36: Burning Down Fujimi Academy

Burning Down Fujimi Academy

Everything had descended into chaos.1

There was a massive amount of zombies populating the high school campus, attracted to all kinds of noises, as well as different students who had formed their own groups in order to improve their already slim chances of surviving this terrifying ordeal.

One of the teachers, in a panicked state because of all of the walking corpses that were eating people, had ran straight for his car in order to leave the school grounds as fast as possible.

However, his path was blocked off because of a few students that had been trying to fight off a hungry batch of undead.

Scared for his life, he had practically stomped onto the accelerator while yelling in fright, the front of his car slamming into the group of undead. While he had been able to take down a couple of them for good, the older man had also hit the students that weren't walking corpses just yet, most likely killing the teenagers from the impact alone.

If it hadn't somehow killed them then they would definitely be disabled in some type of way. At least, that was if the zombies surrounding them on all sides hadn't immediately dived for the group now that they had been turned into an easy meal.

Also, it might've been negative karma because of his actions, but the size of the horde that the older man had drove into was just big enough so that it had stopped his car from going any further. He was now stranded in the middle of a shit ton of flesh eating monsters and had nowhere to go either.

All of the glass on the car had quickly started to crack in multiple places from the horde climbing on top of his car, which caused the older man to panic even further, and a decision was made after a few seconds of contemplation.

The big ass group of undead walkers that were about to break into his car were obviously going to eat him alive. However, the man did not want to go through the pain of enduring it all, and so he quickly reached into his glove compartment before pulling out a Rock Island Armory M206 .38 Special Spurless Revolver.

With shaky hands, he placed it against his head. In his mind, dying to these demonic beasts simply wasn't an option for him. With tears beginning to run down his face, he gripped the gun's handle before taking a deep breath.

Right as the glass broke due to the zombie horde's combined weight, he pulled the trigger and quickly ended his life before they could get to him first.

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~Dante's POV~

My head snapped towards the direction of the school gate, which was where the sound of a loud gunshot had echoed from. That threw me for a loop even as my body continued to move forward, my group trying to keep up as best as possible. However, I could tell they were all beginning to feel the obvious symptoms of fatigue settling into their muscles due to all of the rigorous physical activity that each one of them has had to go through until now.

"What the hell- Does one of the teachers here own a gun?!" Miku shouted over all of the loud noises going on around us, which did a decent job at keeping most of the undead occupied with something besides chasing any of the group members.

"I-It wouldn't be all that surprising... I mean, everyone who works here also possess a life of their own outside of these school grounds. Plus, they most likely have some kind of license for the firearm... not that it really matters anymore." Kohta decided to add his own two cents, all while breathing heavily because of the constant running around that we've had to do just for our survival.

As they talked amongst themselves, my keen eyes spotted a black SUV located in the parking lot, which was in front of the school near the gate. It was one of the many vehicles that filled up the surrounding area, however, I specifically picked it because it was one of the few that could actually contain the entirety of my group as well.

Tuning out the rest of their dialogue, I focused my attention on running towards our new mode of transportation, completely disregarding the gunshot I had heard just a few seconds ago in favor of getting out of here.

"Over here! All of you, come on!" I guided them, leading the way towards the black SUV while avoiding any zombies along our path.

Everything seemed to be going pretty smooth so far...

All of us were just a few feet away from the black SUV when an odd noise sounded out above the group. The sound caused everyone to look up and that's when we saw a familiar zombie flying through the air before it landed on top of an old truck, subsequently shattering all of the windows as well as crushing the roof with it's harsh landing.

The undead creature slowly raised up from it's crouched position, letting out an ominous groan at the same time. From where I stood, I noticed a few things about this particular zombie. First of all, whoever it was before they got turned into this grotesque bastard, they must've gone through a lot up until that point.

It looks like they were scalped as my eyes were set on a section of the head that lacked any sort of skin, which made me uneasy once I thought about it. That's just fucking brutal. However, that wasn't the worst part about it.

My eyes lowered to it's actual face, which also lacked an eyeball. That was followed up by a large piece of the zombie's mouth that just so happened to be completely gone, revealing parts of the mouth that I did not want to see at all.

"Oh shit!" Kohta yelled in shock, legs beginning to shake at the sight of it.

"It seems we must fight." Saeko whispered just loud enough for everyone in the group to hear.

"Uh oh!" Shizuka cried, making sure to stay close with everyone.

"Goddamnit! Why can't you just leave us alone?!" Saya breathed out in frustration.

"Um... that's disgusting." Grossed out, Miku tried in vain to wave away the rotten smell.

"This one seems unique compared to the others." Rei murmured, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"God... that is one ugly fucking bastard." I said, my eyes set on the zombie's weird looking appendages that it had for arms.

The insult apparently hurt it's feelings because it let out a surprisingly loud roar after that, seething with rage as it reeled an arm back before the writhing flesh seemed to expand out and overturn a car, which caused it to fly through the air directly towards us.

"Fuck! Get out of the way!" I shouted, grabbing Shizuka's arm before dodging the oncoming mass of metal right at the last second.

'Holy shit... this zombie was actually pretty strong! It seems like I'm going to be revealing the surprise a little bit earlier than I planned on. It's okay, though. Hopefully, it would work on this... grappler zombie. Meh, good enough.'

"Everyone, I'm going to distract this ugly fucker! I need someone to get that car started so that you can pick me up... meet me at the gate!"

Before any of them could even respond, I began running in the direction of the gate. The grappler zombie immediately set it's sights on me once it heard my frequent footsteps. It then proceeded to leap off of the destroyed truck before chasing after it's new meal.

Shizuka watched me leave, extremely worried for what could possibly happen if the grappler zombie got ahold of me, which motivated her to dash for the black SUV and begin hotwiring the vehicle. It was a skill that she just so happened to learn from her best friend, Rika.

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Once I knew that the group could no longer see me running away, my body began to transform instantly. A feral roar was released from my mouth, which was accompanied by sharp fangs, and the power behind it caused vibrations to be felt by everyone nearby.

As a Vulpimancer, I stopped and turned around once we had reached a spacious area that would allow for some maneuverability. The grappler zombie outstretched an arm before it's lengthy appendage came flying straight for me.

Biting down on the writhing flesh when it got close, I growled while shaking it around like a new chew toy, which caused the grappler zombie to lose it's balance and fall over. That's when I began to drag it down the concrete path, scraping off it's dead skin and making it hit any vehicles along our journey back to the library.

I'd be making sure that this was the last time it would be coming back alive.

After a while, I veered off of the sidewalk and into the dirt, following the path me and my group took from the broken window beforehand. The flesh I had locked in the grasp of my teeth began to stretch even further, however, I could tell that it was reaching it's limit. Looking back at the grappler zombie as I continued to run, I noticed that it appeared to be in a much worse state than before, and yet it was still trying to do something in our mostly one-sided fight.

It was amusing to say the least, considering I knew from the start that this world wouldn't be much of a challenge for me. Honestly, I felt more like a kid because I was able to experience what many people fantasized about, and that was to be in a zombie apocalypse.

From the way the fleshy tendrils had started to poke me, I could tell that the grappler zombie was trying to somehow pierce my skin. However, this alien form was a bit too durable for that kind of tactic.

In front of us, the broken window came into view. Due to my large size, I couldn't really stop myself from knocking over a multitude of bookshelves as I ran inside of the library. With a strong jerk, I released the punctured flesh within my teeth and made the grappler zombie fly into a bookshelf.

In a quick motion, my Vulpimancer body changed into a different form, this one exuding a massive amount of heat as a fire burst forth and lit the surrounding area aflame. The grappler zombie picked itself up off of the floor and snarled at me, it's fleshy appendages moving as if they were sentient.

Pointing my hand at the undead creature as if it was a gun, a small fireball shot out and made contact with it's face, which resulted in a pained screech from the rotten walking corpse as it flailed around and tried to get rid of the scorching hit that was causing excruciating pain.

Surprisingly, it appeared strong enough to keep standing even though it had been burned quite a bit. However, that was an extremely weak attack on my end so I wasn't all that shocked by it.

Turning around, I ran out of the broken window once again before reverting back to my human form. Using the special ring located on my finger, I opened a small rift and grabbed the detonator I had in my possession for all of this time.

Before I even planned on leaving, I had grabbed some of the gear that Salvation was using while I was there. The stuff turned out to be pretty handy, it seems.

Once I had gotten away from the library and began to get near the school gate, smoke had already begun to emanate from a distance, and I knew exactly where it was coming from. With a smirk, I looked at the detonator in my hand before pressing down on the red button.

Multiple explosions began to go off in rapid succession right after I had pressed down on the detonator, blowing up sections of the library and causing the fire to spread even further. The explosions had obviously killed the grappler zombie that was still in there as well.

'Cool guys don't look at explosions, right?'

I could hear the sound of a vehicle coming closer to my position and thats when the black SUV came into view, loaded up with all of the members in my group. Shizuka rolled down her window before waving for me to hurry up, which I quickly followed by hopping into the door that slid back and revealed Saeko, clearly happy to see me alive and well.

It was closed right after I got in and Shizuka pressed down on the accelerator as we finally drove out of the school gate and down a road that would lead us to Tokonosu City.

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