Chapter 98. Tug-of-War Between Day and Night (2)
“So that bat friend of yours was the one spreading the bacteria?”
Victoria raised her voice in surprise after hearing Yukgap’s report.
Yukgap calmly nodded.
“Yeah. That’s why the mutant strain was spreading much faster than we expected. If No. 8 really wants to, he can cover an entire city in about an hour.”
After hearing the situation, Sister Olga frowned and sighed.
“One problem after another. I never imagined there would be someone flying through the sky and spreading the bacteria.”
They had finally identified how the mutant strain was being transmitted.
Unfortunately, the carrier was an Archon capable of flight.
Even if the Herrington Order mobilized all its scientific resources, what could they possibly do about an open sky?
“Wait. Something’s strange.”
While everyone else was sinking into despair, Nova suddenly spoke.
“Why did that Archon deliberately appear in front of Yukgap?”
“Why would he tell him that he was the one flying around and spreading the bacteria?”
Nova looked genuinely confused.
An Archon, one of Abraxas’s chimera weapons, had voluntarily appeared and explained his own role in the plan.
There was no way he had done that just because he wanted someone to talk to.
But Yukgap had no answer either.
“How should I know?”
“There was no reason for him to do that.”
Nova continued questioning it.
“He must have had some kind of purpose.”
Victoria, who had been listening quietly, suddenly realized something.
“He was trying to help us.”
“What do you mean?”
Nova stared at her.
Victoria slowly explained.
“The Archons are chimeras fused with animals.”
“They can use the strengths of those animals, but they also inherit their weaknesses.”
“I know because I’ve fought several Archons before.”
“So he was basically telling us to exploit his weakness?”
“Exactly.”
Nova still found No. 8’s behavior difficult to understand.
“Why would he do something like that?”
“What is he planning?”
“That doesn’t matter right now.”
Victoria immediately cut through the speculation.
“What matters is finding a way to stop the mutant strain.”
That was all Victoria cared about at the moment.
The thought that people were dying even now made it difficult for her to breathe.
Even if the information came from an enemy Archon, if it could save lives, that was enough.
“So the bat Archon must also possess the weaknesses of a bat.”
Sister Olga asked,
“Then what exactly is a bat’s weakness?”
Yukgap shared what he knew about No. 8.
“He’s nocturnal.”
“More importantly, No. 8 stands out too much during the daytime, so he mostly operates at night.”
Victoria quietly repeated the words No. 8 had passed on.
“In a tug-of-war, the side that holds out until the very end wins.”
Then she seemed to reach a conclusion.
“I think I understand what that means.”
“From the beginning, this battle was a tug-of-war between day and night.”
“I’m back.”
After finishing his assigned work, No. 8 leisurely returned to the underground laboratory.
No. 7 greeted him with a suspicious look.
“Hmph.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Perhaps guilt made people sensitive.
No. 8 had immediately noticed something strange in her expression.
No. 7 asked directly,
“You met No. 6, didn’t you?”
“Zeta.”
No. 8 blinked in surprise.
“Can you smell him on me?”
“I thought I mixed in other scents well enough to hide it.”
“I used a much sharper and more effective sense than smell.”
“What would that be?”
“A woman’s intuition.”
That again.
At first, No. 8 had thought it was nonsense.
But No. 7’s intuition really was surprisingly sharp.
More precisely, she possessed some of the keenest instincts among all the Archons.
No. 8 had once seriously wondered whether women possessed some special organ that men lacked.
“He seemed to be doing well.”
No. 8 eventually admitted it.
“Though this current situation seems to be giving him quite the headache.”
No. 7 clicked her tongue.
“Tch. Why does he care how many strangers die?”
“Zeta really is strange.”
“Well, I only have to do what I’m ordered to do.”
No. 7 then asked casually,
“So are you going to report that you saw Zeta?”
“I heard headquarters is still giving the Doctor hell trying to locate him.”
She tried to sound indifferent.
But it was obvious she did not want him to report anything.
She had always been weak when it came to Zeta.
No. 8 knew that perfectly well and immediately shook his head.
“No.”
“Alpha gave me no orders concerning that.”
“She even personally gave me a prophecy.”
“I see no reason to do something I wasn’t instructed to do.”
In other words, he would only do exactly what he had been ordered to do.
His current task was simply to fly across cities and spread the mutant strain.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
He probably would not say a single word about No. 6.
After all, Alpha had given him no instruction to do so.
“You’re as stiff as ever.”
No. 7 smiled in relief.
No. 8 tilted his head.
“By the way, where is No. 11?”
“I should report now that I’m back.”
“You mean Lambda?”
No. 7 used his designation and pointed toward the corner of the laboratory.
“See for yourself.”
No. 11 was crouched there, trembling violently and groaning.
“Ngh... ugh... ghk...”
His body repeatedly broke apart into cloudy mist, bubbled and collapsed, then reassembled itself.
It was clearly not normal.
“No. 11!”
“O-Oh. You’re back.”
No. 11 greeted him with difficulty.
No. 8 stared in alarm.
“Are you all right?”
“I simply pushed myself a little too hard while changing the bacterial combination so quickly.”
“I’ll recover soon.”
He claimed he was fine, but changing the combination in a single day had clearly placed enormous strain on him.
No. 11 possessed the most abnormal body among the Archons.
But at the same time, he also possessed a weakness unlike any of the others.
And right now, that weakness was showing itself clearly.
“Don’t worry.”
“This much is nothing...!”
No. 11 forced himself upright with the help of his cane.
The moment he did, his lower body collapsed into a mass of pale mist.
Still, he gritted his teeth.
“It’s only a matter of killing a few laboratory rats!”
“The biggest flaw in our current plan is that this will become a long battle.”
Victoria calmly organized the situation.
“Even if we create and spread a live vaccine, Abraxas will just make another mutant strain and spread that too.”
“And they have someone capable of aerial operations.”
The situation seemed endlessly hopeless.
But they still could not simply give up.
“There is one thing in our favor.”
“The enemy can only move at night.”
Victoria looked around the room.
“We have the daytime.”
“In other words, this fight is basically a battle between day and night.”
Nova immediately pointed out the flaw.
“But there’s a limit to how many antibodies we can make and how many live vaccines we can spread every day.”
“More importantly, Victoria, your body will give out first.”
Yukgap quickly stepped in.
“The same is true for the enemy.”
Nova looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
“No. 11 is the one who combines, mutates, and releases the bacteria.”
“But even his ability has limits.”
“Creating mutant strains one after another in such a short period has to be putting serious strain on him too.”
“So this really is a tug-of-war between Victoria and No. 11.”
Nova nodded after hearing his explanation.
No. 11 created and spread mutant strains.
Victoria created and spread vaccines.
In that sense, tug-of-war really was the perfect description.
“That means we have two problems to solve.”
Victoria began listing them one by one.
“First, we need to find a way to spread the live vaccine faster than we are now.”
“Second, we need to stop the Archon who can glide through the sky at night.”
Nova immediately responded,
“We’re already doing everything we can with the first one.”
“If we become any more obvious, Abraxas will start tracking us.”
The nuns of the Herrington Order, Nova herself, everyone had already worked themselves to exhaustion running street-food stalls and finding ways to spread the live vaccine.
If they did anything even more conspicuous, Abraxas would inevitably notice.
Victoria thought for a moment.
“What matters most when it comes to the transmission speed of the live vaccine?”
Nova considered her own experience spreading it.
“Probably each person’s individual constitution.”
“Everyone’s body is different.”
“Some people develop antibodies quickly after receiving the live vaccine, while others take longer.”
Sister Olga added,
“The sisters and I are acting as the first wave of recipients, but even among us, the transmission speed varies depending on our physical condition.”
“The speed at which antibodies develop is also different for each person.”
“That limits how many people we can deploy at once.”
Nova sighed.
“If only we could make the live vaccine spread at the exact same rate through everyone.”
“Then we could fight far more efficiently.”
Sister Olga looked troubled.
“But that would be impossible unless every recipient had exactly the same constitution.”
“Even parents and children who share blood still have individual differences.”
“We’re no exception.”
At that moment, something flashed through Victoria’s mind.
She shot to her feet.
“Wait.”
Her eyes widened.
“You said it would be impossible unless every recipient had exactly the same constitution?”
