Hirano Gakuen High School, with its three grades and faculty, barely scraped together a thousand people.
Excluding the lucky ones who fled to the gymnasium at the first sign of the viral outbreak, and the portion of the "dead" drawn away by those lucky few, the actual number of "dead" remaining in the teaching building wasn't that high. Most were newly turned "dead" – those who'd been bitten or killed and then reanimated – scattered relatively evenly across the floors of the main teaching building.
With Luo Jie's current strength, even if he were surrounded by hundreds of the "dead," he could calmly carve a path through them alone. The three dozen or so scattered "dead" in the corridor posed no threat to him whatsoever.
Protecting Miyamoto Rei, he pushed steadily downward along the stairs. When they reached the ground floor, Luo Jie was confronted by a trio of players struggling to hack down the "dead" in the corridor.
He vaguely remembered these three as part of one of the Chinese player squads, though they hadn't been seen at Hirano Gakuen before. Clearly, they must have entered the school grounds as nearby surviving civilians after the virus outbreak.
The three were startled when they saw someone coming down from upstairs, but breathed a small sigh of relief when they recognized them as living people. One asked Luo Jie, "Classmate, are there still 'dead' upstairs?"
Though they had no impression of Luo Jie, the古朴 samurai sword he wielded – its grade indiscernible – was enough to confirm he was, like them, an Illusion Player.
"Maybe some on the rooftop," Luo Jie replied casually. Presumably, Komuro Takashi would have lured a few there during his escape.
One of the men's faces fell at this, muttering under his breath, "Those bastards are quick. I was hoping to earn some points by clearing the teaching building..."
"Shut up! Be careful the plot characters hear you! Can't you see that girl behind the guy is Miyamoto Rei, one of the plot characters?" his teammate hissed a rebuke.
Revealing the secrets of the Illusion to plot characters carried no penalty, but it easily caused them to spiral emotionally, unable to accept their own existence, which would be extremely detrimental to completing the mission.
Thus, hiding one's Player identity and not revealing the secrets of the Illusion World to plot characters or factions was an unspoken rule all Players followed during missions.
Luo Jie's current Spirit Attribute was already 400 points, making his senses nearly four times that of an ordinary person. Even though the man had lowered his voice, Luo Jie heard him clearly.
From their conversation, a possibility occurred to Luo Jie, and he asked, "How's the situation outside?"
One of the men, wielding an iron rod, shrugged. "If I had to guess, the are probably cleared of 'dead' by now..."
Hearing this, Luo Jie immediately went to the window and looked out through the clear glass.
On the vast playground, dozens of Players, armed with various weapons, were heaving bodies over the wall. Within his field of vision, there were no moving bodies other than the living.
Luo Jie's brow furrowed deeper.
This butterfly effect... is way too big.
...
"Yeyan, you're back!"
Pushing open the door to the infirmary, Ross immediately greeted him with a look of pleasure.
Luo Jie quickly scanned the room. The two windows facing the playground were shattered, and several bodies with head wounds lay sprawled near them. Ross and Sapphire still had faint, drying bloodstains on their clothes. Clearly, there had been a small crisis here not long ago.
"Ah! Xiao Ye!" Marikawa Shizuka's reaction was even more intense than Ross's. She opened her arms and threw herself at Luo Jie, her massive bosom completely engulfing his face as she whined in a coquettish manner, "Where did you go? Let me tell you, there were so many suspicious people trying to rush in earlier! I was so scared, my heart's still pounding..."
Ross was dumbfounded (◎_◎;), tears streaming down his face as he bit his finger.
"It was me, Ms. Marikawa... I was the one who took down the zombies and protected you! Dammit, I really want to feel what the legendary 'facial cleanser' is like..."
Sapphire's face darkened again, as black as the bottom of a pot. She silently took a bottle of facial cleanser from her storage space, turned the opening downward, and squeezed the entire bottle of milky liquid over Ross's head and face.
"Ah – I'm dying! I'm dying!"
The daily routine of Ross rolling around, clutching his titanium dog eyes.
Luo Jie glanced at Ross, still rolling around on the floor, and pointedly ignored the idiotic masochist. He turned to Sapphire and asked, "Sapphire, anything happen while I was gone?"
Sapphire's gaze lingered briefly on Miyamoto Rei beside Luo Jie, a questioning look in her eyes. However, she remembered the ground rules Luo Jie had set with them earlier and tactfully avoided the topic, nodding in response, "Someone came to the infirmary earlier to inform us to gather in the gymnasium for a meeting. They said they're going to discuss the next steps."
"This reshuffle is really thorough," Luo Jie sneered noncommittally, standing up. "Let's go. To the gymnasium. I want to see what tricks these people can pull."
Hirano Gakuen's gymnasium was located behind the teaching buildings, a large square structure with a curved dome.
Besides serving as the volleyball club's training ground, it occasionally doubled as an auditorium; the recent opening ceremony had been held there.
At this moment, all the survivors in Hirano Gakuen were gathered here. The venue, which could normally accommodate over a thousand people, was nearly four-fifths empty, a desolate sight.
The students who'd narrowly escaped huddled together by class, their ashen faces reflecting blankness and uncertainty about the future. No one spoke; the only sounds in the silent space were a few sobs from unknown sources.
After estimating the number of surviving students in the gymnasium, Luo Jie frowned and quietly said to Ross beside him, "About 200 left. Those Players really messed up the plot thoroughly."
"Yeah," Ross said, still sniffling from the lingering sting of the facial cleanser. "In the original work, only the main character Komuro Takashi's group and the antagonist Shido Koichi's group escaped. Now the number of survivors is almost ten times that..."
"The most critical thing is that they've cleared all the 'dead' from the school grounds. The plot NPCs no longer have a reason to escape," Sapphire, who rarely spoke, offered her opinion.
"No, there still is," Luo Jie shook his head, not elaborating, and gestured for them to wait and see.
They made their way to the gymnasium, curious to see what these people had in store.