The next day, Daiki didn’t show up in the conference room.
“Does anyone know where Daiki is?”
“Who knows… Isn’t he sleeping?”
“I will go and check.”
Miu stood up and went to the classroom he always slept in.
Since they managed to maintain security inside the school, they no longer had to sleep together in a huddle in the conference room.
Miu knocked on the door.
“Oota.”
No matter how many times she hit the door, no reply came.
“...Are you sleeping?”
While saying that, she raised her hand to the sliding door of the classroom.
The door opened smoothly with a clatter.
However, no matter how many times she looked around in the classroom, she couldn’t see Daiki.
“Oota?”
Miu stepped forward.
When she did that, she saw something white placed on the teacher’s desk.
Looking at it properly, she noticed it was a letter.
“A will…”
Miu opened the seal on the letter and started reading.
“...No way!”
“W-what did you say!?”
Everyone in the conference room became surprised.
“Yes. For some reason, Oota went alone to bring a generation device.”
As she said that, Miu started reading Daiki’s letter aloud.
“I ended up troubling everyone because I wouldn’t believe in Senior’s death. Although I want to apologize to everyone, even if I was forgiven after just apologizing, I won’t be able to be satisfied with that myself. After I have obtained what Senior couldn’t, a generation device, I will apologize. Daiki.”
“Oh… These messy characters1 are definitely Daiki’s handwriting.”
Tooru denied the possibility of the letter having been written by anyone else.
“Since Daiki is the type to not think over things carefully, he’s probably going straight for the hardware store.”
“Since he must have departed in the middle of the night, he should have already arrived by now. But since he still hasn’t returned, he must have had some kind of problem.”
“What do we do?”
“What do you mean by ‘what’...”
Doing that, Takumi stood up abruptly.
“We have to save him. I won’t allow any more deaths.”
Ryou approved Takumi’s thoughts as well.
“Alright! Let’s get going!”
“Yes!”
Everyone picked up a weapon.
– 5 hours ago –
“I somehow reached it…”
Daiki arrived at the hardware store near the shopping district.
He rotated the hand-turning flashlight2 and shone on the entrance.
“Barricade?”
The automatic door at the entrance of the store was completely blocked with wooden planks from the merchandise.
The sharp iron pipes sticking out between the planks were stained in blood.
Only the sound of the hand-turning flashlight being rotated was heard in the otherwise silence.
“...?”
Daiki discovered a window not covered by the barricade.
Packing tape was stuck on it, and he carefully cracked it with the hammer… but, unfortunately, the hammer was too strong and the glass broke with a loud noise except for the packing tape.
“!?”
Shocked by the sound he caused, he looked around, and luckily, there were no signs of zombies appearing.
He crammed his big body through the broken window and intruded into the store.
“Bathroom, huh…”
The place he had entered was the men’s bathroom.
“Gross!”
Perhaps someone had done their business not knowing that the water was clogged because it gave off a pretty bad stench.
“I have to hurry and get out…”
Daiki put his hand on the door.
As he did that, he got stuck into something.
“Huh?”
Looking in front of his hands, he saw that a fishing line was entwined around the door handle, and that line lead to beyond that point.
“Beyond…?”
A part of a huge hammerhead was growing bigger in front of Daiki.
“Woah!?”
Flustered, he bent his body backward, and the hammerhead grazed his body as it zeroed in on the broke window he had come through.
The hammer tumbled to the floor with a bang.
“W-what was that…?”
He might have come to an outrageous place.
Daiki held the fallen hammer in his hands and fixed his gaze on the point beyond the door, watching it carefully.
“...Alright, let’s do it!”
Daiki touched the door once again.
–3 hours ago –
“I-is this Vietnam…?”
The only thing he found after going through the hardware store for an hour and a half was that it was full of traps.
The discovery of a private power generation was still unfinished.
He had been close to death numerous times during the search.
Knives came flying, flames were emitted, nails fell down, and various other things.
Daiki, who miraculously dodged them all, was finally about to reach the last room.
“Bloodstains…”
Bloodstains lead to the door.
They were like traces of someone being dragged.
He could probably not be too careful.
Daiki fixed his grip on the hammer and stuck his back to the wall beside the door.
“Huh? What did people say when breaking in again… ‘You’re arrested’.. is wrong, right? ‘Right to strike3’
He thought of an idea.
Daiki laid his hand on the door and pushed it open with all his strength.
Kiri-sute gomen. This was something used during the Edo period by samurais. (Click for longer explanation)
They were allowed to kill commoners for perceived affronts, meaning they had the right to kill any low-class commoner who compromised their honor. The strike had to happen directly after the offense, and the receiving end had the right of defending themselves. The samurai had to also prove that his action was right to the government and have a witness attesting to it. Without justification, it could lead to destitution of his job and/or a death sentence.