episode_0332

What should I ask first?

As soon as such a topic pops up in my head, so many questions flood my mind that it’s impossible to count them all with my fingers, but that’s probably the first thing I need to check.

Where and how did I get this cell phone, or more accurately, the ‘hypnosis app’?

“Huh? Instead of just keeping your mouth shut, why don’t you answer?”

“···.”

“Where did you get this?”

When he waved the cell phone that had been confiscated from the woman and asked that question, the woman made a sound as if she was in pain.

Well, I guess so.

Because of what I have engraved in my mind, I am sure that the desire to answer my question is welling up, but I am holding it in forcibly.

‘If I had known this would happen, would I have just made them obey absolutely?’

Since I always used hypnosis within a stable range, I honestly couldn’t gauge how far I could go from my current level, so I made some adjustments.

Now that things were like this, the thought that I should have tried harder even at the risk of breaking the hypnosis kept lingering in my head.

While I was in a strange feeling that could not be called regret, the woman who gritted her teeth and ignored my words eventually broke down.

“···I got it there while I was sorting out my father’s belongings.”

“A keepsake from your father?”

No, because of what he was doing when he was alive, I wonder if he carried something like a hypnosis app on his phone.

“What did your father do?”

“University professor···.”

“What field did you major in?”

“I just know that it is related to the brain…”

After all, the field I majored in was the brain…

Honestly, is it like this?

I can’t believe it, but little by little things are starting to come together.

So… the hypnosis app did not fall from the sky, but was created by human hands.

However, if that happens, the question remains as to how on earth a cell phone containing a hypnosis app ended up in a pawn shop…

To give a rough guess, a certain group developed a ‘hypnosis app’ for a specific purpose, and in the process of testing it, information or samples about the experiment were leaked to the outside world, and the project was naturally discarded due to external intervention. Maybe I stepped on it.

During that process, the samples made for the experiment were leaked out through various channels.

As I was speculating about how hypnosis apps came to be floating around the world, another question suddenly popped into my head.

‘When I think about it, it’s a bit strange…’

This clearly happened in Japan, as the default language of the mobile phone with the hypnosis app was set to Japanese.

And if such a ridiculous project had been carried out in Japan, there was no way that Reiko, who had been controlling the nation of Japan behind the curtain, would not have known about it.

However, the Reiko I’ve seen so far doesn’t seem to know anything about the existence of the hypnosis app.

What if you knew that something like a hypnosis app exists?

Given Reiko’s personality, she must have made some kind of preparation.

But to say that there was no such thing…

‘Has the project been carried out so secretly that it hasn’t even reached Reiko’s ears?’

And if my guess was true… it was honestly obvious who the tip of the spear of the project that proceeded in that way would ultimately be aimed.

He was definitely targeting Reiko.

Honestly, this is inevitable. When you think about it with common sense, such as a ‘hypnosis app’, in order to invest in a project with absurd content, it had to be a group of some size, and a group of that size is the one controlling Japan from behind the scenes. The possibility of not knowing about the existence of the Arisukawa family was extremely slim.

He must have known about the Arisugawa family… and that’s why he was once again convinced.

If they use the power of the ‘hypnosis app’ to turn Reiko, the head of the Arisugawa family, into a doll that moves according to their will, they will be able to bring all of Japan under their feet as easily as eating ice cream.

As I began to think that this might indeed be an item created with such intentions, I began to feel the need to confirm it more clearly.

“What is your father’s name?”

“···Junichi, this is Junichi Matsumoto.”

This is my first time hearing it…

If I ask Reiko, will she tell me who she is?

That was something I needed to check, so I engraved the name in my head for now.

After securing information about the acquisition path of the hypnosis app and its original owner, I began to inquire as to why they settled here.

“Why did you set up a camp on the outskirts of Tokyo like this? If survival was the goal, there would have been many better places, right?”

I don’t know what this woman would think, but as a survival expert myself, the conditions of this camp were frankly not very good.

That’s because there were so many open spaces.

Fortunately, nothing seems to have happened now, but if some group were to target and attack this place, it would be a perfect structure to fight them off from multiple directions.

The important thing was that just because the woman who couldn’t even move in front of me right now didn’t mean she didn’t know about that fact.

Rather… he probably knows better than me.

If those military uniforms weren’t decorations, they would have learned about strategy and tactics when receiving executive training in places like the military.

And yet, you dared to settle down here…

“···If you want to understand the situation inside Tokyo in real time, there is no place better than here.”

Even the reason was to understand the situation inside Tokyo.

“Is there some kind of monster inside Tokyo that we need to keep a close eye on?”

“···Yes, there is.”

There is…?

“Currently, Tokyo is occupied by monsters that are half human and half zombies.”

···what?

Half human and half zombie?

What is that again?

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“···That’s how it happened.”

“So what you’re saying is… After the outbreak of the zombie virus, a group of monsters claiming to be new humans appeared and took over Tokyo, and the Self-Defense Forces, which originally advanced toward Tokyo to restore and protect Tokyo, caused those monsters to escape out of Tokyo. They’re blocking the main road so people can’t get out, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

To be honest, it would have been enough to give up resisting, but since I was in the position of using the power of hypnosis to manipulate people, and now I was in the position of being manipulated, wasn’t giving up easier said than done?

Although there were some interruptions in the conversation, there was no difficulty in understanding the other person’s explanation.

“But is that true?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What you said about being half human and half zombie.”

It’s not half seasoned and half fried food, it’s half zombie and half human.

How can such an absurd hybrid exist?

So I asked them that question, but did they get on their nerves because of my remarks that seemed to deny their hard work?

The woman, Keiko Matsumoto’s face hardened.

“···According to what we confirmed separately, it is true.”

Judging by the strange nuance contained in the word ‘confirmation’ mixed in the middle of the sentence, it appears that they captured a person with the body of a half-human, half-zom and conducted a separate experiment.

“Oh my…”

After hearing that, I understood that even though they had this much firepower, they were unable to enter the interior of Tokyo and were only lingering around the outskirts.

I don’t know how many of those half-human, half-zom friends there are, but unless they are extremely small in number, they won’t be able to overwhelm them with their firepower alone.

To be honest, this was inevitable because the opponent was me, so it wasn’t obvious, but the zombies were surprisingly powerful.

When you think of zombies, the first image that comes to mind is that they move erratically and slowly. However, the zombies in this world seem to be closer to K-zombies than the standard type, because even with their toppled bodies, their speed is quite fast.

Plus… the power was quite strong.

‘The really scary thing is that it keeps moving until it smashes its head.’

Imagine combining the characteristics of zombies with human intelligence.

What if the number even reaches tens or hundreds?

Unless you bring a tank, or even if you do, it won’t be easy to stop them.

Being half human and half zombie means that it is also possible to use tools like humans.

Seeing that there are people who could be called an army guarding the outskirts like this… It looks like they’ve already clashed several times and broken up violently, so it would be correct to say that those half-human, half-human friends also have rifles and grenades.

‘They’re zombies charging forward with rifles and grenades in their hands…’

When I think about it, it’s so terrible…?

The fuck is this right…?