Chapter 529: 527
The rest of their private encounter passed behind closed doors.
Afterward, Tendo Kisara turned to Seitenshi.
“Lady Seitenshi, I’m counting on you next.”
“Huh? Me?”
“Yes. Help me get back at him, and I’ll do whatever you say for a month. You can order me around as much as you like.”
Seitenshi had to admit that the offer was tempting.
She would need Kisara’s help governing the Tokyo Area in the days ahead. But left to her own devices, Kisara would almost certainly try to solve every problem with ruthless force.
That was something Seitenshi couldn’t accept.
It wasn’t simply a matter of being too softhearted. Relying entirely on harsh measures would leave problems festering beneath the surface. They needed both firmness and compassion.
Unfortunately, Kisara was unlikely to follow her requests on that front.
Now that she had offered a bargain herself, though, Seitenshi believed she would honor it.
Honestly, why did they have to negotiate something so important like this?
“Well? If you don’t answer in three seconds, I’m taking that as a no.”
“I-I agree. I’ll do my best.”
Her face burned as she spoke.
At the Gastrea virus vaccine research institute in the Outer District, a figure wriggled across the floor of a dark room.
Shiba Miori had already worked her way around the entire room. There wasn’t a single sharp edge or corner she could use to fray the ropes binding her.
Then she heard movement outside.
The door creaked open.
Light spilled into the room, making her squeeze her eyes shut after so long in the darkness.
“What exactly are you doing?”
The faint amusement in that voice transformed Miori’s impending glare into a look of delighted appeal.
She had thought that awful woman had come back.
“Mmph! Mmmph!”
Something had been stuffed into her mouth, preventing her from speaking. Still, surely it was obvious that she wanted help.
“What was that? I don’t understand, and I don’t have time to guess.”
“Mmmph! Mmph, mmmph!”
If you don’t have time to guess, come over here and take this thing out of my mouth!
“Doctor, I think she’s asking for help. Shouldn’t we untie her?”
Yes! Tina had it exactly right. But could she please do something instead of just talking?
Tina hadn’t left with the others. She would be staying here as Kisara’s Initiator.
“Oh. I see.”
Only then did the doctor stroll over and begin undoing the ropes.
The moment Miori could move her hands, she tore the saliva-soaked gag out of her mouth and threw it aside.
“That damned Kisara! I’m going to kill her!”
The words came through clenched teeth, thick with murderous anger.
“Tina, where did Kisara go?”
“I don’t know. But I think she’s with Lady Seitenshi.”
“With Seitenshi?”
Miori frowned.
Clearly, Kisara had wanted to do something without her interfering. But what could possibly require her to be alone with Seitenshi, with no interruptions?
“Where’s Mr. Kain?”
“He’s at the Holy Residence, too.”
Tina had grown much more comfortable around him.
He had seemed frightening at first, but after spending these past few days with him, she thought he was actually a very nice person.
“He’s there, too?”
So the three of them were having some secret discussion and had deliberately excluded her?
Unbelievable.
“Enough chatter, Miori. Have your family send a helicopter.”
“Huh? Why one of ours?”
The question escaped before she realized the answer.
Kisara had probably sabotaged the aircraft at the institute so they couldn’t use it, or simply flown off in it herself.
Miori reached for her phone.
It wasn’t there. That woman had confiscated it.
She borrowed the doctor’s instead and called home to request a helicopter.
“Did you discover something?”
With the call finished, Miori turned to her curiously.
The doctor looked as though she had found something new and wanted to discuss it with Kain.
“Yes.”
Muroto Sumire nodded.
When the enormous mothership had entered this world, its detour through the Tokyo Area had apparently been about helping repair the Monolith.
In fact, it had also had another purpose: scanning underground.
That scan had provided further evidence about the relationship between Varanium ore and the Gastrea virus.
Using those findings as a starting point, Sumire had conducted several experiments.
She had discovered that the Gastrea virus might be able to induce unusual activity in a particular kind of particle, triggering changes on a quantum level.
The virus functioned rather like a 3D printer containing a record of genetic information. When it scanned the body and detected a missing part, it triggered those quantum changes to reproduce the exact same material and repair the damage.
But where did the energy for that process come from?
When a human’s genetic corrosion rate passed fifty percent, this quantum 3D printer also underwent something resembling nuclear fusion.
Before fusion could begin, an external force had to act on a particular element.
Crossing the fifty-percent corrosion threshold was effectively the ignition point. The vast energy released by that element activated the printer, allowing a seventy-kilogram human to transform instantaneously, or rather, be rebuilt, into a Gastrea weighing hundreds of kilograms or even more than a metric ton.
And that element was hidden in the bones.
It was probably the precursor to the A-Element.
Those were Sumire’s latest findings, though she wasn’t certain yet. She needed further verification.
And for that, she needed more of Kain’s blood.
His blood had uses beyond producing what he called a pseudo-panacea, a clear, slightly viscous liquid.
He had said that he had taken a genuine panacea before.
In a sense, Kain himself was a quantum 3D printer!
Before long, the helicopter sent by Miori’s family brought them to the Holy Residence.
They barged inside and eventually located the room they wanted.
Before opening the door, they caught fragments of conversation from within. Apparently, Seitenshi had lost some sort of challenge, too.
Neither of them understood what that was supposed to mean.
“Tendo Kisara, you…!”
Miori yanked the sliding door open, only for her furious accusation to die in her throat.
She had walked in on a private moment.
For a few seconds, her mind went completely blank.
Kisara noticed her and paused briefly.
Then, with an infuriating lack of concern, she acted as though Miori wasn’t even there.
(End of Chapter)
“Zaelum”]