There were actually quite a few vagrants who shared the same idea as that man.
In fact, many of the plague-infected refugees from various vagrant settlements had come here, received treatment, recovered, and then wanted to go back—to bring the rest of their sick companions along. After all, only the Inquisition possessed the means to cure this plague, and only here could they finally feel at peace.
Of course, this was nothing more than treating the symptoms rather than the root cause.
Duanmu Huai had already discovered that the plague didn't just infect humans—it could also infect and mutate the local animals and plants. That realization made him uneasy. He had already dispatched nearly all of his Astral Marines to search for clues about the plague's origin, but unfortunately, up until now, they hadn't found any concrete or definite target.
And there wasn't much Duanmu Huai could do about it. He didn't have any of those grease-stained science types under his command. Some problems he could solve with magic, but others… just couldn't be solved that way. That was the truly frustrating part.
"So," he finally said, having gathered everyone together for a meeting, "what do you all think?"
"The treatment of the plague itself isn't difficult," Lorena was the first to speak up, looking rather uneasy, "but… finding the source is another matter entirely. That's the real problem."
"We've gone to several infected outposts," she continued. "Everything there has mutated—not just humans, but also animals and plants… Feline can confirm this."
"Feline?"
Hearing Lorena's words, Duanmu Huai turned toward the dragon girl, who was currently sitting at a nearby desk, tablet in hand, looking for all the world like that one antisocial cousin on New Year's Eve scrolling Douyin instead of eating dinner.
Seriously, if I don't call for her, she wouldn't even leave her room?
"Ah, yes," Lorena nodded. "Miss Feline used something called a… drone, and went on the mission with us."
"...…"
Right. Too lazy to go out herself, so she just sends a drone in her place.
Watching the dragon girl's deft fingers swipe across the tablet, Duanmu Huai could only sigh. This girl came from the same medieval world as Anne and Guleya, and yet she'd already mastered modern technology and daily life.
Truly, laziness was the mother of invention.
Perhaps sensing Duanmu Huai's gaze, Feline looked up briefly, then tapped her screen. Instantly, a video feed appeared on the wall display—it was the recording from her drone, following Lorena and the Astral Marines through the infected camps.
Well, at least she was proving useful.
Duanmu Huai frowned as he watched the footage. The refugee camps were a complete mess—corpses glowing faintly, twisted trees and animals warped beyond recognition. The specific mutations varied, but they all shared one trait: they emitted light.
"…Miss Ranni, your opinion?" he asked.
"At present," the witch Ranni replied, seated with four hands folded elegantly before her, eyes fixed on the projection, "my knowledge is not yet sufficient to determine what this truly is."
As one of only three "technical experts" in Duanmu Huai's entire team, Ranni naturally approached the issue like a scholar.
"However," she added, "I can at least say with certainty that it's different from Malenia's Scarlet Rot."
"Don't even mention that," Duanmu Huai groaned. "Just thinking about it gives me a headache…"
He still remembered when he'd gone to the Haligtree to kill Malenia. That so-called Valkyrie had absolutely no honor—once she realized she couldn't win, she faked death. And when he fell for it, she sprang back up and slammed her face right into his helmet with a Scarlet Bloom!
If he hadn't been wearing the helmet, his face might've ended up like Radahn's—burned and melted.
He'd been so furious he literally tore that fluttering moth of a woman to pieces on the spot.
Valkyrie? Yeah right. What a shameless piece of work.
Still, Ranni's comparison wasn't wrong. Duanmu Huai remembered that back in Caelid, even animals were infected by the Scarlet Rot—dogs turning into T-rexes, birds mutating into giant flightless chickens… nothing pleasant, that's for sure.
"So, you don't think it's some kind of curse?"
"Unlikely," Ranni shook her head. "I can still sense faint traces of life from them. As strange as it sounds… I believe those glowing substances might themselves be a form of living organism."
"Parasitic life?"
Duanmu Huai's face darkened immediately. He wasn't a scientist, but he'd traveled enough worlds as an Inquisitor to recognize a pattern when he heard one.
Damn it… if it's parasitic life, that's going to be a pain.
Especially if it's parasitic at the cellular level—that was the worst. The only way to deal with that kind of threat was to find a qualified expert, have them research the organism, and then develop a targeted countermeasure or weapon to destroy it.
But the problem was… where the hell was he supposed to find a competent biologist now?
Ranni was a witch, Anne and Guleya were both from the magic side of things, and biotechnology had absolutely nothing to do with magic. Worse yet, whoever he found had to be completely trustworthy—otherwise, one whisper from the God of Plague, and they'd be corrupted instantly. In fact, this sort of thing had happened countless times before. Besides the poor slum rats, most of the Plague God's converts were biotech geeks and doctors!
Take that one apostle of the Plague God under the sewers of Arldorf for example—he used to be a kindhearted doctor who just wanted to cure people. But when human knowledge hit its limits, despair took over. And that's when the Plague God spoke to him through the mouth of a corpse:
"Do you want to know the meaning of life? Do you truly wish… to live?"
Well of course he did!
Humans had limits, so… "I'll stop being human!"
And just like that, the doctor accepted the Plague God's offer, became a Plague Apostle, and twistedly came to believe that viral infection was the next step in human evolution—the perfect form. From that moment on, he abandoned all reason and devoted himself entirely to spreading disease.
Honestly, if the Plague God ever set foot in the Resident Evil world, every last Umbrella researcher would be his most loyal cultist.
Ideally, Duanmu Huai would recruit someone from one of his own Fragment Worlds, but unfortunately, none of those worlds had a particularly advanced civilization.
As for this world… were there even any scientists still alive here? Maybe, but good luck finding them.
He sighed helplessly.
I wonder if there's anyone suitable in the Resident Evil world…
Opening his system interface, Duanmu Huai scrolled through his mission list, frowning. In his memory, every protagonist in the Resident Evil series was just a meat-headed brawler. They didn't care about infections or viruses—just kill everything in sight, blow up the lab, roll credits.
That kind of approach wasn't going to help him. Otherwise, why would Resident Evil have so many damn sequels—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…?
Some player had once joked that the total number of zombies killed across the entire series probably outnumbered the actual human population of Earth.
And the only people in that world with any scientific expertise were villains.
Mad scientists, lunatic researchers… there wasn't a single one he could trust. Bring them here, and one whisper from the Plague God would have them switching sides in seconds. Duanmu Huai had zero faith in the moral integrity of mad scientists.
Seriously… how come after so many Resident Evil games, not a single decent scientist ever shows up?
He idly swiped at the system interface with one finger. But when his hand brushed over the event page for Biohazard, and he dragged the map to the side, suddenly—
A new mission appeared.
[Hidden Mission — Biohazard: Dawn]
Someone has developed a vaccine capable of curing viral outbreaks—but in doing so, has become entangled in a web of revenge and conspiracy.
Mission Objective: Protect the team. Eliminate the viral disaster.
"...…"
Wait, seriously? Someone actually developed a vaccine? One that can cure the T-virus? How the hell have I never heard of this?
Staring at the prompt, Duanmu Huai blinked in surprise—and then, his eyes lit up.
There we go.
If someone could create a T-virus vaccine, they had to be one of the good guys, right? At least they wouldn't be the type to get tempted by the Plague God and immediately start brewing new viruses. If that was the case, maybe he could bring this person over and have them help deal with the current plague problem.
The thought alone made his decision.
"This meeting is over. I've got something to take care of. Dismissed!"
With a few curt orders, Duanmu Huai stood up and left the room.
The others stared at his retreating back in confusion.
"Uh… that's it?" Anne scratched her head.
Odelle nodded. "Yes. That's exactly what he said."
"Feels like… we didn't accomplish anything," Anne muttered, sticking out her tongue sheepishly. "But to be fair, this isn't exactly my field…"
And she was right. Summoning magic was her specialty—biochemical medicine was definitely not. Even Guleya was equally helpless in this situation.
Of course, if you wanted someone to burn the mutants to ash, Guleya could handle that just fine.
But developing a cure? That was way out of their league.
Olgis was the first to stand up and follow after Duanmu Huai, then Feline, and soon the rest of the group drifted out of the command room one by one.
Moments later, the place was completely empty.
(End of Chapter)