As long as we are quiet, we should be fine. The Zombies are all moving towards the building seven houses down thanks to the loud gun shots. Soon after we left 6 more were fired before it stopped too. Drawing even more to that position. We have the bus defending the front gates and I see people gathered around the gate with knives clearing out some of the stragglers that pressed up against it but there aren’t many and thanks to the bus only one layer can form and can be handled carefully.

We make it in, finally able to relax I collapse. Saya rushes over with a half-naked Shizuka and Auntie who are blushing really hard. I just close my eyes after seeing Auntie also seems embarrassed but is still there in case I’m hurt.

“Oh my, not feeling well? Were you bitten? Girls strip him we need to search for bite marks.” Shizuka turns to Saya and Saeko and they begin grabbing at me pulling off my shirt, I my other clothes and hold them up with all dear life.

“NO NO not bitten sheesh. Just tired I think I just ran the fastest I’ve ever run in my life. My legs need some rest. Shizuka look over the girl check in to make sure shes okay.” Poking an eye towards the little girl we just saved.

The little girl who I still haven’t gotten the name of is looking at me like some sort of superhero. While Saeko and the others are all chatting around the gate most of the girls are still passed out so it’s mostly just the guys. Theres also a look of worry as she sees me struggling to move.

I try to get up only to be pushed back down. “Hey hey now, no moving nurses orders.” Shizuka moves back over to me and forces me to lay down. Why did it have to be in her lap though?

“Why here though?”

“Because I still want my prize.” I look away as my face is very much being pressed in on.

“Hey, no fair that’s cheating!” Saya calls from the side.

Giggle- “Face it you lost Shizuka you’ll just have to make do with Auntie Izuna” Saeko laughts a bit. Letting Saya move in and take Shizukas place while Auntie blushes again but not denying what happened.

“Hmm okay for now. I guess if I can’t give him the reward, I’ll just have to give Izuna it instead.” Giving a final smile and giving Auntie a light kiss causing her to blush again.

Hirano walks in at this moment. “Hey Haru are you feelin-“ He stops dead at the sight of the half-naked Shizuka kissing my Auntie. The color drains from his face and he just stares before falling backwards a bit smiling and closes the door behind him. I hear him on the other side. “Nope nope we shouldn’t disturb him he needs his rest yeah he just ran like a world record in the 100 meter sprint can you blame him?”

“I think he’s got the wrong idea. Of whats happening in here…” looking up at Sayas face.

That got a laugh from all of the girls in here.

I feel my shirt that’s beside me and realize that it’s a bit damp. Grabbing it something about it smells… weird.

“Hey, did someone spill something on my shirt? It smells weird?”

Immediately the little girls face lights up red. “Ummm I I couldn’t hold it anymore… and you were running so fast. I I tried! I’m SORRY!” Wait… she when? What? WHY? Well, whatever nothing I can really do about it now. I just need to get a new shirt.

“Well, I hope your potty trained. Cause I don’t have that many shirts.” She looks at me with angry tears.

“I AM POTTY TRAINED I’M 7 THANK YOU VERY MUCH!” While burying her face in her hands behind Saeko.

“Good going Haru you made her cry.” Saya scolds me flicking me in the head.

“Hey its just a joke how else do you respond to finding out the person you carried pe–“

“PLEASE DON’T SAY IT!” The little girl jumps forward and covers my mouth.

I move her hand from my mouth.

“Whats your name anyways?” I pat her head then Saya helps me put on a jacket.

“I’m I’m Alice… Thank you for saving me… I wish you could have saved daddy too…” Alice? That name sounds familiar.

“I’m sorry we were too late. We only saw what was happening after he started hammering the door. Even then I was only told about it once uh ‘that’ happened.” I saya helps me up a bit and I give Alice a hug.

“We’ll make sure your okay though alright? We’ll need you to be a big girl though and be strong for him and survive. Can you do that Alice?”

She nods in my arms as she cries.

I just hold her for a while I look up at Saeko who’s smiling and giving me a thumbs up after talking to Saya and Shizuka who’s pouting in the corner next to auntie. I look down at the little girl and think about how late it is. “Time for bed Alice”

“um Haru… Can I stay with you?” she looks up at me with such hopeful eyes. haa twice blocked by this kid. I look at Saeko painfully who nods her head after laughing at me a bit. “haaaa yes you can stay in here. I just need to get washed up first I uh sweated a lot. We should get you changed too before bed. I uh had a lot on my shirt but not all of it.” I look away and her face turns red realizing why we needed to get clean.

“How about Auntie goes and gets you washed up first then I’ll go in after alright?” I look over at auntie who smiles at me before reaching out for Alice to grab on.

Alice leaves my arms. With a bit of reluctance, I see her a bit scared before holding on to Auntie. Who I faintly hear soothing words being told to Alice like “shhhh your safe now big brother Haru is going to help you! I’m Auntie Ikaru or just Auntie I raised little Haru for part of his life.” She trails off telling Alice about everyone here as they go to get washed. I sit down on the floor against the wall. Trying to relax a bit more.

“So how was it to get marked by another girl?” Saeko is laughing at me from the side.

“Oh, come on you know I’m not into that kind of thing espeshally from a kid.” Face going red. I honestly never really thought about that.

“Wait how do you two know that you’re not into it? Unless you’ve – what have I agreed too…” Saya seems lost for words from the other side.

“Oh my, little chaste Haru isnt so innocent as I thought. Maybe I’ll need to tell Ikaru about this hoho” Shizuka who’s wearing just a button up says from near the door.

“No no we havn’t done anything like that, don’t start spreading stuff with anyone espeshally Auntie PLEASE.” I can’t help but sound a little hopeful in my voice at the end there. Saeko comes up to me and sits next to me leaning in. “Don’t worry… I’ll just tell her you considered it.” Booping my nose. I’m too tired to retaliate and just relax there.

“Hmm oh my looks like he can’t run away girls. He doesn’t have any fight left in him. The poor hero wounded from battle. Too exhausted that he can’t even defend his chastity.” Saeko begins to narrate as she slowly starts pulling off her apron.

“Hmm or maybe he learns a bit more self-control.” She pulls her apron back over herself. Errg should have known she just wanted to tease me.

“hehe don’t worry you’ll get your prize. You. Just. Need. Patience.” She says each word after a kiss whispering into my ear. As she leans down on me. Saya moves up too and helps Saeko torture me.

Okay calming thoughts. Wind in the air, trees rising, no no no wrong train of though. Um rivers uh waterfa- noooope. WAIT Puppies there was a little dog that came with us. I distract myself a bit thinking about what kind of dog it might be before remembering one last important thing. I haven’t checked my status in a while.

Name: Haruto Ikami

Age: 17 years 10 days

Carried over skills: Rebirth.

Health status 40/100

Afflictions: fatigue, arousal, stress.

Free Attribute points: 0 point

Strength: 11

Speed: 14

Endurance: 11

Resilience: 11

Thought speed: 13

Perception: 10

Current skills

Disease resistance lvl 99 (inborn skill) Studying lvl 74 Metabolism lvl 75 Swordsmanship lvl 80 (Empty)

Huh that’s right I havnt really eaten anything at all today and I guess the stress of it all put my skill over. I should probably get some food in me. I may need less but with all this moving around I still need something. Swordsmanship has also improved a bunch in just one day. Probably from killing all those zombies. I still havnt chosen my last skill… It’s been so long but I just didn’t want to waste it when I could need something later on.

D-D-D-DRING~

Congratulations you have made it to the end of your first day. You have saved… 18 survivors. Calculating quest progression. Congratulations you completed the side story quest: Save Saeko, Saya, takashi Rei, Shizuka and Alice. One time story completion reward: 1 free skill fusion and one attribute point. Fuse two skills together for a potentially better skill. Depending on the synergy between the skills they will either be stronger than the originals together or may end up as a weaker combination of the two. Either way the two skills will only take up one slot allowing for a new skill to take the now open slot. Side Chain Quest: Save other survivors 1 Complete! Side Chain Quest: Save 5 other survivors Complete! Side Chain Quest: Save 10 other survivors Complete! Side Chain Quest: Save 20 other survivors status 2/20 Rewards… three zombie infection cures. Can only cure infection if administered within 1 minute of contact. Patient must not receive life threatening wound during infection to receive the cure most effectively. Patient has chance to not become infected with future exposures to the virus. Instead becoming severely ill and having a chance of fighting off infection. If additional cures are used on patient improve odds of total immunity. If user uses the cure no further survivor or zombie kill quests will be issued.

Damn so I don’t have the crutch of the cure unless I don’t want to get anymore. I suppose that’s fair I’d only use it on myself if I was going to die anyways. It just means I’ll give it to others first.

I place the one attribute point into resilience I have this gut feeling any more into speed will rip my body apart and I’m already moving so fast that even with faster thinking speed it feels like I can’t see everything going on around me, but self-damage is probably more important to mitigate.

Now what skill should I upgrade. I wish I knew if the upgraded disease resistance would resist the zombie virus. It feels more like a virus since theres a cure for it but I’m still not sure.

How do I break this to the group?

“mmm” Saeko keeps trying to tease me while Saya is attempting to join in by holding my hand but its a little awkward since we were never really that close before. I stop Saeko hoping for a moment.

“Alice could be back any moment. Besides I’ve got something I should tell Saya and you.”

Shizuka is just watching from the side still just wearing a shirt and enjoying the show.

“Um Shizuka can you keep a secret? I think it would be good for you to know as well.” Saeko stops teasing me with the now serious atmosphere.

“I should probably tell you Saya, Shizuka I’ve been getting these pop-up screens… They’ve been with me all my life. I’ve got five skill slots four of them are taken up. I have swordsmanship, study, Metabolism and Disease resistance. I’ve also had a quest since I was born. Its something simple I always thought it would be easy to accomplish. It just says, “Survive until the age of 18.” When I was a kid, my mom raised me on her own. If it werent for my skills… I would have starved to death or died of disease when my mom got sick… It’s also how I was able to do so well in school and with kendo. The skills I have give me bonuses to things and improve my ability in certain fields.” I start to come clean to them about things. I hold back that I reincarnated since that’s a bit much even for now. But I tell them about attributes and the quests I’ve been getting.

“HAHA I KNEW IT! In order for someone to be smarter then me they had to CHEAT AT LIFE HAHAHAH” Saya got an ego boost from that.

“I mean it only improves my study speed, comprehension and retention by 74% at the moment it’s not like I’m a complete idiot without it. It’s just a bit of an advantage.”

“You realize that means that you are nearly twice as good in nearly all the factors that matter about studying and you study seriously, right? If I had that power, I would be the smartest person ALIVE since I am already a genius! Hmph maybe they made a mistake, and I was meant to be the true user!” She turns up her nose smiling at the idea of getting powers.

“Well regardless, whats important is that the rewards I got from saving survivors are these.” I pull out three small plastic needles inside are brake off strips that can be quickly applied. They seemingly came from nowhere just appearing in my hand. Causing Shizuka who had been looking at me a bit skeptically until now to look at them with interest.

“These are cures to the zombie virus…” The girls all stare at the small liquid in the plastic strips with a deep intensity. Shizuka snatches one out of my hand to inspect it.

“I don’t know how it works exactly but from what it tells me it only works if applied to the person within one minute of having been infected and it builds up a sort of resistance for the person so in the future if they are bitten, they might just end up bed ridden instead of undead. I also can’t take one or else I will stop getting quests that reward them.”

Shizuka stares at it for a while. “I’d like to look at this under a microscope to see what type of cure this is. If its replicable we can see what kind of cure it is and if possible, develop a culture or something to make more. If we can we might save the world.” That gets everyones attention.

“This is just something for the future right now theres not much we can do about it. Besides, we can get more by saving more people which theres no shortage of people that need saving.” She places the one I handed her into a little locket she has in her shirt pocket. I briefly see a picture of a slightly younger her hugging another darker skinned girl in army briefs.”

“I want Saya and Saeko to hold on to these two. I have Disease resistance almost maxed. I can resist pretty much any disease at the moment since severity of diseases is reduced by 99% for me and recovery time is reduced by the same amount. It also effects genetic defects and I can’t be a carrier for any disease thanks to it being so high of a level.”

“Interesting so your pretty much immune to anything in the world. Can I collect some of your blood to see if its different as well? Also although this is a cure. Are we sure that it’s a disease? These vials may be filled with some sort of holy water or something.” Shizuka seems to be a lot more attentive then usual.

“I mean sure but maybe wait until we have access to some equipment instead of letting the same dry out.” I give her a bit of a wary look. Shes staring at me like a predator and not in the usual way.

“Hmm so you’re some sort of super person. If you get your sword fighting to max level what will happen will it just make you a master swordsman?” Saeko finally having time to ask some questions about my abilities.

“No, it’s more like it will augment my actual skill with the sword. Like improving my attacks speed and force beyond what my body would allow. But if I wield anything not shaped like a sword or in a different style instantly I lose all the benefits.” I’d done a lot of testing over the years most of them resulted in failure. A lot of sword arts have other martial moves mixed in that involve strikes or kicks I tried to use those but even then, I felt the lack of support from the skill.