High School Girl Warrior: How to Save an Apocalyptic World - CH 69

Chapter 69 – The Right Way to Live

Me (as a man) and Iroha headed to the northeast of the Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Park, to a branch school of an art university, the Ihongei University.

On the way there, while we were walking through a residential area without going through any problems in particular, I suddenly heard a voice, “Hey you… You two!”

The person spoke in a warning tone. I looked up and saw an elderly man on the second floor of a house.

“Ah, nice seeing you-” I replied as if I was just a girl going to school who happened to be called out by someone.

“Run away! Don’t stay here!” His voice sounded kinda desperate.

Mmmm… I focused my gaze on him, and soon enough, the old man started glowing yellow.

–Status: Wary.

I see…

The item I’m currently wearing are the ‘Coward’s Glasses’, which I got as an achievement reward back when I was bitten by a zombie some time ago. It lets me understand how others are feeling towards me.

However, it doesn’t have a vision-correction function, so I’m using contact lenses right now.

Until now, I’ve let these ugly glasses rot in the bottom of my backpack, but now that I look like a completely different person, I felt like it was a good time to use it.

After all, being able to read people’s emotions in this kind of operation will be very helpful… But at the same time, not having a vision-correction function stinks, so I feel like this item is kinda underwhelming.

Oh well, it’s still useful right now, so let’s leave it at that, and focus on the old man in front of me instead.

Therefore, I decided jump high up, use a fence as a foothold, then jump up again to grab the handrail of the second floor of the house that the old man was at. Now, I could peek at him directly from the window.

“W-woah!” The old man got up as he saw that.

“Oh, sorry, did I startle you?” I asked.

“A-ah… No, it’s alright… Though that was amazing. Do you do gymnastics or something?” The old man asked.

“I’m from a Chinese Acrobatic Troupe.” I whimsically decide to tell a pointless lie to him. It might be good practice, since I’m about to go tell a big lie to the ‘scoundrels’.

“I-I see… I guess the only people who can still survive in this world are either from a circus or are crazy.” The old man took a deep breath, then continued, “It’s too dangerous from here on out.”

“Dangerous?” I asked.

“Crazy people are living over there.” The old man gestured towards the branch school that me and Iroha were walking towards until just a small while ago.

“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow at that.

Scoundrels, beasts, crazy… I really heard nothing good about that group. That’s certainly interesting, alright.

“The dead have started raising since a while back, and yet, there is no sign of any rescue coming our way… All the decent people must have died already.” The old man sighed.

“So, how are they ‘not decent’?” I asked.

“One, they’re armed. Two, they prey on women… Do you understand? Your cute little sister is in danger.” The old man looked at Iroha, who was boredly munching on some rice balls while on the side of the road.

My ‘little sister’? I don’t think me and her are particularly similar though.

Well, never mind that.

“Do you know how many people are in their group?” I asked, as this old man might have some useful information to share.

“I don’t know, but I once saw what looked like to be forty or even fifty people in a single fight. There might be even more, and their boss seems to be really cunning and a horrible womanizer.” The old man replied.

“But Iroha, no, I mean, my little sister, she’s still a child, you know?” I told him.

Somehow, Iroha seemed to realize we were talking about her, so she happily waved her hand at us.

“It doesn’t matter. Mr. Yoshida, who lives a bit far from here, said that those guys took his daughter. She’s still in elementary school, but she was taken away… I pity them.” The old man muttered.

“Oh…” I muttered.

“They say it’s a ‘safety fee’, they kill the zombies to keep us safe… But that only applies to half of us.” The old man was basically spitting those last words.

Then, a door to the old man’s room was slowly opened.

“Grandpa?” A young boy said.

“I’m glad that he is a boy…” The old man sighed, “What has our world come to?”

The boy walked up to his grandpa’s leg and hugged him.

“Mmm… Alright, I got it.” I crossed my arms before continuing, “Just have a bit more patience, okay?”

“More patience?” The old man repeated.

“As long as you stay alive, good things will certainly come your way, so… Just tell Mr. Yoshida to wait a bit longer, okay?

“Well then.” I then jumped off from the second floor, then started moving forward again, together with Iroha.

“H-hey…!” The old man exclaimed as he saw the direction we were moving towards.

We didn’t respond, and instead kept on moving.

***

“Hey sis, shouldn’t it be about time to tie my hands?” Iroha asked me.

“Regarding that… I think it would be too unrealistic for me to try tying your hands and taking you with me in this situation, so why don’t we go with a setting that I deceived you and brought you there instead?” I replied.

“Deceived me?” She asked.

“Yeah. Basically, just pretend you’re an idiot.” I told her.

“Pretending to be an idiot…? That might be hard…” Iroha replied.

“It’s okay if you just act normally.” I said.

“C-come on-!” Iroha exclaimed.

But then, as we were talking about that.

“Hey!” A voice exclaimed.

For a moment I thought it was being directed towards us, but it seemed like whoever yelled that, had yet to notice us.

“Hey! Agh! Come on! Fuck off! Damn it!” I saw a man screaming at a zombie.

“Hurry up, or you’ll get killed!” A different man started laughing out loud.

“Do it! Do it!” A third man shouted.

“Hey hey hey, you gotta finish this quickly, or things will turn bad real soon!” A fourth man shouted.

Several cheerful voices were coming from the direction of the art university’s branch school.

Me and Iroha quietly hid in the shadows to see what was going on. There, we saw six men who seemed to go from their twenties to their forties surrounding a zombie.

“Hii! Hii!” And then, there was one more man. He seemed to be on his early twenties, and he was facing off against the zombie.

His hair was died brown, and he had a crowbar in his hand.

“Good luck, or you’ll get bitten!” One of the other men said.

Seems like they intentionally created a one-on-one situation. I’m not sure what kind of ceremony this is, but it looked bad for the brown-haired guy.

And then, the zombie got on top of the brown-haired man.

“Hiee!” The brown-haired man exclaimed.

“Oooh, seems like Sakata will join ‘their’ ranks soon!” One man exclaimed.

The brown-haired man, who was probably Sakata, was desperately trying to keep the zombie’s head away from him.

“Sis!” Iroha said sternly.

“Leave it to me.” I immediately ran towards them.

I quickly crossed the distance of a dozen or so meters in one go, then stabbed the zombie’s head with my sword.

“Whoa! What the hell!?” Everyone, including Sakata, let out a surprised shout.

At the same time, their status turned to red, indicating hostility.

The Coward’s Glasses are color coded with Red>Yellow>Blue, so you can roughly understand the other person’s mental state by looking at that.

Though well, it was obvious that those people were angry even without the help of the glasses, as some of them were pointing their guns at me.

And some of those guns looked like real submachineguns, so it was a bit scary…

“The hell are you!?” One of the men exclaimed.

Oh… Did I put myself in a bad situation?

After a moment of hesitation, I muttered, “Uhn… Bullying… Not cool.”

A few seconds of silence passed.

Then, the people around me burst out laughing.

Their status also quickly changed from red, to yellow, then to a greenish blue.

I don’t quite get what happened, but let’s help this Sakata guy who is on the ground.

“Damn it!” He slapped the hand I offered him, then stood up on his own.

At this moment, from among the people who were laughing, a man who seemed to be their representative stepped forward, “Seems like there is a misunderstanding here.”

I tilted my head at that.

“This is an exam. To join our ranks.” The guy said.

“An exam…?” I asked.

“It’s what you just broke into. To kill one of them is the condition for passing.” The representative explained.

“So…” I glanced at Sakata.

“Well, this guy failed.” The representative said.

At this moment, Sakata jumped up, “Hey, come on! I can join! Let me in!”

“Ah… I dunno about that. Or rather, I have an even better idea.” As the representative said that, everyone’s eyes gathered on me, “You still look like a kid, but you’re pretty good at it, aren’t you? And this sword is pretty impressive too.”

“Collecting these was my grandfather’s hobby. I just use it as I please.” I replied nonchalantly.

“This looks like more than a simple hobby sword.” The man looked at my blood-soaked sword with great interest, “You have a good chance here. Why don’t you join us? We’re looking for someone who can work as a hunter.”

… Oh? Did things just… Somehow go according to plan?

“That was my goal all along.” I replied.

“Is that so!? Then I guess I don’t need to bother with explaining things.” The representative replied.

“Yeah… Also, I have a souvenir.” I then looked at Iroha’s direction, “Hey! Come here!”

Once I called her out, Iroha replied, “Hieeey!” and started moving closer.

… What was that reply?

“Who is her?” The representative asked.

“I heard you were collecting girls.” I replied.

“… What’s your relationship with her?” He asked.

“She’s a girl who comes when I call her.” I told him.

“Mmm…” The representative stroke his chin as he evaluated Iroha, who was leisurely walking our way.

“Si… Broo? Whaat’s uuup?” Iroha asked me.

Oh, this girl… I told her to pretend to be stupid, but that’s a bit too much.

Inwardly, I was worried.

“Is. This. Where. We. Are. Going. To?” Iroha asked.

“Most likely.” I replied. Hoping that we weren’t gonna get caught with this.

“Well… Alright. Even if she’s kinda stupid, there is still work that she can do.” The man smiled, then offered me a handshake, “Nice to meet ya. I’m Oda, just like the warlord Oda Nobunaga… Welcome to ‘The Right Way to Live’.