55: A Side Quest

A Side Quest

"Why can't I come with you?!"0

It was the next day and Saya was quite... upset, to say the least. After Yuriko and I had finished our discussion concerning a specific job that she needed my help on, I eventually found my group again in order to tell them about it the day after. However, I had already made the decision to go with only a single person that was in my group because I wanted the rest to stay behind and hold down the fort while I was gone.

I didn't want to just leave with my entire group and then have the people living inside of the Takagi Estate's walls fend for themselves. Most of them were just civilians who had absolutely no experience in the kinds of things that were required to survive in a world like this unfortunately.

Not to mention, Yuriko was planning on sending out a few of her own guards to come along, which I had been against at first... that was until she made it clear that there wasn't anything I could say to change her mind. That's when I just gave up in that department.

Luckily, there was still going to be enough people at the Takagi Estate that could defend themselves just in case a dangerous situation were to break out.

Breathing out a sigh for what felt like the hundredth time, I pulled the pink haired girl into my arms and gently squeezed in order to reassure her. "Look, I understand that you want to come with me, but I'll be fine. I'm not going to be the only one out there. Our mother has rounded up a few of the guards and they'll be coming along with us."

Right as I ended my short explanation, Rika casually walked into the spacious bedroom with a sniper rifle clutched in one hand, the dark-skinned woman dressed up in her form-fitting black combat suit once more. "That's right, girly." She giggled, running a hand through her long purple hair. "Dante and I will be just fine on our own. Plus, Shizuka has caught me up on what's been happening while I've been gone, and muscles over there can apparently transform into a zombie with mind control powers? Whatever the case may be, it sounds like he can take care of himself."

Saya didn't really know how to reply after that, instead just hugging my torso even tighter until I eventually had to leave. I left the pink haired girl with a kiss that managed to put a smile back on her pouting face, at least.

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"Be careful out there, you hear?" A guard that went by the name of Daichi Tanaka, I believe, yelled out from his position with a wave.

I waved back in response, nodding at his request with a confidence that made the older man chuckle before he turned around and resumed his daily patrol.

Sitting behind the steering wheel of an old Jeep that had been fixed up by a mechanic in the Takagi Estate, Rika slowly drove our vehicle out of the front entrance gate with another vehicle following behind us.

I sat back in the passenger seat next to her as she proceeded to hum a quiet tune to herself for a while. It was actually pretty relaxing. However, I had to stay focused on the mission at hand...

This entire operation depended on me, after all.

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Eventually, we got out onto the concrete roads, which is when I took a deep breath and closed my eyes in order to work my magic. Throwing out a sonar-like pulse in every direction with my partial Necrojek form, I proceeded to do that multiple times until I inevitably felt a positive feedback.

Back when I unlocked this specific transformation and finally returned to the Takagi Estate, I talked with Yuriko about what transpired during the time that I had been gone, which also included the incident that my group saw with their own eyes.

Yuriko had been worried, to say the least. Very worried. That was until she noticed just how... good I looked. My body was completely bare of any kind of scars or wounds in general, and I wasn't dealing with the obvious symptoms of becoming a zombie, which greatly relieved the woman of her anxiety. I quickly gave her the same excuse that Kohta did to the rest of the group, which was that I had somehow gotten off lucky and become a mutation of some sort.

I just chalked up everyone's acceptance of that excuse to the fact that we had been shoved into a zombie apocalypse, which obviously shattered the realities of many people, and all of the traumatic deaths definitely weren't helping it at all. Plus, nobody was really knowledgeable on how something like this could possibly happen besides in movies, and most of it was just completely unknown to everybody. That resulted in a lot of people to just shrug their shoulders, simply accepting the fact that this was their new world now, and the fact that it apparently contained humans that could turn into zombies while also retaining their original attributes.

In turn, Yuriko had come up with an idea that would greatly benefit everyone, and that was the reason I was currently on this mission.

To be more specific, the purpose of this mission was to patrol the area surrounding the Takagi Estate in about a three mile radius, and eliminate any undead that we happen to come across. This would clear out a fairly large area around the Takagi Estate and make it safer for the people living inside our walls.

Now, due to the fact that I'm currently only able to reach about a mile radius, we would just get as many as possible that's closest to the Takagi Estate before going back and repeating the process within a couple days. The plan was to do it about three to four times a week, which would surely give some relief to the survivors that were scared for their lives...

I'd consider this a pretty good start in the right direction.

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