Megumi Kato looked at the content written on the sticky note and murmured, "This is… information on Special Infected? From the description, the Special Infected we just encountered was a Witch."
It wasn't just this one sticky note with information about the Witch; several other sticky notes were also attached to the outside of the other morgue cabinets.
[Code: 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. Will face a siege of ordinary infected once contaminated by its bile. 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 ordinary infected.]
[Code: 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 the preys 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 ordinary infected, and cannot continuously pounce.]
Kotoko Iwanaga carefully examined the records on the outside of the morgue cabinets and said, "These three types of Special Infected are all ones we have already encountered. There are also Smoker, Jockey, Charger, Spitter, Tank, 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 locators implanted in their bodies, and there is also such detailed documented information. What exactly does the person controlling all this want to do…"
Asagiri Utsunomiya pulled open the compartment of the morgue cabinet while replying carelessly, "Either it's to create biological weapons, or it's to achieve human physical evolution. These are all common old tropes in various zombie apocalypse themes."
Asuna Yuuki, who was standing at the door, ostensibly keeping watch but actually afraid of ghosts or similar beings in the morgue cabinets, heard this and spoke 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 Utsunomiya replied with a light chuckle, then looked at Kotoko Iwanaga and asked, "Do you feel any presence of oddity?"
Kotoko Iwanaga reached out and pointed to a certain compartment in the morgue cabinet on the other side.
"There."
"Okay."
Asagiri Utsunomiya walked over without hesitation and pulled open that compartment of the morgue cabinet. He saw a trembling male spirit in a white coat curled up on the cold metal slab bed.
"You… don't come over!"
Seeing his hiding place discovered, this male spirit immediately wanted to shrink back into the morgue cabinet, but Asagiri Utsunomiya immediately reached out, directly grabbed the back of his neck, dragged him out by force, and threw him directly onto the ground.
"Confess honestly! Be quick!"
Asagiri Utsunomiya seemed a little impatient. The gray mask reappeared on his face and transformed, looking like a Hannya mask and 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 Utsunomiya that he made inexplicable sounds of fear, the corners of Kotoko Iwanaga's lips couldn't help but slightly rise.
As expected, it had to be the Diplomat.
Kotoko Iwanaga, who possessed an exclusive Talent, actually had a certain degree of ability to negotiate with spiritual beings, but after all, this was not their original world. The spirits here would not treat her as some Princess to respect and worship.
Moreover, as the saying goes, each Job has its own specialization. Compared to negotiation, Kotoko Iwanaga was better at finding subtle clues of the oddities 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 that scene, Asuna Yuuki, who was originally a little afraid of ghosts, was about to lose her composure.
It had to be Asagiri Utsunomiya!
Although the unique Job Diplomat's characteristic was to enhance the effect of all types of diplomacy methods, based on Asagiri Utsunomiya'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 male spirit would react in this way.
However…
In the previous Haunted Hotel dungeon, when Asagiri Utsunomiya tricked the oddity in the form of a little girl named Alice into becoming his Persona, the set of coaxing and deceiving words seemed quite skilled too?
Was there a possibility… that this guy actually had high emotional intelligence and could switch to the most effective negotiation method based on the different personalities of the target?
No wonder his Job was 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 Utsunomiya interrupted and then added rudely, "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 that, Megumi Kato 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 the male spirit said this, a very complex expression appeared on his face, and then 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 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 spirit, it means you must have died a normal death."
"Huh?"
Hearing Asagiri Utsunomiya's words, the male spirit was suddenly stunned.
"What are you talking about? A spirit… I'm dead?"
"What do you think?"
Asagiri Utsunomiya 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 Iwanaga 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, and this is normal."
"Strong obsession…"
Hearing Kotoko Iwanaga's words, the white-coated male spirit 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 completely stained with blood, Kotoko Iwanaga's expression remained as calm as ever, only noncommittally saying.
"Hmm… Recalling your greatest resentment during your lifetime, so you turned into a specter… It seems you have completely lost your sanity."
Kotoko Iwanaga sighed slightly and looked at Asagiri Utsunomiya.
"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 Utsunomiya casually threw the dagger in his hand, accurately hitting the area between the forehead of the white-coated male spirit, who had already transformed into a specter with a distorted face. With the curse attribute bonus, the dagger also had the effect of completely eliminating spiritual entities.
"My daughter…"
Before the white-coated male specter's figure completely dissipated, his voice still carried endless resentment and obsession, which made Megumi Kato and Asuna Yuuki, who witnessed the entire process, revealed somewhat complex expressions.
"To do something as cruel as injecting a virus into a daughter in front of her father… What kind of people are that so-called army…"
Just as Megumi Kato finished speaking, Asuna Yuuki, who was closest to the door, suddenly frowned slightly and spoke with a low 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.
"This sound? Could it be..."
Asuna Yuuki'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.
In 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 Yuuki'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?