Chat Group: Anime Girls are Moist-Chapter 458: Cursed Children

Tokyo Area.

One of the few remaining human-inhabited cities in this world.

A massive disaster has befallen this world: the Gastrea virus outbreak.

Mutated Gastrea creatures have dealt a devastating blow to human civilization, causing many cities to fall.

Overall, humanity stands on the brink of extinction, barely clinging to survival. The Gastrea virus is that terrifying.

Humans who come into contact with it will be infected; being bitten by a Gastrea likewise causes infection, transforming the victim into a Gastrea creature.

The worst part is that humans have no cure for this ghastly virus. In fact, most Gastrea creatures ravaging the land were originally humans mutated by the virus.

Much of the Tokyo Area lies in ruins. The perimeter is surrounded by towering walls inlaid with Varanium metal.

Thanks to these walls, direct invasions by Gastrea are prevented, preserving what remains of humanity.

Varanium is a special metal with properties that hamper the Gastrea's powerful regenerative ability.

Hence, the outer walls—also called "Monoliths"—are made by mixing Varanium into huge slabs, encircling each district to keep out the Gastrea.

People even refer to it as a sort of "barrier."

Inside a modest house:

A blue-haired boy speaks gently to an orange-haired, twin-tailed girl standing before him.

"Enju Aihara... May I call you by that name?"

The girl originally had no name. She looks at him with vacant eyes—eyes of an unsettling crimson shade, marking her as one of the "Cursed Children." Today, she's been assigned to the boy as his Initiator.

Cursed Children are kids whose mothers, while pregnant, became infected with the Gastrea virus.

As a result, the fetuses accumulated the virus in utero, so the children were born with certain Gastrea-like abilities. Since then, these so-called "Cursed Children" are largely despised and persecuted by society.

In general, the virus does not allow for the selection of a fetus's sex, but due to its effects, every known infected fetus has been female.

A normal human's infection by the Gastrea virus can only occur via blood contact—there is no airborne infection. Experiments have shown that ingestion through the mouth, or even sexual contact, won't cause infection outright.

The virus won't necessarily die upon entering the mouth, though. If it happens to enter a pregnant woman's system, the unborn child might accumulate the virus. Thus are the Cursed Children born, sporting distinctively red irises though otherwise human in appearance.

Besides their special bloodline, they also exhibit Gastrea traits—namely, they can't be killed unless their heart or brain is destroyed.

The Gastrea virus in their bodies detects life-threatening danger and neutralizes foreign substances. Each Cursed Child may have its own distinct genetic "factor," granting unique abilities.

In the case of the girl newly named "Enju Aihara," she has the rabbit factor, giving her impressive jumping power and kicking strength.

Because the Cursed Children can harness some of the Gastrea virus's capabilities, they possess healing that surpasses normal humans, making them a crucial fighting force against the Gastrea.

Hence the private civil security model of "Initiator and Promoter" was formed to better manage this power.

The boy, Rentaro Satomi, is a Promoter—he works for a private security agency. Enju Aihara, a Cursed Child, is his assigned Initiator.

Typically, the Cursed Children are shunned by most humans and forced to live in the outskirts.

However, the ones deemed fit to be Initiators are somewhat better-trained, serving as living weapons to fight Gastrea.

Regular injections of suppressants can prolong their "safe period," and a Promoter acts as a partner, supporting them in battle and providing moral or tactical guidance.

In most cases, Promoters are normal humans—and not exactly compassionate ones, seeing Initiators merely as weapons to combat Gastrea.

That's how most people treat Cursed Children in this grim world. Rentaro Satomi, however, is a "softhearted nice guy."

He can't stand the suffering of the Cursed Children, and though it only makes him sad for them, he'd prefer to view the hollow-eyed girl before him as a partner rather than a tool.

But Enju has yet to respond to him at all. Her attention is suddenly on the strange interface that just popped up in her vision—a "chat group" that appeared out of nowhere. freēnovelkiss.com

Her eyes ripple with a faint emotion, but she doesn't take the chat's knowledge too seriously. She thinks it's just a hallucination caused by her about to transform into a Gastrea.

Gastrea transformation is what happens when an infected human crosses a certain threshold of "virus corrosion," turning them into a Gastrea creature.

As an Initiator, Enju must be injected with a suppressant every day. But becoming an Initiator also means more fighting. When using her powers, her eyes turn red, and the more she uses them—or if any unwanted fluids enter her body—the Gastrea's corrosion rate gradually rises.

If it ever exceeds 50%, she'll fully transform into a Gastrea. Skipping her regular injections would make the corrosion climb faster, leading inevitably to monstrous mutation.

Enju doesn't know her present corrosion rate. But seeing these "hallucinations" is surely not normal.

If she's about to mutate, that might be why. Frankly, being a Cursed Child is unhappy in every sense. Like many others, she once begged and scavenged, going hungry day after day, forced to live in sewers and suffering humans' hateful stares. All she's ever known is endless pain. Death, for her, might be a release.

Enju Aihara: "Am I going to become a monster?"

She typed those words into the chat group with a kind of fatalistic calm, as though welcoming the end—perhaps an end to her suffering. Then she saw:

Rei Ao: "If you run into trouble, initiate a trade. I can help you."

"!!!"

~~~

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