So far, two Stage V Gastrea had been confirmed destroyed—Taurus and Virgo.
Virgo had been killed by the Initiator ranked second in IP Rank. However, she hadn't done it alone. Without help—and a bit of luck—even the Initiator ranked second couldn't have defeated a Stage V.
Taurus was a rare type capable of leading Gastrea legions in coordinated operations. Even Aldebaran, who had appeared in the Tokyo Area not long ago and destroyed the Monolith, was its right-hand man. Guarded by countless Gastrea from Stage One all the way up through Stage IV, Taurus was once believed to be unstoppable. And in the end, the one who defeated it was the Initiator ranked first in IP Rank—without any help at all.
Why could she kill a Stage V by herself? Why was she so much stronger than the second-ranked Initiator?
Because she—and those Stage Vs—were products of the Seven Stars Village experiment. The eleven Stage Vs were failures. Only she came close to success.
Every terrifying ability Stage V possessed—adaptation that couldn't be killed even by ultra-low temperatures, the vacuum of space, or lava thousands of degrees hot, and regeneration at the molecular level—she had all of it, too.
The new species in the footage was strong, but no matter how strong it was, it was still only a group of Stage IVs. Albrecht had complete confidence in the girl he had named "Eve."
Just as Albrecht was about to explain the mission's details to Eve, the warm yellow light in the laboratory abruptly shifted into an unsettling dark red. Along with it came an alarm so shrill it stabbed at the ears.
"What's going on?"
Albrecht panicked for a brief moment, afraid Eve's existence had been discovered. She was his final—and greatest—trump card, an existence whose identity was enough to shock the entire world.
Almost everything in Seven Stars Village had been destroyed, but Albrecht hadn't abandoned the experiment that had nearly ended the world. The case closest to success was in his hands. All his efforts these past years had been for completing that experiment—so he, too, could become a truly perfect being.
Until the day that happened, Eve's existence absolutely could not be exposed.
With a grim face, Albrecht checked the situation outside through the lab's security monitors.
Good news: his lab hadn't been discovered.
Bad news: Goshoukai's headquarters was under attack by a massive number of Gastrea.
"Where are these Gastrea even coming from?"
This was Goshoukai's headquarters—highly concealed, guarded by plenty of powerful Civil Security officers and mechanized soldiers. How could Gastrea possibly show up here?
Were they supposed to have popped out of cracks in the rocks?
The collapse of the defenses was far faster than Albrecht had expected.
Very quickly, he realized it wasn't only Gastrea invading—there were also swarms upon swarms of rats, moving in packs, seemingly endless.
His mind immediately went to the flute they'd brought back last time—the one that had left all their researchers completely stumped.
The rapid collapse of the defenses had to do with those rats. Because they were "just ordinary rats," the Civil Security officers and mechanized soldiers guarding Goshoukai hadn't treated them as a threat. All their attention had been on the Gastrea.
And it was exactly those unimpressive-looking rats that made them pay dearly.
In the first contact, there weren't that many. The guards easily smashed and burned the rats' bodies, assuming that meant the rats had been successfully eliminated, and they relaxed their vigilance.
That was when the rats displayed a vitality that didn't lose to Gastrea at all.
A rat reduced to nothing but a head suddenly sprang up from the ground and bit clean through a Civil Security officer's throat.
A rat with its belly split open—its intestines flashed like an afterimage as they stabbed into a mechanized soldier's ear and pierced straight through his brain.
A rat engulfed in flames charged nearby flammable materials, and in an instant, the area erupted into a roaring fire.
In that first exchange, Goshoukai was caught completely off guard and suffered heavy losses. The survivors panicked and lost formation—and then an army of rats so numerous it made your scalp prickle arrived, attacking in coordination with the Gastrea.
Watching the monitor feed, Albrecht quickly came to a conclusion:
This place was no longer defensible.
Albrecht didn't care if Goshoukai was destroyed. In his eyes, only the unfinished experiment mattered.
So he made his choice without hesitation, taking a portion of important research data and Eve, and leaving with not the slightest attachment.
Leaving secretly was practically impossible. The rats were everywhere; they could seep into any gap. Albrecht knew he and Eve would be stopped. Even so, when he saw who it was, he was still surprised.
"Otagawa Yuya?"
"Professor! Professor Albrecht! Good morning good afternoon good evening! Have you eaten? Are you hungry? Today's recommended dish is rotten rat meat blended thoroughly in a juicer for thirty minutes, then topped with human brains and bodily fluids, and finished with cumin, ketchup, peanut butter, and Lao Gan Ma! You'd never imagine rat meat could taste this good—hahahahaha!"
There was no doubt about it—Otagawa Yuya had gone insane…
Of course, that alone wasn't enough to shock Albrecht; he'd seen plenty in his time.
He'd also long since guessed that the criminal who stole the flute would be Yuya. After the piper died, only Otagawa Yuya had ever used that flute. He was the most likely to be seduced by its power.
But what truly surprised Albrecht was Yuya's appearance now.
Otagawa Yuya's face had turned fully green. Maniacal laughter burst from his mouth again and again. The way he was dressed from the waist up made him look like a clown…
Or rather, like that mad piper in the sewers.
And below the waist… he had no lower body anymore.
There was a huge Gastrea that you could just barely tell had once been a rat—probably around Stage II. Otagawa Yuya's upper body was fused to the monster's forehead.
In other words, that Stage II rat Gastrea was now Otagawa Yuya's lower half.
"Look, Professor! Look! This flute's power is sooo—great! It can even do something like this!"
Yuya held the flute high in both hands, laughing wildly.
"Now I'll never be tormented by nightmares again! All the disgusting rats stay away from me, and all the cute rats listen obediently… yes, yes, yes! My brain is trembling! It just had a brilliant idea it wants to tell me!"
"Use this power to turn all humans into me! Turn all humans into cute rats! Turn all Gastrea into cute rats! And then, and then, and then… I'll use the flute to rule them! Gastrea won't hurt humans anymore! Humans won't hurt Gastrea anymore! Everyone will be disgusting, cute rats! We're all one family! We'll live in harmony—my idea is genius, right?! I'm so smart, why aren't I one of the Four Sages?!"
Influenced by Otagawa Yuya's crazed will, the rat-type Gastrea fused to him went berserk as well, rampaging through everything nearby. Gastrea that got too close were torn apart.
"…Looks like you've been infected by a new strain of the Gastrea Virus."
Albrecht's gaze held no emotion at all. He wasn't looking at someone he knew; he was looking at an object—like a stone by his feet.
"Was it because of that flute? Anyone who uses it becomes infected? No wonder that mysterious organization abandoned it so decisively. So it had such a terrifying flaw…"
There was no worry in his voice for his own safety, and no pity for Otagawa Yuya—only curiosity.
With Eve here, these things couldn't threaten him.
The fight ended quickly.
The mutated Otagawa Yuya could use the flute to summon countless rat-type Gastrea and rats to fight, so Eve killed Otagawa Yuya first—reducing him to nothing, not leaving even a scrap of flesh behind to suppress his regeneration. Only then did she deal with the nearby rats and the Gastrea horde.
Otagawa Yuya, controlling an army of rats, was like a shrunken version of Taurus's legion. And since Eve could shatter Taurus's legion, killing Otagawa Yuya and his underlings was naturally easy.
Albrecht wasn't surprised by Eve's victory in the slightest.
With every enemy destroyed, only the flute remained, lying quietly on the ground, waiting to be picked up.
Albrecht hesitated, weighing whether to take the flute with him.
Its ability to control Gastrea was tempting—but it was also deeply sinister. Goshoukai's headquarters had been destroyed because of it.
"Just look what I found."
Before Albrecht could decide, a voice carrying a hint of amusement reached his ears, making him frown.
"Sogen Saitake… looks like you're quite lucky. I thought you'd already been eaten by these Gastrea."
Albrecht recognized him. After all, he was a top executive of Goshoukai—and also the president of the Osaka Area.
But he quickly noticed something: the Osaka president had no guards at all. No Civil Security officers, no mechanized super soldiers—none in sight.
So how had he reached this place?
Surely not alone. There had just been so many Gastrea and those sinister rats here.
"Of course. Even I think I'm lucky."
Sogen Saitake wore a smile—one that made Albrecht deeply uncomfortable, drawing his brows together unconsciously.
"To have something like that trump card at your side, Professor, and not let even a whisper slip… that's really not very friendly of you." Sogen Saitake narrowed his eyes with a half-smile, staring fixedly at Eve as he walked forward step by step. "If I hadn't happened to run into this, I might never have known until the day I died… Is this child one of the Cursed Children?"
"Yes. She's my Initiator."
"With such a powerful Initiator protecting you, it seems you don't need to worry about your own safety." Sogen Saitake said slowly. "As you can see, all my guards died fighting those monsters. I can't escape alive by myself. Professor—would you be willing to bring me with you?"
"A very reasonable request, Mr. Sogen Saitake… of course I'll agree."
Albrecht nodded without expression.
Sogen Saitake relaxed into a smile. "Thank you so much, Mr. Albrecht. Running into you really is—how lucky—"
Bang!
With the gunshot, Sogen Saitake's head was pierced clean through. Albrecht stood there holding a handgun, the dark muzzle still smoking.
"I think it's the opposite, Mr. Sogen Saitake. Appearing here is your greatest misfortune. If you hadn't seen what you were not meant to see, your chances of living would likely have been higher."
Eve's existence was his greatest secret. Anyone else might have been manageable, but for someone like Sogen Saitake—a man of ambition—to see her, Albrecht couldn't possibly let him live.
He had to silence him.
"My, my. You really just fired without warning… even I was startled."
"!!!"
Albrecht's pupils jolted.
With the bullet hole still in his forehead, "Sogen Saitake" spoke with a helpless expression.
"We were having such a harmonious conversation one second, and the next you can shoot and coldly take someone's life… the adult world really is complicated. If I could, I'd rather stay a child forever and never grow up."
"You…?!" Albrecht couldn't understand it. How was he still talking with a bullet through his brain?
Even Cursed Children still had weak points. Their brains and hearts were still fatal—ordinary bullets through either would kill them, unless they had a factor from something like a planarian or a tardigrade, creatures with absurd vitality.
Gastrea didn't have obvious weak points. But this wasn't a Gastrea—at least, he had reason and speech.
"A new strain of the Gastrea Virus? Are you with that organization?"
Albrecht stared at "Sogen Saitake," unsettled. Faced with what he was seeing, the only thing he could think of was that mysterious new strain.
At that moment, "Sogen Saitake's" body suddenly dissolved into mist. Nursery Rhyme hopped out from within it, carefully holding her hat in place.
"Organization? What organization? Nursery Rhyme doesn't know."
[Tommy Thumb's Secret Picture Book A], a skill enhanced from [Shapeshift A+]. As a being born from Servant-ization of the concept of "fairy tales," Nursery Rhyme originally possessed no appearance or physical form at all. Even the forms of a book and a young girl were things she gained later. Therefore, she possesses the skill [Shapeshift]—and at an A+ rank. She can freely alter her outward form, or imitate others.
Most importantly, that imitation doesn't just mean looks.
It includes personality, memories, and abilities.