Chapter 14

The place the bus arrived at was the underground parking lot of a large shopping mall.

The space, which normally would have been bustling with shoppers' cars, was now filled with military trucks, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠radio antennas, and thick communication cables heavily embroidering the floor.

We were pushed past makeshift walls and into the cramped entrance of a civil defense shelter.

Instead of cold metal walls, moldy concrete surfaces, the humming noise of generators, and the peculiar musty smell of a damp basement pierced our noses.

It was far from the sophisticated bases seen in movies.

Rather, it felt like a precarious temporary command post on a battlefield, looking as if it could collapse at any moment.

About ten mutants, including myself and the owlbear beastman, were seated in a briefing room lined with folding plastic chairs.

Behind us, soldiers wearing gas masks stood guard with their firearms held diagonally, and on a screen installed under the low ceiling at the front, an old font was blinking.

The one who stepped up to the podium was the officer from earlier.

Deep wrinkles and beads of sweat had formed on the forehead of the man who had taken off his beret and set it on the table.

"First, thank you for your cooperation. There is only one reason you have come here. To share the terrible truth of what exactly we are fighting against right now."

The face of the officer saying those words was steeped in severe fatigue.

I don't have a good impression of the military.

In the first place, the very situation of me being here right now is due to coercion.

Even if I wanted to have a good impression, I couldn't.

But... at the same time, I also had a question.

Just what on earth is happening for the military, for the country, to step forward as if there's no turning back?

"You all must have many questions about the government. Things like the reason how the government was able to respond so quickly and systematically to this nonsensical situation. To give you the conclusion first, the government knew this situation was coming."

At those words, the room murmured.

There must be people who have heard similar conspiracy theories, but having it admitted like this feels completely different.

Also, a new question sprang up.

How on earth could they have predicted this kind of bullshit?

The officer swallowed dryly and spoke as if declaring a fact.

"The government saw the future."

The future? Are you saying you hired a prophet or something?

The air inside the briefing room rustled with mockery and suspicion.

But the officer's subsequent words were so bizarre that they froze even the mockery.

"The government made a contract with a devil and was able to obtain information about the future."

For a moment, someone burst into a hollow laugh.

But the officer did not waver. Rather, his pupils harbored a terrible disgust and fear.

"...You're joking, right?"

The vampire asked cautiously. The officer shook his head.

"I wish it were a joke, but unfortunately, it is the truth."

He pointed at the screen. The display changed.

A photo of a document. Characters densely written on old paper. But it couldn't be read.

That was not a language.

No, it was too bizarre to be called a language.

It looked scribbled yet regular, unrecognizable yet seemingly holding some meaning.

Just looking at those letters brought on a headache.

"This is that contract. Three years ago, the government obtained information about future events through this contract. A certain level of information regarding the mutation phenomenon and the blackout zones, that is."

A thick silence descended at those words.

It was something that hard to easily accept.

It wasn't difficult to deduce that the government had foreseen this situation in advance.

But to say the method was a contract with a devil?

It's far too unrealistic.

However, it didn't seem entirely impossible either.

The first reason being that even I had immediately become a fantasy-like entity...

Perhaps having a similar train of thought as me, most people accepted it.

But even if they accepted it, questions still lay scattered about.

"If it was a contract with a devil... wasn't there a price?"

One mutant asked exactly that.

"There was. And that price was..."

The officer replied with his unchanging, expressionless face.

"The complete erasure of the President."

Erasure? I was momentarily dumbfounded by the unrealistic word.

But after hearing those words, there was one thing that suddenly came to mind.

"Excuse me... does anyone remember who... who the President was?"

A mutant said that.

But no one could give an answer.

It was the same for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me.

That face and name that had definitely been on the news and getting cursed at on the internet just yesterday... not even a single word came to mind.

It felt like forcibly scraping an empty space. As the meaning of the erasure the officer spoke of hit home, I got goosebumps.

The reality was much more severe.

But at the same time, another question arose.

Even with the future information obtained at such a cost, why on earth was the government only able to handle things up to this point?

The answer to that was simple.

"Even the information obtained like that was incomplete. We have only managed to steer things up to now using very fragmentary information."

Regardless, it seems that was their limit in the end.

And at the same time, even fear arose. Fear toward the situation currently unfolding.

To think it's enough to force a government, which holds future information albeit fragmentary, to act this extremely?

There could only be one cause for that.

The blackout zone.

Just what on earth is happening inside there...

"Despite the lack of information, there is one threat we have definitively identified."

As the officer operated the screen, a video filmed inside the blackout zone played along with some crackling noise.

A person was standing on the screen. No, I thought it was a person.

"...!"

Someone gasped for air.

Because the man on the screen suddenly grabbed the skin of his own face and pulled it straight down as if tearing wet paper.

A grotesque shape, a mixture of bright red muscle and blood vessels, surged up from beneath the skin.

It then draped itself in the skin of another person lying collapsed next to it, and in an instant, transformed into the exact same appearance as that person.

"The military refers to this as the 'Human-Skin Wearing Mimic Beast'. They mimic by peeling off a human's skin and wearing it over themselves."

It's shocking content.

It's a fact hard to accept, but with video evidence right there, we couldn't really argue against it.

Because surely the government wouldn't intend to show us some low-quality snuff movie.

"Furthermore, they infect their victims. Victims who have their skin peeled off will mutate into identical Human-Skin Wearing Mimics within 12 hours of being left unattended."

The officer's explanation was terribly dry, making it even more horrifying.

"The family members or acquaintances calling out to you from inside there have a high probability of actually being monsters just wearing their skin. They are highly intelligent, and even share fragments of the skin owner's memories."

The massive body of the owlbear beastman sitting next to me trembled noticeably. His hands, which had vowed to go find his grandson and son, clenched convulsively.

The terror that his family inside might have already been robbed of their skin and turned into monsters.

And...

That fear swept over me without exception, I, who also had to find my younger sister.

"...Is there really, truly no way?"

"...When such a question comes in, there is a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠manual I can answer with."

The officer continued speaking with a half-hoarse voice.

"The inside of the blackout zone is much larger than the actual Gangnam area. There are just as many areas we haven't been able to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠survey, and it has been confirmed that there are several survivors. However..."

The officer hesitated for a moment, then added.

"They are only a tiny minority. In my personal opinion... yes. You should consider there to be no hope."

It would have been nice if it ended here.

Unfortunately, the officer's words did not stop there.

"What is more despairing is that these bastards are immortal."

The officer's words continued.

"Even if you blow off their heads with a gun and pierce their hearts, they are only temporarily neutralized; the main body beneath the skin continuously regenerates. All our military can do is shoot them down, shove them into quarantine containers, and stack them up. But even that is reaching its limit."

The officer looked at us straight in the eyes.

"The moment these bastards cross the defense line and slip into society, humanity perishes. Because we will no longer be able to tell who our real families are."

Everyone gasped at those words.

Because we finally properly grasped the incident.

The reason the government came out so aggressively.

The reason why not a single high-ranking official was raising a voice of dissent despite that...

The situation inside the blackout zone was even more serious than we thought.

"I will give you your final choices. This is your chance to turn back without fighting alongside us."

The screen blinked and showed two options.

[Transfer to quarantine facility with memories erased.]

If not that... then fight knowing the whole truth.