CH 15

Chapter 15 – Training

I could see a large number of zombies below me. If it weren’t for their obviously dead appearance, they would actually look like a group of fans cheering for their idol… Which would be me, as I stood on top of the school’s gate.

After finding an easy target among them, I quickly stabbed my sword into its forehead, killing the zombie.

“Isn’t this dangerous, senpai?” Kousuke asked me.

“It’s alright.” I told him as I stabbed another zombie. I made sure that the zombies’ hands would be barely out of reach, so they can’t harm me here. It was a simple and efficient way of getting rid of zombies, and it even gave me a level already.

I was kinda forced to obtain ‘Super Maintenance’ on that level up though. My sword was starting to get dull, so it was necessary to get this skill to make sure it remained usable… It truly was quite useful to have a backwards compatible maintenance skill, I wouldn’t believe this was possible if I hadn’t seen it happen myself.

“Can you watch us practice today?” Kousuke asked me.

I turned around and saw him and three other people on school uniforms looking at me.

“I don’t mind it, but…” I sighed, “I really don’t have anything else to teach you, you know?” I told them.

“That’s no good!” A third year girl exclaimed, “Everyone will be unmotivated without senpai around!” As always, she called me senpai even though we were on the same year.

Is that so…? I jumped off the high fence and carefully looked at everyone. Two first years, one second year, one third year, “Is nobody else coming?” I asked Kousuke, though I already expected his answer.

He shook his head, “Maybe we should try dragging them here forcefully?” then asked me this.

“No good.” I instantly replied, “The deal was that nobody would be forced to come here, remember?”

Kousuke sighed, but nodded.

With this, the five us moved into position and started our preparatory exercises.

It’s been one week since the Mizutani incident.

***

After I killed Ichirou Mizutani and Kounosuke Mizutani, the attitude of the community towards me was roughly divided in two types… Avoidance and Devotion. The ones that looked at me as a terrifying executioner, and the ones that saw me as a hero who would destroy all evil… The latter one was kinda laughable, but I honestly didn’t care too much about people’s opinion on me, I knew it couldn’t be helped that some impact would come after such a flashy performance.

That said, the day after both Mizutanis were buried, about twenty students from our school gathered in front of the classroom I was sleeping at and, with Kousuke serving as their speaker, said, “Please teach us how to fight!” they all bowed to me at once as Kousuke asked me that.

There were no adults near them though. I understood that they most likely came on their own, so I rejected their offer by saying, “Shouldn’t this be done after getting the consent of an adult?”

Truth be told though, I just felt like it was going to be really bothersome, so I thought that this would be an easy way to make them give up.

… However, even though they did retreat that morning, at the night Mr. Asada himself bowed to me on their behalf and asked me to teach them… I don’t know what kind of amazing thing they did to convince him to bow to me, but I couldn’t really deny his plea. I ended up giving in, though only on the condition that the only people I’d train were those that volunteered to it.

And like that, I started teaching them how to kill zombies. I didn’t want to do it at first, but it was probably for the best that we started doing this, as they did need to learn how to handle those things in case I ended up falling at some point.

So, on the following day, I gave a simple task to the twenty students that gathered near the gates for training. They just needed to kill a zombie, it was not a particularly hard task.

I was using a knife to show them how it was supposed to be done, since they didn’t have a sword available. At first I tried to stab the forehead of a zombie that was sticking his head through the school’s fence, but it didn’t pierce. As expected.

“The trick is to aim at their eyes, you can kill them without having to worry about hitting a bone like this.” After saying that, I stabbed the knife at the zombie’s eye. The feeling of crushing an eyeball and tearing through skin was quite unpleasant, but the zombie was killed either way, which was all that mattered.

I thought it was important for them to get used to this feeling from the get go, as they needed to feel that they had the power to kill a person in them.

And so, I told them, “Alright, everyone. Your turn now.”

Over half of them dropped out on the first day, and a few more left with each passing day. And now, one week after we started, there were only five of us, me included. The remaining students were:

Hibiya Kousuke, the courageous first year who acts as a leader of sorts to the students. That paired up together with his devotion to Rika ends up making him look like a hero character of sorts.

Konno Rintarou, a first year boy who laughs a lot. He is a good pretty good natured person, so he feels like the kind of person that would make a last stand and die protecting his friends.

Tada Ritsuko, a second year girl who was part of the track and field club. She is very agile while also giving off that cool and quiet aura. Also, she seems to be the most capable one of the group.

Kimino Asuka, a third year girl who has an anime-like voice. She keeps calling me senpai even though we are of the same age. She smiles a lot and doesn’t hesitate to kill zombies, so she seems quite promising… Though she seems to be a bit of a nerd, so she’s probably the kind of character that would die due to some unreasonable circumstances.

They really weren’t many, but it was nice that they were trying their best to get used to handling zombies. Because I really don’t want this community to crumble in case I end up needing to leave.

… Though I sincerely hope that such a day won’t ever come.