Inside the abandoned middle school, there was a burst of crying and pleading from a group of women.
The Black Knights and drones herded about a dozen women to the hall of the school’s teaching building. At this time, more than ten men who were bloodied lay sprawling across the hall.
Among these people, the injured ones sat where they were, quietly whimpering in pain while the uninjured or less injured ones were busy with medical care and treatment.
As the two groups of people met, many trembling women threw themselves into the arms of their male partners, crying and wailing loudly.
“Chen Chen-kun, no, Your Excellency Chen Chen, these women are innocent!”
At this time, Fujiwara Aoki, who had bandaged his wrists, knelt in front of Chen Chen with his body supported by one hand and begged. “All of this is our fault. If Your Excellency can’t quell your anger, I’m willing to commit seppuku[1] as a form of apology. I only ask that Your Excellency spare these people!”
With that, he lowered his head to the ground. “I beseech you!”
Currently, Chen Chen was sitting on his knees in front of the group. Even now, his head was still buzzing, and he did not know how many of his brain cells had died. If he was an ordinary person, it was likely that he would be rendered immobile by now.
The function of NZT-48, besides allowing people to obtain extraordinary mental capabilities, also suppressed any side effects in the body.
At this point, Chen Chen had put on the PK Armor again. He slowly raised his head and looked at Fujiwara. His voice was low and hoarse. “Fujiwarkun, you’ve misunderstood. I’ve never said I’d do anything to you guys. My purpose in coming here is very simple — I just want to obtain information.”
“I can tell Your Excellency everything I know, and I’ll leave nothing out!”
Fujiwara Aoki suddenly looked up. “Not only that, but we also have a special file on ‘it’. Those Basilisk patterns and all kinds of mysterious phenomena are recorded in the file. Although I dare not say that it’s extremely detailed, it records all the mysterious events we’ve experienced so far!”
“Mysterious phenomena — do you mean something like the ‘woman in the dream’?”
Chen Chen’s heart leaped and he asked immediately.
“Yes!”
Fujiwara Aoki replied, “We can give you all this information. As long as Your Excellency spares us, that’s all we ask for!”
“Very well. Go and get the file then.”
Chen Chen nodded and then warned again, “After I receive the file, I’ll question each of you individually, so don’t try to deceive me with fake files. As long as I’m satisfied, I can even perform surgery to transplant your right hand back.”
As Chen Chen spoke, a Black Knight walked over with Fujiwara Aoki’s severed hand which had been placed in a metal box filled with ice cubes.
“Really?”
Fujiwara Aoki was overjoyed. He quickly stood up. “Then I’ll get it now!”
“Go.” Chen Chen waved his hand and watched Fujiwara Aoki leave promptly.
“Sir Commander, should we send a drone to stalk him?” X-112’s voice came from the headset.
“No, if he wants to run, just let him run.”
Chen Chen laughed icily and turned his gaze to the people in the hall. “Anyway, there are so many people here. We won’t miss him.”
However, Fujiwara Aoki did not intend to escape. Within ten minutes, he walked over with a thick hardcover book, which seemed to have a lot of materials stuffed between its pages. The reason they chose a hardcover book should be for preservation purposes.
Before Fujiwara Aoki could approach Chen Chen again, he was stopped by a Black Knight on the side. The Black Knight snatched the hardcover book and flipped through it page by page.
The Black Knight had no brain, so things like Basilisk patterns were completely ineffective against it. There was nothing to worry about even if Fujiwara Aoki had set a trap.
“In this volume, all Basilisk patterns have been placed inside the slots of the album. As long as you don’t pull them out, you won’t see the whole picture, so you can be guaranteed of its safety.”
At this time, Fujiwara Aoki explained, “As for the mysterious phenomena evolving from the Basilisk patterns, they can all be proven to not be infectious through text, because if the text is infectious, no one will record it. Because anyone who wrote down the text or read it will die from it.”
Infectious text…
Hearing this, Chen Chen could not help feeling horrified. Although in their previous conversation, Fujiwara Aoki had mentioned that the “it” evolving from the Basilisk patterns had taken many forms, it now appeared that the situation was more serious than he imagined.
Even words were able to kill?
As he thought of this, Chen Chen became even warier.
After the Black Knight had checked the information, X-112 said, “Sir Commander, it’s true that all the Basilisk patterns within are half-hidden and not fully exposed, but it can’t be determined if what he said about the text-recorded ‘mysterious phenomena’ is true.”
“It’s alright. Make him look through it himself,” Chen Chen ordered.
Following Chen Chen’s order, the Black Knight once again pushed the book back into Fujiwara Aoki’s hands.
At this, Fujiwara Aoki did not say much. He simply flipped through the entire hardcover book.
Although the hardcover book looked very thick, it was like a photo album. Each page was made with thick leather, so there was not much content. Fujiwara Aoki only took two or three minutes to flip through the book.
“Good.”
After he saw this, Chen Chen nodded and another Black Knight immediately stepped forward and led Fujiwara Aoki to the next room for surgery.
The God chips of these Black Knights all contained the full range of medical information. As long as there were enough tools, there was no difficulty for them in performing a limb surgery like this.
As for Chen Chen, he took the material and began to flip through, page by page.
In this collection of information, the pages were each laminated in plastic. It seemed that to preserve this data, this group of people had invested a lot of consideration.
Following that, Chen Chen turned to the first page.
The first page contained the Basilisk pattern named “Eye” that Chen Chen saw before, but this image was placed in the plastic frame of the book, so the margins were covered up. Thus when Chen Chen looked at this picture, despite feeling a little dazed, there were no symptoms.
Then, Chen Chen turned to the second page, only to see a short explanation written with a gel pen. The words in the book were in Japanese and they looked graceful and neat as if they were written by a woman.
[Basilisk pattern: Eye.]
[Symptoms: When the observer sees the “Eye”, it will induce Gödel’s shock, causing the death of the observer. The survival rate is not more than 10%.]
[Danger level: Level 3, extremely dangerous.]
[Method of infection: None, unable to spread by itself.]
Method of infection, unable to spread by itself…
As he read the final line, Chen Chen immediately realized, some Basilisk patterns could spread by themselves?
In that case, these Basilisk patterns were not only able to spread and infect humans, but they could also mutate during transmission. Was not this characteristic very similar to viruses?
As he considered this, Chen Chen seemed to have thought of something.
[1] A form of Japanese ritual suicide. See: