Black Bullet, Vol. 1: Those Who Would Be Gods by Shiden Kanzaki

don’t know enough of what’s going on in the world. Hmm, the DNA of the source of the infection this time was overwritten with that of a jumping spider, huh…?” She looked at him. “Now that I think of it, you know a lot about animals in general, don’t you?”
    Rentaro scratched his head and looked down, muttering to himself. “Well, I just know a little about natural science and ethology, that’s all. It started because I liked Fabre’s
Souvenirs Entomologiques
, and it kind of continued from there…”
    She laughed at him. “I get it. You were the type who had no friends, so you watched bugs instead, right? You were pleased when you submerged an anthill with water, weren’t you?” Her voice changed a little. “‘Hah, drown! It’s Noah’s great flood! Know the wrath of God!’”
    “Is that supposed to be me? Don’t just make stuff up!”
    Sumire rested her chin on her elbow, which was on the armrest, and grinned broadly. “Anyway, you’re a real wimp. With such a gloomy hobby, you won’t be able to catch Kisara’s eye. If you like her, you should make her yours by sheer strength.”
    Rentaro scowled. Why’d she start talking about this? “Doc, didn’t you know? Kisara is a master of the Tendo Martial Arts Sword Drawing Style. I’m only at the beginning level, so I’d just be killed. Her kidneys are failing, though, so she can only move for short amounts of time and does mostly office work now.”



When they were little, Kisara often protected Rentaro, who was bullied a lot by her older brothers at the Tendo house, but he didn’t likehow she’d treated him as a servant ever since then. Even though he’d gotten strong enough to protect her now…
    “Oh? Ah well, let’s get back to the topic at hand,” said Sumire. “Do you know the distinguishing trait of a jumping spider?”
    “Its coloring, isn’t it?” said Rentaro. “And it’s famous for jumping to catch its prey.”
    Sumire pulled out her own Tastee Wheat from the microwave and suddenly thrust a spoonful into her mouth.
Eww!
Rentaro thought as he watched her.
    “That’s right,” she said. “You know, of course, that even if it became human size, the jumping spider, which uses its powerful jump to capture prey, would not be able to maintain the jumping distance of ten times its body size, right?”
    “Yeah—uh, wait, really?”
    “Hey now, get yourself together,” said Sumire. “They say that if a flea were human size, it would be able to jump as high as the Tokyo Tower, but if a flea were actually to become that big, never mind its jumping ability—it wouldn’t even be able to support its own body weight with those legs, and it wouldn’t be able to get enough oxygen through cutaneous respiration. It’s the same thing. Based on the law of gravity and the principle of scale, it’s pretty obvious that such a creature should not exist. But the Gastrea virus turns that idea on its head.”
    The woman in the white lab coat stopped talking for a moment and smiled enigmatically.
    Rentaro remained silent, urging her to go on. This wasn’t entomology anymore, it was physics. There was no place for the layman Rentaro to interrupt.
    “When a Gastrea transforms, the hardness of its exoskeleton and its body functions increase to match its size. That’s why the larger the Gastrea, the harder and stronger it is. The Gastrea virus, which redesigns living organisms, is a threat. In principle, it is very similar to the reverse transcription of a retrovirus, but it doesn’t just replicate copies of itself—after analyzing its host’s DNA, it reconstructs it into its most suitable form.
    “The problem is the speed at which this occurs. The corrosion speed of a Gastrea virus overwriting DNA is outside of the standardof all the living organisms on the Earth. Dawkins would probably piss his pants. If you told me that that it’s not from this planet, I’d believe you.
    “And once its corrosion exceeds fifty percent inside the