This chapter had originally had her retching. The scene was so bloody her body genuinely couldn't take it.
What met her eyes was a road carpeted with mangled corpses. Some were missing feet, some had lost their lower legs, some were disemboweled, some nearly cut in half at the waist.
But almost all shared one common trait: their heads had been destroyed—practically decapitated, cleanly separated from the body.
So now, with sticky, bright crimson flesh everywhere, it was impossible to tell which chunk belonged to which corpse.
The entire road had almost no clean place to step. Underfoot was nothing but gore and shredded meat.
And now everyone who got off the bus helped clear the bodies so the bus could drive again.
Otherwise, with corpses everywhere and blood slicking the ground, the bus would have trouble moving—its tires would lose traction.
There were too many bodies to move by hand, of course. They were using whatever tools they could.
She was using a long spear—something she'd snatched from the school and used as a weapon—to hook bodies and drag them aside.
Kohta Hirano used a baseball bat. Saya and the others used the kinds of boards people held during demonstrations—signboards, placards, anything with leverage.
Guh—guh!
This time it wasn't Ms. Marikawa throwing up.
Saya couldn't hold it either, and vomited.
So what the hell was that man?
Killing the living dead for him looked like a butcher slaughtering chickens—quick, practiced, effortless. He simply walked in and did it.
He was practically a humanoid gorilla. Some of the living dead were literally hurled into the air.
That kind of brute strength was not something a normal human could produce.
Now he was moving away from the intersection, waiting for the loudspeaker to stop—though the noise still seemed to echo in their ears.
He hadn't cleared every single one. It didn't look like he couldn't. It was just that there was no point in doing something that stupid.
When things were finally more or less dealt with, everyone who returned to the bus immediately collapsed into their seats. Some people trembled uncontrollably.
What they'd seen today… they never wanted to see again. It would probably become a lifelong trauma.
Saeko and Saya seemed to be talking about something.
"Saeko, what did you see just now?"
Saya couldn't help asking.
"I said I don't know. Do you understand? I've actually known him for less than a day."
"What? Then why are you helping him? You don't look threatened."
"Because he might be this world's hope."
That answer left Saya completely stunned.
"Listen. This world becoming like this has nothing to do with him. Not even a little. And what you touched has nothing to do with the course of this world either. If anything, it's the opposite. It's because he appeared and brought that thing that this world might not spiral into something even worse."
"Isn't that contradictory? You just said you've known him for less than a day. Why do you trust him so much?"
"It's less than a day face-to-face. That doesn't mean I didn't know him. Like… an online friend."
Except this "online friend" was abnormal.
It wasn't a distance between countries, and it wasn't an ocean apart.
It was an unimaginable distance—between universes.
After saying that, Saeko made a graceful turn—then stepped through the doorway that led back toward the dorm entrance.
Looking down at the sword in her hand, Saeko tightened her grip.
If she could become stronger… then she could shoulder more of the burden, and he could rest more.
The time he could remain in this world wasn't long. Once he returned, he would be facing a situation even more hellish than this.
"W-wait. An online friend?"
Saya's mouth twitched, but she understood what Saeko was implying.
Saeko knew more about him. She simply wasn't ready to share more—because the level of trust hadn't reached that point yet.
But the way Saeko said it… it weirdly matched Kohta's ridiculous "future" theory.
If he was from the future, then of course it had nothing to do with their present world.
And "online friend"… a conversation between a future network and the present network?
In The Terminator, the future could cross into the past. So a scenario where "future internet" somehow connected to "present internet" wasn't entirely impossible as a story logic.
So that would explain it.
Why he knew information about the past, why he knew things about Ms. Marikawa, why he seemed to know things about Saya too.
Oh, in that case—hmph. Looks like she, Saya Takagi, would have an enormous role in the future. She was the protagonist—
No. Obviously not.
Stop being childish. Be rational.
These were all guesses. The truth would only be known when Saeko decided to say it.
Mystery rules, after all.
Huh?
A sound—he was back.
After that, they encountered almost no further obstacles and arrived smoothly at Ms. Marikawa's friend's house.
In the garage, they really did see the "tank-like" vehicle. It was obviously not something an ordinary person could get their hands on—a specialized vehicle.
Most likely, Ms. Marikawa's friend was military, or special police.
And after entering the house, Saya subtly observed something about the homeowner's identity—female.
"Huh? We're not staying here overnight? It's dark now. Isn't it dangerous at night?"
Ms. Marikawa's intention was to let everyone rest and continue tomorrow.
Maybe the national armed forces would have things under control by then. Maybe tomorrow would be better.
But the mysterious man only allowed a short rest and a quick refill of food.
He was in a hurry.
"Don't bet on tomorrow being better. It's only going to get worse. And we need to move while vehicles still work. Otherwise we'll end up walking."
"Vehicles still work? What do you mean?"
Saya didn't want to ask it, but his tone implied that soon cars wouldn't be usable—as if something would happen to them.
"An EMP attack."
The one who answered—Kain—didn't elaborate further. He was eating.
Even if his body was exceptionally tough, his energy wasn't infinite. He needed food to keep himself in peak condition.
He also hoped the STC hard drive really did contain the Panacea.
But at this world's technological level, could it be produced in such a short time?
After all, this wasn't a complete STC. What he had was more like a "core board," a master template.
To manufacture any final product, you needed manufacturing machinery. You needed to attach mechanical systems to the "board" and assemble an entire production chain.
That was complicated. Painfully so.
Could it really be done within a hundred hours—no, they didn't have a hundred hours anymore.
They had only eighty-something hours left.
Could they actually finish it in that time?
If they could manufacture the Panacea at any cost before he had to return, their survival odds would skyrocket.
"Eh? An EMP attack? Like a bomb that targets electronics? The usual range isn't that big… and it would be aimed at us?"
Kohta's eyes lit up again.
This gun-toting monster was clearly extraordinary. And if "someone behind the scenes" was launching attacks to stop him, then that meant he really might be…
A Terminator.
Too cool.
And speaking of which—what exactly were the bullets in that gun?
They definitely weren't Japanese rounds miniaturized. The ammunition was something else entirely.
Kohta had seen him "irradiate" those living dead at school.
"No… wait. Are you saying all cars will stop working? That would require an EMP of a totally different scale…"
Saya's face turned pale.
"And that scale means…"
Kohta also realized it, and his face tightened.
"A high-altitude nuclear burst?"
The answer came from a second-year boy with glasses named Ishii Kazu—someone who looked rational and composed.
And that was the same conclusion Saya and Kohta had just reached.
"Wait, why would there be a high-altitude nuclear detonation?"
"Are they going to ignore whether we live or die and just nuke this city to wipe out the virus and stop the spread?"
The other students panicked.
"Calm down. If they launched a direct nuclear strike on this city, we would already see it."
Saya's words forced a few to steady their breathing. It made sense.
"And look at what's happening on TV. This is a global outbreak. They can't possibly nuke the entire world clean. The situation is…"
Saya laid out her reasoning.
A nuclear strike would be used against locations with military value.
And a nuke detonated on the ground would cause physical destruction, but it wouldn't necessarily "erase" an entire city the way people imagined.
No—if you analyzed it in terms of "loss vs. value," a high-altitude burst had more strategic utility.
A high-altitude burst created a huge EMP field—tens of square kilometers—crippling electronics and anything with integrated circuits. Everything would collapse.
No communications. No vehicles. Total systemic failure.
In a world already drowning in chaos, with living dead everywhere, it would be catastrophic.
As for why nuclear weapons would be used at all, that wasn't hard to understand.
A sudden global viral outbreak, escalating and spiraling out of control…
If things became even worse, some countries might decide they were doomed anyway, and choose to drag everyone else down with them.
In other words, if they couldn't win, nobody could.
If everyone was forced down to the same level, then as soon as one nuclear weapon was launched, Pandora's box was open.
No nuclear power would trust that the first launch wouldn't eventually be aimed at them.
So they would launch too.
And then it would become global nuclear war.
At that thought, Saya's face went even whiter.
For now, though, this city—Fushu City—didn't have enough value for a direct nuclear strike.
But it could absolutely fall within EMP range.
If the strange "fortress" hard drive he carried contained something that could counter the virus, then they needed to move fast while electronics still functioned, understand the process, and produce the cure.
If they waited until the EMP hit, it would be over.
So yes—no staying overnight.
They had to go now.
(End of Chapter)
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