On the way to Kawamoto’s

“Why did you have to grab me!? I was barely holding on as it was!” Rei is still glaring at me.

I mean I didn’t exactly expect us to land like ‘that’ so it’s not like it’s what I was planning.

“Hey, I told you I would. When I say something, I mean it.” I look away from her.

“I’m telling Saeko.” She keeps staring at me unflinching.

“Telling her what?” I try to feign ignorance.

“Telling her that you put your face into my my ahem stuff.”

“I’ll let her know I saved you from a fall that should be fine.” I’m still sweating a little. Seriously what is with this world. Its like every action I take ends up with some sort of risque situations. Its almost as if this. World… is…damnit it’s almost like this is a world from an anime or something isnt it. It all makes sense now. The different unnatural hair colors, the average chest size of girls with different hair color being like 3 cup sizes higher. Shido a teacher messing with Rei because of his father and being a weird cultist. Okay… so I’m potentially in an anime world so what does that mean? How does that help or hurt me?

Well pro so long as I’m near the main character they should have plot armor that makes them unkillable at least until the end of the story. So long as it’s not a tragedy I should also be safe being near them which thinking about it this world is kind of tragic. Also, all the women around them are typically very beautiful and single for some reason. Weird situations keep happening, so I guess that’s also a sort of pro? OH, Alice also got over her fathers’ death scarily quickly I was wondering about that since I thought maybe she was just a little psychopath.

Cons, anime worlds typically have a sort of progression where they face hardships. Typically, as soon as they solve one problem another one arises that’s even more challenging. At least that’s how it works in Horuto but what could that be here? Supplies might go low. I’d prefer it if I saved everyone but if just me and Saeko that make it I won’t be to upset I’d rather Saya survive too. I can definitely find enough for just the two to three of us. I’m needing less and less food eventually I wont need any at all. My quest isnt to restore the planet its just to survive to the age of 18. What else, could it be? Other survivors might start causing problems? What other undead tropes are there.

“Hey, we are pulling up on Kawamoto’s place snap out of it.” Rei swipes at me but I dodge.

“Hey Rei keep an eye out for the undead there may be something different about them soon. I just have a bad feeling about it since things have been going too well.” I mean everything has been going fine except for the incident with Takashi but… Wait Takashi and Rei have been childhood friends with a lot of the other people in our group. Their friend died on the first day. Rei left him years ago and dated someone that died yesterday but shes already getting back together. I didn’t think much of it at first but, what if Takashi is supposed to be the main character?

“Hey Rei, how are things going with Takashi?” This got Rei to become flustered as she just mumbled a bit.

“What? Whats going on? I don’t know what you mean uh let’s go check out the house right? HEY Kawamoto where is this place anyways?” she starts running off.

Hmm alright unless the main character is somewhere else in the world it’s probably Takashi. That would explain why there was a quest early on to help him escape. That’s also why he wasn’t killed from the gun shot. That’s why all these girls are so… floosy? Is that the term? Were all these girls meant to be on his path? Easy to find and have traits that he would appeal to, and they would fall for him? Regardless, Its good I at least understand the world sort of. Hmm does that mean originally, he should have gotten with Saeko and Saya too? If he tries something with Saeko if she doesn’t kick his ass, I will. Shaking my head to concentrate on the problem at hand.

“Its right up here on the right. I don’t have a key since it was in my gym locker at the school, but we have a spare in the garden bed.” Looking around the place doesn’t look bad no signs of damage on the outside. The nearest zombie is down the road walking into the wall so its promising that they are just not here.

Kawamoto knocks on the door before unlocking it. There is a shout of surprise from inside I pull Kawamoto back by her shirt as a bat swings by where she was standing.

Inside is a somewhat overweight man balding, he has the same unrealistically red hair as Kawamoto and is seething with anger until he sees who he just swung at. The bat clatters to the ground.

“K-kawa d-daughter…. What have I done… are you hurt?” He rushes forward but Kawamoto backs away slightly. She did just get swung at so its reasonable but the flinch in his face when she does shows how much it hurt.

“Hey, it’s all fine I grabbed her back first. We have had some bad experiences with entering places like that, so I was prepared just in case.” Well not us personally more just Alices father. When I Mention bad experiences though, the man’s face hardens and nods.

“We’ve had similar problems, people coming to the door asking for help then attacking us for our house or supplies. Our neighbor was killed that way. We’ve turned off all the lights and blocked the windows and just wait for the people to give up now. When I heard the knocking, I grabbed the bat just in case. Imagine my surprise when the door started to open. I thought ‘its finally happening, someones coming in here to hurt my family’ I’m so sorry I wish I’d know it was you pumpkin.” He starts to move in for a hug and this time Kawamoto doesn’t flinch away and hugs back. They cry for awhile until their mother comes in from behind. Shes tall with unnatural red hair too and of course a body that belongs to a model. She easily looks 15 years younger than the dad further proof that this world is odd, espeshally since they don’t look particularly wealthy…

“Dear I heard you talking so- KAWA!” She also rushes in and hugs her. The crying restarts.

“Ahem so, we have a group of survivors if your interested in joining us.” I break up their gentle atmosphere as I still have things to be done today.

“Is it safe? We’ve seen those things they don’t go down even if their heart is stabbed. I…I don’t know how we are supposed to kill them. One got ran over by a car and it just kept dragging itself toward us no matter how many of its bones were broken... Thankfully they were lured away from our car otherwise we wouldn’t be here.” He hardens again staring at the one down the road like it’s some invincible monster.

“Hmm? Oh, they are pretty easy to put down actually just a good smack to the head. Anywhere else it doesn’t really help maybe the spine too just above the neckline. They also only react to sound so you can get by walking by them too so long as you throw some rocks away from your position.” Hearing this he shakes in slight anger.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to come off as rude to the ones that brought Kawa back but how can we be certain you're right?” It makes sense that he wouldn’t fully believe me. I guess we all do look pretty young.

“Yeah, all this death and destruction and they can be handled with a branch. The real challenge is having the resolve to kill something.” I stare at him and he meets my eyes for a bit before looking away.

“Regardless we have food and shelter. We also have guns in case of emergency. Since those things are attracted to sound, we avoid loud weapons when possible.”

“Hrmph obviously not that safe if its just a bunch of kids running around with weapons.”

“I’m sorry? Let me introduce myself more properly. My name is Haruto Ikami I graduated 3 years early and am now a university student and trained under Japan’s best swordsmen alongside his daughter who is the captain of the kendo club at your daughter’s school. I’ve helped kill” I stop for a moment to check my kill count. Doing a bit of basic math of 1+10+25+48/50 “84 of those zombies through various means.” Damn that close to the next one already? The next quest is probably going to jump up to 100 or more. I guess since vehicles I ride in count it’s not that bad. At the mention of how many I’ve killed I see him, and the others stare at me for a moment. “Wait that many? How?” even Kawamoto stares at me a bit mouth open.

“Well, it only takes a couple of seconds per one really. Like look at that one down the road,” I sprint towards it closing the gap giving a light woop to grab its attention before slicing a chunk of the head off as it looks up from the ground. The thing collapses to the ground. Business suit dirtied with its own blood. Rather than sprint back I casually walk flicking the blood off the machete as I do. Looking at them all I see pride in some of the girls but also a hint of fear. Kawamotos father is staring at me too.

“See not that difficult the things are dumb enough that if you move fast enough you can just ignore them for the most part. Or as long as you carry around some rocks and arnt loud even large gatherings can be disrupted.” This makes her dads face get a little bit red with anger almost matching his hair.

“Hmph if they are that easy to handle then why do we need to go with you. Can’t Kawa just stay here with us?” The father clearly doesn’t trust me. Probably because I just killed something in front of him. Oh well.

“I mean that’s for her to decide. Also, they may be easy to handle individually but the more there are the more difficult it is to lure them away. We also plan on making a small community. One that is self-sufficient since the government has clearly fallen apart.” This shocks the others since the idea of a small community was talked about, but they didn’t think about the government falling.

“And what you expect everyone to follow you? Some brat that knows a few things?” clearly challenging me.

“Not me alone, there are others that make choices and I make sure to ask for everyones opinions on where to go forward first I’ve just got a deciding vote at the moment. Eventually it will be a council of different departments since honestly I don’t want to bother with a lot of the day-to-day things.” I mostly just want to get back to spending time with Saeko and sparing a lot of this leadership shit is just what I need to do in order to get stronger. Fighting the zombies is kind of fun though. He looks me over one more time.

“What are your plans with my daughter?” this is probably the main question. Kawamoto blushes at this.

“Daaaaaad I’m older now you don’t need to meddle.” This got her mom to laugh too and his gaze steels further.

“Honestly? Nothing really, I’m already in a happy relationship with Saeko my girlfriend which recently has been having some… interesting things going on. But we’ve been dating for four years. Kawamoto is just a kid.” I rub her hair causing her to pout at being called a kid.

“HEY? ARE YOU SAYING MY KAWA ISNT GOOD ENOUGH!” he looks a bit frustrated then realizes what he said. Kawamoto also blushes even harder and hugs her mom hiding her face.

“Ahem theres nothing wrong with Kawamoto, shes a beautiful young girl just, we don’t really know each other, and I’m already taken.” I start to look away even I’m starting to blush a bit at this what kind of situation is this. Oh, right anime logic… Its one thing to read it its another to have to live it.

“Fine, we will come. How far of a walk is it and how much can we bring? It looks like you packed light so are you set up nearby?” He looks around at our gear.

“Oh no we have a car around the corner we didn’t want to pull it into a dead-end road before scouting.” We show him the military Humvee.

“Did you steal that from the military brat?” Sounding serious looking between me and the vehicle.

“No one of our teachers is roommates with a military sniper. They were gone at the start of this whole thing, and we figured they wouldn’t miss the car. Besides we are still at their place so its not like they would miss the car for long.”

“Hmmph fine let’s start loading it up. We have a lot of crap.” He heads inside.

“Oh, should we grab the Fine china or or grandmas’ blanket. Oh dear, what do we pack. Kawamoto dear come help mom get some containers!” Her parents start making themselves busy packing random stuff. Her mom putting something in the container the dad seeing what it is and tossing it out of the container.

“Hey necessities only we don’t have enough room for too much stuff. We are already double bunking it in rooms we don’t need to fill one with all your crap. You can come back for it all later when we have a more permanent place!” I yell into the building. Off in the distance I see a few more zombies start wandering down the road because of all the yelling.

“Hey Rei? Do you mind helping them pack? I’m going to go deal with those since its only a matter of time before they get in the way and the less there are on the island the less we deal with later.” I crack my neck and start clearing the area of zombies. Just needed two more to get some more points so this is perfect.