The two of them munched on the snacks they had scavenged without the slightest concern for malnutrition or weight gain, eating with complete abandon and washing it down with small sips of water whenever their mouths got dry. It was the apocalypse, after all. Comfort came first. Anything that did not help them survive was not worth talking about.
What mattered now was watching the ground beneath their feet. Once the safehouse was properly established, they could worry about everything else.
The snow was still falling.
At this rate, when the seasonal thaw arrived in March or April, the meltwater supply would likely surge dramatically. Serious flooding might follow.
Less than two kilometers from Kyoko's residential complex ran the Abukuma River. If flooding came, then stockpiling supplies was not optional.
Everything the two girls were doing now was aimed at one thing: surviving well and surviving longer.
Lunch itself was just another rough, hasty affair. Kyoko did not feel much about it, but Huaxiu had the uneasy sense that if she kept eating like this in the future, she was going to evolve a second stomach.
The thought made a certain faceless man from the Eastern Kingdom suddenly pop into Huaxiu's mind.
That man was wolfing down food, and one blunt "So what?" from him scared Huaxiu badly enough that she yanked back the hand she had been reaching toward the snacks with. The rough, careless image of that imaginary man frightened all the color right out of her face, turning it from rosy pale to ghostly white.
Seeing that ridiculous reaction, Kyoko bent over laughing strangely, clutching her stomach.
"Huaxiu, what are you doing? Why are you suppressing your own appetite? Why'd you stop eating? It's not like I'm going to throw you away just because you eat a lot."
"N-no, that's not it. I'm full. It's definitely not because I got scared by that—"
At once, Huaxiu's face changed color like an opera mask—white-faced Cao Cao turning into red-faced Guan Yu in an instant. If Kyoko had thermal vision, she would have seen that Huaxiu's head was practically heating the air around it.
"Alright, forget it. If you're done eating, then we get back to work. There's still a lot left to do."
Kyoko said it with a perfectly serious face, which only left the now steam-powered Huaxiu even more embarrassed and unable to speak.
After they finished eating and hastily tidied up, the building-clearing operation resumed.
Because Kyoko's efficiency was simply too high, Huaxiu could not keep up.
So Kyoko made a decision.
They would split into two teams.
The scavenging would still be left to Yurizono Huaxiu, while Kyoko would spend the rest of the day solo-clearing the zombies in the entire building.
The work of fully looting floors seven, eight, and nine would be handed over to Huaxiu. Meanwhile, Kyoko would focus on efficiently eliminating every unsafe factor left in the tower.
Kyoko gently ran a hand over the silver M1971 Colt pistol as if caressing a lover. Now that she had an efficient cleanup tool in her hands, she was about to begin a true massacre.
"Be careful. The rooms I've cleared are probably safe. But little crawling things are another matter, so stay alert."
Normally, Kyoko did a full sweep of every room, but nothing in this world was absolute. Larger infected could be dealt with easily enough, but worms and things like that? If they tucked themselves into some crevice, who could guarantee there had not been any oversight?
And then there were infected rats, cockroaches, and all the rest. When tiny things like that hid themselves, how were you supposed to find them all?
"Mm. I'll watch out for them."
After another round of warnings, the two girls split up.
With Huaxiu no longer beside her needing protection, Kyoko began her performance without restraint.
No security door could stop her now. Wire in hand, peephole smashed, the lock cylinder—mere trash-tier fodder—obediently opened the heavy door.
And as for the infected inside, what was there even to say?
Just take them down.
The moment they showed themselves, they died. Clean and immediate, no wasted motion. The cold gleam of her katana-style blade was soon streaked with blood, but Kyoko did not care. In came the red blade, out came the redder blade.
These infected trapped inside their homes were like condemned prisoners facing execution. Against someone as overwhelmingly strong as Kyoko, they could not even survive a single exchange.
Again and again, a long arc of steel flashed through the air, and heads were taken from shoulders. One corpse after another fell beneath Kyoko's sword, while barely any blood splashed onto her. The infected's thick, sticky blood had little flow to it—more like hardened syrup than real blood. Maybe it was the virus. Kyoko did not know.
Toward these people who had become complete zombies, Kyoko felt absolutely nothing. She was like an efficient vegetable-chopping machine: raise the hand, bring down the blade. What more was there to say? Chopping melons and slicing greens; little infected nobodies, casually handled.
She flicked the blood from her blade with force, kicked one severed round head away, and a smile spread across her face. With bloodlust rising in her, Kyoko felt astonishingly relaxed—like finishing all your homework before a holiday, cleaning the house before your mother got home, or firing off the last shot before bed. That kind of relief.
[Reminder: Host has acquired a new skill.]
[Bloodthirst: When the level of bloodshed rises, the Host's combat ability increases, but sanity will be affected.]
"Huh. So you can get skills like this too? Sanity? What am I supposed to use for sanity? I only care about power."
[Please note: skills and traits can generally be developed after the fact. Systems rarely just inject them into you directly. It's more like grinding skills in Project Zomboid.]
So that was how it worked.
Kyoko wiped the blood from her weapon, and a little clarity returned to her eyes. The savage gleam that had just been there faded away.
"So I really did enter a Bloodthirst state just now? Looks like I need to kill less—yeah right. Dangerous infected have to die."
Firmly committed to her path of killing to save others, Kyoko looked around and admired the results of her work. She could feel her body reveling in the pleasure of harvesting lives.
"Why are they all just ordinary infected? Where are the ones that can flip heavily armed vehicles?"
Bullying the weak, the sick, and the elderly infected was too lacking in challenge for her taste. She wanted something more stimulating.
Other people played apocalypse survival.
Kyoko had somehow turned it into Kentucky Superman.
[If you really ran into one, you wouldn't be saying that anymore. You think I don't know you?]
The system popped out again to argue with her.
"That's true enough. I just want to live safely in this world."
And that really was the truth. Kyoko did not have grand ambitions. In a chaotic world like this, simply staying alive was enough.
If something truly on the level of a Tyrant from Resident Evil showed up, then Kyoko would choose the Grand Route of Strategic Withdrawal without hesitation. Running away might be shameful, but it was extremely useful.
She did not linger any longer. After a brief rest to recover some stamina, she threw herself back into work.
As for Huaxiu, Kyoko was not very worried. How hard could simple scavenging be? Kyoko had already removed the dangerous factors. They were not afraid of trouble—supplies were welcome in any quantity.
The hoarder-rat in them rejoiced.
So what if the storehouse overflowed? At worst it would just get messier. But if the storehouse had nothing in it, then you were really dead.
Having a gun and not having a gun were two completely different things.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter108)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 99
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 95
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 99
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 92
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 47
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 44
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 43
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 26
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 27
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