My phone rang. It was Minami calling me.
I had a bad feeling about Minami calling at this timing.
“Hello, Minami. It’s been a while.”
I could hear my own voice sounding dejected. From the other end, it also sounded like Minami was sniffling.
“Hey, Eito… It’s about Koya… His condition suddenly got worse, and he’s been hospitalized…”
“What? Are you serious?”
Minami wasn’t the type to lie. Especially not about something as serious as life and death.
“Yeah… They haven’t been able to identify the pathogen yet, so no one’s allowed to visit him. And since I’m a close contact, I’ve been placed under quarantine too.”
“I see. Maybe it’s better to inform everyone at the agency just in case.”
I had no idea when Koya might have been exposed to this mysterious pathogen.
For all I knew, the rest of the agency could also be infected.
“What should I do…? I… If Koya stays like this…”
“Calm down, Minami. Koya will be okay…”
He will be okay… That’s all I could say, uncertain as it was.
How could I claim it’d be okay? This was a pathogen that modern medicine couldn’t even identify.
All I could do was lament my own helplessness, unable to offer any real reassurance.
“I’m so anxious… I don’t know what to do…”
Even if I wanted to meet Minami, I couldn’t; she was in quarantine. All we could do was talk over the phone.
“Maybe… maybe he caught something in the dungeon. I’ll look into it on my end.”
“Okay… Thank you…”
I wasn’t even remotely an expert in medicine. Whatever I found wouldn’t likely help.
But I couldn’t sit idly by.
If the cause lay in the dungeon, gathering information about it might lead to some kind of clue.
“For now… the werewolf seems suspicious.”
The werewolf. Koya got injured by it, and after that, he became infected. It only made sense to start there.
I decided to access the official database where dungeon-related data was compiled.
I searched for records involving battles with werewolves. Among the dungeon streamers who encountered them, some had sustained injuries.
Looking into the streamers’ information, I saw that some had survived, while others had died.
The mortality rate among dungeon streamers was high. Public records didn’t specify the causes of death.
That was likely due to privacy concerns, which was understandable. But in today’s information age, there were other ways to dig deeper.
I checked the SNS accounts of the deceased.
“This is it!”
I couldn’t help but exclaim. A family member had posted about one of them.
According to the post, the streamer had died from an unexplained high fever.
So, could it be that injuries from a werewolf carried a chance of infection?
Or perhaps only certain werewolves were carriers while others were not?
Koya must have been unlucky enough to encounter an infected werewolf, leading to his condition.
But then, how should we deal with this? Should I investigate pathogens linked to werewolves?
◇
It was no use. No matter how much I searched, I couldn’t find any information about pathogens carried by werewolves.
But I did uncover something else.
Apparently, there was someone researching pathogens carried by dungeon monsters.
The leading figure in that field was no longer alive, but the fact that someone was conducting such research was significant.
I decided to dig into the people connected to this researcher. And then…
“What?”
I widened my eyes in surprise.
There, written clearly, was my mother’s name.
My mind couldn’t process it. Why would my mother, a veterinarian, be mentioned here?
Then I remembered something. Mom once told me that veterinarians don’t just treat animal injuries and illnesses; they also research zoonotic diseases—those that can spread to humans.
Could it be that when Mom went into the dungeon, it wasn’t just to accompany Dad?
Was she researching pathogens that could cause diseases in humans carried by dungeon monsters?
It felt like a puzzle was coming together in my mind, connecting the dots and forming a line. And that line gave me a glimmer of hope.
“That’s it! Mom’s research findings… they were only recently discovered, weren’t they?”
While exploring a dungeon, she’d stumbled upon something by chance—a music box encrypted with clues pointing to the location of her research results.
The research findings were inherited by me, her son, but since I had no use for them, I donated them to the university my mother had attended.
Perhaps… by looking into my mother’s research findings, I might learn something.
I decided to contact the university immediately. Koya might not have much time left. I had to act quickly.
“This is Eito Kageno, representative of Shadow Stars.”
“Mr. Kageno… Ah, you’re the one who donated those research findings.”
“Yes. Actually, I have some questions about those findings.”
I explained the situation to the university staff. I told them that one of our streamers had developed a high fever after being attacked by a werewolf.
The researcher at the university seemed to be deep in thought.
“Hmm… There’s a possibility that he contracted an infection from the werewolf.”
“Really?”
The identity of the mysterious pathogen was beginning to come to light. This was a significant step forward. Perhaps Koya could be saved.
“Let’s run some tests right away. With Mr. Kageno’s research findings, we might be able to identify the pathogen.”
Identification was possible… But what about a cure?
Dungeons were still largely unexplored. It wouldn’t be surprising if there were untreatable infections out there.
◇
The test results confirmed it. Koya had indeed contracted a new type of infection specific to werewolves.
And we received both good news and bad news.
The good news: the infection could be cured.
The bad news: the infection would not heal naturally and would be fatal if left untreated.
“To create a cure, we’ll need the claw of an infected werewolf. We don’t know how much time the patient has left, but you should obtain it as quickly as possible,” the university researcher informed us.
At our home office, we searched online to see if anyone was selling werewolf claws. Since we weren’t planning to use them as weapons, it didn’t matter who the owner was.
There were a few listings for werewolf claws as materials, but none of them came from infected specimens.
“Hmm… No luck finding an infected werewolf claw,” I muttered, sighing as I browsed a materials sales site on my computer.
Even if such a claw existed, it might already have been processed into a weapon. Werewolves were formidable monsters, and their materials were valuable.
Some streamers might keep such materials, thinking they could be used to craft powerful equipment.
“If no one’s selling it, that makes things simpler. We’ll just head to the dungeon and break off a claw ourselves,” Makita-san said, cracking his knuckles with a straightforward, muscle-headed solution.
“That’s true, but… that means we’ll have to fight another infected werewolf,” I explained the risks to everyone. It wasn’t just about defeating a werewolf. We’d have to deal with one that could infect us with the pathogen if we got injured.
“Kageno-san, I agree with Makita-san. It’s faster to dive into the dungeon than to wait for something to be listed,” Shiba-kun said.
“I agree with Shiba-kun as well,” Daigo-san chimed in, full of determination.
“Understood. Then, everyone… please, I’m counting on you. Save Koya…!”
