Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Spread of Contamination

With the help of the staff, the twenty-four people on the list were quickly located and escorted out of the Martial Arts Hall. Most of the crowd cooperated fully, except for four university otakus who insisted on attending the concert, two young women who suspected the staff were scammers, and one elderly man who was hard of hearing and, after much explanation, still didn’t understand.

The vehicles sent by the Department of Public Security hadn’t arrived yet, so the twenty-four had to wait idly by the west gate, growing increasingly impatient. Among them, the one his companions called “Oishi-kun”—whose full name was Shinichiro Oishi—was now bound hand and foot, with a wad of clothing stuffed in his mouth, able only to utter miserable, muffled cries.

It wasn’t that his companions were being cruel, but Oishi had already begun to show signs of mutation. Unlike Naoya Yasui, whose symptoms included an increase in the whites of his eyes and a mental breakdown, Shinichiro Oishi was sweating profusely, tormented by itching so intense that scratching drew blood and peeled the skin, and he was gripped by a powerful urge to eat raw meat.

Left with no choice, they had bound him to prevent self-harm, to stop him from biting others, or from uttering any terrifying, inhuman words.

At last, the department’s bus arrived, and the twenty-four were loaded aboard under guard. Oishi was watched over personally by Chen Ziang, who never left his side, ready to act should he turn monstrous.

Sitting at the back, Suzuna Tsukimiya silently pondered the situation. By all common sense, isolating and controlling everyone exposed to a suspected source of contamination was a standard, unassailable protocol. But Miye Nishikawa would hardly have overlooked that.

“A catastrophic outbreak of mutation”—this was an outcome already recorded in history. Reasoning backward, it seemed that Miye Nishikawa’s actions had likely exploited a weakness in the Department of Public Security, resulting in disaster.

Judging by Oishi’s symptoms, he seemed to have fallen victim to the “Rite of the Corpse-Eater Cult.”

The rite required a medium and a trigger action, both determined by a special ceremony. The medium, without question, was the hot spring at the inn—anyone who bathed was contaminated. The trigger action, however, was unknown. Tsukimiya and her senior hadn’t stayed long in Hiyori Town; they left for the Ossuary straight after bathing, so the ritual was never truly triggered.

Because of this, it was impossible to determine which specific rite it was.

The classic craving for raw flesh was a hallmark of all Corpse-Eater Cult rites. But full-body itching, skin peeling with bloody wounds upon scratching—was it a molting evolution? Some kind of insectile metamorphosis?

Yes, it had the grotesque flavor of the Ghoul King.

As Suzuna Tsukimiya tried to piece together the chain of events, an old man shuffled up, trembling, and asked Chen Ziang, “Officer, sir, when will we arrive?”

His command of the local language was poor, and it took several repetitions before Chen Ziang understood the question. “About twenty more minutes,” he replied patiently. “Are you feeling unwell, or do you get carsick? If you like, you can go sit in the back. When we arrive, a doctor will see you.”

“Oh, nothing much. Just… so itchy…” the old man muttered, digging his fingers into his neck. Then, as if peeling calluses from his feet, he slowly stripped the skin from his entire face.

He felt no pain; his eyes rolled wildly, soon bulging from their sockets, and his canine teeth jutted out from his lips.

With his blood-drenched visage, the newly born ghoul flashed a chilling smile. “That’s much better… Now then, I’m hungry. Is there any meat?”

He was answered by a dazzling flash of the sword.

To mutate into a monster was to lose all humanity, all ethical restraint; there was no remedy except the blade.

Chen Ziang struck with his sword, but the ghoul sprang back with agility, its left hand snapping out claws like a drawn blade, reaching for the nearest dazed young woman—Suzuna Tsukimiya herself.

The shadow at her feet rose in an instant; a jet-black blade of shadow sliced through the air, severing the ghoul’s left arm at the shoulder.

All this happened in the blink of an eye. By the time the others on the bus realized what was happening, Chen Ziang had already cut the ghoul’s throat, and the Mandala Sword quickly drained it to a shriveled husk.

The immediate danger was gone, but chaos now erupted.

The bus became a scene of pandemonium: screams, people diving for cover, some vomiting, others desperately trying to open the windows and jump out. But the Department’s buses were armored; the windows wouldn’t budge.

“Everyone, stay in your seats!” Chen Ziang shouted.

The passengers froze—not so much cowed by his authority as by the bloody sword in his hand. If this man decided to slice them down without reason, who could complain?

“Sir, please, just tell us the truth,” stammered an anxious man in glasses nearby. “Have we caught some zombie virus? Are we doomed, and you’re just taking us away for dissection?”

Chen Ziang was about to reply, when suddenly a young woman at the back, still doubled over and retching, tore off her own lips with a violent jerk—revealing a set of razor-sharp fangs.

Her friend beside her, face draining of color, fainted dead away, eyes rolling back.

The ghoul lunged, biting mercilessly into her friend’s neck and lifting her off the ground. The victim convulsed in agony, then quickly fell into a near-death state.

Chen Ziang lunged, sword thrusting at the ghoul, but the creature hurled the corpse at him in defense. He instinctively batted the body aside with his left arm, but the sudden jolt underfoot betrayed the ghoul’s escape—it had smashed through the bus window and leapt out.

The special glass, designed to withstand bullets, shattered under the ghoul’s monstrous strength.

With one ghoul escaped, Chen Ziang knew the situation was spiraling out of control. He hurriedly called headquarters. “Hello? Chief! We’ve lost a target, location is—”

He’d barely reported their position when two more passengers began to mutate, swiftly twisting into nightmarish ghouls.

Chen Ziang turned back, sword flashing; one ghoul was dispatched in moments, while the other tried to resist, only to lose its head to Suzuna Tsukimiya’s shadow blade.

These ghouls, though transformed from ordinary humans and endowed with superhuman strength, weren’t much smarter than before—the meek didn’t become seasoned warriors just by turning monster.

The bus was mayhem incarnate. Most people crouched on the floor, arms over their heads, more afraid of being killed by monsters—or by the sword-wielding officer—than anything else.

The driver, also an officer but not from the Sixth Response Division, had slammed on the brakes, locked the doors, and now stood guard at the front with his pistol drawn, his worldview visibly shaken.

He’d seen plenty as a rookie—prisoner uprisings, attempted hijackings, even standoffs with armed criminals—but a whole bus of passengers turning into monsters, straight out of a horror movie, was a first.

“Is there anything I should do?” he asked, his voice trembling.

“No, just drive us back as fast as you can,” Chen Ziang replied. “I’ll make sure they don’t touch you.”

He stood in the aisle, sword in one hand, his gaze sweeping the bus with a reaper’s intensity.

Suzuna Tsukimiya, gun in hand, stood dutifully by his side, letting out a faint sigh.

I understand now.

Miye Nishikawa’s plan wasn’t cunning at all, but brute and mindless—transforming a mass of ordinary people contaminated by the Corpse-Eater Cult’s rite into ghouls, unleashing them to spread psychic pollution throughout the city, and betting that the Department of Public Security wouldn’t be able to catch them all.

In truth, they couldn’t.

Of the twenty-four on the bus, four had mutated in less than a minute, one had escaped—all this in a tightly supervised environment.

But the number of people who’d visited Hiyori Town wasn’t just twenty-four—it was sixty-four.

Where were the remaining forty now? How many had already mutated?