Episode 27: Power from Another World

Natsuki remained leaning against the wall, her face exhausted, watching the white light spilling from Hayato’s hand.

When the fatigue and chill in her body finally faded, she stared at the ankle Hayato had focused on.

"The wound is gone."

From the skin revealed by her lifted hem, the bite mark from the zombie and all discoloration had vanished.

The pain was gone. Her entire body felt light.

"What is this?"

Natsuki looked up at Hayato again, not pressing for answers, but asking gently.

"Three years ago, I was summoned to another world and gained special abilities. Eleven days ago, I was sent back."

"Recently, then."

Natsuki murmured softly.

The doubt in her mind had tipped heavily toward truth. The wound had healed. The fatigue and chill had disappeared. She felt it herself.

The situation was that she had been attacked by a zombie, and the opposite-sex individual who wished to take her away had healed her—making it unlikely she was lying.

Not half-believing, but leaning toward belief by nine parts to one.

Responding to Natsuki’s prompting, Hayato continued speaking.

“Three things. Bear-level physical ability, sacred magic, spatial storage.”

“A bear?”

“Jumped over a front gate three meters tall, landed on a second-floor balcony.”

“That’s right.”

With fatigue gone, Natsuki leaned her body against Hayato as if still recovering from illness, listening.

“Sacred magic is as I said—curative.”

“…Can we save Mua?”

Natsuki, upon hearing the term, interrupted for the first time, turning to Hayato with a question.

Beyond the two gazes stood a zombie. Behind that zombie, a small girl lay face down.

Too many bites. Too much virus injected. Already cold.

Zombie virus, like snake venom, increases in concentration within the body with greater injection volume, accelerating symptom progression.

For example, a large number of bites from a highly toxic snake cause the poison to spread rapidly through the body, resulting in swift, fatal effects.

Similarly, multiple bites from a zombie deliver more virus, accelerating the transformation into a zombie.

Hayato looked again at Mua, shook his head.

"Impossible."

"Even if it were me?"

"Dead humans cannot be revived. Even if the virus is removed, the body remains dead."

Hayato fixed his gaze on Mua without hesitation, replying instantly.

His demeanor remained calm. He accepted the fact as it was.

Natsuki stared at Hayato, her expression one of mild distress.

"Sorry."

"No."

It was not Hayato’s fault regarding Mua.

Natsuki understood that much.

"What kind of ability is spatial storage?"

"About ten rooms’ worth in an eight-tatami room. Anything except animals can fit."

Natsuki tried to shift the topic. Hayato agreed.

"Use one room for Natsuki. Store all your personal items there. Bring them along."

"Understood. Please wake me."

Natsuki extended both hands, as if asking to be carried.

When Hayato lifted her, she clung to him.

Then she leaned close to Hayato’s ear and whispered.

“If you save Mua, I’ll let you have a harem too.”

Hayato froze for a moment, then exhaled a sigh while still holding Natsuki, who had clung to him.

“Six hours after being bitten, maybe we could’ve managed.”

“Is that so.”

Natsuki stood up and looked at the clock in the room.

The time was approaching eleven o’clock in the morning.

“We were about three hours late for the harem.”

“Regrettable. There’s already one more. Might’ve been rejected in the end.”

“Who is it?”

“A self-proclaimed eighteen-year-old in a middle school uniform.”

Yui might have launched into a series of stiff, formal phrases, blaming everything.

She hadn’t even mentioned Natsuki’s existence at all. Bringing her along could have been a disaster.

Before Hayato could decide what to do, Natsuki pulled out her bag and began removing items from the storage shelf.

"Use this too."

Hayato pulled out his backpack, sports bag, and Yui's father's travel suitcase one after another, arranging them on the desk on the side where Natsuki was not working.

He also took out several empty wooden crates meant for rye bread and placed them on the floor.

"Desks and chairs not fixed to the wall can be stored whole."

"Really, you can pull anything out. What's inside?"

"Supplies for a thousand people to march for another ten days. And a vehicle."

◇◇◇◇◇◇

Hayato decided to take Natsuki out of the compound.

The bear moved at fifty to sixty kilometers per hour.

The maximum weight it could lift was unknown, but Hayato had once moved a broken cart off the road by himself, told to "move it out of the way."

Using that strength, he lifted Natsuki and ran, clearing the barricade.

"Run from the side they can't see. The guards at the main gate are watching."

"Kirioka Agricultural High School is being targeted."

"Looks like it. The culprit is the group we were told about last time—people who trade supplies."

Unlike during the previous incident, Natsuki did not ask to be saved.

She had seen her parent turned away at the gate, then killed by a zombie right before her eyes. She had said she no longer felt any loyalty to Kirioka Agricultural High School.

Hayato could not protect Kirioka Agricultural High School forever.

The food production environment was favorable, but Kirioka City housed a shelter from Kirioka North High School, where people knew Yui had contracted the zombie virus.

Securing and maintaining Kirioka Agricultural High School would inevitably lead to contact with Kirioka North High School, risking Yui’s exposure.

Hayato has no intention of unilaterally breaking off the relationship he has established with Yui. He possesses that much ethics, that much common sense.

Should I carry it on my back, or hold it close— which is better?

Please choose the safer option.

If she’s carrying it, Natsuki will cling with her arms—dangerous.

Running while carrying it is like horse racing without reins.

Clinging to the horse's neck, a fall would result in a major accident.

Princess carried, I see.

Why does one hesitate when the opponent attacks, despite having initiated the assault oneself?

Three years of battlefield, following a school life devoid of feminine presence.

Hayato, paralyzed with fear, lifted Natsuki effortlessly and moved quietly toward the window.

Shards of broken glass scattered across the floor. Several zombies wandered outside.

Hayato showed no sign of fear. He leapt from the balcony, kicked off the railing, and became a chickenbird.

He landed lightly, like a chicken, and began sprinting.

Tonn, tonn, tonn—each step pushed off the ground with a bounce.

A faint dust rose. Natsuki’s long hair fluttered behind her.

From Natsuki’s view, the four-story cream-colored building shrank into the distance.

“Faster than a car,” she said.

“Not that fast. I can barely keep up with a horse carrying a person.”

Hayato’s current form was not ideal for running.

Behind him, zombies that had been congregating around the girls’ dormitory had been drawn to a new target.

Hayato sprinted forward, dragging them along. Ahead, two large trucks with open cargo beds appeared. The boys’ dormitory came into view.

Zombies gathered at the boys’ dormitory. A possibility of survivors remained.

—Still alive, then. That’s why Natsuki was left behind.

Zombies, controlled by the virus, sought to infect others.

If uninfected humans and already infected individuals were present in the girls’ dormitory, and all other conditions were equal, the uninfected would be the target.

Thanks to this, Hayato pressed on, carrying Natsuki, while also bearing the burden of what to do with Yui and himself, who was as fragile as a chicken.

Among the zombies clinging to the boys’ dormitory, one descended several steps of the emergency staircase on the side wall in a single leap.

“A new one. Not a student.”

The newly turned zombie landed on the ground and charged toward Hayato.

The movement was like that of a university student running in a New Year's relay race.

The strength in the legs pushing off the ground, the clean swing of both arms forward and back, the high cognitive ability focused directly on Hayato.

To an ordinary human, the creature was as deadly as a reaper.

"Could be a special specimen. Natsuki, brace yourself—this one moves aggressively."

"Wha—?"

Hayato did not flee from the newly turned zombie. He charged toward it instead.

The newly turned zombie advanced directly toward Hayato.

The speed resembled that of a grizzly bear and a sprinter closing in on each other.

The zombie opened its mouth wide and extended its hands.

Hayato leapt lightly, using superior reflexes, and swung his right leg clear.

The right foot, kicked forward, drove deep into the newly risen zombie’s torso, past the rib line.

The newly risen zombie, pushed by Hayato’s momentum from a sprint and leap, lifted off the ground.

It resembled a human body launched into the air after a collision with a vehicle.

"Gboaa."

Saliva laced with virus sprayed from the newly risen zombie’s mouth.

Hayato shifted his right foot to the left.

The newly risen zombie was knocked sideways, sent flying toward Hayato’s left hand side.

Hayato’s forward motion reversed abruptly.

Upon landing, Hayato bounced three times, adjusting his balance.

"Fuh, hah, hoh."

"Kyaa!"

Natsuki, clinging to Hayato, could not suppress a scream.

Hayato adjusted his expression, then resumed fleeing.

He muttered an excuse.

"Bad one was there."

"What does 'bad' mean?"

"Zombie virus uses mana. Those who accumulate mana in their bodies more easily become zombies. Their strength increases after transformation."

The newly formed zombie, seemingly the one kicked by Hayato, was embedded headfirst into a field beside the road.

Its head was buried, yet it still carried forward motion, rolling its torso.

The neck bone was clearly misaligned.

"Isn't bad anymore."

Meanwhile, the zombies gathered at the boys' dormitory approached Hayato.

Hayato turned back from the direction of the boys' dormitory, slowing slightly. He then moved toward the field, dragging the zombies from both the boys' and girls' dormitories with him.

The field held rows of winter cabbage, their thick green leaves standing in orderly formation.

"Zombies, if only you'd become herbivores. Wouldn't it be better if you evolved that way?"

"The virus would render vegetables inedible if it infected you."

"That's true."

The ground shifted from road to field soil, slowing Hayato's pace.

A thought formed—'catch them in the cabbage field'—and he immediately rejected it, disliking the idea with a mental note.

Ahead, the orchard came into view.

"Running along the barricade means we'll find vehicles?"

"Yes. They're placed at regular intervals to observe the outside."

Hayato confirmed with Natsuki, then leapt from the cabbage field and sprinted through the orchard.

Behind Hayato, the zombies that were not yet fully decayed groaned softly—“uun,” “aan”—moving at a moderate pace.

Eventually, the barricade came into view beyond the orchard.

Beside it stood the teacher’s vehicle, placed there to monitor the barricade.

The car sat abandoned in the dust, but to Hayato, it provided sufficient footing.

“Then I’m jumping. Hold on tight.”

“Yes.”

He did not want to repeat the motion from earlier, when he kicked a newly risen zombie.

But without a strong leap, he might not clear the barrier.

Natsuki swallowed her protest, and clung to Hayato’s body without hesitation.

“Going.”

Having confirmed Natsuki’s grip, Hayato leapt lightly onto the car’s hood.

The impact caused the vehicle to shift slightly.

Hayato pressed his foot into the roof near the frame-equipped door and kicked upward with force.

The view opened up. Houses and roads beyond the barricade came into sight.

Natsuki, clinging tightly, let out a breath.

"High…?"

Balancing in midair, Hayato descended toward the ground.

He landed lightly on the outside of the barricade.