Chapter 8 - An Odd Couple

A fat person and a tall and lanky person dashed into the hallway.

“This is bad! Seriously!”

The fat person said, out of breath.

“Yeah, really bad! Everyone somehow became zombies!”

The tall and lanky person seemed exhausted,

In front of their eyes was the cooking class’ classroom.

“Let’s go in here!”

“Okay!”

They jumped into the room, and locked the door.

“Hah, hah… Hah. Ah, how hard…”

“Hih, hih, I can’t run anymore…”

The two of them sat down, not moving anymore.

The fat person’s name was Ryu Kamada.

And the tall and lanky person’s name was Rei Shimaura.

Both of them were in first year class 3.

After entering the school, regardless of acquaintances, like the climax of a story of some robot anime, they had hit it off and were now close friends.

“If it’s the cooking class’ classroom, there should be kitchen knives and stuff, right…”

Ryu muttered.

“Huh? That means…”

“Yeah. Since it seems like you get infected after being bitten, we should at least have some kind of weapon.”

“Is that okay…”

Ryu handed a kitchen knife to Rei.

“Well, won’t it be legitimate self-defense?”

“No, when the chaos is over, won’t we be arrested!?”

“If it will be over… that is.”

They’re infected after being bitten.

It looked inefficient at the first glance, but in reality, it was terrifying.

Because the chance of being infected from a bite was “100%”.

And the bitten people also become zombies and attack humans.

The multiply rate was like rats’.

To make matters worse, they could hear sirens downtown.

That meant that most of the people on the streets had probably joined the zombies.

Perhaps they were the only survivors in this school.

The present situation only became worse the more they looked at it.

“First off, how to protect ourselves, right…”

“That’s true…”

Immediately after saying that, a zombie slowly rose in the inner part of the cooking class’ classroom.

“Y-you are…”

A zombie wearing glasses.

It was Shinta, a club member of Ryu and Rei, who they had hung out with a lot.

“Hey… Rei, it’s a lie, right? Why, a zombie…”

Rei became dumbfounded.

Ryu stabbed Rei lightly with his elbow and urged him to take the kitchen knife.

Rei grasped the knife tightly.

Ryu said,

“I think it’s only Shin. Let’s think properly. We are two, he’s one. It’s two against one.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m unable to bear it, but we have to kill him before he kills us.”

“...Got it.”

To kill your friend with your own hands.

Normally, you’d naturally hesitate and object.

If it was normally that is.

However, in this chaotic situation, common sense was meaningless.

Additionally, a harmful being was right in front of you, furthermore, they were numerically advantaged in this situation.

There was no option to object.

Ryu and Rei were relatively quick in making the resolution to kill what “once was”.

For example, it was like killing a cockroach if pesticide was close by.

Ryu took a deep breath and relaxed his shoulders.

And sent a signal to Rei with his eyes.

Rei nodded.

“Forgive me!”

“Sorry!”

As each of them expressed their own thoughts, they swung the kitchen knives.

Their kitchen knives pierced the zombie’s neck on each side, and it seemed like the neck was on the verge of staying upright.

However, the zombie was still moving its limbs.

“Once more!”

Ryu pulled out his knife from the zombie’s neck, and taking a step backward, he aimed at the back of the neck and thrust the knife.

The point of the knife wasn’t able to cut the spine, but it cut up the skin on the left side.

The zombie fell face down.

A heavy breathing filled the home economics room.

“...Ugh, blergh!”

Rei vomited.

Ryu put up with his nausea as well.

They had killed the person who had “once been” that had been alive just a few hours ago.

Cutting the skin of the neck, they could see the bones.

And, because the carotid artery was snapped apart, there was an immense amount of bleeding.

In actuality, since the heart had stopped, there wasn’t that much blood, but for high school students who weren’t used to seeing blood, the stimulation was too much.

“Shit… What the heck was that… Damn it…”

Ryu grumbled while holding his mouth.

His tone of voice had a mixture of resentment and incompetence.

At that time.

Ping pong ping pong.

A bell resounded.

They reflexively looked at the speaker.

“One two, one two. The survivors in the school, can you hear me?”

Ryu and Rei couldn’t believe that there was a guy relaxed enough in this situation to broadcast.