High School Girl Warrior

Chapter 107 – The Swordswoman whose name is unknown

(Inugami Renji’s Point of View (New Character))

Recently, I’ve noticed something.

RPGs are much more fun if you don’t level up more than you need to.

I mean, games give a greater sense of accomplishment when they’re cleared at a higher difficulty after all. This is no different.

As such, since leveling up lowers the difficulty, it also lowers the sense of accomplishment.

When I understood this, it felt like I had woken up from a long dream.

I’ve always loved RPGs more than anything, and I had always felt an irresistible fascination with the act of leveling up.

Back then, I had never thought that this would make the game lose its appeal.

Of course, I naturally need to make more attempts to clear a given game when I give up on actively leveling up.

I keep on getting annihilated over and over again. Being forced to start up from my last save point each and every time.

This happened a lot.

Many many times.

Over and over and over and over and over again.

Until I learned how to completely predict the behavioral patterns of my enemies.

Then, while doing actions as precise as threading a needle, I get the incredible joy that comes from defeating a hard enemy…!

Of course, it takes a lot of time to do that.

But it’s okay. Right now, I have an almost inexhaustible amount of free time.

***

— Level up!

— Level up!

— Level up!

— Level up!

— Level up!

I fast forward the displayed message by repeatedly pressing the buttons, skipping the usual level up song that played itself five times in a row together with the level ups.

With this, I just defeated the second boss, a pretty good development.

Granted, everyone except the main character died in the process, but that’s fine, as I was able to concentrate all the experience in the main character alone.

“… Let’s keep going.” I quietly muttered to myself.

Messages that I’ve already memorized due to how many times I’ve read them appeared on the screen.

— The evil Demon Lord does this and that, and then the Hero goes like this.

What do I do next?

Let’s choose the best of the limited options available, then… Defeat the enemy characters. Just like that.

Now, breaking the pre-established harmony, one of the hero’s companions will betray them.

Of course, I already removed all the equipment of this character beforehand. The money I got from selling those items will fund my adventures for the time being.

“Now… What next…?” I quietly muttered.

But at that moment…

I heard a clashing noise outside.

I instantly closed my portable game console and my whole body shivered, as if an electric current had flown through me.

I started holding my breath and looked at my surroundings.

It was as dark as usual… Naturally, as this was an underground location without any electricity in it.

… Is it ‘them’?

It’s quite possible… Maybe they heard me talk to myself, as that had become a habit of mine at some point.

I was confident on the soundproofing and on the light blocking capabilities of my location, but when it’s so quiet in here, there’s a chance they might have heard it…

So, even if I felt like I was about to break down in tears, I forced myself to crawl out of my improvised home made of cardboard, magazines, newspapers and stuff like it.

Carefully and slowly, holding back my tears, I looked outside through the shuttered windows.

… Just as I expected.

The dead were walking nearby.

They were zombies, just like the ones that appear in movies and games.

It leaked out a strange groan. Just hearing that was enough to make me cry a bit…

***

Zombies… Ghouls… Undead… Whatever name you want to call them doesn’t matter.

There are many stories about them.

However, the being right in front of me was not fantasy nor something I imagined.

A terrifying epidemic was currently threatening the survival of humanity… 99.9% infectiousness; 99.9% lethality.

Infected humans have their hearts stop beating in just a few hours, and after that, they become ferocious and try increasing their number of comrades by biting other humans.

Supposedly, the zombies have an abnormally slow metabolism, so they are able to continue their activities almost indefinitely without eating any food.

They appeared in this world about five months ago.

The first case was in the middle of an intersection in Shibuya.

Everyone thought that it was just a drunk office worker.

He suddenly tried attacking an old man who was near him.

A courageous young man tried to separate the two of them.

And like this, the outbreak started.

Since then, infected people appeared in multiple cities all over the world.

No one knows when, where and how this disease, that is simply named Zombie Plague, was born.

Some people say that God created it to destroy humanity, but there’s no way for me to know if that’s true or not.

***

The monster in front of me was aimlessly stumbling through the darkness.

For zombie standards, this one was fairly good-looking… Though well, even with this kind of appearance, these monsters can still tear things apart with more than twice the strength they had when they were alive.

It’s not an opponent one can win against in a fair fight.

So, with shivers running down my spine, I earnestly prayed… Please… Please go somewhere else.

And then… As if my wish was granted, the zombie turned its back to me, then staggered back to the depths of the station.

I heaved out a sigh of relief.

It’s been more than two months since I locked myself in this convenience store.

After running about to all sorts of places, I finally found this place where I could feel comfortable.

I couldn’t afford losing this. This was a nice place to stay at.

Nobody disturbed me, food was plentiful, and there were lots of batteries available for me to use as I pleased.

I could spend my days lying down on my cardboard room, playing games while holding my breath, and eating convenience store food when hungry. This slow life was plentiful.

After starting to live this kind of life, it didn’t take long for me to realize that humans could live without moving nearly as much as I thought they needed to.

Overall… I just don’t feel like going outside.

I mean, there are thousands… Or rather, tens of thousands of zombies out there.

But luckily, the road to get here was blocked by rubble and shutters, so very few zombies came nearby. It was quite the relief.

And so, after confirming that the zombie had really left, I put the earphones back on my ears and decided to get back to gaming.

However…

I heard an extremely large sound echo throughout the entire station.

It felt like the sound itself made the ground shake.

Startled, I once more looked outside and…

It was bright. The inside of the store was illuminated by an orange light.

Someone must have lit up a fire…

Are they stupid!? What are they doing!?

I gritted my teeth… Zombies tend to flock towards light… If you lit a fire, you’ll just get swarmed by them.

But when I turned my gaze towards the source of the light, I saw something quite strange.

A woman with a shining golden sword cut a zombie in two.

As far as I could see, she was alone.

“Damn it! They just keep coming!” She exclaimed.

Her voice was clearly tense.

And the situation was without a doubt unfavorable to her.

A dozen or so zombies were gathered around her.

Moreover, the woman was already injured.

Her upper arm was soaked in blood.

And yet, the swordswoman continued wielding her sword, seemingly unable to accept her impending doom.

“Take this… Lightning Slash!” She exclaimed.

Then, a flash of lightning was shot from her sword, illuminating the dark underground even more.

“Amazing…” I muttered.

Right now, my eyes were probably shining like those of a little child.

I mean… What she was doing was just like what my characters did in games… She was using magic.

And the zombies that were hit by the lightning were instantly destroyed one after the other.

She’s superhuman…

She’s amazing…

And yet…

“Ah… Out of magic…? In a place like this…?” She said.

She somehow seemed to be in danger.

I don’t understand the specifics of her situations, but… If I were to put it in game terms, she seemed to have run out of MP.

And there were two zombies that she had yet to defeat.

One of them was the good-looking zombie that I saw a small while back.

… I could hardly believe what I was about to do.

For the past four months, I had been running away from any and every zombie that I found, but…

This time, I was planning on confronting them.

My weapon was a shovel.

I kept it with me and made sure it was in a good state in case I ever needed a weapon.

“Damn it… Is this really it…?” The swordswoman knelt on the spot.

Seems like she doesn’t have any power left in her.

Then, I don’t have time to waste. I can’t afford to hesitate here.

I just have to choose the best option amongst the limited options offered to me.

I left the game console that I cherished almost as much as my life behind, then clung to the door of the convenience store.

Then, I put all my strength into opening the shutter and automatic doors of the store without any electricity to help me.

I shouted, “Stop!”

But the zombies did not stop moving.

One of the zombies grabbed the swordswoman’s body.

It was groaning… With its disgusting rotten hands, it was grabbing the body of a beautiful woman.

Somehow, that by itself made me incredibly angry.

I couldn’t forgive this zombie.

The explosive power that had been dormant inside me, or at least that’s how I’d like to refer to this, came out in full force.

I moved forward and thrusted the shovel on the back of the head of the good-looking zombie.

It instantly stopped moving.

I did it! I’m a hero!

… It wasn’t over yet.

There was another zombie…

And…

I guess I wasn’t a hero after all.

For I saw the zombie bite the woman’s throat.

The woman was breathing heavily… She spat out blood and convulsed her body.

“… Damn it” I screamed and smashed the shovel onto the head of this zombie, which instantly fell over.

I started panting. I lost the strength in my legs and sat down next to the woman.

Right now, I was filled with regrets.

In games, you can just start over when you mess up.

But here? Unfortunately, life doesn’t have a load button.

The swordswoman seemed to be filled with anguish, but… Her gaze somehow also seemed to be kind.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t make it in time…” I muttered.

The woman started coughing and spat out more blood. Seems like it was way too hard for her to speak already.

Still, she seemed to be wanting to tell me something.

“Th… at… not…” She said, then offered me something.

“What… This…?” I muttered as I stared at the item.

Was it a helmet perchance? It was a bit hard to be sure…

Still, I guess the closest thing to it was a medieval knight’s helmet.

Is it a memento perchance?

It’s hard to know what her intentions are, but I took it anyways.

“Than… k y…” Once more, she spat out blood from her mouth.

I don’t want her to suffer any more than this…

In this situation… All I can do is give her a clean death.

After all, those that get bitten by zombies become a zombie eventually too.

To prevent that from happening… I picked up my shovel.

She closed her eyes… She seemed to have accepted her death.

“Then… Goodbye, miss arcane swordswoman.” Saying that, I put all my strength in my arms, and hit the shovel on her head.

She fell.

I was immediately assaulted by a horrible sensation.

But the job was done.

So, I picked up the helmet that she gave me, as well as her sword.

Though for some reason, her sword instantly disappeared as soon as I picked it up.

Nonetheless, I staggered back towards the convenience store.

… I’m sure I’ll have a terrible dream tonight.