Chapter Twenty-Eight: Besieged

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The subway was heading toward Bruce’s home. It was not far, and they should have arrived at the station in about ten minutes.

Yet halfway there, the train made an emergency stop. Perhaps some unfortunate drunk had caused a disturbance in the station.

It took roughly twenty minutes before the subway started moving again.

What infuriated Bruce, however, was that the station nearest his home had supposedly suffered an accident, and the train would not be stopping there.

There was no choice but to get off at the previous station and walk the rest of the way.

“What’s going on?”

Shakya sent a message to Agents J and K to ask, but for the moment, neither had replied.

The residential complex where Bruce lived was still some distance away.

Shakya decided to wait at a convenience store near Bruce’s home and meet up with Agents K and J there.

“I understand. I’ll take you to that convenience store.”

Bruce agreed readily.

Of course, he merely assumed that his classmate was meeting a female friend to spend some time together.

“Thank you. It’ll make it easier for you to get home too. Sorry to trouble you.”

As befitted the area surrounding an upscale residential complex, there were few pedestrians, none of the usual street-food stalls or cheap independent shops. Instead, rows of commercial buildings lined the outskirts of the development.

Unfortunately, after the repeated attacks on New Autumn City, the businesses here had chosen to leave and seek their fortunes elsewhere.

That left the area looking deserted. The sky had already grown very dark, and the emptiness made Shakya feel uneasy.

“It looks rather run-down, doesn’t it?”

Bruce understood how she felt.

“Y-yes.” Shakya glanced around. “It just feels... unnaturally quiet.”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t like living here. It’s incredibly inconvenient. Sometimes I have to walk a long way just to get a meal, and food deliveries take forever.”

Bruce seemed to have endured his situation for quite some time.

Compared to this, the apartment the Director had found for Shakya near the old district was far more convenient.

There was a supermarket downstairs, making it easy to buy anything she needed.

Even if she were cooking, she could leave oil heating in a pan and go out to buy vegetables—though for safety reasons, good children should never imitate that.

“Hmm... There really do seem to be too few people around today.”

Bruce led Shakya toward the convenience store near the residential complex. They did not encounter a single person along the way.

At half past six in the evening, the sky was already dark. Surely, no matter what, housewives should have been coming out to buy groceries by then.

“Why do I feel so uneasy...?”

Shakya instinctively felt a chill run down her spine.

After walking for about ten minutes, the convenience store came into view.

But why was it so deserted tonight? Convenience stores were usually crowded at this hour. There was not even anyone standing outside smoking.

Was this another feature of living near an upscale residential complex?

Looking more closely, Shakya realized that there was not even an employee behind the register.

Sensing that something was wrong, Bruce told Shakya to wait outside while he went in to investigate.

“Hello?”

Bruce entered the convenience store. The automatic doors were still functioning normally.

But there was no one inside.

“Is anyone here? There’s a customer!”

Bruce walked around the store, raising his voice as he called out.

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Still, no one answered.

Bruce noticed that the door to the stockroom was half open.

“Is someone in there?”

The lights inside were off. He fumbled around for the switch but could not find it, so he simply pushed the stockroom door open.

By the light spilling in from outside, Bruce finally saw a figure. It appeared to be crouching in the corner, sorting through something.

“Excuse me...”

Bruce greeted the figure, but it did not react.

He thought the person might be hard of hearing, so he knocked on the door again and called out more loudly.

“Why are J and K taking so long to reply...?”

Outside, Shakya looked around restlessly. The area around this upscale neighborhood was extraordinarily quiet.

She had already sent J and K the location where she was waiting.

A moment later, she vaguely noticed several dark shapes writhing beneath the streetlamp in the distance.

Were they pedestrians? Or agents coming to meet her?

Puzzled, Shakya unconsciously took a few steps forward, wanting to get a better look.

Suddenly, a tremendous crash came from inside the convenience store, like a shelf being knocked over.

“Bruce!?”

Realizing that something had happened, Shakya hurriedly turned around.

Inside the convenience store, Bruce would never forget the face of the figure standing before him.

That thing—or rather, whatever it was—slowly rose to its feet and turned around. Thick black liquid dripped from every opening in its face, pouring onto another person beneath it.

Strangely, the liquid did not reach the floor. There was nothing on the ground—no blood, no smell.

Bruce naturally thought of the zombies from movies and video games.

He reacted instantly, leaping out of the stockroom and knocking over an entire shelf.

The creature staggered after him.

Bruce grabbed a mop handle from the store, struck the approaching zombie back, and ran wildly toward the entrance.

Shakya rushed toward the convenience store, only to see Bruce charging straight at her.

Bruce was so panicked that he nearly collided with her. Fortunately, Shakya turned aside and avoided him.

“What happened?”

Seeing Bruce so unusually frightened, Shakya’s heart sank.

“Run! There are... there are zombies in there!”

“What? Zombies?”

Before Shakya could recover, Bruce seized her and ran, but he stopped almost immediately.

Beneath the nearby streetlamps, more and more writhing figures were moving toward them.

Shakya turned to look at the convenience store. Two more creatures of the same kind had emerged.

Seeing the gelatinous fluid coating their bodies, Shakya recognized the telltale sign of corpses that had been killed by the Kin and then resurrected.

“Bruce! Whatever you do, don’t touch that liquid!”

Shakya had never watched a zombie movie, but she had seen that corrosive substance in the laboratory—the stuff that could eat away at a person.

Bruce, however, was quick to understand. Gripping the long pole, he knocked down several “zombies” that lunged at them while anxiously searching for a way through.

“I know! Usually, touching something like that gets you infected, right?”

His answer was probably correct.

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“Look out!”

Shakya spun and kicked away one of the creatures sneaking up behind Bruce.

“Hey... I never knew the goddess of our class could fight like that.”

Bruce turned and nodded awkwardly at Shakya.

“You’re not bad yourself. Looks like all that muscle training wasn’t for nothing.”

Bruce had seemed like nothing more than a fitness enthusiast, but apparently he knew some martial arts as well.

As the horde of zombies closed in around them, the two of them stood back to back.

Suddenly, Bruce hurled the plastic trash bin outside the convenience store at the zombies, then grabbed Shakya and sprinted in the opposite direction.

The trick worked surprisingly well. Distracted by the earlier noise, the zombies turned toward the bin, giving Bruce an opening to break through the encirclement.

“Keep moving! I know this area!”

Without giving her a chance to object, Bruce took Shakya and raced away. They crossed two roads, dodging the zombies wandering along them.

“When did all these things show up?”

Bruce gripped Shakya’s wrist so tightly that it began to hurt.

He reached the entrance to his residential complex and threw himself against the gate, opening the iron doors with his access card before dragging Shakya inside.

Fortunately, the complex itself did not appear to have been affected yet. The security guard in the booth stared in confusion as the two of them came rushing toward him in a panic.

But when he saw a group of staggering figures approaching in the distance, the guard fled as well.

The plan had been to operate alone, follow the Kin, and wait for the right opportunity to kill them. No one had expected to suddenly encounter so many zombie-like creatures.

It seemed the Kin were not fools.

What were they supposed to do? Shakya had intended to meet up with the agents and slowly lie in wait for their prey. Instead, they had been caught off guard first.

Bruce planned to take Shakya to his home and hide there for a while.

He lived in a detached house.

Shakya followed behind him as they made their way inside.

While she was considering how to explain everything to Bruce, messages from J and K appeared on her phone.

A large number of zombies had also appeared in the area they were patrolling. It seemed the number of victims had exceeded expectations, and they had been trapped within a certain zone, which explained the delay in their replies.

The police had already sealed off the areas where the “zombies” had appeared.

It would take them some time to reach the others.

“Shakya! What’s your situation?”

Ziyuan’s call came at just the right moment. Shakya breathed a sigh of relief and answered immediately.

“Ah, it’s a complete mess. I’m with a classmate... and we’re surrounded.”

Shakya touched the backpack containing her equipment.

If necessary, she could still fight her way out.

“Can I get permission to use my weapons? We can’t just leave those zombies alone. Besides, I have a civilian with me...”

But Ziyuan’s reply left Shakya with a splitting headache.

According to the agents’ reports, these “zombies” were different from the mutilated corpses that had been resurrected before. Their bodies were intact; it was more as if they were being forcibly controlled by that black liquid.

An agent had just killed one of them. Before dying, the victim regained consciousness and passed away wailing in agony. The incident had frightened the agent so badly that he wet himself.

In other words, they could not yet determine whether the victims were still alive. If they could bring down the Kin controlling them, there was a chance these civilians might still be saved.

Under such circumstances, they could neither use their weapons nor permanently dispose of the “zombies.” Were they supposed to keep running, hoping to run into the Kin—if it even came out—and eliminate it?

It looked as though tonight was going to become a major disaster.

Shakya touched her backpack and looked at Bruce, who was leading the way with a club in his hand.

Perhaps it was time to draw on the strength of a friend.

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