In this world exists a secret organization that chooses to "excise" the evils that the law cannot punish as malignant tumors and bury them in darkness. This organization is called [Black Label].
Regarding the current apocalyptic outbreak and the truth behind the appearance of the living dead, this organization knows most of it.
It could be said that for the current apocalypse, the founder of Black Label - who is publicly the chairman of Mochizuki General Hospital, Mochizuki Masamune - is one of the main culprits.
He must bear responsibility for the sin of causing this world's end.
In the past, he had worked as a military medic with mercenaries, traveling to various battlefields.
In a certain village, he accidentally discovered something incredible.
In this village, people with missing limbs would directly use limbs from other dead people, transplanting them directly with perfect success and no rejection phenomena.
Yet this was a backward place with extremely poor medical standards - that they could accomplish such things was completely absurd.
Through investigation, those requiring transplants would drink an unknown black liquid before the procedure, then drink an unknown red liquid after transplantation, completing the treatment.
So he further investigated what these two liquids were.
The black liquid was actually brain fluid extracted from the brains of those who had died from a certain toxin.
The red liquid was blood from those who had been successfully treated.
So the simple conclusion was that the black liquid was a virus, and the red liquid was a vaccine.
The miraculous use of both allowed the immune system to perform limb transplants without rejection.
Ultimately, he named this virus D99.
This virus had the characteristic that after infection, the immune system would undergo abnormalities, with related cells becoming activated.
This way, cells wouldn't die for a very long time and would continue rapid proliferation, allowing various transplant surgeries to be performed.
So if utilized properly, for surgeons, this was practically divine power.
However, this thing was also dangerous, easily affecting nerves and further impacting the brain, causing brain death and making people behave like they had rabies, with extremely strong infectivity.
Fortunately, a vaccine existed - the blood of living people.
But this vaccine was too scarce and required more research to perfect.
When he returned to that village, unfortunately warfare had already destroyed it, meaning the vaccine was gone, leaving only the small remnants he had on hand.
His own research on the D99 virus made it difficult to develop a vaccine, requiring extensive experimentation.
The cost of experimentation could be uncontrollable - if infection accidentally spread, it would lead to human extinction.
So he destroyed all D99 data and destroyed almost all samples.
Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one who knew about D99.
For research purposes, he had assembled a medical team, so D99 intelligence still leaked.
Ultimately, D99 samples also flowed out, with an organization called [Syringe] continuing research.
To obtain more vaccine, they conducted many experiments, including developing new drugs related to D99.
These drugs were then sold worldwide, becoming a huge source of funding for this organization.
He only discovered the drugs were related to D99 about a month ago, when people who had used too much of the drug showed abnormalities and were sent to his hospital for examination, revealing the D99 connection.
With deeper research, Mochizuki Masamune horrifyingly discovered the situation was completely out of control.
This new drug developed based on D99 was like a chronic virus that would eventually cause patients to become manic and bloodthirsty, attacking indiscriminately like rabies sufferers.
Once attacked people were scratched or similar, they would become infected and quickly become the same.
According to investigation and speculation, from this drug's spread, in about a year there would be thugs worldwide, multiplying at a terrifying infection rate.
The world would be in chaos.
Fortunately, they had discovered these signs early. Unfortunately, the apocalypse was arriving ahead of schedule.
The reason for this acceleration was solar storms.
This year's solar storms would be abnormally intense, so more particles would reach Earth, causing those who had consumed the new virus - no, probably not just the new virus, [Syringe] had also developed related drugs in other areas and released them to market.
Anyway, substances related to D99 that people had consumed would undergo changes due to solar storm influence.
When reaching a critical point, the body would rapidly mutate and the brain would die, becoming living dead.
Yes, living dead, not thugs.
Thugs were violent but not brain-dead, retaining some consciousness, so they could still use any available weapons - meaning weapons humans could use, thugs could almost use too.
One could imagine what would happen if those controlling national weapons, especially those super-dangerous weapons, also became thugs.
It would absolutely be more terrifying than living dead.
However, living dead were stronger than thugs in physical strength, possessing terrifying power, though their movements were somewhat sluggish - but once they started running, they could be outpaced.
Then, this morning, the largest solar storm struck, officially activating the D99 virus.
The world's collapse began here.
Mochizuki Masamune also suspected the [Syringe] organization wasn't unprepared for this situation or completely unaware.
On the contrary, he noticed they had actually accelerated drug distribution.
So based on intelligence gathered, [Syringe] wasn't purely seeking god-like surgical power - if that were their only goal, why destroy the world?
Their purpose was the power of immortality!
Yes, in D99 research, he had discovered it might contain such power.
Actually, before completely sealing D99 and destroying all intelligence, Mochizuki Masamune had achieved this miracle once, but it was only one successful case. He couldn't confirm he could succeed again and didn't dare risk world destruction.
That unique immortal individual wasn't him, and absolutely couldn't be discovered.
Now, his created Black Label organization had two members operating in Tokonosu City, having discovered Syringe members.
But before they could capture them, D99 was finally activated by this solar storm wave.
The two members [Kiba Mikoto and Sagiri Yuko] had also reported observing through drones a mysterious man who was somewhat outrageous and extremely powerful.
It seemed highly likely he was also someone enhanced through D99, otherwise he couldn't possibly possess such power that broke human limits.
Yes, through D99 enhancement, Black Label members, especially combat members, had also used D99 to save their lives after certain accidents, gaining physical enhancement.
As for him, he didn't seem to be affiliated with [Syringe], and they were currently conducting further confirmation.
If not, they would make contact.
...
PS: [Triage X] and [Highschool of the Dead] are related - they have the same artist with identical art styles, but the stories don't explicitly state they're the same world setting, though some plot elements feel connected.
So these two should be considered parallel world works.
Here, I'm integrating them into the same world, so those who have seen [Triage X] might find the plot different, because here I've moved the story timeline to start one year before and incorporated it into [Highschool of the Dead].
...
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