Of Interest: blood, organs, construction materials, food, high nutrition, donation.

Of Interest: blood, organs, construction materials, food, high nutrition, donation.

Asset Summary: A report written by International Coordinator Murakabe Shinkichi of the Medical Relief Actions Committee follows:

I was part of the delegation sent to ███, Hungary to inspect the donations and how they were acquired. Naturally, we wanted to have a look at it first. It's no longer a rare issue that some organ donor groups obtain their donations by unethical, involuntary means. And the last thing we would want is some poor being robbed of their life for monetary gain. We want to ease the world's suffering, not add to it.

So we arrived in this humble, somewhat dilapidated village in northeastern Hungary (I'm told a lot of villages look like this due to economic issues), where we were warmly greeted by the local mayor, one Ivády █████. (In Hungary, every locality has its own mayor, no matter how small it may be, apparently.) The village was certainly small, houses were spread thin and barely 400 people lived there.

We were then taken on a tour of the little village, shown the local church and manor, also by the name of Ivády (which is a VERY common surname here, kind of like Yamada in Japan). At the manor, we were treated to a wonderful feast and spent a good few hours socializing. Only after its conclusion did they get down to business and show us their prospective donation.

They had an entire barn full of timber, bricks, cement, roof panels, various fruits and berries, and even several freezers stocked with healthy organs and bags of blood, several litres. Our medical experts confirmed that they were in perfect shape, and the blood was claimed to be of several rare blood types. (Our own laboratories later managed to confirm this back home.) All this were they willing to give to us for free.

Immediately, we became suspicious. There's simply no way that anybody could accumulate that much body material without some horrible background to it all. That's when the Mayor bade me come and look at their walnut tree. Supposedly, it was of great spiritual significance to them (some weird Christian denomination? I have no idea), though I couldn't see the relevance. Three old people were waiting for us underneath it, two women and one man. They were apparently the local priests, though they seemed more like shamans.

They took three of us: me, Assistant Duprès and Doctor al-Harawi, and led us up to the tree and… inside. I'm not sure how, I never saw any entrance. I just remember suddenly being inside something tight and sticky and slimy and smelling vaguely of Nutella and maple syrup, and then we emerged into this tall wooden tower of sorts. Clearly, these people were anomalous, that much I'd gathered by that point. We were then led up along some stairs to the upper floor and ushered out through a door (the only one there).

We arrived in some circular garden, I think. Everything beyond a certain distance was just a colourful blur. And in the middle of it all was another old, huge tree. This one was huge and looked different from the one on the manor grounds. Somebody said it was chestnut, though I wouldn't know. There were all sorts of fruit hanging from the branches, more than any one tree should have. And I saw them harvesting organs from holes within the tree and… tapping it for blood. The exact same way that Canadians tap maples for their sap to make syrup of it.

Only this was blood dripping from those tubes, not sap. It all seemed so bizarre. The shamans then told us that they had been doing this for generations. That they were somehow connected to this tree in some spiritual sense, and that it wanted to "spread its gifts" to more people.

Not much happened after that. We were led outside, loaded the cargo, thanked them for their donation, and left. We travelled back in silence. I think most of us were simply too shocked at that point.

Now that I can look at it from a more sober perspective, I must say that despite how bizarre it may seem, we ought to accept their assistance. We have some benevolent rural cult, worshipping some kindly tree that wants to heal and feed and shelter people. It feels like a Miyazaki movie, where what looks evil turns out to be good. We get valuable supplies, nobody gets hurt, it doesn't cost a fortune and it's a renewable resource. With this, we could help so many more people than with our current meagre resources.

Therefore it is my explicit recommendation that we initiate a partnership with these people. Together, we can help make the world a better place.