CH 88

Chapter 88 – Chatting and going home

Phase Two – Second Arc – Learning how to spend the world-end life with a reincarnator

Healing Magic I – A spell that instantly heals scratches. If you use it on a child that scraped their knee, you’ll be referred to as a hero by the next day.

Healing Magic II – A spell that removes weak poisons and illnesses from one’s body. It’s effective against mild colds, but it cannot cure the illness inflicted by a zombie’s bite.

Healing Magic III – A spell that emits a green light from your hands and heals whatever injuries that it touches.

Healing Magic IV – A spell that emits a strong green light from your hands and heals you and any nearby allies.

Healing Magic V – Effects of this spell aren’t certain yet, but it seems to gradually heals allies over a large area. Trying to use it made people say things like, ‘My stiff shoulders have healed’ or ‘My chronic hernia has improved’.

Fire Magic IV – A spell that creates a fireball that is twice as big as the one from Fire Magic II. If you throw it on the ground, it will burn for a while, so it can be used as a firewood substitute.

Fire Magic V – A spell that the Spirit Tamer referred to as ‘Extremely Hot Fire’. It raises a pillar of fire at a specified location, but it’s a bit telegraphed, so it’s easy to avoid if you know it’s coming.

Water Magic I – A spell that fires a water gun from your fingertips. It can fire hot water too, so it’s very useful for making cup noodles.

Thunder Magic I – A spell that inflicts a shock on anything that it touches. About as powerful as a stun gun, maybe?

Thunder Magic II – A spell that the Martial Artist refers to as ‘Lightning Bullet’. It fires various lightning balls at the enemy.

Thunder Magic III – A spell that the Martial Artist refers to as ‘Electric Switch’. It supplies the necessary amount of power to nearby electrical appliances for about ten minutes.

Thunder Magic IV – A spell that makes lightning strike down from the skies on a given location.

Superhuman Strength I – A skill that increases your muscles’ strength. Its difference from the Warrior’s ‘Attack Power I’ is currently unknown.

Mind’s Eye – A skill that lets you sense your surroundings even while your eyes are closed. Useful for fighting in the dark.

Special Skill IV – A skill that unleashes a powerful blow as you rotate your whole body.

***

While we walked alongside the railroad tracks, I looked at the skill notes that Tsuzuri copied on a notebook for me (at least for the skills I haven’t learned myself).

No monsters and almost no zombies got in our way, so the journey was fairly peaceful.

Perhaps that’s because we passed through here very recently, so there are almost no zombies in this area right now.

As for the occasional zombie that gets in our way…

“Strike: Lightning Strike!” Iroha dropped a thunder on the zombie, quickly taking care of it.

She was using them as test subjects for the newly-required Thunder Magic IV, which turned the zombies into charred bodies one after another.

We didn’t have to go out of our way to burn them when she killed them with that spell, so this was certainly quite convenient.

“With this name, you’re saying Strike twice…” I told Iroha.

She groaned as she started thinking of a new name for her skill, “Mmmm, Thunder attack? No… Lightning Bolt… Lightning Bolt Strike…”

She seemed to be really struggling with it.

If it was me, I’d just call it Thunder and call it a day.

When I told her that though, her reply was, “Then its name wouldn’t fit in with the names of the other skills.”

So that’s why she is troubled about it… Though well, I can understand why she’d be particular about this kind of thing.

“Are you really okay with not staying with Ms. Satonaka though?” I asked Iroha.

“Mmm?” Iroha looked back to the supermarket we just passed through.

Apparently, more people started gathering there now that we cleared it out.

Everyone seems to be trying to work together to overcome this situation.

“If I stay there, everyone will keep on relying on me. I don’t think that’s good.” Iroha told me.

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“Back then, I kept on trying to do everything myself, you know? I thought it was natural for me to do it when I had these powers, but it’s not good if everyone just has to rely on a single person.” Iroha explained.

I guess this must be something that Ms. Satonaka told her.

I could tell from looking at Iroha’s expression though, that she wasn’t really pushed out of that community or anything like it.

But even then, maybe it’s just my imagination, but… Iroha seemed to be a bit lonely.

You’ve grown, haven’t you, Iroha?

I stared at her with the kind of gaze a mother would give to her children.

“Sis, you look weird right now.” Iroha told me.

“Alrighty, alrighty.” As I said that, I started ruffling her fluffy hair.

“W-whoa!? What are you doing!?” Iroha asked me.

“Let’s do our best together.” I smiled at her.

“Oh… Ooh…?” Iroha seemed to be stunned for a while, but, eventually, like a cat receiving a massage, she closed her eyes and seemed to feel comfortable from my touch.

***

“By the way, Iroha.” While we were eating some snacks and drinking orange juice, I remembered to ask something to Iroha, “What about your quest?”

“… Quest?” She seemed to be a bit confused at first, but she answered it, “Oh, do you mean that thing that came together with the ‘Phase 1 End’ announcement?”

“Yes, that.” I nodded.

“I’ve long finished that.” Iroha replied.

Oh, is that so?

Well, we haven’t talked about it until now, so I did expect that she might have already finished it.

“By the way, what did you need to do?” I asked her.

“It was pretty easy. I just needed to create a Safe Zone, then evacuate someone to it.” Iroha replied.

“Eh?” I said.

For real? Mine had me struggle so much…

Well, I guess that’s fine. Perhaps the difficulty of quests varies from person to person.

I wonder why though… Perhaps it has to do with one’s daily behavior?

***

A few hours later, we were getting close to Miyabigaoka High School.

“I’m looking forward to it. How many companions do you have there, sis?” Iroha asked me.

“There were about 50 people there back when I left.” I replied.

By now, I was starting to see the roads that I was quite familiar with already.

“I’m sure everyone will be surprised to see your incredible powers, Iroha.” I told her.

“Oh yes!” Iroha started giggling, “Though it’s more fun to show it to people who don’t know. They always get totally astonished.”

Well, on my end, I remember seeing Akechi’s astonished face when I didn’t die after being shot. He seemed to be looking at a herald of the end of the world.

And while the two of us Players were talking about this kind of thing and giggling, I saw something a bit unfamiliar.

“Oh?” Iroha said.

This was quite the memorable road to me. It was here that I became a decoy to save the Hibiya family. This was the main street that I barely escaped with my life.

But on the sides of this street, vans and trucks were lined up, not letting any gap past them.

Many cars also seemed to have had their tires pulled out, and then were then lined up directly on the ground.

Essentially, they were using cars and tires to create a sturdy wall. Any path that zombies could try crossing were blocked, which ended up creating a straight safe path leading directly to Miyabigaoka High School.

They probably created this defense so as to make it safe to go to and from the shopping district.

“Ooh?” I couldn’t help muttering.

It was definitely done with the hard work of everyone at Miyabigaoka, but… To think they’d build such a huge barricade in just a few days…

“Your companions are amazing, sis!” Iroha exclaimed.

“Y-yeah…” I muttered.

I guess it must have been Mr. Norio’s idea to build all this, but… It must have required a lot of effort and manpower to build all this.

Is it even possible to create such a nice barricade in the short period of time that I was away?

We climbed the barricade.

A bit to the side, we could see a pile of zombie corpses that had been carefully burned away.

Then, we entered the clunky, but safe road, and passed by the Captain supermarket.

“H-hey!” Iroha’s eyes widened.

She was looking up, towards the roof of Miyabigaoka High School.

When I looked at the same direction, I saw something flying in circles above it.

“H-hey, sis!” Iroha exclaimed.

I didn’t stop to reply. I was already running at full speed.

Dragons.

Just like the ones I had seen from my room at my apartment that day… Dragons were flying above Miyabigaoka.

Has the raid already begun or… Is it too late?

“Wait, sis! Dealing with that number is… It’s really bad!” I had a feeling that Iroha was shouting something behind me, but…

I didn’t stop.