CHAPTER 92: GATHERING

"We’ll be best friends forever, right, Misuzu?" A gorgeous young woman, looking no older than 19 or 20, with shoulder-length black hair tied back in a ponytail asked, slightly out of breath as she ran next to another woman, "We’ll make it out of this!"

The two women, one of whom was Misuzu Ichijou and the other who was Toshimi Niki, were running through a hallway in Fujimi Academy, heading to the school’s entrance. Behind them, a horde of undead was walking toward their voices, intent on devouring the duo.

"Of course, Toshimi!" The girl running next to her, who was holding Toshimi’s hand and had shoulder-length brunette hair, nodded with a bright smile on her face, "We’re going to get out of here alive!"

Then, as if on cue, a hand suddenly lashed out as the duo ran past a staircase. A zombie was slumped on the ground, crawling up the staircase as it was out of view until the two girls reached it. It’s hand clamped around Toshimi’s ankle, and the girl let out a yelp as she was yanked down onto the stairs. She fell flat on her stomach, reaching upward towards Misuzu, who stood at the top.

"H-Help me, Misuzu! Pull me up!" Toshimi called, not letting go of her best friend’s hand even as the zombie started to drag her down the staircase.

"Let go!"

"W-What?" Toshimi asked blankly, her face dropping as, instead of trying to help her, it looked like Misuzu was actually trying to pull away from Toshimi’s grip.

"I said let go, bitch!" That image was proven to be accurate as Misuzu raised her foot, promptly slamming the bottom of her shoe into Toshimi’s face and sending her tumbling down the stairs into a trio of zombies waiting at the bottom.

"M-Misuzu! W-Why-" Her sentence cut off into a horrified scream as one of the zombies bent down, opening his mouth as he aimed for her neck, "D-Don’t! Don’t touch me!"

His teeth got closer, and his jaw started to close as he bit down - and then, I blandly swung my sword, lobbing off both his and the other two zombies’ heads as I glanced up at Misuzu.

"That was cold," I said bluntly, watching as the woman’s eyes went wide as her friend didn’t get eaten.

"H-Help! Don’t eat me! I don’t wanna die! I’m too pretty to die-"

"No one is eating you," I spoke dryly again, looking down blandly as Toshimi was rolling around in the pool of blood that came from the beheaded zombies, panicking as her eyes were squeezed shut.

"W-Wait! I-I’m sorry, I just wanted to live, please don’t-" I had to promptly disappear, reappearing at the top of the staircase as I lobbed the heads off of two more zombies trying to eat Misuzu.

It would’ve been karmatic justice if I had left the girl to die after she sacrificed her own best friend to try and live, but I wasn’t that cruel, and I couldn’t really blame her. It wasn’t like she realistically could’ve saved her friend from the supernatural grip of the zombies on the staircase, so if anything, it was smart to abandon her and not die with her.

Still a fucked up thing to do, but a smart fucked up thing to do at the least.

"T-THANK YOU!" I blinked as Misuzu quickly recovered, shoving her face into my chest as her arms wrapped around me.

I was starting to see a theme in this world, and I wasn’t sure if it was because everyone was traumatized from the zombie apocalypse and near-death experiences, or if my high CHA was just overpowered on normal humans, but I had been hugged a lot today.

"T-Thank you for saving me! I was so scared!" The hugging feeling was promptly replicated as Toshimi wrapped her arms around me from behind, smushing her face into my back as she apparently decided hugging me was more important than confronting her friend about trying to kill her.

"You’re welcome. You’re safe now," I just grinned sheepishly, trying my best to be comforting, although randomly being hugged by two women I just met was a bit awkward.

They didn’t seem to agree with my awkward feeling, as two cute faces stared up at me with awe and blushing cheeks.

I’d been getting that a lot, and I had been surprised by how few questions I’d been asked so far. You would think that running around and murdering zombies with a giant blade would raise a few eyebrows, but everyone I had saved so far had just showered me with praise and thanks instead of questions.

Granted, if I was about to be eaten by a zombie, and some giant man with a sword suddenly saved my life, I probably would just say ’fuck yeah!’ instead of asking him a million questions.

"Come on, everyone else is already in the gymnasium," I said, patting Misuzu’s head as I subtly tried to push her away, but the woman’s grip on me was iron-tight, and I didn’t want to actually rip her away.

"Stop hugging him so tightly, Misuzu! You’re annoying him!"

"Shut up, Toshimi! You’re the one being annoying!"

"You’re really going to say that after you just kicked me into a pit of zombies?!"

"I didn’t want to die with you! You would’ve done the same!"

I watched blankly as the two women glared at each other as they peeked around my side, and suddenly, the ’abrupt betrayal’ made a bit more sense. The two girls were less of ’actual best friends’ and more of the two idols of Fujimia Academy, who had to be friends because they were both so beautiful, but didn’t really like each other all that much.

Essentially, the typical fake schoolgirl friends who would gossip and stab each other in the back at a moment’s notice.

And, as I glanced down at the two women, them being described solely for being beautiful in the series, as they were known as being ’A-Grade’ women at Fujimi Academy before they died immediately as the apocalypse started, wasn’t wrong.

They both had beautiful faces and slim bodies, and Misuzu had large breasts that pressed against her tight uniform, while Toshimi had a large and shapely rear, which could be seen even with her skirt covering it.

Though overall, I thought this world definitely had some backward beauty standards. After meeting both Rei and Saya earlier today, them being outcasts, as Rei was a loner with only two real friends and Saya was an annoying know-it-all, was odd considering they put even these two idols to shame looks-wise.

"Right, well, let’s just go to the gymnasium," I said blandly, turning around as I started walking down the stairs, and forcing them to stop hugging me in the process.

"Yes! Lead the way!" Toshimi nodded quickly, smiling up bright as she ran up next to me and wrapped herself around my arm, "I’ll go wherever you go!"

"Stop acting like you’re so close to him, Toshimi!" Misuzu huffed, running up to my other side and pressing herself into my other arm, wrapping my arm between her large breasts in the process.

Which was more impressive than it sounded, as my arm was still coated in armor, even if it was being covered with [Appearance Disguise]. The skill was effective enough on the weak humans that they at least weren’t feeling hard steel as they hugged onto me, but her breasts still needed to actually be big enough to surround my armor-coated arm. She was no Rias, much less Akeno, Kyon, or Yasaka, but she was still stacked.

"You don’t even know his name!"

"Neither do you, Misuzu!"

"It’s Valon," I supplied helpfully, resisting chuckling as I walked toward the gymnasium with two women hanging onto me.

"Oooh! That’s such a masculine name!"

"It’s not just masculine, Misuzu, it’s hot!"

"No! It’s sexy!"

"S-Sexy isn’t necessarily better than hot!"

"It is too!"

I silently tuned them out as we walked toward the gymnasium, and we reached it pretty quickly, with just a couple of zombies along the way that I dealt with quickly. The majority of the school had been cleared out at this point, with just a couple of stragglers that I’d have to track down, and most of the living students and teachers had also been gathered.

As I pushed open the door to the gymnasium, casually pushing aside a barricade of tables in the process, I glanced around the room. It was large, looking like the room could act as both a basketball court and a stage for various other sports, and was packed with humans, tables, chairs, and various food products that were within the school.

However, I wasn’t focused on that as I was greeted with a familiar sight.

"What took you so long?! I was worried!" Toshimi and Misuzu were promptly pushed to the side as Rei Miyamoto lunged forward, wrapping her arms around me tightly. Despite her words, I hadn’t been gone for more than ten minutes.

Even since I had found the woman on the rooftop earlier that day, she had been clinging to me tightly. And by tightly, I meant very tightly.

She was hesitant to even leave my side, and she largely wouldn’t even talk to the other humans huddled in the gymnasium as she waited for me to return.

It was cute in a way, but also a bit sad. She had clearly not taken well to Hisashi’s death as well as Takashi’s disappearance - the latter of which I was still confused by. I had noticed the boy watching as I killed Teshima at the gate earlier that day, but he had seemingly vanished into thin air after that.

I didn’t find him amongst any of the living students, he hadn’t been with Rei and Hisashi on the rooftop like I expected, and I didn’t notice a Takashi-looking zombie wandering around either. My arrival here had clearly changed something, which was more annoying than anything.

I had expected him to be on the rooftop, protecting Rei with his baseball bat from any zombies. Instead, I had barely arrived in time to save the woman’s life.

I was silently glad that I decided to focus on finding the main top-tier women of this world early on, as while it had caused more deaths overall by letting the zombies run wild for a bit longer, I much preferred having Rei alive to a couple of gacha pulls.

And, having Rei clinging to me so tightly wasn’t something I would complain about. The woman had a beautiful face, a thin body, long gorgeous brown hair, and definitely wasn’t lacking in the breast or ass department.

The woman’s backside was particularly impressive, as even when compared to the supernaturally-sexy women of the DxD world, her size and shape were definitely towards the top.

"He was barely gone, Miyamoto! Stop acting like a lost puppy!" The other woman who came to greet me instantly was Saya Takagi, who, while not sticking to my side as strongly as Rei, had definitely been hanging around me.

Finding her on death’s door had also been a surprise, as I had expected her to be safe with Kohta Hirano, but instead, she had been all alone in a classroom. Kohta was still alive, as he was within the gymnasium right now, but something had obviously happened differently from canon due to my actions.

Ever since Kohta had arrived in the cafeteria, Saya had promptly ignored the boy at any attempt he gave to talk to her, and even seemed to outright dislike him. Considering they had been close friends in the canon series, something had clearly gone astray with them.

Though, once again, I wouldn’t complain about Saya hanging around me. She had a different appeal than Rei, being more on the cute-yet-bossy side, but she was definitely gorgeous.

She had a cute face, long bubblegum-pink hair, a slim and curvy body, along with sizeable breasts. And, her backside had also been surprisingly nice, being similar to Rei in the fact that even many of the supernatural women of the DxD world couldn’t compete with her.

"I was just bringing these two back," I grinned down at Rei as she hugged me, casually gesturing to Toshimi and Misuzu. "All the students and staff should be here now, and most of the zombies are cleared out. I’ll just need to make one more trip out."

Getting all of the staff and students into the gymnasium had actually been pretty easy, as after saving their lives, and probably because I was waving around a giant sword, they’d been very attentive to my orders. As I went around slaughtering the zombies and saving lives, I brought back all the various humans to the gymnasium, then boarded up the doors with tables as I went out to get more.

As a result, of the original 1,000 students and staff within Fujimi Academy, just under 300 were in the gymnasium. Most of the rest were dead, so I didn’t have to worry about them all that much.

Granted, I said it was simple, but most of those 300 humans were having near-panic attacks as they were traumatized from almost dying and seeing their friends die, so it wasn’t quite a cake walk.

"Sir Valon! I’m glad you returned safely!" A sleezy, overly kind voice called out to me, and I couldn’t blame Rei as she shifted, moving behind my back as a man approached.

The man was even sleazily looking, as he had slicked back medium-length black hair, a thin greasy face with an ever-fake expression, and was wearing a suit that looked fit for a conman.

"Shido," I greeted bluntly, keeping the annoyance out of my voice as he approached.

While I had quickly become something of a leader amongst the remaining humans, which just came from giving orders to stay put as I effortlessly slaughtered the zombies, I had been a bit too slow to stop this man.

I had hoped to kill him right when I met him and blame it on the zombies, but even in just the not-even half-hour since the apocalypse started, he had already gotten a chokehold on a small group of students before I found him.

In the series, Shido had been a very manipulative bastard as he practically brainwashed a group of his ’followers’ - who were just students that he had ’protected’ during the start of the apocalypse. That ’protecting’ was more like ordering around his male followers to take down the zombies as he did nothing, but as the sole teacher in the group, and someone who confidently took leadership, he had gained something akin to a cult.

It would’ve been nice to find him on his own and take him out instantly, but unfortunately, that small group brainwashing of his had already started - as was evident by what happened just seconds after he walked up to me.

"I’m so glad you’re okay, Mr. Valon! I was so worried about you!" A female form barreled into me, taking the spot Rei had just been in as she wrapped her arms around me tightly.

The woman glanced up at me, her cheeks red as her eyes were lightly sensual, and she not-so-subtly pressed her sizeable breasts into my chest.

Miku Yuuki was certainly gorgeous, as while I didn’t think she could compare to either Rei or Saya, she definitely had an appeal. Her face was more sexy than cute, she had short pretty light-orange hair, and her body was certainly seductive. Her breasts were smaller than both Rei and Saya’s, but they were still decently sized, and the woman definitely knew how to move her body.

Every time I had seen her, she had been unsubtly moving in a way that caused her breasts to bounce, or for her skirt to flap upwards and give me a glimpse of her plump behind. The woman knew her charm, and she was using it.

Unfortunately, she was using it at the behest of Shido.

The slimy man had been sucking up to me ever since I rescused his group, and he could clearly see the power I would have in this situation. I was the sole person who could save everyone from the zombies, and as a result, it was obvious that I’d have the most power.

So, he wanted a piece of the power, and his way of doing that was sicking Miku on me any chance she got.

Unfortunately for him, while I would spare Miku - as she was still a gorgeous woman, and I could do whatever the hell I wanted in this E-Rank world - he wouldn’t be so lucky. I wasn’t just going to murder him outright, as that would make the other humans around us both afraid and unhappy, but he’d be getting fed to the zombies the first chance I got.

"Please act appropriately even if we are facing a crisis, Miku Yuuki," The final woman who’d been sticking to me like glue spoke up, belonging to the first woman I had met of the bunch. She was also the only one I hadn’t found, as she had approached me first.

"I can do what I want, Busujima," Miku shot back, glaring lightly at Saeko, but begrudgingly stepped back as Saeko gave her a fake-pleasant smile.

When I had initially started slaughtering the various zombies on the first floor, attempting to protect the students trying to flee before I decided it was a fruitless effort and went to find Rei, Saeko had found me pretty quickly. She had approached me covered in blood, a wooden sword in her hand as she simply said I was ’talented with a blade.’

I had expected more questions from her, but she hadn’t asked any even as she watched me murder various zombies in ways that no normal human could hope to match.

Instead, she simply hadn’t taken no for an answer as she clung to my back, getting a piggy-back ride for most of zombie-slaying and student-saving endeavors.

Not that I was complaining, as the woman was just as gorgeous as Rei and Saya. She also shared their similarities of having a beautiful face, gorgeous long hair - which was purple in her case - a thin and sexy body, along with having sizeable breasts.

And, just as with Rei and Saya, her ass was particularly impressive, as while it wasn’t absurdly thick like someone like Rias’, or even as thick as Rei or Saya’s, it had an amazing shape that was one of the best I’d ever seen.

"I appreciate you taking care of all the undead, Sir Valon, as we all do," Shido continued, smiling kindly at me in a way that would’ve made any woman uncomfortable, "But while you’re gone, I do think there should be someone put in charge here. With all the trauma that comes from our situation, these students need some guidance."

Shido waved his hand at the various students in the gymnasium, and he wasn’t entirely wrong. Many of them were coping with the apocalypse in their own ways, as some seemed fine as they chatted with friends, while others were openly crying as they huddled alone in a corner.

In a situation like this, having someone to guide them and help them process the situation at hand was necessary, but that’s what I would do.

I just needed to clear out a few more zombies before I could start genuinely ingraining this small group into my rule, freeing them from the school as I went out to take down the rest of the undead in the city.

So, I had no reason to play into Shido’s little game. But, despite that, I struggled to keep a predatory grin off my face.

"And I take it you’re the perfect person to do that, Shido?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, and Shido grinned widely at my words.

"Well, I already had a relationship with many of the students, as I’ve worked here a long time," Shido nodded in agreement, "It’s your decision, of course, as you’re the only reason any of us are alive right now, but I would like to nominate myself."

This time, I couldn’t keep the predatory grin from shifting onto my face, though Shido didn’t seem to catch on to what was coming.

"Of course. You seem like a great candidate, Shido."

If the man was giving me a chance to feed him to the zombies on a silver platter, who was I to turn him down?

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AN: Thank you for reading! The next Chapter will be out tomorrow!

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