Devero stares at him for a moment, then barks out a harsh, almost startled laugh. Of course, where he comes from, there would be no need to ask a question like that. The Pathogen had been such a historically significant event, that extinction-level bottlenecking of all of human society and progress, that even the "backwards" communities who eschewed their place in the World Government remained scarred by it to his present day.

So very many people had died. Humanity almost hadn't survived it.

But Gen wouldn't know anything about that, would he? The knowledge that was inoculated into Devero's very core, as intrinsic to him as his bones, was just an innocent question from this stranger.

He has to turn away, covering his mouth with one hand for a moment. "No," he says finally. "They didn't."