seeing the white-coated man's face become as terrifyingly distorted as a demon, and even the white coat on his body turning blood-red, Kotoko's expression remained as calm as ever, only noncommittally saying. "Hmm… Recalling your greatest resentment during your lifetime, so you turned into a malicious spirit… It seems you have completely lost your sanity."
Kotoko sighed slightly and looked at Asagiri. "It seems we can't continue negotiating. Now the only thing we can do is send it on its way."
"Yes, that's the only way." Asagiri casually threw the Rope Dart in his hand, accurately hitting the area between the eyebrows of the white-coated male spirit who had already transformed into a Banshee with a distorted face. With the curse attribute bonus, the Rope Dart also had the effect of completely eliminating spiritual entities.
"My daughter…" Before the Banshee man's figure completely dissipated, his voice still carried endless resentment and obsession, which made Megumi and Asuna, who witnessed the entire process, have somewhat complex expressions.
"To do something as cruel as injecting a zombie virus into a daughter in front of her father… What kind of people are those so-called army…"
Just as Megumi finished speaking, Asuna, who was closest to the door, suddenly frowned slightly and lowered her voice. "Wait a minute, listen… It sounds like there's noise outside…"
After things quieted down, as expected, everyone heard a muffled thudding sound coming from the corridor outside, like something was being struck.
"Thudding sound? Could it be..." Asuna's expression changed. She immediately opened the door of the morgue and stepped into the corridor. The moment she stepped out, with a loud bang that made the ground tremble, the tightly shut fire door of the stairwell was directly knocked off its hinges and sent flying into the wall.
The next second, dense crowds of zombies, like locusts, squeezed past each other and poured into the corridor from the opening in the stairwell. Seeing the previously spacious corridor in the distance completely blocked by the sudden influx of zombies, Asuna's pupils dilated in shock.
Shouldn't ordinary infected be slow-moving, like the zombie the four of them saw in the apartment, posing little threat even to normal people? Why were the movements of this group of zombies so fast? Like locusts eager to devour all life?
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