บท 25: Chapter 25: The Infection Question
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It was perhaps after an hour of watching the zombies attempting to kill the soldiers who went in to fight them in rounds of five minutes, that Jin had gathered enough data to properly make a memory file.
There was just one last thing that he wanted to know.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Lung Junior had already left, so this just left him the option of turning to his left where what looked to be an older more highly placed soldier was watching the event with observant eyes.
"They don't get tired, do they?" he asked.
The man startled, probably surprised that a cultivator had bothered to talk to him, before slowly nodding. "They don't sleep, they don't rest, if they have something to attack they will just charge at it relentlessly. Leave them alone for a bit and they'll just push their bodies against the walls, scratching at the wood."
Jin nodded thoughtfully. In a more rational world, their state of perpetual motion would have made sense through the fact that the parasitic disease in there was at the same time cannibalising it for energy as it was moving it around. Here, in this world, it could just be explained with magic though so the explanation didn't bring him any closer to understanding the phenomenon.
"Honestly, I don't know why everyone is in such a tiff about these things. They're about as threatening as the average beggar we have to sometimes put in the slammer for public disobedience back in the city," the soldier muttered. "The scratches they leave are annoying though," he said, putting up an arm to show that he had an inflamed lesion covering a small part of it. It looked like it was developing into a painful rash.
"From what I understand, the issue is not that they are individually particularly threatening, but rather that there is a fuckton of them," Jin answered absentmindedly, still using his eyes to process the movement data of the zombies. "The issue will also be that once the main force of them arrives at the borders… They don't have to rest, they can just endlessly push against the walls in a wave of bodies. The quantity has a quality of its own."
The soldier snorted, seemingly talkative now that a cultivator was actually being polite instead of saying something about eradicating bloodlines and face-slapping. "I'm more afraid of those goddamn demons that are gonna be flying above them and fighting with the cultivators. More likely to die as collateral damage than get killed by these stupid things," he said. Then he shook his head, scratching at the wound on his arm. "Whatever, I'm gonna go to the medical tent to get this checked out. It's been itching like crazy for an hour now."
Jin paused in his visual processing. "When did you get the wound?" he asked. Perhaps it would be good to know if he should add some poison damage to the zombies if they weren't infectious. Nevertheless, the fact that the man next to him had a scratch from the things, with his previous cultural experience and influences… he deliberately took a step away and looked at him from the side.
"This morning, I was one of the first. Accident as well, damned thing just tripped into me changing its attack rhythm," the man said. "We were told to start fighting them so that you could observe."
"Yeah, we should probably get that checked out. Rub some alcohol on it, I don't know," Jin muttered and was just about to leave when he suddenly heard a series of screams.
It was a very different sound from the cheering that he had heard intermittently from the crowd around him as people spectated the impromptu cage fights.
It was the sound of terror, not jubilation. He perked up, his enhanced senses immediately locating the source to be one of the non-normative large green tents set up a few hundred metres away.
The man next to him perked up as well, confirming Jin's suspicion that he was some sort of officer.
The other soldiers simply looked around in confusion as a first reaction, while the two of them were already running.
Jin pushed his way through a few other Illusion Room sect disciples who'd just arrived and didn't seem to have much of a measured reaction to the event either and were just looking around confusedly.
Pushing his way through the crowd was surprisingly easy now considering he was more than twice as strong as the average mortal, and it also helped that the soldiers parted for him like the sea in front of Moses when they glimpsed his easily identifiable robes in a sea of black chitin and leather.
He arrived in front of the medical tent, designated as such by the large symbol of healing that it had above its rolled-up entrance, and the scene that he found there chilled him to the bone.
A woman dressed in green high-quality robes was running out of the tent clutching at her hand which was oozing blood. A shambling animalistic form of a soldier dressed in the black uniform raced after her. Jin's eyes immediately identified the fact that there was no intelligence in the movement or in the gaze of the man who was chasing and that the blood around his mouth indicated that he had been the aggressor.
Fuck, was what his mind thought while his body was already moving.
A hand went up to his neck where he released the miniature lance hanging from the chain that he'd fastened. He ripped it off, having no time for niceties and channelled his qi into the construct. It enlarged in a movement that took less than a second. His body shot forward acting on pure instinct and training as the lance, blunt side first smashed out to break the left and then the right kneecap of the infected soldier.
The man felt the ground, but to further provide evidence he was no longer human, there was no surprise and hesitation to the injury and he simply started using his arms to move forward. Jin spun his lance again and smashed both elbows leaving a groaning and slobbering mess on the floor.
"What have you done?" a voice suddenly set from behind Jin causing him to look back to see that the officer he had been talking to previously had caught up and was looking in horror at the mangled body of what had probably once been a comrade on the floor.
Not thinking too much about it, working completely on instinct, Jin's hand shot forward to grasp the man by the neck. The plan was simple, he didn't know how or why, but these zombies could infect other humans and turn them into more zombies. Just like in his old world.
As the officer grasped at Jin's arm, trying to release the hold with his feeble strength, Jin channelled qi into the appendage to prevent the man from breaking his skin. At the same time, his right arm shot out to the healer who had found refuge at her side to grab her by the end of her neck and hold her up facing away from himself so that she couldn't bite him.
That was how General Shroud found him, as he descended from the skies smashing into the earth, and breaking it apart in circular ringlets around his landing spot. He looked at Jin with murderous eyes and released a wave of intent that almost made the disciple faint.
Jin held on through the panic because this wasn't a situation where he could allow weakness. He knew what it looked like, two of the man's subordinates grasped his hands trying to break free, while the third one lay crippled on the floor trying to use his teeth to drag himself to more victims.
The other soldiers who had also been present were thankfully standing in a ring around Jin and not approaching their turned comrade, knowing somehow instinctually that things weren't adding up.
"General Shroud," Jin said quickly before a misunderstanding could happen. "I'm glad you've arrived quickly. I have horrible news. The zombies can infect humans, and it is perhaps too late for any of the soldiers who have received scratches or bite wounds from the sparring that has been occurring since this morning." He of course didn't know the exact situation that clearly, but a sense of urgency was to be communicated at the moment. Everything else could come later.
He could see the general's eyes widen as his pupils flickered down to the crippled zombie/soldier who was not in the state of mind that a human should be in and then at the two people held in Jin's grasp, both of whom had for a cultivator easily identified injuries on their bodies.
Jin blinked, the qi cycling through his body not privileging him to not needing to use such a basic bodily function to wetten his eyes.
When his eyes opened again, his hands were suddenly empty and two unconscious bodies were held under the general's right arm. A boot held the crippled zombie face down on the ground and the general was looking at Jin more warmly than he had upon first arrival.
"Stay here," the man ordered before disappearing as if he had never been there in the first place, alongside all the three victims.
Second later, Jin heard orders shouted from different parts of the camp and saw the whole army start mobilising in a cold and efficient manner. He could guess their task.
They were to gather up everyone who had been in contact with the zombies and drag them into a common prison.
Things had just gotten a lot more complicated.
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Baffled once again by the efficacy of the cultivators when they set their mind to something, it was only 15 minutes after the attack that Jin found himself standing in a medical tent cleared of all normal staff along with a few very distinct personalities.
On one side was General Shroud along with what seemed to be his main assistant, a man in the robes of a military scribe. In comparison to how Jin had seen the general the day before at the Pagoda, the man was now clearly agitated and one could feel it and the atmosphere. It was the first time that Jin felt such a high-level cultivator feel distressed in his presence, he noted that was not a pleasant experience.
Next to Jin stood Elder Flower, who was present primarily because if it was he who was to be interrogated about the events by the general, then there needed to be someone from his faction to represent his interests.
Of course, it hadn't been phrased that way, but had simply been described as 'the boy should be questioned in the presence of his master.' Even though that was not the relationship that he and Flower actually shared.
Additionally present was one woman dressed in green robes of a lighter variety than the one who had been bitten, and the functionally quadriplegic zombie that Jin had created minutes ago. He was tied to a bed, all limbs, broken as they were restrained by leather straps.
"I think everyone important has gathered here," the green robe woman said with a frown on her face and a glare towards Jin. "Perhaps the boy can start explaining now? Why exactly one of mine is traumatised," she said brusquely. She was a cultivator of some sort if this was how she dared to talk in the presence of the people present.
Jin coughed into his fist once again confronted with speaking to a variety of people who had the ability to crush him like a bug if they so desired.
"I was watching the soldiers spar with the zombies when I had an interesting thought," he began, only to be interrupted by the green-robed healer and her perilously flared nostrils.
"Get to the point!" she demanded, nearly shouting.
Elder Flower put a hand to the hilt of her sword, causing the woman to pale, shut her mouth and stand at attention.
"Let the boy speak," said General Shroud.
Jin once again coughed awkwardly into his fist. "As I was saying, I was watching the soldier's spar when I became curious about where exactly these corpses were finding the energy to move. After all, we know that mortals unable to access qi require sustenance to generate energy. The zombies are seemingly similarly disadvantaged considering that they have no significant heavenly energy in their bodies. After all, if they had it hidden somewhere, then a mortal would have never been able to fight them to a standstill, let alone four of them. While of course, this could simply be because of some complicated energy systems implanted by the demons, I thought of perhaps another possibility," he paused. "More specifically, about the possibility of parasites."
"I've seen demonic cultivators use them for their purposes before. It wouldn't be too far of a stretch to assume that the demons could do the same," Elder Flower mused out loud, a gesture that might have seemed random but was clearly in support of Jin.
Jin nodded gratefully. "Particularly, I thought about those parasites which when they inhabit a host also kill it and then simply guide it along the path of their proliferation like a new flesh vehicle. The energy for the movement is provided by eating the host from the inside. This was at the time simply a hypothesis I was considering to better understand the scenario I could create with the zombies as a focal point."
"It would make sense," the scribe next to General Shroud spoke up. "Of course, the demons would prefer to create simply one disease and let it spread rather than individually turning all of these corpses. A waste of qi which they could better use to fight the cultivators and let their new bioweapon shred into the ranks underneath."
"I was thinking something similar to that," Jin muttered. "Regardless, the soldier next to me, we spoke, I don't remember what about. He showed me a wound that he'd gotten from the zombies after sparring with them earlier. It was inflamed, as one would expect from a wound caused by a corpse. Those things are by no means clean. Then we heard a scream and I rushed to the medical tent to see that a soldier with a similar wound but with no intelligence or humanity left in his eyes was attacking one of the healers. He had bitten her hand, which was a weird priority for someone to have, but also reminded me of the fact that all the zombies in the cage had been simply attempting to scratch and bite people instead of for example punching them, kicking them, or headbutting them. This got me thinking that the goal was not to kill their adversaries, but to wound them and to transfer some sort of…" he trailed off. "You know what I mean. Everything is speculation. I could be wrong and have crippled the soldier for no good reason, at which point I would accept punishment for my stupidity."
"The theory with the parasites is as feasible as any theory, albeit something that will have to be verified by someone qualified to speak on such matters." General Shroud decided. "Naturally, there are many odd and dangerous techniques in the world that you do not know of so there might always be another answer. But what matters the form of the scheme if the result is the same? As for your punishment, if you're correct and being a zombie is an infectious condition then there will be none. If you are wrong, then you shall suffer the same indignity that you inflicted on the two wounded. Being held by the scruff of your neck by someone stronger than you who does not know their strength and who could very easily break something if they're not careful."
Jin looked down in shame, in hindsight, he had certainly overreacted. What was the likelihood that the soldier and the wounded healer would turn quickly enough for his apprehension to be necessary?
The scribe. "Whereas your intentions were certainly just and I understand and respect your line of reasoning, the issue in your actions lies in the fact that you took into your own hands the justice that is reserved for those in the army's command structure. I understand why you had to stop the rampaging soldier," he nodded his head towards the tied-down functional quadriplegic with a gag in his mouth who was desperately straining against his restraints, "but everything else was an overstepping of your position. Nevertheless, for protecting others I think it is only just that you do not receive the appropriate whipping that your overstepping would have generally demanded on principle. The punishment for that, in particular, will be left to your sect," he decided, seemingly speaking from some sort of rulebook.
Jin nodded and turned his head to look awkwardly at Elder Flower who was standing next to him. Would the sect punish him?
A smack suddenly hit the back of his head making it lurch forward and down. He hadn't even seen her raise her hand.
"Don't do it again," she said. "Idiot," she added after a few seconds of contemplation. Then the Elder turned towards the general. "Now we wait?"
The general nodded seriously. "This one," he started, referring to the gagged man, zombie? "was one of the first to be sent to spar with the zombies. But there were others after him who also carried away scratches and bite marks. We should know soon enough if the boy's theory holds. Let us hope that it doesn't."
"I'm not needed here then. There are people I could be helping instead of wasting my time," the green-robed woman said in a cold voice before leaving the tent as the other four attendees of the meeting sat down on little foldable leather stools.
The mood was sombre, as they waited for the results. While Jin's punishment was one of the things on the line, the other issue was that if the zombie army could infect others, then their threat rating had suddenly shot up by several magnitudes.
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AN: Questions questions. Hoped you liked the chapter, if you want to answer the infection question earlier, there's always patreon :P
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