Haruto POV

We have been making our way through the hallways, Auntie is wielding the mancatcher mostly just to give herself some distance from the undead while Saeko and I handle all the real threats. We stop for a moment during a lull in the tides of undead. I finally have the time to check some of the notifications and see what it meant by attributes.

At first everything looked the same as usual until a flicker goes across it like a buffer for reloading a page and there were additional sections I didn’t see before.

Name: Haruto Ikami

Age: 17 years 9 days

Carried over skills: Rebirth.

Health status 100/100

Afflictions: Slight fear, Light nausea

Attributes: 1 point

Strength: 10

Speed: 10

Endurance: 10

Resilience: 10

Mental processing: 10

Perception: 10

Current skills

Disease resistance lvl 89 (inborn skill) Studying lvl 67 Metabolism lvl 74 Swordsmenship lvl 74 (Empty)

I immediately understand what all of the attributes do upon looking at them. Strength is my overall ability to apply physical force. Speed is how fast I can move my body, Endurance is my stamina and recovery time, resilience is my bodies ability to resist change, Mental processing is how fast I can comprehend events around me and reaction speed, perception increases my senses such as how far I can see or hear. I also know that increasing one of these by 1 point would increase it like a multiplier of 10% to that attribute to myself.

Shit I need time to think, I need to come up with a plan and react to stuff these things kill with a bite too so I need to be careful.... I put my point into mental processing. It feels odd, the sensation of a ripple across my mind as thoughts are becoming more fluid, I immediately notice the speed of my movements seem slower as does the world around me. This is… slightly annoying but also helpful. I feel like I can dial it back to normal, but I need all the help I can get right now.

This may seem like a waste now, but it also helps with finer motion control since I can think at a faster rate, and I can spend more conscious thought on my movements and planning. My hope is to use study on targets eventually while I fight. Usually, it takes too much time to study a target to be helpful but with this I might be able to understand their attack pattern and adapt.

“HARU SNAP OUT OF IT KEEP FIGHTING THEM BACK KYAAAAA!” Auntie is freaking out seeing i'm not paying as much attention. There are a few undead getting a little closer than I'd been letting them before I watched the screens. Saeko and I are on either side of her slowly moving our way through the hallways.

We continue to smash our way forward. My movements becoming more efficient now that I can slightly plan the path of my sword with a bit more thought. For the most part we’ve just been crippling the bodies and moving on not spending the extra effort to end them. But then I get my 10th zombie.

Congratulations you completed the second side quest. Reward: 2 stat point that will apply to your body from this world Next chain quest: Kill 25 zombies

The reward increases each time. But so does the requirement for the next stage. I kill another one while checking my missions and it has a progress of 1/25 so it resets each time too instead of being cumulative. I put another point into mental processing and one into speed. I feel like my body stays roughly the same speed as before, but I notice everything around us became noticeably slower again. Interesting I guess I’m going to have to cut down hordes of these bastards eventually for a couple points.

With this we can survive this! My thoughts are interrupted by sudden shouting.

“HEY! YOU GIVE ME YOUR WEAPON BITCH!” a person gets in our way hes… hes not a zombie hes a person. Tall dark haired I don’t know him, but he means trouble. Hes also bleeding from an obvious bite wound. He moves in on Saeko trying to appear larger.

“Nnno stay back, or I’ll have to defend myself!” She acts meek and small looking down for a bit. If I didn’t see her slight smile as he moves in, I’d think she was really scared.

“-tch- fucking pansy over there your boyfriend? I’ll show you a real man. Now give me that stick and I’ll show you mine in front of your boy toy.” He makes a crude gesture at me. The bleeding on his shoulder forgotten as he stares at Saeko and Aunties bodies. Saeko makes to hand it to him by the end when she strikes.

She in one fluid motion she swings it back and under his jaw breaking it instantly. As the guy falls back cussing loudly, she moves in on him smashing his head in. I look at her in a mixture of shock at the brutality of it all before realizing I don’t really feel much of anything for their death. Huh I sort of expected some sort of reaction. Like, I know its bad to kill someone but that’s like knowing its bad to put your hand on the stove kind of bad. Besides he was bitten and was doomed to die anyways.

“Good job Saeko.” She smiles back at me. Obviously still upset about the last comment he made.

Auntie stares at me with utter horror. “SAEKO YOU… YOU KILLED HIM OH MY GOD WHATS HAPPENING YOU YOU MURDERER! She killed the teacher before… She's unhinged! You at least waited for him to…to turn. What if they didn’t die from it?” Auntie isnt really taking it as well though. Still not used to the whole idea of killing people. The zombies are one thing since they don’t speak back but I guess this was a little too far after the last teacher.

“Auntie, relax it was him or us and he was already bitten. You’ve seen how it works once you're bitten you may as well already be a zombie. Doomed to die.”

“I’ve never killed someone before today Auntie, I… I just don’t want you two to get hurt. So I made it swift he is now gone without even needing to turn…” Saeko is making some excuses to Auntie. She does care about her opinion still after all.

“Lets uh let’s get to the nurses office we may be able to get medical supplies on the way to the teachers lounge.” I try to change the subject as we make another turn. It seems like there are less zombies around this area.

We hear the sound of glass breaking as we turn the corner and see 5 zombies busting into the nurses office. Well, that’s probably where they are all going. Shit we might be too late. Rushing just that little bit faster now with my bonus point to speed I make it in and quickly take down all 5. Only 10 left for the next milestone.

Inside is a strange scene. The school nurse Shizuka Marikawa is here but seems oblivious to the undead around her. Shes a tall blond with a large chest and a ditzy attitude. Despite that though she is highly skilled with biology matters and I’ve talked to her a few times since shes very overqualified for the school nurse position here.

A young man had been fighting off some of the undead before I got here. But he seems to be dying on the floor next to Shizuka while she goes about her business.

“Oh my, thank you. Help me grab these will you?” Shizuka calls casually as shes trying to reach for a few containers of medicine high up on a shelf without any real rush. The man on the floor coughing up blood.

“Oh, thank god another adult, Shizuka we need to get out of here Saeko and Haru are our best chance you don't happen to know where the keys to the bus are, do you?” Auntie walks in but is giving the guy on the floor a wide birth holding the man catcher ready.

“hmm yes the bus driver was in the faculty room. I think?” She doesn’t seem very rushed just casually grabbing some items and placing them in a bag. I turn my attention to the guy on the floor who just seems lost for words.

“Cant… Cant you help me? Save me?” His eyes are full of fear and worry as he looks up at me and Saeko.

“No um sorry…uh man, for what its worth you protected Shizuka, and I feel like you did a fantastic job. Go with peace?” I smash a student that defended Shizuka until he was overrun by the 5 zombies. I’m not really good with eulogies or goodbyes but that should be decent right? Looking around Auntie is giving me a horrified look still but nods slowly.

“We should leave a note for his name…” Auntie says from the side.

“Uh what was his name anyways Shizuka?”

“Hmm who?”

“Uh the guy that died protecting you?”

“OH! Him um hmmm” She thinks really hard for a bit.

“I think it was Haruto something?” She says giving up.

“That’s… that’s my name probably not his too.” I mean it’s possible, but I think she just heard them call me by my name and forgot his… damn poor guy wont even be remembered by the women he saved.

“You know what, that’s not important. Grab as much as you can and fill this bag.” I sling my sports duffle bag onto the nearest nursing bed.

“We need to leave as soon as possible with as many supplies as we can carry.” Shizuka nods and happily claps as she goes and grabs her little medical bag.

“By the way Haru why are you killing all the zombies now? Its taking up time and energy that could be spent moving and carrying supplies.” Saeko calls from the side keeping an eye on me.

“Ah well um I can’t really tell you right now I’ll tell you later in private for now just know its beneficial I kill as many as I can.”

“Geeze what a pain well I trust you though besides it’s much easier with the two of us together” She smiles at me a bit after saying this.

“Aww so sweet young love!” Shizuka ruins the moment slightly. As she over dramatically swoons around acting like we are in a play.

“Cough uh for now let’s get to the teachers lounge.” I sling the bag full of chemicals onto my back as we start to head out. It’s a bit heavier than it looks, but shouldn’t be too big of a deal. Better than ditzy breaking all the glass falling down the stairs.

We start running over but Shizuka immediately falls.

“Aww I fell…” she looks down and pouts, covered in blood from the floor.

I sigh so does Saeko, she moves up and helps her out a bit.

“You’re not exactly wearing running clothes.” She grabs her ankle length skirt tears all the way up to the panty line to give some leg room. She then snaps the heels off her shoes so she can actually keep up with us.

“AWW ARE YOU CRAZY THESE ARE EXPENSIVE!” Shizuka complains about it from the side but even Auntie understands that it would be a problem to run like that and wearily looks at her own ripped skirt with a forlorn glance.

“Your clothes or your life?” Saeko looks into shizukas eyes seriously. What annoys me is the moment of thought going through Shizukas eyes like she needs to think about the answer to that question.

“EERRG FINE!” She gets up and starts traveling much faster. Making our way through the maze of halls covered in blood and bodies. It doesn’t seem like many people made it out alive…