"Welcome to my house," the scientist proudly show-off his worn-out mansion with one side of it being ravaged by an overgrown greenhouse.

"...I have seen worse." (Tatsu)

"Oh, please, it has the convenience of both working space, living space and specimens."

"You do realise the safety laboratory fines will reach past a million euros."

"...They won't inspect a dilapidated mansion on the outskirts of Sevran. Just come home."

"Pardon the intrusion."

"Welcome back, Papa! A-a-ahh, who's this, Papa?" an excited high-pitched voice toned down as they came inside. It was a young teenager, coming out to greet her father while in an apron. Her dark purple hair was neatly tied into smooth long twin tails that hung on the sides. However, Tatsu noticed that her eyes were also red.

====A/N: Looks like Rize Tedeza but with red eyes.====

"I'm home Libra, I'm in a hurry to talk with...Did I forget your name?" (Scientist)

"No, we haven't introduced each other because you were so eager to invite me." (Tatsu)

"Oh right. Allow me to introduce myself. Dr Jonas van Schmidt" he reached out his hand for a shake, "You can just call me Jonas,"

"Pleasure to meet you. The name's Tatsu Nezu," he shook his hand with a firm grip, "You can also just call me Chief."

"What position?"

"None currently, I'm too used to being called that."

"I see."

"Papa, are you going to explain why you brought a stranger home?" a purple-haired girl was pouting towards her father for the sudden arrival with another person in tow, "You didn't even pick up the others from school."

"Sorry Libra, can you ask Aries to pick them up? I need to talk with this young man for a bit." (Jonas)

"What for, Papa?" (Libra)

"I'll explain to you later."

"She can join us." (Chief)

"It might be too sensitive for her. Please follow me." Jonas explained as he fiddled around the kitchen to grab a pot of tea and some teacups.

Jonas and the Chief walked to the back of the mansion that had the overgrown jungle. The path was narrow thanks to the vegetation that went over their boundaries and danced all over the pavement. At the end of the path, there were a few sets of tables and chairs near a prayer table with some candles and a portrait.

"Should we be discussing this in front of an important place?" Even though Chief lost most of his emotions, his common sense was still hanging by a thread to notice this awkward environment.

"No, this is very vital for the questions," Jonas said as he fiddled around with a compartment on the prayer table and opened up a drawer that had some dusty papers.

After checking to see if he had the right papers, Jonas sat on a table closest to the portrait and Chief sat on a chair opposite of him.

"So let's start," Jonas poured simple green tea into a cup and passed it to Chief before serving a cup himself, "Were you born with those red eyes and does your family have it as well?"

"Yeah, I've had them ever since I was born. Only my grandpa and one cousin have the same eyes, though they weren't like me."

"Great! Now, have you ever heard of 'Curse of Gastrea'?"

Chief got shocked about hearing a curse but managed to keep himself calm and collected by drinking the cup to hide his emotions on his face.

"Curse of Gastrea? What's that?"

"You don't know despite having red eyes? Then yet again, you are a male so it is possible to be unheard of. What about Curse of [@$!#%!]?"

I felt a little sting upon hearing the incomprehensible word.

"The Curse of what?"

"Ah, sorry, I can't get the right pronunciation. Libra knows how to say it correctly, I'll ask her later."

<I CAN TRANSLATE WHAT JONAS IS TRYING TO SAY>

Chief immediately got angry.

'System, fuck off!'

<...SORRY MASTER>

[NEGATE]

[SYSTEM SKILL HAS BEEN DEACTIVATED][EXPECTED REVIVAL IN 30 DAYS]

"...You look angry, did I say something that offended you?"

"No, sorry. I was just thinking about an event that happened before I landed in France. Please continue."

"Right, where was I? Oh, so you have no clue about the Curse of Gastrea?"

"Nope."

"Then I need to explain it from the start.

So, the Curse of Gastrea started to appear around the death of Jesus Christ. It seemed to only target the females that were involved in the crucifixion and all died bearing red eyes. There was only one female survivor from the group and she went on to be 'Eve' and started a horrible tradition. The only anonymous feature is the red eyes and they gain information about the curse from their ancestors when they become adults. Only one person is inflicted with the curse at a time and if they don't give birth by the age of 30, they will die and the curse will be transferred to a random newborn girl."

"Hmm, this is a very terrible curse. I'm sure my family would be terrified hearing this."

"I only learnt this from my wife so the information might not be widespread. But we haven't even reached the worse part.

Upon the first birth, the infected will proceed to give birth to 11 more children all ranging from different times and years, all from one single fertile intercourse. After the last child is born, the mother....will die."

Jonas tried to hold back his tears as Chief took a closer look at the portrait, a beautiful Middle-Eastern woman smiled beautifully with her white long hair, braided on the side.

"She seems like a lovely lady."

"....Alisha was the best wife a man could ever ask."

"...So, what happens to the children?"

"....Right. After the death of their mother, all the children will have red eyes and will all be different, as a way to mix up the genetics to confuse the curse. However, once the oldest child becomes 16, the curse will pick one of the girls as the bearer of the curse and all the other siblings will be eliminated and the cycle continues. It is also a tradition to simply label the children after numbers, horoscopes, zodiacs, arctic pentagrams etc. because we can't get close to them as they will face an inevitable. Only after the final child survives will she have a name. No family name either because they have one in their memories that they all share between themselves. "

"What a gruesome curse."

"I know, I only knew of this as a condition to marry my wife as she was very cautious with marriage because of the curse."

"Why would they even do this if the curse doesn't go away?"

"It is to weaken it. As Eve the first suggested, they can give birth to 12 girls to split the curse and then kill 11 to greatly weaken the curse's power. If she hadn't developed this tradition, the curse would spread to other innocent females and go out of control."

"I can't imagine the pain of losing 11 children in an instance....actually no, I can sympathise with something similar to that."

"Hmm, you too. What a strange world we live in. So, are you positive you never heard about this?"

"Never, you can tell me where you met the wife and the location. That might give me some clues."

"Ah, I remember it just like yesterday. I was going on a study trip with my colleagues to the newly flipped Egyptian pyramids and Alisha was the head priestess at the time. It was love at first sight and I stayed there for 3 years learning the culture and customs to get to know her. Luckily, she was outcasted because of her eyes. Before I met her, she wanted to slave away in religion and hope for a better afterlife, looking lifeless and depressed. I wanted to whisk her up into my arms and take her away, even after she told me the complications, I was going to make sure that she was happy with her life, even a little selfish...But."

"But?"

"I didn't trust her when we had our children. Every scientist would be stumped on a person having 12 children from one intercourse! I didn't even believe my eyes when she healthily gave birth to our 8th child and I thought she was cheating on me. I thought she made up a story and used it as an excuse to escape the religion and went to hook up with multiple guys. It was even more plausible considering each girl we had was in no way similar. We argued in 2019 and I locked myself in a lab for a while, barely visiting the mansion. I argued with myself and did useless projects and only made an excuse to visit her during the 12th delivery. She coughed a lot of blood and rapidly deteriorated after the safe delivery but the medical doctors couldn't do anything. I was only there when she was at death's door and was heartbroken.

But she wasn't sad.

She smiled and held my hand when I crouched to her side.

She didn't blame me. She said I had every right to be suspicious.

She said that I gave meaning to her life. She was happy.

We made a family together and she was happy.

Even when I left, she was happy to see me off.

I was a fool and she was happy to marry me.

Alisha was happy to have such a caring husband and beautiful girls.

So, when she passed away in my arms...."

Jonas slammed his fist onto the table, spilling the tea everywhere.

"I vowed to take care of the girls and crush this damned curse! I will not disappoint my family again!"

=============

=============

{Little Segment}

"....Why?"

<WHY? I DO NOT QUITE UNDERSTAND MASTER.>

"Why did you lie to me and sacrifice them?"

<IS THAT NOT OBVIOUS? MASTER WOULD HAVE NOT LISTENED IF I OFFERED THE PLAN AND THAT WOULD REDUCE YOUR CHANCE OF SURVIVAL.>

"Even if I'm going to die in the end? There is no escape in a zombie apocalypse if everyone else dies."

<... I AM PROGRAMMED TO MAKE SURE MASTER LIVES ANOTHER DAY AND ENSURE THE PROBABILITY OF SURVIVAL AT ALL COSTS>

"Even if it involves innocent lives and my subordinates?

<YES, I WEIGH THE VALUE OF EACH PERSON THAT CONTACTS MASTER AND SEE IF THEY ARE WORTH KEEPING OR DISCARDING THEM WHEN THEIR VALUE OVERWEIGHT THE COSTS.>

"...I see."

[NEGATE]

Cobias_Tenem

Yeet! This was a blast to write, trying to create such a fun narrative out of scratch. Hope you found it enjoyable.