Ch.64Chapter 8. The Lives of Others (6)

No matter how generously you look at it, this is a zombie with wings on its back. Or a zombie angel. Or an angel zombie. It’s definitely not the kind of goddess statue that naturally inspires religious devotion.

The next moment, the screen went dark. The phone must have slipped deep into a front pocket. Still, the sound came through clearly.

“Nice to meet you all. My name is Joanna Mustaine. Seeing the students in the front row reminds me of my study days in Römer…”

Good voice, clear pronunciation, excellent delivery. And quite talkative.

The professor seems to have taken on the role of explaining this monstrous statue. But her presentation was terrible.

‘She doesn’t know nearly enough.’

She estimated it was made roughly a thousand years ago. The material is similar, the appearance is similar, and it was discovered buried in the ground.

But there were too many unanswered questions, she said. While it’s true that the people of Elza believed in a goddess, there’s no information about who made the goddess statues or how they were made.

What’s more, the discovery locations are all remote places.

Generally, statues of gods are found in populated areas. Temples. City or village centers.

But the statues of the Goddess of Hunger have appeared in secluded places like dried-up riverbeds, cemeteries, and rocky valleys where landslides occurred.

“But I found one more commonality here. I couldn’t have done it without the full support of the Elza government. I extend my sincere gratitude to Mr. President.”

Though jeers could be heard, Dr. Mustaine continued with her speech.

“What my team discovered is that countless skeletons were found around the statues. Human and animal bones were mixed together, along with numerous swords, armor, and weapons. All ancient items. From a time before the countries of Römer and Minsk even existed.”

People murmured. Light appeared and disappeared in the phone camera. The phone’s owner seemed to be trying to pull the camera up above the front pocket.

“Here, I would like to present a bold hypothesis. Since ancient times, the people of Elza have fought against foreign invaders. No matter how weak they were, they never surrendered, and no matter how disadvantageous the situation, they endured.”

The murmuring grew louder. The phone’s owner was about to blurt out something emotional. No one stopped them.

“Why were the statues found in such rough places? Because people moved them there. In fact, there are signs that the statues were transported.

People of Elza. Our ancestors never stopped fighting. By harsh rivers, in rocky valleys, they fought and fought again. We are not weak. Despite countless invasions, haven’t we continued to live as people of Elza until now?”

Cheers and jeers could be heard in equal measure. The professor’s voice was filled with passion. Like moisture evaporating from paper before it catches fire, her voice grew increasingly cracked.

“Lying hypocrite.”

Camilla muttered.

“You all already know! Whether you believe in Her or not, you must have heard it once. Why the Goddess took this form!

The Goddess was originally a beautiful deity of abundance. But for the hungry and starving land, creatures, sky, and rivers of Elza, She tore off pieces of Her body and shared them.

When we prosper, the Goddess hungers. When we bear many children and flourish, the Goddess’s body weakens and crumbles.

And so we who have grown, we who have grown by eating the Goddess’s blood and flesh! At the moment we face death! We return to the embrace of Mother Earth! We feed our diseased and aged bodies back to the Goddess!

Come, my sons and daughters! This mother is fine. Take my life and enjoy it, and return your death to me!”

The camera suddenly shot upward. The excited phone owner had jumped to their feet.

They weren’t the only one. The people below the platform became one, wailing, shouting, jeering, and sobbing.

“Look! And so we finally succeeded. We repaid our faith and love with the form of an independent nation! To our mother who became blind, deaf, had her tongue torn out, and bones crushed to feed, clothe, and raise us, I say! Independent nation of Elza, independent nation of Elza! May you be eternal! May you be eternal!”

“May you be eternal! May you be eternal!”

The crowd, gathered in numbers too vast to see the end, shouted with outstretched fists. Those seated on the platform did the same.

Those who had been jeering and those who were excited, all spoke with one voice on this matter. Even the Römer delegation followed along, watching for cues.

But there was one exception.

Dr. Joanna Mustaine herself appeared indifferent. With bulging eyes, she slowly scanned the crowd. She was quietly observing how people reacted to her words.

She seemed skilled at this. The image of a con artist.

Just then, some movement caught my eye.

Since this was an official event with many VIPs gathered, there were not only uniformed National Gendarmes but also bodyguards in suits and sunglasses. The kind of people whose holsters or submachine guns were partially visible through their suits.

Usually, such bodyguards have similar postures. But one person who looked somewhat awkward stood out. Their gaze was directed not at the general audience but at other bodyguards and National Gendarme soldiers.

“Could this person be…?”

Camilla nodded at my question.

“Yes. They were probably a member of the Capital Liberation Unit. That person set off the bomb.”

The President stepped forward to the platform again. Until then, the goddess statue remained encased in glass. And then.

“Death to the traitors of Elza!”

A person wearing a staff vest rushed forward. They held a bomb in one hand. A loud explosion erupted. The world spun sideways.

Fortunately, the phone’s owner wasn’t hit by shrapnel. Instead, they lunged forward. Near the goddess statue. Rat-tat-tat! The person in the staff vest fell.

The fallen people groaned. The glass case of the goddess statue shattered into pieces.

The large dome-shaped canopy installed above the stage tilted and collapsed onto the people below. Iron bars and frames rained down.

The dome-shaped screen fell directly onto the stage.

Now the people on stage were like ants trapped under a paper cup. At first, the bodyguards and National Gendarmes tried to move the VIPs.

But gunshots and explosions were heard from all directions. Judging the situation to be serious, they made the VIPs crouch down and surrounded them.

Through a gap between them, a Capital Liberation Unit operative extended their hand.

Bang.

People couldn’t even properly scream. Fragments and debris scattered in all directions with a slippery sound. It looked like someone had thrown paint-soaked tissues against a wall.

Blood and flesh stuck to the goddess statue. Unit members with automatic pistols and submachine guns tore through the canopy and stormed the stage.

Injured bodyguards fired their guns. A unit member’s body crumpled under concentrated fire and hit the base of the goddess statue.

The marble statue fell backward. As it fell, it crushed the dead unit member’s body. The dead person’s flesh and blood splashed onto the phone’s owner.

“Ugh, uuugh!”

A loud noise was heard, and then the phone became fixed in position. The owner must have fainted. Even so, the phone in the front pocket steadfastly continued to show the stage scene, albeit upside down.

Siren sounds. Rifle shots. Command shouts and helicopter noises. The frequency of pitiful screams decreased. The terrorists were being suppressed. A blood-covered Liberation Unit member stood up.

“We must go!”

They rummaged through the pile of bodies and grabbed someone’s hand, pulling them. It was Dr. Joanna, bleeding from her forehead.

The doctor’s glasses had flown off somewhere, but her wig remained in place. The doctor had her hand inside her jacket.

“We succeeded. A great success! Folkrum, we did it! We eliminated all the leaders of the Elza government! Just as you—”

Bang.

The Liberation Unit member collapsed. Dr. Joanna fired the gun in her hand a couple more times. Confirmation kills. She approached people who were groaning and shot each one in the head and chest.

Joanna approached the phone. She tilted her head curiously, then, hearing a groan nearby, turned and fired her gun in that direction.

“…Folkrum!”

Camilla gasped in shock.

Joanna threw the gun among the corpses. Looking at the fallen statue, she muttered.

“Goddess. The time of harvest has come.”

Loudspeaker announcements blared loudly. Dr. Joanna rolled herself on the ground and then collapsed. Soldiers and medical officers tore through the canopy and rushed in. They loaded people onto stretchers one by one.

“She’s alive! Move quickly! She’s in shock!”

Now the phone showed the sky. The chins and noses of the people carrying the stretcher were visible. With a rumbling thud, the ceiling of an ambulance came into view.

“Patient, patient! Stay conscious! Patient! There doesn’t seem to be any bleeding, but the shock appears severe!”

“…hungry.”

“What? Patient, what did you say?”

One of the medical staff put their ear close. The phone’s owner pronounced more clearly.

“I’m hungry.”

Crack.

The world shook again. The phone had fallen to the floor. Screams. Shouts. Gunshots. Vibrations. Overturning. The ambulance flipped onto its side. The phone, rolling with thuds, wedged itself into a gap.

The video ended.

* * * * *

Camilla stood up. She washed her face, drank some water, and came back. She rewound and replayed the video repeatedly. She seemed much calmer than expected.

Eventually, she paused the video. Joanna’s face was frozen on the screen.

“Johan. I never told you everything about the mission I received, did I?”

“Wasn’t it just to secure the bag?”

“That wasn’t all. I told you, right? Hans knows you’re a Western spy. That bastard was trying to contact Minsk companies through you.”

No, I keep telling you I’m not a spy.

But Camilla didn’t doubt it for a second.

“The Liberation Unit lacks industrial facilities. In fact, Elza’s industrial technology is generally backward. So they planned to place orders with Minsk to mass-produce bag bombs.

Everyone in the Central Branch thought that made sense at the time. Back then, we didn’t know the bags contained a virus. We only knew they were disguised explosives.”

“And then?”

“But that was beyond Hans’s abilities and authority, and he wasn’t the one who designed the bags.

The Liberation Unit operates as a cell structure. And as far as we know, the person at the very top is ‘Folkrum.’

No one knows their identity. Whether it’s a group or an individual. Hans might have known, but I’m not sure.”

Folkrum. A high-ranking individual or group within the Elza extremist terrorists, operating in a cell structure. Dr. Joanna Mustaine was Folkrum.

“But this woman…”

“…shot all her comrades too. And that last part. That was… clearly the act of a fanatic.”

A front woman receiving support from the Elza government, conducting national research, while secretly controlling the cell-structured Elza extremist terrorists, but whose true identity is a goddess fanatic. No, there might be even more to it.

Camilla forwarded the video. The part where the phone’s owner bites the medical staff in the ambulance, saying they’re hungry.

“Hans.”

Camilla said, rewatching that part.

“Hans said this virus was released by Römer. That they conducted forbidden experiments on Elza soil and the virus leaked. He also claimed it was deeply connected to Kybele.

But he also said that the zombie virus—specifically called the Cro virus—could be controlled by humans at any time. The zombie virus can be contained just by following basic hygiene rules. Zombies are no match for humans.

Yet Römer deliberately spread this virus to completely control Elza… that’s the reality of the human non-protected zones and human protected zones. That was Hans’s claim. But.”

But now that’s been completely overturned from the foundation.

“…According to this video, the first zombie outbreak happened four years ago. Much earlier than we knew. And the virus wasn’t from Römer, but had a deeper connection to the goddess statue. And Folkrum, considered the leadership of the Liberation Unit, was a fanatic. One who would shoot even their own comrades.”

A certain expression appeared on Camilla’s face. Like something rising from beneath the surface.

“We were all played by that woman. All the Liberation Unit members. By that crazy fanatic’s hand.”

I know that expression. It resembles the one I make every morning when I look in the mirror.

A sense of futility.

“Camilla.”

I closed the laptop.