Chapter 410: Social Tidying Up (2)
Chapter 410: Social Tidying Up (2)
The first question I threw at the rest of the group after returning from inspecting the building's interior was this:
"Did any of you put anything in your mouth since we arrived in Detroit?"
On the surface, it seemed like a trivial question, but right now, it was the most important one.
I didn't know how much one had to ingest for the effects to kick in, but I had successfully identified food as one of the sources of contamination.
Fortunately, the two disciples and Ultimate replied that they hadn't even touched a drop of water since arriving.
To get an answer from the last person, I approached the idiot sprawled out on the roadside.
Then, I promptly smacked him upside the head.
Magical status ailment cleared.
To put it more bluntly, I just beat him awake.
I had considered letting him sleep in peace if that didn't wake him up, but...
"Gah!"
Fortunately, Montague sprang up with a single punch, clutching his head.
I looked down at the shouting moron and tossed a question his way.
"Did you eat anything?"
"Ow... What the hell is... Huh? What did you say?"
"I asked if you ate anything."
"Ah, is it lunchtime already? If you mean food, I had a sandwich at a restaurant near the Bureau before coming here..."
Not that, you moron.
"Besides that, you haven't eaten anything else, right?"
"Hmm. I thought about buying a few hot dogs after getting to Detroit, but strangely enough, every shop said they were out of ingredients and couldn't sell any."
Well, that’s a relief.
This guy really is unnervingly lucky.
"Fine, then follow me. I have something to tell everyone."
"Ah. Sure, okay."
Montague kept tilting his head as if he couldn't quite grasp the situation, but he followed me immediately.
And so, the two who knew what was going on and the four who didn't huddled together.
I relayed the current situation to them.
"You remember what I asked earlier?"
"Yes. You asked if we had consumed anything since arriving in Detroit," Ultimate answered immediately.
"Right. As you've probably guessed from my question, do not put anything in your mouths while we're here."
"Is it poisoned or something?"
Montague, the idiot who still hadn't grasped the situation, chimed in.
I didn't even need to hear his thoughts to know what he was thinking. He probably figured that as long as it wasn't his 'turn' to die, he'd be fine even if he ate poison.
In fact, it was hard to argue with him since he was an unnervingly lucky bastard who wouldn't die even if he downed poison, but this was a completely different matter.
"It's worse than poison. There's a contaminant in the food that mutates humans."
Specifically, parts of a monster that had already taken on the properties of a drug. I didn't feel the need to explain that much, so I left it out.
Regardless, everyone fell into thought upon hearing my information. The first to speak was Ultimate.
"What is the rate of infection through oral ingestion?"
"I'm not a researcher, how should I know? It's unknown."
"What about drinking water?"
"The contaminant I identified was meat, but given the circumstances, I suspect the water supply is in a similar state."
...Maybe vegetables are okay?
No, wait.
There might be vegetables mutated based on human DNA.
If it's those mad doctors, they might actually be capable of that.
"Anyway, consuming any food or drink, including water, is forbidden in this area. Ultimate, notify the Bureau of this immediately. Tell them that drinking water will be a hassle, but they need to handle it through supplies. Also, tell them to plan the operation assuming all of Detroit is a Contaminated Zone."
Drinking water was usually a basic supply item anyway since it often wasn't sourced locally for various reasons, but if I didn't warn them in advance, some mindless soldiers might turn on a nearby tap just to get a drink.
"Understood. This is vital information; I will contact them at once. However, if the water is contaminated, this is a bigger problem than I thought."
Ultimate spoke with a grim expression and immediately began sending a telepathic message to the Bureau, but he added something that bothered me.
"A bigger problem? Like what?"
"Water source contamination. For the Defense Force starting their deployment now, it's just one more annoying condition to deal with. But considering Detroit's location, there's a high possibility the contamination will spread much further."
Immediately after finishing his grim explanation, Ultimate's mouth began to move silently as his telepathy connected with the Bureau.
Hearing that explanation, I fell into thought.
Detroit's location?
Let's see. Somewhere in the American interior.
Other than that... uh... in the middle of the lakes...
...The lakes?
Oh, shit. Wait a second.
"Someone open a map. Now!"
"Here is the map!"
Baek Si-hyun was the quickest to respond to my urgent call.
She opened a map program on a tablet—where she even pulled it from was a mystery—and placed it between us. Everyone except Ultimate looked at the map, wondering what was wrong.
On the map, a red marker indicated our current location, surrounded by the names of major cities.
Chicago. Cleveland. Milwaukee. Toronto.
Holy mother of...
There wasn't just one or two major cities.
And those were just the ones bordering the lakes.
If it followed the waterways further, it could reach as far as the capital regions like Quebec and Montreal. It was the worst-case scenario.
If the drinking water sources were truly all contaminated, how the hell were we supposed to deal with this?
If we failed to contain this, wouldn't water become a rare resource in this entire region, just like in the very early days of the invasion?
Right now, we could use water resources freely because the Spirits were covering for us. But what if this phenomenon had a contamination power that surpassed that?
Of course, a Spirit, being water itself, would likely have the upper hand in dominance over most contaminants, but the future the AO Director showed me weighed on my mind.
It wasn't that the mad doctors survived until the end of the world; it was that those entities were the protagonists of the world's end.
If so, the fear that the starting point might be water contamination gripped me.
Dammit.
Since Ultimate realized this before I did, he would likely report it to the Bureau, and they would immediately dispatch an investigation team to handle it.
As long as the Spirits were around, it seemed likely the water contamination would be contained to the Detroit area, but we had to prepare for the worst.
Perhaps because I kept thinking about water, I suddenly felt thirsty.
The danger level of the situation was escalating so rapidly that my head was throbbing and my throat felt parched.
Pop.
I immediately pulled out my thermos and gulped down the Liquid X inside.
My senses would dull a bit because of this, but it was more important to suppress the rising heat of my emotions along with my tangled thoughts.
As I swallowed the liquid, my throat clicking...
"What are you drinking all by yourself?"
Montague, still lacking any sense of the situation, approached and asked.
For a moment, I considered giving him some and knocking him out.
But I soon abandoned the thought.
Now that the situation was starting to spiral beyond imagination, I couldn't afford to knock out Montague, who was one of the few combat assets capable of moving immediately.
"You're screwed if you drink this."
I warned him quietly.
"Is it high-proof alcohol? Come on, I'm not a kid anymore. I can handle a drink..."
Montague, displaying his usual contrarian streak, clung to me persistently.
...Explaining is a pain. Should I just deck him?
Just as I was about to swing my fist...
"Um... excuse me. Hero Montague? It's probably best if you don't drink that."
Han A-bin stepped in and held Montague back.
Montague's interest shifted to her, and he took a step away from me to look at A-bin.
"What is it? Is it poison?"
"If you define something that harms humans as poison... then yes, it's poison."
At those words, the smirking Montague froze.
It was as if he truly hadn't expected that answer.
"...What are the effects?"
"Short-term unconsciousness, nightmares, paralysis of the limbs, digestive system issues, anemia, hangovers... things like that. For now, besides those effects, it does have a mental stabilization effect, but..."
Hearing that, Montague quickly looked back at me.
His expression seemed to say, 'Why the hell are you drinking that?'
"What are you looking at? I only get the mental stabilization effect without the side effects."
"What is that? Some kind of monster-only booze?"
Wham.
I immediately smacked Montague for his nonsense.
Not enough to knock him out, but with enough force to send him crashing into a nearby wall.
The hit landed perfectly, and Montague slammed into The Wall, but since he was a physical-type Hero, he'd be fine.
I then looked at the thermos.
There was about a third of the Liquid X left.
Normally, I would add water to increase the volume, but since the topic of drinking water had come up, I had to conserve this too.
Hmm. Maybe I should ask the Bureau to bring some leaves and ethanol.
At this rate, the Liquid X would run out soon, so I should ask them to send it with the supplies...
Thinking that, I was about to approach Ultimate, who was still sending telepathic messages, to ask for an additional request.
...Wait.
Then, what happens if this Liquid X comes into contact with contaminated water?
Liquid X converts any liquid up to 1.136L into the same liquid as itself.
No matter what that liquid is, or what impurities are in it.
So, what if I mix it with the contaminated liquid?
My thoughts reaching that point, I immediately ran into a nearby, crumbling shop that looked like it had been closed for a long time.
I could feel my companions' confusion at my sudden action, but I ignored them and overturned the empty shop.
Soon, I found what I was looking for.
A single faucet.
I didn't know if the water mains in this godforsaken city were still functional, so there was no guarantee water would come out, but I turned the handle anyway.
Water trickled out slowly.
It was a small amount, but water was indeed flowing from the faucet.
I caught the water in the thermos cap. Once it was about half full, I tilted the thermos and let a tiny amount of Liquid X drip in.
I watched as the transparent Liquid X swirled into the water.
The pure transparency of Liquid X met the tap water, which had a slightly dubious color, likely due to the state of the pipes.
The tap water was slowly, but visibly, being consumed by the Liquid X.
Was the Liquid X winning? Or was the drinking water still relatively safe?
Just as I was about to stop the experiment...
I saw something inside the thermos cap.
A sediment slowly sinking to the bottom of the cap.
It looked like the dregs you often see when making coffee or tea.
But to my eyes, it looked like it was trying to flee from the Liquid X.
Finally, the moment the Liquid X completely consumed the tap water and turned it transparent, I could see its true identity.
It was something the size of a grain of millet, nearly impossible to perceive unless you looked closely.
The flesh-colored thing, formed from the clumped sediment, wriggled frantically inside the Liquid X.
But before long, as if its life had reached its end, it stopped moving and bobbed to the surface of the Liquid X.
Immediately after, it melted away and was absorbed into the Liquid X.
"Shit."
I splashed the Liquid X from the cap onto the ground, ran out of the shop, and relayed the information I had just gathered to Ultimate.
"Tell the Bureau. Additional information. When checking for contamination, prioritize biological checks over chemical ones. Small amounts of contaminated flesh are surviving in the water. That's the source."
To my information...
'How did you find out?'
He could have asked something like that.
But Ultimate immediately relayed my words to the Bureau exactly as I said them.
The situation was spiraling toward the absolute worst.
Dammit, surviving flesh even in that state?
I should have known from the moment those doctors wouldn't die, but those bastards are persistent as hell.
But then, wouldn't it be hard for the Spirits too?
It's not that the water itself is contaminated; it means lifeforms almost at the level of nanomachines are swimming around in the water, contaminating the resource.
Since a Spirit's body is the water itself, just as we don't pay attention to the microorganisms inside our own bodies, they wouldn't notice plankton or microbes swimming inside them. If they're that small, wouldn't the reaction be delayed?
They might notice such impurities quickly, but I'm not a Spirit or a Spirit expert, so I can't say for sure.
If the Spirits haven't noticed this yet, this incident could truly lead to a global-scale biohazard.
There's no way to deal with this quickly other than believing the Spirits will realize the situation and handle it.
"Fuck."
Why is the scale of this mess growing so fast?
What the hell is even happening right now?