High School Girl Warrior: How to Save an Apocalyptic World - CH 97

Chapter 97 – Herd

“Sorry. I don’t think I can fix it without the right tools.” Mr. Norio commented while looking at the light truck I was previously stuck under.

Everyone seemed more concerned about the truck than about me… It was a bit frustrating.

“Would you like to just drain the truck and turn back?” Mr. Gozou asked him.

“No. According to that guy from earlier, there is a community nearby. Why don’t we try going there and seeing if we can borrow some tools?” Mr. Norio suggested.

“Sounds like a good plan.” Mr. Gouzou said, then turned towards me, “By the way… I’m sorry, but can you use Enslave on me too?”

“… Is that alright?” I asked him.

Until now, Mr. Gouzou had been eliminated as a possible candidate for Enslave, because he is the leader of our community in MIyabigaoka. We thought it would be bad if the leader was under the command of someone else, so it was better to not Enslave him.

“Yes, at least temporarily. Apparently, this place isn’t as safe as we thought it would be, and I don’t want to be a hindrance for everyone here.” Mr. Gouzou replied.

“Got it.” I nodded, then put my hand on his head and activated Enslave.

“I used to think that Japanese people would respect morality even in the worst possible crises… It is sad to see what the cruel reality has brought out.” Mr. Gouzou muttered with a bitter expression.

And now, the number of slaves has been maxed out.

“That man said that the large group was under the overpass ahead.” Mr. Gouzou muttered once the enslaving process was finished.

Back when I got to Miyabigaoka High School when all this started, there were about fifty people there. The number in this community seems to be about the same, so it’s definitely a relatively large community.

And wherever people gather, we can hear them cry for help.

The more we help people, the more experience points we get.

So, we loaded our supplies on the surviving light truck, closed it up, then hurried our way to the community on our feet, so as to check it out without making too much noise.

And then… “Hey, everyone!” Rintarou, who was on the front, bounced back our way, “It’s bad! They’re surrounded by zombies!”

Iroha was the first to jump out at this call.

Like a monkey, she dexterously climbed a telephone pole to get a better look of the situation, “Oh dear. This is gonna be tough.” She told us.

A few seconds after that, I moved to a position where I could see the situation.

“Wow…” I could see it… A gigantic horde of zombies. A truly overwhelming number of them.

I can’t really count them, but… There might be over a thousand zombies there? This herd is on a completely different scale than anything I’ve faced before.

“What even is this…?” Kousuke muttered.

“Look. There is a human community over there.” Asuka pointed out.

After staring carefully at it, just like the man that attacked us had said, there was an area protected by a strong barricade under the overpass.

“Unlike the school, there is nothing to block the sight of the immortals over here. As a result of being attracted by the humans here, more and more immortals gathered, who called for even more immortals… I guess that’s how this happened.” Mr. Norio commented.

That sounds like a reasonable assumption.

“So, what are you going to do?” Mr. Gouzou asked me.

I folded my arms in thought.

As one would expect, dealing with that humongous number would be tough. They will attack us one after another.

“I think we can’t face them head-on.” Iroha made a surprisingly calm and level-headed comment, “With this many opponents, we’ll surely run out of magic in the middle of the fight, right? We won’t be able to do anything then.”

Ah, I see… Iroha has already been defeated twice due to running out of magic… It’s no wonder that she is cautious about that now.

However, we couldn’t really hold back here. We don’t know how long it’s been since that community has been surrounded by this zombie herd.

Depending on how long it has been, they might already be running out of food.

So at the latest… I’d like to clear out these zombies by the end of the day.

“Did you think of a strategy?” Mr. Norio asked me.

Perhaps he knows that I’m already set on taking the initiative and risking my life on this.

“Yes. It’s gonna be a pretty uncool way to fight though.” I replied.

“Can’t say I ever cared about solving my problems in a cool way.” Mr. Norio told me.

Well then, “First, we should find a nearby convenience store. One that provides an advantageous ground for a defensive battle.

“Specifically, a place that restricts how many zombies can enter it at a time, and that has plenty of food stockpiled in it.” I explained.

“And then?” Mr. Norio asked me to continue.

“The rest is simple. I’ll first kill all the zombies that come our way, and then when I’m hungry, I’ll pass the baton to Iroha while I retreat to where everyone is, so as to eat a lot of food.

“Once I’m done replenishing, I switch with Iroha while she goes eat while I go back to killing zombies… And then we repeat this process.” I told him.

“I see… Then our duty is to…” Mr. Norio started saying.

“Prepare a lot of food for both me and Iroha.” I finished his sentence.

“I see.” Mr. Norio smiled wryly, “It’s certainly not a cool plan.”

It really isn’t.

“But there seems to be no other way to go about it, so… Let’s get started.” Mr. Gouzou stated.