Looting+

In the end, Takashi's group makes the difficult decision to follow the stranger and attempt to bring him into the fold. Everyone in the group had a variety of reasons for this, but all in all, they came to the conclusion that it was their best chance for both survival, and the quality of living that they wouldn't be able to get under Shido.

A few people from Shido's group had issues with them leaving of course, particularly Shizuka, who was one of the only medical professionals in the entire group of survivors. That, and her strange skill at driving despite her air-headed nature had both groups facing off.

Shido attempted to convince them to stay, even using emotional manipulation to beat them down in compliance. But no one cared to listen to that man's babble.

Saeko takes a step towards Shido and in a series of quick movements, holds her bokken up to his neck, causing him to freeze up... He'd seen her split the skulls of many monsters with the same weapon, so he wasn't keen on personally testing how it felt. "We will be leaving now. You may do what you want, but keep us out of it." she states before turning and leaving.

The others in Takashi's group follow her has she briskly walks toward the shopping district, wanting to see if the stranger had succumbed to exhaustion yet... At this point, she'd be more surprised if he wasn't still fighting...

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Takashi prods a corpse with his baseball bat as the group walk through the empty shopping district. There was no sign of the cosplayer other than the mountain of corpses he'd left in his wake... It was disturbing to think that someone around his age was capable of something like this. It was beyond what most psychopaths could imagine, and the human body itself shouldn't be able to function after such intense movements for so long. As someone who'd played sports for most of his life, he was certain it wasn't possible.

"M-Marikawa Sensei! Don't wander off!" Kohta exclaims as the bust blonde nurse pokes her head into a designer clothing store with little care for her own safety.

"Ehhh? I wanted to pick up a new skirt after Busujima-chan tore this one." she gesture down at her torn dress skirt. "But look! There's nothing inside!" she exclaims, drawing everyone else's attention .

"What are you talking abou-t..." Saya trails off as she looks through the shattered glass of the store and sees exactly what the nurse was referring to... Every clothing line, rack, and storage unit had been picked entirely clean. Not even a single sock was left behind, displaying just how thorough the looter had been.

"Could this have been before the monsters came?" Takashi wonders aloud, not sure how this would've happened.

"Hey! It's the same over here as well!" Rei shouts, pointing into a hardware store that'd also been emptied.

...

The group slowly walk around the shopping district, dumbfounded and confused at the fact that every store was in similar straits. Toy stores, electronic stores, supply stores, sport stores, clothing stores, supermarkets, you name it.

The group's thoughts weren't even on the undead anymore, instead focussing their efforts on rationalizing how this was all possible...

"C-could this have been the cospalyer?" Saya asks, looking disgruntled that she'd had to say it herself.

Rei blinks at her, "Weren't you just calling all of us idiots and liars an hour ago?"

"Nnnn! Yes! But there's no other explanation for this anymore! The fighting, the looting, what else could have done any of this!? He's either a super-soldier or something else equally fictitious!"

...

"Huh, something has finally stumped you, Takagi-san." Kohta mutters and receives a chop to the head by the pink-haired tsundere.

*Crack!*

The group spins around towards the entrance of the store just in time to see a zombie fall to the ground with its head backwards with no sign of whoever had caused it.

...

"T-this is getting-... Kind of fucked up now! What the hell was that!?" Saya exclaims fearfully, the idea of monsters worse than the undead causing her body to tremble all over.

Takashi anxiously chews the inside of his cheek, "Whatever it was, we can't stay around for long. We need to find that guy and have him explain this all to us. I'd bet he knows more about this situation than anyone! After that, we'll find our families, and get somewhere safe to weather this all out!" he says, though, multiple people in the group send him unsure glances. It was clear to them all that things would never be the same after this event, was there even a safe place to get to? They'd seen the news, every country seemed to be affected by this disease all at the same time.

Despite their doubts, the group was on board with his plans. There wasn't much else they could do after all... They exit the store and briskly follow the trail of corpses that leads further around the city, hopefully, they'd catch up to the cosplayer before the monsters caught up to them.

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*Achoo!*

Michael grimaces at the fact that he'd just sneezed into a thong that he'd picked up for Tiffania, the lingerie now damp with snot. "Man, I thought this one was actually her size!" he mutters, shaking his head and randomly storing everything else in the store, not wanting to waste EXP harvesting time for sexy clothes... Even if he would enjoy them once he got back to Skyrim.

"Master." Darth asks as the shadow hand sprouts from the ceiling above him.

"Yeah? Something wrong?"

"Humans are attempting to follow you. Should I remove them?"

Michael shakes his head, "Don't bother, just focus on killing any zombies you find."

"By your will." with that, the hand disappears and continues on with its duties.

Michael glances down at his shadow where Darth had stored Deflinger, something Michael had been unable to do with anything else but the sword. "You sure you don't want to join in? Darth's gonna have all the fun without you."

"Go to hell! Evey since I've touched that stone I've been feeling things a lot more! You want me to tell you how sliding into a corpse's cold intestines feels!? Huh!? That's what I thought!"

...