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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Simzy
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‘How long have we been together now?’
Camilla frowned because she couldn’t calculate it. Being with Johan felt like it warped her sense of time.
Of course, it wasn’t that he was using magic or anything. It was just that every day was a series of new experiences, and because of that, a single day had felt as long as two or three.
When they would raise their voices and fight over nothing, when they would train emotionally in an angry state and steal glances at each other’s bodies, and on those nights, they would covet each other’s bodies as if extorting them.
It wasn’t always just fun and happy. But, it was always new. That’s why she would secretly look forward to it. ‘What kind of things can we do together tomorrow? What else can we do the day after that?’
But, the sight before her eyes now was something that had far surpassed any category.
“…Now, now, don’t tell me Johan summoned the zombie?”
If she had been alone, she would have said she was seeing things.
“…Amazing.”
Seeing Cassandra, who was repeatedly expressing her admiration, it seemed this was reality. Cassandra’s face was flushed, her eyes were slightly closed, and her body was trembling slightly. Even her legs were shaking.
“He’s really an amazing person… kyak!”
Thankfully, a stray bullet lodged itself in the research facility’s rooftop railing. With a thwack, concrete fell away.
“Cassandra! Get a grip and guard the entrance! The situation isn’t over!”
“Huh? Uh? Uh? A-alright!”
The first priority was Johan. He was running around here and there to avoid the zombies and was climbing the railing of the third house. A zombie that had managed to follow him tried to grab his ankle.
Camilla pulled the trigger without hesitation. The zombie with its head blown off fell backward.
Johan gave a thumbs-up and crossed the yard. And then he climbed up onto the container office that was used as a tool storage shed.
He grabbed the corner with his hand and put strength into his arm, but perhaps because his ankle was injured, he seemed to be struggling a bit. Thinking that she would have to give him some more arm workout special training, Camilla looked toward the zombies.
It was a zombie with a new chain wrapped around its body. Every time it passed, the iron chain would hit the concrete floor and sparks would fly.
“That sound of the chain…”
Cassandra’s body trembled.
The zombie in the National Gendarmerie uniform was large. Even in its human days, it probably wouldn’t have been beaten up anywhere.
The mercenaries, their momentum broken, cautiously retreated.
But it was too late. One of the two in the shotgun team was bitten and torn apart by the swarming zombies while reloading. The other one, as if his gun had jammed, was repeatedly hitting the chamber and then fell.
The zombies swarmed over him.
A zombie’s teeth cannot pierce a bulletproof plate. Was that why? Rather, the zombies found the ‘soft’ parts. They had gnawed and chewed on the entire body of the fallen man.
“You bad bastards.”
The ones that looked like ‘colleagues’ seemed to have no intention of saving them. Rather, they had turned and ran away, crying for their own lives.
From the other side, a truck was rushing in with a roar. As if it had been disconnected, the camping trailer was left behind. One person in the driver’s seat, and another at the machine gun post installed in the truck’s cargo bed.
The machine gun spat fire. Although it was a waste of ammunition, it had managed to stop the zombies’ advance to some extent. But the next moment, the person holding the machine gun collapsed, spewing blood from his neck.
It was Johan who had shot him.
– Camilla, don’t let those bastards get away alive!
The gendarmerie zombie spun around and dug into the flank of the armed men. While taking bullets to its body, it growled and swung its arms and kicked with its legs.
It was clumsy and violent, but the traces of the National Gendarmerie’s special forces martial arts were clearly visible. It might have been that its body remembered from long hours of training.
Now it was her turn.
“Hoo.”
It’s not good for a sniper to be exposed. She had to calculate where to shoot for the most effective result. Hitting the target was, of course, a given, and something that had to be done. She did not consider the difficulty.
Camilla, having made her decision, quickly pulled the trigger. One shot. The front tire of the truck’s driver’s side burst. And again, another shot. The passenger side’s front tire burst.
The burst tire flew out to the side. The truck, which had pitched forward, gradually lost its balance. The axle was gradually twisting. The direction it was heading was exactly behind the armed men.
Since the speed had slowed down a lot, the incident of people being ground up did not happen. But considering the fate of the remaining ones, that might have been better.
She couldn’t not look, but it was hard to look straight at it. So Camilla stared at Johan and his surroundings. On the other hand, Cassandra rather looked straight down.
“…Three of them got up again.”
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Even after the afternoon came, the commotion did not die down easily.
The zombies roamed the streets with empty eyes. The starving ones would rush in and bite at the slightest smell of blood. It was the same for the mercenary squad members who had newly become zombies.
Whether it was a relief or a misfortune, there was a lot of food. Because it was scattered all over the street. The ones with full stomachs even showed a generosity of just growling for a moment even if they bumped into another zombie.
Of course, the gendarmerie zombie was an exception.
“Nice to see you. Has your ugly face gotten any better?”
“Grrr!”
“What to do. You need to get better soon.”
It was probably just reacting to some kind of stimulus, rather than understanding the words. Even so, the fact that the thing had come all this way was quite admirable.
The problem was me.
The situation had ended much faster than I had thought, and the zombies’ momentum had become so fierce that I couldn’t return to the research facility. I was sitting on top of a container.
Of course, Camilla and Cassandra were watching from the rooftop of the building, and there were plenty of bullets, so there wasn’t a big worry. But the reaction of the things was worrying.
Sniff sniff.
The zombies looked back and forth between the torn piece of blanket and me, as if suspicious. And then they started to gradually approach me, sniffing again.
Of course, there was no way these things would climb the container ladder.
“I don’t like ugly fans.”
“Gyaaaak.”
“I wasn’t specifically talking about you.”
Anyway, I was suddenly surrounded by a zombie fan club.
The one I understood the least was the gendarmerie zombie. The thing that had been so ferocious when it was tied to the utility pole was now sitting down against a wall with a full stomach, as if he didn’t care.
“Hey! Take your kids and go!”
The thing just rattled its chain in response. It didn’t seem to care at all whether a fly that had come at some point landed on its body or not. It was like a drunkard who was annoyed by everything.
– Johan.
The radio rang. It was Cassandra’s voice.
“Yeah?”
– Get ready. Camilla’s coming down.
“Camilla’s coming down?”
– Yeah. It seems the zombies are reacting to your scent, so she said she’d bring a blanket from her room. She seemed a little embarrassed, though.
…I guess it was pretty embarrassing.
An electric bicycle jingled in front of the research facility. It was Camilla, dragging a blanket tied to a rope. Just in time, the wind also blew from that direction to this direction.
The zombies bared their teeth, sniffing. It was the same for the gendarmerie creature.
All of them, at once, followed Camilla.
I got down from the container. After waiting for all the zombies to disappear, I ran to the trailer.
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Research facility 3rd floor.
All three of us were completely exhausted. We drank our drinks and ate our combat rations without a word. We had to eat something, but it wasn’t a situation to cook.
“These guys were real sons of bitches.”
Inside the trailer were various supplies, a satellite phone, and a laptop. Cassandra quickly hacked the laptop.
It was thanks to the fact that it only had a simple encryption, and that the ID and password for each site were neatly organized on a note next to the laptop.
“…So they were a mercenary squad from Minsk.”
They hadn’t just been mercenaries. They had committed all sorts of heinous acts on Elza soil, and had even filmed it for extra income.
Camilla, who had come back after shaking off the zombies, was about to smash the laptop, but Cassandra and I desperately stopped her.
Instead, we didn’t stop her from going out with a sniper rifle. Three gunshots were heard. It must have been her killing the mercenaries who had risen again as zombies.
“Did you shoot their heads?”
“No. Their knees. For the other zombies to eat. The gendarmerie one ate the best.”
The mercenary squad members were aggressive and violent. But they hadn’t been trying to just satisfy their animalistic desires. That was, after all, just extra income.
Their purpose was separate.
To collect information about the Cro-virus. To do that, to get data from the research facilities in the unprotected zones, a land abandoned even by the Elza government.
And in the last transmitted data was reconnaissance information about this area, and a single line of message.
『The cultists in this area control the zombies.』
“We’re in danger.”
I felt particularly drained.
It was the most house-like house among the houses we had found, and it was a quiet countryside, and it even had a generator. And the plants on the rooftop that hadn’t even grown yet.
The laboratory. And the other research data… but Cassandra didn’t seem to have much feeling about it.
“Well, the research doesn’t have to be here. We got a good trailer and a vehicle, so we just have to take what we can. There are plenty of research facilities in the world.”
“What about the data?”
“We’ll just have to rip out the hard disks.”
Cassandra spoke as if it were really nothing. Well, since anyone with a little know-how could do that, it didn’t really matter.
“…Hey, Johan.”
Camilla looked at me, fiddling with an empty drink can.
“Yeah.”
“…Are you okay with it?”
“What?”
“They’re Minsk mercenaries. They’re from Minsk.”
“Yeah. They are.”
“You… are you really okay? What you just did, I mean…”
‘What is she talking about? Is she talking about summoning the zombies with a whistle? I can’t get a grasp…’
“You.”
Camilla put down her drink can. She stood up from her seat. Camilla was horrified. To the extent that it was recognizable in the dimly lit dining room.
“You… you really… weren’t a Minsk agent… huh?”
Ah, is that why you’re like this?
“I told you I’m not.”
“You, then where on earth are you from?”
“A distant place.”
“No, I mean…”
Camilla bit her lip slightly, as if she couldn’t explain.
“What I mean is, how did you get here?”
“I don’t know, either. I don’t remember. When I opened my eyes, I was in ‘Mini Bell’ village. So this place is the world of the game I used to enjoy, and I just installed the program and woke up. The reason I told you guys ‘this is not my world’ was precisely for that.”
“This is no time for jokes!”
Camilla staggered. But Cassandra nodded her head as if she were greatly impressed.
“Ah, so that’s why. Cassandra understands.”
Those words are scarier.
“What, what do you understand?”
Cassandra smiled brightly.
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