From there, I became the leader of one group in this class.

I had been a truly inconspicuous male student until now, but I told everyone the means of survival I had from the information I had gathered.

Opposing people naturally showed up.

No, the majority was the opposition, found fault with my words, and laughed at me.

Still, several people in the group led by me, including Ando-san, decided to take action.

I had few friends.

Although there were a few I talked with on LINE or in the classroom, I had no friends to spend time with outside of school.

To tell the truth, I had no friends at this school.

Therefore, I had never thought I could gather six people.

I could somehow understand that Ando-san, the class committee member, would come to speak with me.

Since Katsutoshi-san and Touno-san were on good terms with Ando, there was a connection there.

However, the male students Tanaka and Sanne who were nerds and in the lower caste in the class, and a girl who was alone at the time, Oota-san, were unexpected.

In order for us seven to survive from now on, we will work together, but first of all, it was essential for us to escape safely from school and obtain a new safety zone.

“Uh, Yakumo-kun. First off, let’s look for stuff that can be used as weapons? And practice self-defense, and...”

“That is the remaining place, huh. Things that could be weapons in the school are like a metal bat, I guess. Otherwise, a mop or sasumata¹ to maintain a distance.”

“You really can’t knock out a person using a mop or sasumata.”

“That’s right. And, there’s probably not anyone who has killed a person before, so I don’t know what kind of training is needed for that.”

“That’s how it is. Therefore, in order to obtain safety, it’s to the point of finding something long to keep the enemy in check. But, since it’s inconvenient to carry, it’s only for the guys.”

“Then, what should we do?”

“Do you have any special skills? Working out is fine, or something like cooking. Agriculture would be the best.”

“C-cooking is a little…”

“I can do it.”

Oota-san raised her voice for the first time since they had gathered and surprised him a little.

And he was surprised to hear her say she could cook, but after that, she whispered an explanation that her family owned a Chinese restaurant and she used to help out from an early age, she did the housework on behalf of her mother as well.

“Ohh! So Oota-san had high femininity, huh. It’ll be a fighting power, this.”

“This will become a fighting force?”

“It will, it will. I don’t have as many survival skills as Yakumo-kun, but in this situation, cooking with less food, hygiene management, knowledge of wild plants, etc will be important, super important.”

“Oh, therefore agriculture? Then, Misa’s grandfather is a farmer.”

“Yeah, I know a little. I went out to play at my grandfather's house as a child and went to mountains and stuff.”

“Ohh!”

Katsutoshi-san, whose name was Misa, seemed to have experience and knowledge of the natural system.

This was was also a fighting power.

Katsutoshi-san was a girl who liked climbing mountains.

No, I didn’t have my eyes on anything else, you know?

“Well, then I might have something to put to use too? My father is a security officer, you see? I’ve been taught a little about self-defense courses in his company, and I might know a little about that?”

“Maybe, like how to use a baton?”

“I haven’t used the long one a lot, but if it’s the short version, I’ve learned how to use it. Rather than that, it’s more like a way to escape, I guess?”

“Ohh!”

While I was gathering information, I took a look at the surroundings, but even then, I am grateful for not understanding.

“S-so it turned out like this. Aren’t I and Sanne useless?”

“What will you do if you don't put your knowledge as a nerd to use in times like now? Aren’t there a lot of works with zombies in them?”

“No, well, that’s true.”

“Y-yeah. But, it’s only fantasy in 2D after all.”

“It would be good to apply it as a template though. Well, I’m expecting something substantial like manual labor.”

“Don’t expect unreasonable things from nerds!”

Mine, Tanaka’s, and Sanne’s three-person act made Anzou-san and the others laugh.

“They can really laugh in these circumstances”, is what I felt like the people glaring at us were thinking, but we have to laugh precisely because of this situation.

If you only think of negative things, it’ll end with you acting recklessly.

You should take time and laugh.

If you can’t do this much, this world would change into a harsh one.

“Well then, since the others can hear us from now on, I want us to be quieter. Come closer.”

The group drew closer and I told them in a low voice,

“First off, let’s leave the questions about the content I’m going to tell you to after. I will tell you about what I know and our plan from now on, so it would be helpful if you ask me what you want to know at the end.”

After confirming everyone nodding, I also looked around at the people in our surroundings and confirmed that there were people being conscious about us.

Therefore, I only spoke about things to the degree that it was fine even if they heard.

“First off, I will talk about what I know regarding the zombies. In a few hours of being bitten, or touching body fluid or mucous membrane, there’s a high mortality percentage and turning into a zombie.”

Everything I was going to talk about zombies was from information I had gathered on the internet.

It was information taken from the internet that had low credibility, but since it was a video where they explained, I chose to believe in it.

And then, there’s the thing about body fluids, a stupid internet user broadcasted an experiment with mice that ate zombie meat and blood and since it was safe, they ate and drank it themself and turned into a zombie.

In another video with information, it didn’t seem to have any effect on animals, but only humans died and turned into zombies.

And in other experiments, even if you ate a pig that had been fed zombie blood, you wouldn’t turn into a zombie.

Furthermore, in the most stupid video, they said that someone had been able to have sexual intercourse with a captured zombie.

I didn’t know what happened to the poster in the end, but when I saw that there was no follow-up video, I guessed that they had turned into a zombie.

Also, a person’s arm had been bitten by a zombie, which was immediately amputated, and the person didn’t die even after several hours. Then, several days later, they died from lack of medical treatment, but didn’t turn into a zombie.

From this fact, you could understand that coming into contact with mucous membrane such as being bitten by a zombie, something called zombie bacterium would run around your body for several hours, and, as a result, you turn into a zombie after dying.

“Zombies destroy the heads, strictly speaking, if their brains are greatly damaged, the brain activity will stop working. Also, if you destroy the spine, the lower body won’t be able to move.”

A video about this was also uploaded where they spoke about zombies using nerves to be able to move, and if you destroyed them, they wouldn’t be able to move.

There had been hope that zombies wouldn’t be able to move if you stopped their brain activity since it wouldn’t be able to send signals to the body.

Incidentally, a video about dissecting zombies was distributed, but the poster said that they couldn’t find anything that was different from a human body.

Yet, since they weren’t a doctor nor an anatomist, it seemed like they had made the decision based on information from the internet.

“Zombies won’t rot even after several days, and they move slowly but forcefully. Humans unconsciously put a limit on their movements to save energy, but I think the limit is probably removed for zombies.”

There were setting of zombies categorized as rotting zombies and starving zombies, but it seemed like zombies outside of fiction weren’t like that.

It was probably better to not run.

“Zombies become quite weak, but their sight, hearing, and smell are active, so they seem to use them to judge people as human and attack them. By the way, there is information that they don’t attack other animals and most of all react to loud sounds.”

For some reason, zombies’ nature was to solely attack humans and be drawn to loud sounds.

The information that they didn’t attack animals was actually very usable.

That way, you can use animals to defeat them, and it would ensure their safety.

Furthermore, there was no need to worry about the meat used as food would be eaten by zombies.

“Based on this, we will move with a small number of people. We carry as little metal objects as possible that can make loud sounds if our luggage hits each other as we walk.”

From here on, I would speak about what to take note of when we left here and our future plan.

“First off, we have to secure a location to go outside, I think we could go to the person who lives closest here. From there on, we’ll either head to the mountains, go to a facility with a power station, or a base like the Self-Defense Force.”

I decided on someone’s house because we would know the place and have a key to it.

If they’d trespass into a stranger’s house by breaking a glass window, it would make it easy for zombies to get in, and there was the concern of the sound it would cause to break the glass.

Furthermore, it would be different from the sense of security that my own house or someone else’s house would give.

And in the case of going toward the mountain, it was selected as a place we could live in the seven of us.

Honestly speaking, in this current situation, I didn’t think we could choose this option, so it was something to talk about later on.

And the best would be to take refuge in a place like the Self-Defense Force.

We would be under someone’s protection, but the Self-Defense Force would have the highest degree of safety, so no one should oppose it.

“Well then, my talk is over now, but I’ll take questions.”

From there, I spent a lot of time just answering questions.

Outside was getting dark, and the clock hanging on the wall showed that it was eleven o’clock in the evening.

The questions after that were not only from the members in the group, but also other classmates in the classroom.

It didn’t matter that they asked since I had only spoken to that degree, but hearing them call me a liar after they listened to me was, as expected, irritating.

It didn’t matter even if they didn’t believe me.

That was a sort of self-defense too after all.

Well then, it was about time for me to move.

The lights in the classroom were switched off, and the only light source came from the moonlight and the decreasing town lights.

At any rate, when the electricity was on, zombies would be attracted to the light.

The information I had given was well-known in the school, and although there were arguments for and against, it was obligatory to switch off the lights at nighttime.

There was a rule that it was fine to have an emergency light in case you absolutely needed to go to the bathroom or similar.

Also, phones and such became unavailable at nighttime, and there were quite a few complaints from the students.

Since that was the case, my position as the source of information was becoming unpleasant as well.

That was why it was necessary to leave the school as soon as possible.

Before that, there was something I absolutely had to obtain.

In order to get that, I started moving by myself silently.

In passing, the students in the classroom were sleeping at their seats or close to the wall.

Normally, it was probably rarely the case that they were asleep at eleven o’clock, but in the situation where phones and electricity were restricted, they had no choice but to sleep.

And then, the place I was heading for was the janitor’s room.

I wasn’t aiming for food, but if I went there, I would certainly obtain a weapon.

Aside from that, we had prepared a minimum of weapons, but they are at the very least limited to be used against people, so they were unfit to fight against zombies with.

I had said that it was best to carry as little metal as possible, but in order to fight zombies, objects made of metal were necessary.

“So there really is someone here.”

In order to not be noticed by anyone, I took my time in reaching the janitor’s room, but a small light was shining through the window.

Precisely because this school was a private school, the janitor’s room was extravagantly built as well.

A refrigerator, air conditioning and heating, and a futon were prepared as well, and it became able to use it as accommodation, so the janitor was sometimes staying the night here.

However, the janitor had retired because of his retirement age the preceding year, and from this year, he was temporarily employed by the senior citizen human resources, so instead of every day, he only worked daytime every other day.

I had thought it was fine since today was supposed to be the janitor’s rest day, but it seemed like some teachers were using it as an accommodation facility.

Peeking through the window to the room, I saw several teachers sitting in front of a TV screen, eating.

Since the curtains in the janitor’s room were thick enough to block the light from leaking outside, it seemed like they were using this room to gather information instead of the staff room.

However, the window leading to the hallway in the school building didn’t have any curtains, so although they had tried to prevent it by hanging up a cloth, I could see through because of an opening in it.

Since there were other convenient things other than just weapons to obtain, I had wanted to scour it, but let’s give up.

I decided to obediently borrow solely weapons.

There was a storehouse outside the janitor’s room with various tools inside.

Saws and scissors to cut branches, hammers.

These kinds of tools can be used as weapons.

The prefabricated window to the storehouse was already broken and could be easily opened, so I went inside.

I wrapped the bar and other metal objects in paper that I had my eye on in advance.

After that, I picked up the evergreen oak tree brush that the janitor had boasted about and removed the top, making it only have a tip.

Since it became only an evergreen oak stick, it was hard and durable, so it became a splendid weapon and would surely be useful.

Then, I wrapped a cloth and a towel around a stepladder, making it so it wouldn’t make a sound before leaving the storehouse.

I headed back along the wall that was a blind spot of the school building.

It was easy to hide things in the shrubbery there.

I approached the perfect place, and after going back and forth and procuring tools, I hid them in that place.

The next step would be waking up early tomorrow and stepping out, but going out all of a sudden could become a problem.

So I took the evergreen oak stick and went up the wall to take a glance at the road.

Not finding any zombies, there were only the wind and I that was making a noise.

That alone gave off an ominous feeling, but I took out the stepladder and descended safely as a test, after confirming it to be fine, I went down to the ground.

Well then, let’s try if I could really take down some zombies.

I set out to the town in the moonlight.

If I were to only present the results, I was able to take down a zombie.

According to the information, zombies moved slowly, and if you made a hard impact on their heads, you would be able to bring them down.

Others were smell and sound, with this amount of light, I understood that their eyesight was of no avail.

I dried my face with the aired laundry, threw it at the zombie approaching me, and observed it being pulled toward it with background music sounding in the distance.

The most effective way to defeat them was to put something on their faces and hit them with a crowbar from behind.

I wasn’t able to defeat it with a single hit, but it stopped its movements, probably because the brain had become shaken by the impact, and hit it repeatedly until it stopped moving at all.

The first time I killed something with my own hands, my mind couldn’t take it and I threw up.

Still, I had to do this to survive.

Besides, the times I went to the convenience store or supermarket out of satiation to get meat was over.

Therefore, I had to kill something myself to eat.

In order to grow used to them as well, I kept hunting down zombies afterwards.

Still, I had changed my clothes to laundry and didn’t dirty the uniform by getting blood on it.

“Everyone, let’s go.”

The next morning, it was slowly becoming the time when light lit up the window.

I woke up the members of the group and started moving.

Sneaking away from the so-called community of the school, we had decided to go and live on our own.

Yesterday, everyone’s faces were gloomy, so they were probably anxious, as I was expecting.

Maybe they had only been sleepy, but at any rate, everyone’s complexion had become lighter.

We silently walked out to the hallway and headed for the escape point.

No one wasted their breath and simply walked in silence.

And then we went out in our outdoor shoes and everyone bent as much as possible forward as we advanced to the school grounds.

Becoming separated from the school building, we finally arrived near the escape point and I raised my voice.

“Alright, it’s fine to talk quietly among ourselves now.”

“Sigh, I had trouble breathing.”

“That’s true. Wait, what did you prepare all this time?”

“For tomorrow night.”

“Huh? Then, didn’t you sleep, Yakumo-kun?”

“I slept a little, okay. But, I did honestly get too worked up and couldn’t sleep much at all. Isn’t that the truth for everyone?”

“T-that’s true…”

“That’s why, well, the wall isn’t two meters, but it’s still fairly high. Isn’t it better to have something like this?”

“Yeah, we can survive for sure.”

“Also, the things specially brought for the girls.”

After getting the stepladder ready, I handed over the things I had gotten outside.

“Huh? This is, oh, lower garments.”

I thought that it would be dangerous to wear skirts from now on.

Because of guys’ lust and injuries.

Therefore, I came to make preparations, but the things were inspected.

“Thank you, Yakumo-kun.”

“Uhm, is the reason you chose sweatpants because of the size? Thank you.”

“But where did you get this? You didn’t buy this, right?”

“Hmm, it’s easy to put on.”

No, no, the reason for choosing sweatpants was the availability.

At any rate, as for laundry, it was fine to just air it.

By the way, Tanaka and Sanne.

I would like to not be glared at.

“Well then, let’s depart and go to Touno-san’s house. If it becomes difficult, we’ll decide to go to Katsutoshi-san’s house, so let’s go.”

And so we left the school.

1. A pole weapon. It’s used by the police as a self-defense tool, but school has them as well available for teachers and students to protect themselves against school invasions. ↑