Found You

Compared to the gossip-loving Saya Takagi, Yukino had no reaction to their conversation. Instead, she calmly said to Shizuka Marikawa, "Shizuka, do you know this area well? We still need to find a convenience store to get some food."

It had been an entire day without eating, and even Yukino was so famished that she barely had the strength to wield her katana. This weakened her and the others, making clearing out the corpses much harder.

"Yes, yes, there's a convenience store near my friend's house, and her car is still there too, which we can use for transportation."

"Oh? Does the car have enough space? Will it fit all six of us?" Saeko Busujima suddenly asked. She was concerned since Shizuka's previous car could not seat all six of them.

"Not a problem. That car is like a tank; it's this big~!" Shizuka Marikawa opened her arms wide to demonstrate. Her breasts jiggled playfully, drawing a slight look of envy from Yukino.

The group wasted no time and headed for a neighborhood on the riverbank where Shizuka's friend's apartment was only a few hundred meters away.

However, due to clearing the road of corpses and stopping at a nearby convenience store to gather supplies, it took them nearly an hour to reach their destination.

On the way to the convenience store, they passed a clothing store, and following Yukino's suggestion, each person selected a temporary change of clothes.

After all, their clothes had been stained with the blood of the corpses over the past two days of fighting, so they needed a thorough cleaning.

…

In the Oregairu world, after showering Akino with affection right in front of Haruno, Eriri embarked on her journey to find Yukino.

While the Lord God's Dimension had chosen many Reincarnation Worlds, there were relatively few suited for beginners.

Since the goal was to develop Reincarnators, the world chosen for beginners was usually decent. Mundane worlds without supernatural powers were almost never selected.

The lowest-level worlds usually included those in times of war or crime sprees, followed by worlds with unique species, and then apocalyptic worlds filled with supernatural creatures.

The lower the level of the world, the fewer there were, so unless Yukino was extremely unlucky, Eriri didn't think it would take long to find her.

Using the world coordinates generated by the chat group, Eriri began searching world by world.

Unlike her prior searches for worlds to explore, she stayed in each Reincarnation World for only a few seconds.

The first world she entered was a typical ancient world where battles were fought with cold weapons and sheer manpower, but Yukino was nowhere to be found.

Without lingering, Eriri reopened the passage to the next Reincarnation World.

Third, fourth, fifth…

Within an hour, Eriri had checked nearly a thousand Reincarnation Worlds, finding no trace of Yukino.

This meant Eriri had opened close to a thousand world portals in an hour. Yet the energy cost was next to nothing for her, and with her internal universe restoring energy faster than she could deplete it, she was effectively powered by infinite energy.

Then, upon entering the 1,286th world, Eriri's eyes lit up as she sensed a familiar presence.

"Found you!"

…

It was just after 9 p.m., and Yukino and Kei Karuizawa were seated on the sofa in the second-floor living room watching the news broadcast showing what was happening on the Bridge.

A few hours earlier, they had reached the two-story apartment Shizuka Marikawa had mentioned. After eating the food they'd collected from the convenience store and cleaning up, the group settled in to sleep.

Kohta Hirano, having slept for most of the previous night on the school bus, spent these hours on the second-floor balcony, watching the events outside.

Yukino and Kei Karuizawa had only recently woken up, while Saeko Busujima was in the kitchen preparing snacks and bento for the following day, and Shizuka Marikawa and Saya Takagi were still sleeping.

The school uniforms they had washed a few hours earlier were now dry, so after waking up, the three of them changed back into their original clothes. The outfits they picked up from the clothing store would remain as spares.

In the courtyard of the apartment, they saw a military Humvee, capable of traversing both land and water, which they planned to use to cross the river early in the morning.

From previous news, Yukino and Kei Karuizawa had already learned that not only Tokonosu City but areas all around the world had been flooded with corpses.

This suggested that the world was in its final stages, leaving Kei Karuizawa feeling deeply disheartened.

Below the Bridge, chaos was erupting as corpses breached the military's defenses and surged into the lines of cars waiting to be inspected. Within moments, countless people were killed or injured.

After turning off the television, Yukino picked up a military-grade binoculars and went to the balcony, while Kei Karuizawa stayed seated in the living room, her face filled with despair.

From the balcony, Yukino could see that a large crowd of corpses had gathered outside their apartment complex, though they were unable to get inside due to the iron gate blocking them.

Due to the complex's proximity to the Bridge, many corpses had chased after survivors fleeing from the bridge to this area.

The streets of the complex were now crowded with corpses, and those survivors who had been caught had become food.

Not far away, a few survivors were pounding desperately on doors, hoping someone inside would let them in.

Unfortunately, none of the people inside these houses opened their doors to save the survivors being chased by corpses.

Just then, Kohta Hirano's voice suddenly came from nearby.

"This doesn't look good."

He held a black sniper rifle and looked off into the distance through the scope, a grave look on his face.

He had found this sniper rifle in a cabinet in one of the apartment rooms.

Besides that, there was an M4 rifle and a shotgun. As a hardcore military enthusiast, Kohta Hirano knew all about these firearms.

Moreover, having trained with live ammunition overseas, his shooting accuracy was quite high.

According to Shizuka Marikawa, her friend was a member of the SAT (Special Assault Team), so although they were all shocked to find a military Humvee and a large cache of firearms and ammunition in the apartment, it was not entirely surprising.

"What's wrong?" Yukino asked quietly.

Without waiting for Kohta Hirano's answer, she used her binoculars to look in the direction he was watching.

A few hundred meters away, a middle-aged man with gray hair was knocking on a door with a young girl with short auburn hair, while several corpses wandered outside the house.

No matter how much the man pounded on the door, no one inside opened it.

Finally, after the man said something, the door slowly opened.

Surprised, he prepared to bring the girl inside, but suddenly, a fruit knife extended from within, stabbing the man in the chest.

The door closed again, leaving the man and girl outside, unable to take a single step inside.

Yukino watched the man collapse by the fence while the girl lay on him, crying loudly. Her brow furrowed, and she clenched her empty left hand tightly.

Drawn by the girl's cries, the corpses wandering outside the yard started moving toward her.

Yukino had a strong urge to save the girl from the corpses, but her rationality told her not to get involved.

The odds of successfully rescuing the girl from such a horde of corpses were slim, and there was a high chance she would lose her own life in the attempt.

However, the thought of watching a girl only six or seven years old become food for corpses was something she could not bear.

While she struggled with her decision, Saeko Busujima spoke beside her.

"Are you thinking of doing something? If so, why not take me along?"

Saeko was also holding binoculars, looking at the girl's position with a grave expression, making it clear she wanted to save the girl too.

"I'm sorry… I can't do it…" Yukino murmured, lowering her head.

She felt powerless in this situation. She wasn't a superhero. Even if she could rescue the girl from the corpses, she couldn't cross the few hundred meters in such a short time or push through the hundreds of corpses filling the street.

Neither Saeko Busujima nor Kohta Hirano said anything in response because they both knew they, too, were helpless.

Then, Yukino murmured, "If only we had a vehicle that could get us there quickly…"

She had considered driving the Humvee over, but doing so would make it difficult to return.

With so many corpses gathering outside the apartment complex's walls, once the courtyard gate opened, the yard would be overrun by corpses.

But before they could think of another solution, Kohta Hirano, still watching the girl, suddenly let out a shout.

Thinking something had happened to the girl, Yukino quickly looked in her direction.

The scene that followed left her mouth agape and her mind completely blank.

The same was true for Saeko Busujima and Kohta Hirano.

…

Before entering this world, Eriri already knew which world it was. The Lord God's Dimension assigned names to each Reincarnation World.

The chat group had already retrieved several fragments of the Lord God, so the names of these Reincarnation Worlds were known.

"Never expected Yukino's first Reincarnation World would be a zombie apocalypse," Eriri murmured as she hovered ten thousand meters above the planet.

The High School of the Dead world was not an easy mission for a beginner Reincarnator, but compared to the Resident Evil world, which was also a zombie apocalypse, this world was far friendlier.

Here, there were no mutated zombies or highly lethal zombie dogs; the zombies in this world were slow, with movement speeds that even a child could outpace.

As long as one didn't face too many zombies at once, escaping was fairly easy.

In contrast, in World War Z, another beginner Reincarnation World, the zombies were far more formidable and incredibly fast.

Additionally, anyone bitten in World War Z turned into a zombie within seconds.

All things considered, Yukino's luck wasn't too bad.

As Eriri prepared to go directly to Yukino's side, she noticed the little girl, not far from Yukino, about to be surrounded by zombies.

Having read the original work, Eriri recognized the girl as Alice Maresato, a member of the main protagonist group in the story.

In the original storyline, the protagonist Takashi Komuro saved her, and she then joined the protagonist team.

But now, with zombies almost upon her and no sign of Takashi, it was clear the Reincarnator's presence had altered this world's storyline.

In Yukino's group, Eriri only saw Saeko Busujima, Shizuka Marikawa, Saya Takagi, and Kohta Hiran—no trace of Takashi Komuro or Rei Miyamoto.

She was confident this deviation was Yukino's doing.

But she wasn't displeased; Eriri had never had the slightest liking for Takashi Komuro's character.

Eriri knew Yukino and the others were watching Alice, so she planned to save the girl while taking the opportunity to greet Yukino.

She just hoped her greeting wouldn't scare her too much.

A smile of satisfaction appeared on Eriri's face.

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