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After wiping out the zombies that had just appeared around her, Saeko Busujima stood quietly in place, blood still dripping from the edge of her wooden blade.
"So this… this is the apocalypse you were talking about?"
"That's right. How does it feel?"
Venom's voice came with a faint smile, curious to know her answer.
Saeko slowly raised her bokken in response.
Behind her, a student who had been bitten to death twitched and began to rise again.
The wooden blade swung down without hesitation, sending the corpse flying. Blood sprayed through the air, and Saeko's eyes flashed with something close to excitement.
"…Amazing."
Meanwhile, back in one of the classrooms, the teacher was still diligently lecturing from the textbook.
The door slid open, and a lone figure stepped inside.
"You there! Which class are you from? It's lesson time—who said you could just walk in?"
The teacher frowned at the newcomer. The kid's face looked a little off, but he dismissed it and scolded him anyway.
The student didn't answer. He just kept walking forward, step by step.
"You little—ah!"
Before the teacher could even finish his lecture, the boy lunged forward and sank his teeth deep into the man's neck.
A horrible scream echoed through the room as blood sprayed across the blackboard.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
The students froze, then erupted into panicked shrieks.
The noise drew in the zombies wandering the hallway. Within seconds, a dozen of them burst through the door.
Saya Takagi pushed up her glasses and spoke calmly:
"Move."
At her command, several nearby students immediately stood. Each one pulled a Nepalese kukri knife from their desk drawers.
In a matter of moments, the zombies inside the classroom were hacked down.
"If you want to stay alive, shut your mouths."
Saya rose to her feet, frowning at the terrified wailing of her classmates.
The second they heard her words, the screaming cut off like a switch had been flipped.
A handful of armed students stepped forward to stand at her side, their blood-stained blades dripping onto the floor.
Saya glanced at the corpses and issued her next order:
"Contact the other squads on campus. Tell them to regroup."
"Understood."
One of them nodded, slipped an earpiece over his head, and started relaying the command.
"All units—action."
Across other classrooms, selected students drew their hidden weapons and began clearing out nearby zombies.
Saya then gathered up the surviving students, merging them with her armed escort.
In no time, she had more than twenty soldiers standing ready before her.
"Zombies are drawn to sound. Unless I say otherwise, fight silently."
"Yes, ma'am."
The trained group answered in unison.
Turning back to the crowd of ordinary students huddled behind her, Saya adjusted her glasses again.
"You've got two choices. One—come with us, but that means absolute obedience to my orders. Two—stay here and die."
The announcement immediately set off nervous murmurs among the classmates.
"We're not saints, and we don't owe you a rescue. The decision's yours."
Her cold words silenced them. She simply waited.
"…I'll go with you."
The quiet was broken by a voice. A hand went up in the crowd, and a plump boy shuffled forward.
"Your name's… Hirano Kōuta, right?" Saya asked, faintly surprised she even remembered him.
The boy was usually timid, the sort to shrink at the back of the room. She hadn't expected him to be the first to step forward now. That earned him, at least, a second glance.
"That's me."
Kōuta rubbed his head awkwardly, smiling shyly.
"From what I recall, you're just a military otaku. Not much use, honestly."
Saya narrowed her eyes, combing through her memory of him.
"Heh… heh-heh…"
Kōuta's silly grin slipped into a wry smile.
But once someone had broken the silence, others followed. One by one, students began to choose.
Soon enough, Saya, her twenty-odd armed escorts, and a larger group of classmates set out toward the rendezvous point.
Any zombies that dared block their path were cut down in an instant by her escorts.
Because these weren't ordinary students at all—Saya's twenty were mercenaries, specially trained in combat and firearms.
Why was she a student at this school in the first place?
Simple. Hold a blade to the principal's throat, drop a suitcase full of cash on the desk, and tell me—what would you choose?
"....."