"We should go."
Tysone said it to the courtyard more than to Saeko specifically, but she was the one who heard it and started walking.
The Mule was waiting where they'd left it, engine off, sitting dark in the shadow of the collapsed wall. The freed survivors were already loaded. Rei and Takashi had organized it, getting the old man settled up front and giving the kid a bottle of water they'd found in a crate.
They were all quiet, huddled together, staring at the lights of the mansion as if they'd just seen a ship come over the horizon.
Kohta was the last one out of the estate's gate. He pulled it shut behind him. Not all the way—the hinge had been bent at some point and it didn't fully close anymore—but he pulled it most of the way, and that was enough to satisfy some basic instinct about leaving places tidy.
He climbed into the back of the Mule with the others and found a gap between a drum of diesel and a sleeping bag.
"Comfortable?" Miku asked from across the cargo bed. She had the crossbow on her lap and was pointing it at the road ahead.
Kohta adjusted himself. "It's not a recliner. But it's not a pit full of zombies either."
It was quite tight as well, with so many people and so much stuff crammed into the truck's bed.
"Let's get out of here." Tysone called out.
The engine turned over. The turbo spooled up with that particular low howl that hadn't been there before Kohta and Kenji had spent two days on it,
He pulled onto the road.
Nobody spoke for the first few minutes. The aurora was still there, though considerably dimmer than before. He wondered if that was a sign for the better or for the worse.
Saya would probably have some kind of half-baked but plausible theory. He'd have to ask her.
He drove with the headlights off still.
The road was empty. A stray zombie stood in the middle of an intersection ahead, turning slowly toward the sound of the engine, and Tysone steered around it without slowing down. The zombie watched them pass.
From the back, one of the freed survivors—the sixty-year-old man—cleared his throat. "Where are you taking us?"
"South." Tysone said. "About two kilometers. You'll see it when we get there."
The man accepted this without another question, which was either a sign of profound exhaustion or a solid understanding of when to press your luck.
His name, Tysone had gathered from a brief exchange with Rei before they left, was Daichi. Retired civil engineer. His daughter was beside him, the one with the neglected cut on her forearm, which she'd wrapped in a strip of cloth from somewhere.
"The estate..." Daichi coughed after a moment. "Hayashi's people. How many others like that are there? In this district."
"In this one, Hayashi was the only one we know of." Tysone answered honestly. "But the city has its fair share of snakes, all trying to claim their own little pond."
Daichi was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded, slowly. "The world changed. Some people think the rules changed with it."
"The rules didn't change." Takashi's voice cut through from the passenger seat. "They just got written down in plain language. Don't die. And don't let other people make you die if you can stop them."
Well said, Takashi. Well said.
Tysone quietly approved from the driver's seat.
...
The gates of the shelter opened as the Mule approached. Haruto had seen the headlights from the roof and come down to work the mechanism without being told.
Asami was right behind him.
She looked for Kohta before the truck had fully stopped, and found him in the cargo bed, climbing over the drum of diesel, and the expression on her face was a clear relief that was probably visible from a hundred yards away. Kohta almost tripped over a sleeping bag trying to get to her.
The freed survivors stared out the truck windows at the high walls and the well-lit courtyard beyond the gate. At the armed figures waiting calmly to receive them. At the simple, overwhelming fact of safety.
They hadn't realized how badly they needed it until it was there in front of them.
Shizuka met them as they helped the passengers down.
Tysone gave Kohta's back an encouraging push. "Go to your lady."
With a huge blush on his chubby face, the marksman staggered forward while sheepishly rubbing the back of his head before jogging towards the police officer.
Shizuka's attention, however, was all for the newcomers. Yui was with her, holding a medical kit she had prepared in advance, her expression soft and concerned.
"Living room. Everyone who needs looking at, living room." She pointed. "And don't sit on anything upholstered until I've seen the wounds."
"Good to see you too, Shizuka-sensei." Miku said.
"I see you clearly. You have blood on your ear. Living room."
"It's not mine."
"Living room, Miku-chan."
Shizuka was not joking.
"Alright."
She followed the others inside.
Tysone waited until the Mule was parked, Kohta had been successfully reunited with Asami, and the courtyard was settling back into something that resembled normal.
He pulled the map out of his pocket, the one they'd taken from Hayashi's safe. He smoothed it on the hood of the truck under the work lights, using a small wrench to hold one corner down against a slight breeze.
Saya was there a minute later, a coffee mug in her hands, steam rising into the cold night air.
"You're radiating 'serious thoughts'." She observed.
"We found this." Tysone pointed at the map. "The radio was military issue too. Hayashi had contacts. Connections that went beyond a street gang."
Saya leaned over the hood. She put her coffee down carefully. Her eyes traced the red marks on the map. "These are too deliberate. These aren't hiding spots. They're strategic points. This one..." She tapped a spot on the coast. "That's a commercial fishing port. Pre-outbreak, it had container storage, cold facilities, and fuel reserves. If I had to build a foothold for a larger operation, I'd start there."
"How do you even know that?" Tysone laughed softly.
Saya gave him that sexy smart-ass look of hers and pointed at her brain. "Hello? Genius. I remember reading city planning proposals. The port was slated for expansion. Big concrete warehouses. Good defensible positions. Not to mention it's the easiest place to get a boat, which is the smartest way to get out of Japan if you can get one working."
"Can fish undergo mutations and become a threat?"
She shrugged. "Possibly, the virus is not discriminatory. We haven't seen it yet, but I wouldn't rule it out. But a boat gives you options. You can move between islands without fighting through hordes. So, tell me... what happened out there? I'd be able to provide more information if I knew what exactly happened."
She put a fresh notepad on the hood between them.
"So?"
He sighed as he began recounting everything.
The organized fashion of it, no preamble, just facts in sequence. He told her about the estate, the layout, the Serpents' numbers and evolved count, Hayashi's ability, the fight. He told her about the safe and what was in it. He set the military radio on the hood between them. He told her about the names Hayashi had given and the one he hadn't.
Saya wrote while he talked, her pen moving quickly, not trying to keep up with every word but capturing the structure of it, the key points, the patterns.
"Hayashi said something interesting." Tysone said when he got to the end. "He said the strong rule now. Nothing else matters."
"It's a crude philosophy." Saya murmured, tapping her pen against the notepad. "But he's not wrong about the premise. Power is the only currency that holds its value anymore." She looked up from her notes. "The fact that you killed him is all the proof you need."
"I'm aware of my own power, Saya." He looked over at the living room's bright windows.
"You know that staying here will eventually get us into trouble if we don't improve ourselves."
"I know..."
"I don't want you to get hurt."
"I know."
Tysone was considering it. Perhaps it was time to expand? Not necessarily to abandon one place and move to another. But to get a second base, something like that.
The world was moving quite fast if even someone like Hayashi could become a Rank 2 with mutated fire powers. What about the true big shots in the city? After all, a high concentration of zombies could breed the best hunting grounds for collective growth.
And in this semi isolated place, there wasn't really anything quite like that.
Author's Note:
If you're enjoying the story and want to read ahead or support my work, you can check out my P@treon at [email protected]/LordCampione. But don't worry—all chapters will eventually be public. Just being here and reading means the world to me. Thank you for your time and support.