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Published at 13th of July 2022 05:41:44 AM


Chapter 7

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Chapter 7 – The Survivors

 

 

“Ah… Yeah. I’m fine.”

To tell you the truth, he didn’t seem to be very okay.

His face was a mixed mess of tears and a runny nose.

And he seems to have peed himself?

As I deep down regretted reaching out to him…

“S’okay, I can get up by myself…”

Seemingly having sensed the mood, he stood up on his own.

I looked around while trying my best to shift my attention from his drenched crotch.

There were no enemies on sight.

“How many entrances did this school have?”

I know I have been attending this school for 3 years now. But I can’t help that I don’t know what I don’t know.

“…There are two gates at the back.”

“Are they locked?”

“I think… one of ‘em has been locked since the weekend. The other one… is still open.”

“Ok, then I’ll go make sure they’re both closed.”

When I said that, the boy stared at me with a surprised look on his face.

“Wait. It’s dangerous to go alone.”

“Hmph.”

Well…

The reason why I was able to easily deal with those zombies just now was because they had gone completely nuts about the prey in front of them, that is, Mr. Leaky Pants here (tentative name).

I don’t have to worry too much about losing when fighting them one-on-one, but things could easily get out of hand if I end up in a situation where I’m faced against several zombies at the same time. I can’t handle such a thing with my current abilities.

So if that happens, I’ll have no choice but to turn tail and run away.

But if someone were to draw the zombies’ attention, that’s a different story.

They don’t seem to be able to keep an eye on two goals at the same time, so in that case, I should be able to safely get rid of several zombies in one go.

“But your leg hurts, right?”

When I turned my gaze to his right foot…

“… Yeah. I can’t keep up with you.”

He easily admitted that.

“But if you were to ask someone else …”

“Someone else?”

After turning my face towards where he was pointing… Ah, yeah.

Someone else was definitely there.

Actually, there were quite a lot of people staring at us from the school’s second floor, where the second grade classrooms are located.

Perhaps… they had all seen my little action scene just now?

That made me feel a bit embarrassed.

It was a mix of 20 or 30 people of all ages.

And they were all staring at me with an anxious look on their faces.

For a moment, I felt like a gorilla in a cage.

“Who were those at the front gate?”

“Ah… Yojiro and Takada-kun…”

The moment he called their names, he remembered that they were no longer in this world, which brought tears to the eyes of Mr. Leaky Pants (tentative name).

“We were trying to close the front gate… but we got surrounded… I’m the only one who managed to escape.”

“Hmph.”

To summarize his words…

Three courageous students from those who had taken refuge in this school were trying to close the main gate.

As a result of failing to do so, two of them seem to have become prey to the zombies.

Rest their souls.

“Come on, let’s go.”

We went to the school’s entrance, towards where the shoe rack was.

The glass door was tightly locked, and there was someone there.

It was a short girl with a face that reminded me of a hamster.

“Kou-chan…”

A fragile voice came out of Hamster Girl’s mouth.

Mr. Leaky Pants AKA “Kou-chan” leant towards the girl, who seemed to be about to fall on her knees.

“I tried to help… I tried to help… But dad wouldn’t…”

“It’s okay. I was planning to do that from the beginning.”

The next moment…

They started kissing fervently, almost as if my existence there was no different than a pebble by the roadside.

Whoa.

They’re really giving it their best.

I gotta get out of here. These guys are about to explode.

Under the pretense of looking around, I started to look away.

Then they hugged each other for about ten seconds or so.

The girl then finally turned towards me.

“And you are… Umm… Are you a third-grader?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you for helping Kou-chan.”

“Well…”

“Come on, get in quickly.”

“Okay.”

She unlocked the door, and I entered the school building as prompted.

Took a deep breath…

Then I took a drink out of my canteen.

“I’m Asada Rika. Please call me Rika.”

Rika-chan. I see.

“Ah, I totally forgot. I’m Hibiya Kousuke.”

Kou-chan. Alright.

“And your name is?”

Instead of answering that…

“Let’s leave the chat for later. We should make sure it’s safe for everyone here first.”

Then, some of the grown-ups appeared from the stairs behind the shoe rack.

Some faces I knew. One of them was Mr. Sasaki, who was in charge of English during the year. Although he is a man, he had this high-pitched, almost womanly voice, and I also remembered that he was the type of person to get serious cases of hysteria whenever there was a chance.

“Hey, are you guys okay? Have any of you been bitten or scratched?”

Mr. Sasaki asked us with his usual high-pitched voice.

“We’re fine.”

“Rika! Don’t act so rashly, you’re gonna give me a heart attack…!”

The one who scolded Rika-chan just now was a middle-aged gentleman wearing a stylish waistcoat.

From his words, I guessed he was her…

“So, would you have had me leave them to fend for themselves, dad?”

The remaining one was a woman wearing sportswear. She looked like she was in her mid-twenties. Apparently, she was also a teacher at this school, but I couldn’t say for sure since I have never been in any of her classes.

They seemed to have been arguing about how they shouldn’t have gone out to close the main gate in the first place.

Of course, their earlier conversation didn’t have anything to do with me.

“Anyway, I’ll go close the gates in the back, so if anyone could show me where they are…”

I completely disregarded the flow of the conversation, and said that instead.

That created an awkward silence, just like when a comedian stupendously botches a quick one-liner.

Rika-chan’s dad spoke in a heavy tone, saying…

“We just lost two people trying to close the main gate. It’s too dangerous.”

I stared at him with a blank expression.

“But… If we leave those doors open, it’ll only become even more dangerous than it already is.”

To be honest, I didn’t think it was a good idea to leave the gates open.

I hadn’t fully read the behavior patterns of those zombies yet, but for now, they seemed to be quite busy searching for corpses to suckle on.

Though there was no telling how long that would last.

At the very least, the “zombies” from the movies tended to find their prey by sniffing the signs of the living from miles away.

If that were to happen here, the zombies would eventually invade through the windows around the school building.

By all accounts, our first priority should be blocking their intrusion routes.

“We all thought about it. We can use the classroom desks and chairs to create a barricade on the stairs and just stay put on the second floor. As you know, they won’t notice us as long as we’re quiet.”

“But … We can’t stay in the school building forever.”

“We were able to endure spending last night here. I’m sure we’ll be able to continue to manage somehow from now on as well.”

To me, that plan was way too optimistic.

“That’s right. Besides, a rescue team might arrive earlier than expected.”

That was the English teacher, Mr. Sasaki. I expressed my disagreement with him.

“I don’t think so. I think we’d better start getting ready to get used to living here for quite some time.”

At that moment, I thought, “Shouldn’t we be prepared to face the worst possible scenario?”

After all, we weren’t dealing with only zombies here.

I had seen several “dragon” like creatures flying in the sky from the window of my apartment building. To me, the whole situation was so incomprehensible it seemed too risky to be relying on others for help.

“Still…”

I understood what they were trying to say.

Just now, two of them had fallen victims to the enemy.

No one wanted to be the next victim.

“Okay, then please just tell me where they are. I’ll go by myself.”

“Don’t say such nonsense. It’s too dangerous.”

C’mon, Rika’s dad.

“I’ll go.”

That display of chivalry came from Hibiya Kousuke.

“No!”

Rika-chan went pale. Then she continued.

“If you go anywhere with that sprained ankle, you’ll just become a burden.”

私も、努めて冷静に言いました。

I also tried my best to say my piece as calmly as I could.

“But…”

“S-So I’ll go instead.”

“You’re not going anywhere, young lady. You’ll get your father sick with worry!”

Ah.

To be honest, I was starting to feel that this whole conversation was just a big waste of time.

I decided to just keep quiet and wait for about 30 seconds.

If we couldn’t come to a conclusion, I would snatch the key from Rika and get a move on.

“Okay then, I’ll go with her.”

The one who had raised her hand right now was a person who hadn’t spoken much up until now.

It was that mysterious female teacher (let’s call her Mrs. A for now), who spoke in a perfectly natural Kansai dialect.

She had long, black hair, and sharp eyebrows that made her look like someone with a strong sense of responsibility. She also had a very muscular and firm body for an adult woman.

“I-I see…”

No one seemed to disagree with the brave lady teacher’s kind offer.

After all, maybe they were just looking for an excuse not to go themselves. I could understand that feeling quite well, so I didn’t comment on it.

For the most part, I’m a bit stubborn since I know that there are ways to deal with these zombies.

We could kill them by simply crushing their heads. How hard could it be to smash a human skull, after all?

In that regard, this sword was truly something else. It could pierce through a zombie’s skull with effort.

I couldn’t thank my grandfather enough for leaving me this sword.

“Alright, no time to dawdle. Let’s go. Rika, the key, please.”

“Ah… Sure.”

Rika-chan quickly handed her the key.

Though her hand couldn’t stop shaking.




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