Liberi Reader

When I was still in the L.G.D., I used to spend my afternoons going around the city.

I knew very well my duty, what I was expected to fight against.

We wielded law and order as our weapons to curb chaos, resolve disputes, fight crime, and right wrongs.

Back then, I thought people were just so... easily corruptible.

All of us are born pure and without flaw, but evil creeps in with age, like how mold corrodes every branch and leaf on a plant.

I used to think this land could be rid of evil, if we were strong enough, selfless enough.

I held that belief, until I became Infected, until I went to Lungmen's slums.

And I realized that 'justice' is even weaker than men are.

When mutated plants grow from dirty soil, are the flowers in the greenhouse qualified to critique their twisted forms? Do they have the authority to cut off their branches?

There is no way we can talk about the same kind of justice until we share the same soil.

People are screaming, crying, falling into the mud, and crawling back up to their feet.

The fire burns a rosy red behind them.

Incessant bickering.

Endless verbal abuse.

I was already rushing towards the burning distillery.

I've entered a scene like this before, back in Lungmen. Multiple times.

As an L.G.D. officer, and as a slum resident.

Fire means loss, and also destruction.

I always see tears falling upon charred remains.

Sometimes they're from Infected, and other times they're regular citizens.

And at moments like these, rumors will spread through the spectating crowd.

The casualties were a few Infected. Or perhaps they were regular citizens. Maybe it was an Infected exacting revenge on his neighbors who had harassed him, or maybe his uninfected neighbors were fed up with all the sick people hiding just next door.

But no one has ever questioned why fires uptown are always extinguished as soon as possible.

While the big blazes that destroy several buildings and cause an unclear number of casualties always happen in the slums.

I burst through the distillery's doors, and I witness a portion of the building fiercely collapsing not far from the exit.

A single hand extends from the metal and debris.

Holding onto Guard's recorder.

'Or... are the people we unite with, the people we want to fight alongside—'

'Only the Infected?'

'Only... them?'

'We Infected are just the culmination of all the decay there is... we gather as one because of our shared experience.'

'But what unites us... is not just disease.'

'Let's say we meet a... noble, abusing his power to exploit the people. How would we treat him?'

'If he was actually... an Infected?'

'We can't use our infection as... our sole criterion and slogan.'

'Our companions must share the same belief... we will not only retaliate against the humiliation we've suffered, but also liberate the same people who have caused us pain.'

'We're not the only ones enslaved across the lands... so we should stand with them, together.'

'We need to get them... to stand with us.'

'We... can't just fight against disease.'

'What should we actually be fighting against?'

'What are we building here?'

'I——'

*rustle*

'Many years ago, when I had just become an Infected, I really... loved drinking. Back then, Ace warned me that if I carried on with that... hobby of mine, I'd die with my drink someday.'

'...Haha.'

'And here I am... in a distillery.'

'——'

I look at the petals given to me by the person they called Mays.

The Reunion doctor here spent their life here for these herbs, and according to her, Guard also died for them.

I recognize most of these plants. The Infected used to chew them for pain relief before modern pharmaceutical companies were a thing.

Perhaps the effectiveness of our crude drugs can improve by referencing these, even if just by a little...

We can't simply wait for our end, watch ourselves wither away.

There's more work to be done.

The enormous blaze burns throughout the night.

We finally abandon our efforts to recover Guard's body.

Red finds a beautiful sturdy tree, its trunk perfectly pointing up toward the sky.

He digs a hole and buries that cute towel of Guard's in it.

Flowers grow around the freshly dug soil.

The floral patterns on that towel were too crude. A garden like this suits him better.