CH 8

Chapter 8 – The First Achievement

“Alright, let’s go… Heave-ho!”

The door opened along with the nameless lady teacher’s shout of encouragement.

I had already confirmed this, but there were no enemies on the school’s playground.

I left my keys, backpack, and sword scabbard with Rika-chan’s dad, and then started walking lightly.

Led by the teacher, I moved on to a place I have never set foot in for the past three years.

“This way.”

We walked through the playground towards the back of the school building. After getting past the gymnasium, I saw a beautiful courtyard.

Oh, so there was something like this over here…

“You’re a third-grader, aren’t you?”

She asked me as she stared at my jersey.

The jerseys at our school came in different colors depending on the student’s grade, so I guess that’s how she could tell.

“Yeah, well…”

“You’ve been here for three years, but you’ve never been to the courtyard?”

She said that with a somewhat intruding tone of voice.

“My house is just a few minutes away from the main gate, so…”

“Yeah, but still…”

The teacher was about to say something, but our conversation was suddenly interrupted.

“Uuuoooooohhhhh…”

Two zombies were walking from the other side of the courtside.

“Here they come…!”

Her breath had been taken away, and her voice was oozing with fear.

Each zombie had different movement speeds.

One of them seemed to be sprinting while the other one was heavily dragging its feet.

That was something that was easy to notice by remaining calm.

Holding my sword, I turned towards the faster of the two zombies.

“What are you going to do?”

When she asked me that, all I could answer was “Stay back”.

I took a deep breath.

I waited for my opponent to approach me, and then…

A crunching sound.

The sword pierced deeply between the zombie’s eyebrows.

The corpse immediately collapsed as if it had been switched off, so I kicked it aside and quickly repositioned myself.

With a quick flash, I sliced through the slower zombie’s forehead as if it had been made of butter. He too stopped moving as quickly as his friend.

It was a little too easy.

“Amazing…”

Those were the words of the teacher, who had seen it all from the back. She seemed to be truly impressed.

“I don’t know if it’s okay to praise this kind of thing, but you don’t seem very concerned.”

“Concerned? Concerned about what?”

“That… the way they feel to the touch. Doesn’t it gross you out?”

“Nah, I’m fine.”

I was telling it as it was.

“Is that so? …I’m really no good at dealing with the grotesque.”

“I’m already used to it.”

Also, I really wasn’t into thinking too much about it.

After walking through the courtyard, we arrived at our destination.

True to its status as a “back gate”, it was a little smaller than the school’s main gate.

There was a small guard cabin near the gate, and I could see a convenience store on the other side of the road.

“Should we go to the convenience store while we’re here?”

“What are you talking about? Don’t you see what’s going on?”

I thought it was a smart idea, but I was scolded instead.

“Besides, there’s no clerk in that store. How are you going to buy anything anyway?”

Ah.

Going shopping?

To procure necessary supplies?

To take them without permission?

To put it bluntly, to steal?

Still, it seemed that the idea of ​​”stealing” itself was missing from this young lady teacher’s mind.

Either way, people here seemed to think that rescue would come soon, and in fact rescue may really come at some point, so I can’t say they’re wrong or anything.

“Alright, then I guess I’ll close the gate now.”

Fortunately, the entrance itself was narrow, so it seemed that there weren’t many “zombies” invading the premises. To put it in concrete numbers, there were only five of them.

It just makes me feel uncomfortable, so I won’t bother explaining their characteristics in detail.

Let’s just say that the oldest seemed to have been people in their sixties, and the youngest looked like they were in their teens.

Of course, at first glance, all of them simply looked like “people who are walking even though they’re dead.”

“Can I do anything to help?”

Her series of encounters with the zombies seemed to have caused the teacher’s tone of voice to become calm once again.

“Ah, if you can, please raise your voice and clap your hands to draw them in.”

I could see the word “regret” writing itself on the teacher’s face after I so casually asked her to do that.

She seemed to have offered to help since she was an adult, but to be honest, she didn’t want to be involved in the killing.

“…Got it.”

Still, the teacher replied with bravery.

“Okay… Here goes.”

After saying that, the teacher turned around, and…

“Okaaaaay! Atteeeeen-tion!”

She had raised her voice way louder than I had expected.

“Everyoooone! Over heeeere!”

There I realized that I was familiar with this teacher’s voice.

That’s right. She was a PE teacher.

I hadn’t really seen her face seriously before since she was in charge of another grade, but I remember hearing her cheerful voice from the playground during class.

“Heeeey! Look over heeeere!”

However, her familiar voice really came in handy.

All of the five zombies turned their attention to her. I was sure that I, who was usually low-profile, had become as invisible to them as possible.

I approached the back gate, getting myself behind the zombies and away from their line of sight.

A hand appeared from behind the guard cabin and touched the steel gate.

“Hmph. Hmm!”

That’s where things got a little tricky.

A female zombie jumped into the steel gate just as I slammed it shut.

She seemed to have been drawn in by the teacher’s high-spirited voice.

Her hand briefly let go of the steel gate before she grabbed it again and started rattling it.

“Uoooooohhh…”

The female zombie growled in dissatisfaction, probably because she had almost gotten herself crushed by a considerably heavy steel gate.

But I wasn’t flustered by that.

I took a bit of distance from the zombie and took up my sword.

Then I calmly pierced through the zombie’s forehead with it.

After that, I shoved the zombie away with my foot, and glanced over at the convenience store across the street, thinking about how it was a shame that we couldn’t go there to get some supplies.

However, after noticing that there were at least four or fifty or more zombies on the other side of the road, I quickly reconsidered. Having to deal with that many at this point would’ve been too much for me.

“Uooooooooohhh”

“Ooooooohh…”

“Guuuuuuuuhhh”

A few zombies outside noticed this, and started groaning.

As a result, a small flock heard them and started to move towards the gate.

Huh.

So they seem to be able to communicate with each other to some extent.

Oh well, I won’t be dealing with them, though.

That must be why the convenience store was empty. Hope everyone’s okay.

After making sure the gate was tightly shut and locked, I went back to the teacher’s call for rescue I could hear behind me.

Sword in hand, I turned back to the teacher.

I didn’t have that big of a job waiting for me.

It was just a simple task to get rid of a group of zombies who were too obsessed with chasing the teacher like fans before their idol, one after another.

Then, when I finished killing the last one…

The usual fanfare.

–Congratulations! Your level has increased!

And again.

–Congratulations! Your level has increased!

Then, another fanfare, which was a bit more like “Pam parapam pam pam paaaam~”, making it way more extravagant than usual.

–Congratulations! Achievement “First Safe Area” unlocked!

That’s what it said.

To me, it sounded like nonsense.

C’mon, achievements?

What is this, a western game?