Swish, swish, swish—
Tsubasa Amagiri moved with incredible speed. In a few swift strides, he covered over ten meters and plunged directly into the throng of zombies.
"Roar!!"
"Hoho..."
These zombies were sluggish and their movements somewhat clumsy, but their hearing was remarkably sharp. The moment Tsubasa drew near, more than a dozen of them turned their attention his way, letting out unpleasant roars, extending their arms, and lurching towards him.
"...It stinks!"
Swish, swish, swish—the putrid stench hit Tsubasa's face, causing him to frown. The Kuyo Knife in his hand flashed in a series of dazzling arcs.
The dozen zombies shuddered violently, their forward momentum carrying them a step or two further before they collapsed to the ground one by one, their severed heads rolling in grotesque disarray.
Tsubasa had already moved past their lifeless bodies, ignoring them as he fixed his gaze on the end of the corridor.
The guttural roars of more zombies grew steadily louder, closing in on their position.
"Saeko, follow me!"
"Here they come!"
Tsubasa took the lead, his knife a blur in his hand. Every zombie that lunged at them was decapitated before it could even get close. In an instant, hideous heads littered the floor, and dark blood, like a ruptured pipe, sprayed everywhere.
It was as if a high-speed harvester had suddenly entered a wheat field, operating at full throttle. Wherever it passed, swathes of the infected fell lifelessly.
Saeko Busujima and Shizuka Marikawa stayed close behind Tsubasa, their wooden swords swinging occasionally to dispatch any stray zombies that lunged from the sides.
"Good... Amazing!"
Kohta Hirano, clutching his modified nail gun, had just managed to shoot down two approaching zombies. Before he could even catch his breath, he witnessed Tsubasa's display and stood there, utterly dumbfounded.
"It's him..."
Komuro Takashi was equally stunned.
Since the zombie outbreak, he and Miyamoto Rei had fought their way down from the rooftop, and he had taken down a considerable number of zombies with his trusty baseball bat.
But compared to Tsubasa's speed and efficiency, his own efforts seemed almost pathetic.
What kind of speed was that?
Was this still even humanly possible?
A dozen zombies had surrounded him, yet they hadn't even managed to graze his clothing.
"Amagiri-kun, is that really you?"
Saya Takagi, her delicate face smeared with blood, looked genuinely surprised to see Tsubasa appear.
Hmm?
Girl, do we even know each other?
Hearing Saya Takagi's voice, a large question mark formed in Tsubasa's mind.
"Saya Takagi knows you, and has been pursuing you..."
Saeko Busujima, following closely behind, noticed the confusion on Tsubasa's face. She swiftly dispatched a stray zombie that was blindly stumbling towards them, then said with her usual nonchalance, "
What the hell?"
"This arrogant lady has been pursuing me?"
Tsubasa was genuinely taken aback. Had he misheard?
Saeko Busujima remained unfazed and simply nodded.
"For two years!"
"Two... two years?"
Tsubasa swung the Kuyo Knife horizontally, a dazzling arc of light severing the heads of the seven or eight zombies that were closing in. Taking advantage of the brief respite, he turned to look at Saeko Busujima.
"How come I don't have any recollection of this at all?"
He was only nineteen this year, young with a sharp memory. Especially with the system directly implanting memories into his mind, everything was crystal clear, with no possibility of memory fog.
He had just mentally reviewed his entire past!
There was absolutely no trace of this supposed pursuit!
Usually, when he encountered her at school, this haughty girl acted like a proud swan, her chin held high, barely even deigning to glance in his direction. Was that her idea of pursuit?
"It's perfectly normal that you don't remember."
Saeko Busujima glanced at the approaching zombies, then at Saya Takagi, who was still waving her gun with an excited look on her face, and continued to speak slowly.
"Because I stopped her."
Saeko Busujima finally looked away from Saya Takagi, her tone still utterly casual. "At that time, we had already been dating for over a year, and you were already my boyfriend. She still wanted to pursue you, but I wasn't about to allow that."
"She sent you love letters and pretended to run into you countless times..."
"I intercepted every single one of them!"
"As your girlfriend, these are just the things I should do."
"Holy crap!"
That was some impressive damage control!
Tsubasa Amagiri was utterly stunned.
This wasn't just a day or two, or even a month or two, but a whole two years!
Especially considering the other party was someone like Saya Takagi, managing to completely shut down her advances for two solid years was an unbelievable feat.
Could a normal person even pull that off?
But then, remembering Saeko Busujima's family background, Tsubasa wasn't quite as surprised.
As the sole heir of the prestigious Busujima family, Saeko Busujima's status was definitely on par with that pink-haired tsundere!
"It's a pity that even now, at the end of the world, I still run into her..."
Saeko Busujima shook her head slightly, a hint of weariness in her eyes.
Tsubasa: "....."
The battle unfolded quickly, though not without its complications.
While Tsubasa Amagiri and Saeko Busujima were strong fighters, they were still facing a significant number of the undead.
Just as only a dozen or so zombies remained, the groaning horde from downstairs, alerted by the commotion, finally caught up and surged into the fray with renewed ferocity.
Suddenly, the number of zombies had doubled.
Tsubasa, Saeko, and Shizuka were still holding their own. With their combined strength, even twice the current number of zombies wouldn't pose a serious threat—just a more tiring endeavor requiring more kills. However, the situation was drastically different for Saya Takagi and Miyamoto Rei.
"Ah..."
Miyamoto Rei, wielding her javelin, managed to bash in a female zombie's head with considerable effort. But in that very moment, her body suddenly felt weak, and her legs gave out beneath her.
She was just an ordinary person, after all!
Although she had practiced javelin for several years, her physical strength and combat skills were nowhere near those of seasoned fighters. She was still just a seventeen-year-old girl.
After fighting their way through the relentless onslaught, both her mental and physical reserves were almost completely depleted.
"Am I going to die...?"
Miyamoto Rei's delicate face was etched with confusion and despair as she collapsed to the ground.
"Hohoho..."
"Hoho... Hoho..."
The surrounding zombies roared with renewed excitement, like predators scenting blood, and began to converge on the fallen Miyamoto Rei.
Miyamoto Rei's cry of despair instantly snapped everyone's attention to her.
"Rei!!"
Komuro Takashi snapped back to reality, his face contorting in horror. He instinctively lunged forward, wanting to reach her immediately, but the momentum of his previous rush had unknowingly carried him at least five or six meters away from Miyamoto Rei. Under normal circumstances, that distance would be negligible, just a couple of steps. But now, he could only watch in helpless agony as Miyamoto Rei fell to the ground, instantly surrounded by over a dozen ravenous zombies...