Book 1 Chapter 1
My awakening was as unpleasant as having the ringing of the alarm clock pound at your head when you were exhausted but having trouble sleeping.
After shaking my foggy head and focusing my mind, I realized I was not in my bedroom.
I saw a clear blue sky.
I smelled a damp green scent.
I was surrounded by several reinforced concrete buildings. By the time I realized I was at the high school’s courtyard, the energy of a crowd reached me through the bright air.
The clock in the center of the courtyard said it was 2 PM.
A Weather Sphere that monitored for any signs of or damage from a tornado or flooding sat on top of the clock. It looked like a super high-tech Stevenson screen and it was full of cameras and meteorological sensors.
However.
Even now, students were seated at the desks, classes were being taught in the classrooms, and the school was running like normal in Kukyou City.
Wow, I hate this feeling.
It was like the calm before the storm, or a peace I knew would soon be destroyed.
The skin of my fingertips crawled.
I was wearing my school uniform, my usual collapsible bicycle with a cargo rack stood next to me, and my pocket contained my smartphone and a cheap balloon drone. The drone synced with my phone and let me take video from the sky, so it was in the presets for when I had fun “here”.
Yeah, that’s my bike all right.
It even had the cargo rack placed pretty high up for how small the wheels were. That was thanks to a rather forceful request from Ayumi and Erika who wanted to ride on the bike with me.
Just to be sure, I rang the bell next to the handlebars.
Then I spoke to the smartphone in my hand.
“Maxwell, display the physics on that action.”
“Sure.”
Lines of numbers immediately filled the smartphone’s screen and scrolled without end. This was the hidden side of the scenery I was looking at without much thought. Inside the bell, the spring contracted, recoiled, and was released. There was an action and reaction when the hammer hit the bell itself, the bell itself vibrated, the sound propagated through the air and reflected off of the surrounding terrain, the multiple waves collided to combine or counterbalance each other, etc. It was all listed out there, but a human like me would need a month to look through it all.
That was why I let Maxwell give the overall conclusion.
“All green. The disaster environment simulator was constructed without issue.”
“Oh, good. That’s what I wanted to hear.”
I sighed and addressed what worried me most.
“Let’s get down to business. Are you synced with the Class Rep like usual?”
“Sure. Perfectly.”
In the disaster environment simulator, everyone would move “just like in reality”, but then the Class Rep could not change into a bikini and dance a sexy dance for me. So as an emergency measure, I had Maxwell’s system possess the Class Rep to take manual control.
It was an emergency measure only built into the Class Rep’s file set, so it wouldn’t work on Ayumi or Erika. In other words, I couldn’t get back at them by making them do a reggae dance. If I opened too many backdoors like that, the disaster prevention foundation helping with the data analysis would notice. And they’d laugh at me.
My secret folder had hidden both the swimsuit set and the backdoor possession program.
“I’m in the school courtyard. Maxwell, tell me where you are. Let’s meet up ASAP.”
“Due to the change in your privilege level, searches and other administrative modes are temporarily unusable. I recommend having me use visual confirmation of the surrounding landmarks to meet up with you.”
“You’re kidding, right? I’m supposed to search for a single person in a city of 800,000?”
And as if searching for the Class Rep wasn’t bad enough, the real trouble would soon begin.
A zombie and a vampire would face each other head-on and fill the city with the walking dead.
In fact, it had already begun.
“Hot!? Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hooooooot!!!!!!!”
Some kind of black mass cut past me while screaming and rolling on the ground.
It had started right off the bat.
This was a beautiful girl in a black gothic lolita dress and a mini-hat on her splendid ringlet curls. In other words, it was my older sister. As soon as she was dropped into virtual reality, the direct afternoon sunlight had hit her, so she was starting to sizzle all over. She was even turning into ashes a little, so she broke the hallway window and jumped inside.
That was an unusual sight for a clean freak like her.
I hid in the bushes and watched.
Hearing the high-pitched noise, the perfect female teacher who was also a childhood friend and a returnee (she taught English) ran out of a nearby classroom to see what was going on.
“Wh-what is this!? Hey, you’re Amatsu’s older sister…aren’t you? Did you break this windo-…”
“Chomp☆”
“Kiiiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”
Erika went right for it with quite the comical voiced sound effect.
She didn’t hold back at all! She dug her fangs right into the teacher’s throat!
Talk about making up your mind quickly.
Wasn’t this like having cutlet curry served to you the moment you woke up!?
Erika was suddenly in top form, perhaps because she had escaped the direct sunlight by getting inside. I was seriously conflicted over whether or not to go in and stop her, but I had no weapons and facing my vampire sister would only get me bitten.
…Or so I thought?
“Gulp, gulp.”
“…Uuh.”
“Gulp, gulp.”
“…Ahh.”
“Bh!? Gbweh!! Cough, cough. W-wait, don’t you have way too much blood, Sensei? Urp…”
My sister was about at her limit just by making one more vampire.
That was because she had to drink enough blood to be fatal. For an adult, that was between one and two liters…which meant it was like chugging an entire family-sized drink bottle. And this was a thick liquid that caught in the throat and stank of rust, so it may have been a bit much for that light eater. Her lunchbox was super small.
And it made no sense. She was already at her limit only five or ten minutes after starting. If she couldn’t do it, there was no reason to force herself. She had brought this on herself and now she was looking dizzy! Although her face was looking nice and smooth, so maybe there wasn’t anything to worry about!!
But at the same time…
An explosion of screams and shouts burst from the school building. However, this was not because a class full of students was panicking after my sister suddenly bit into a teacher’s neck.
The commotion was on the second story of the building.
I filled the balloon with gas and sent the drone up into the air so I could see what was going on through one of the windows.
“More pawns! More! Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp.”
“Wah, wah!! Amatsu…-san!?”
“Yes, yes. Sorry, sorry. Can I at least get a quick bite in!?”
It was already pandemonium up there.
For some reason, I was reminded of a special sale that let you pay 500 yen for as much as you could stuff in the plastic bag.
You really are being sloppy about this, Ayumi!!
Apparently both my sisters had their issues. If they were this much alike, why did they have to fight so much!? And didn’t I get a say when I was always caught in the middle!?
The source of the commotion was my little sister. She had black twintails with only the very ends curled, she was slender and flat-chested, and she had stitches all over her body. She was wearing a marathon runner’s midriff-revealing jogging suit with only the top of a track suit over it. It made for quite a healthy and sexy outfit. It amounted to a thin tank top and hot pants, so when my flat little sister wore it, I could just about spy the adorable mounds through the armpit or neck. She had a smartphone on the belt around her thigh, but was that for a health management app? You’re a zombie!!
And…
Ayumi ran from classroom to classroom biting any handy boy or girl. After a few dozen seconds, the bitten kids turned pale and similarly attacked students and teachers. My vampire sister had to drink a liter or two of blood, but my zombie sister apparently only had to take one bite. From there, she became a glutton(?) only interested in flesh.
Meanwhile, ugh, the smell around me changed.
I felt like an invisible wall of rusty odor was pressing against my face.
Then a ton of zombies practically poured down the stairs as they rushed to the first floor.
They were packed in like sardines and clearly looked just like corpses, but they were still fresh. Simply put, they were not rotting yet. Of course, Ayumi underwent a preservation treatment every day to keep her skin white and springy, so maybe zombies just didn’t rot away that quickly. …Either way, they would eventually fall apart if nothing was done.
Erika seemed to have given up after finally making the one teacher into her servant. When I checked in the window using the drone, I saw her lying on her back in the hallway and patting her stomach with her slender hand. I was pretty sure she would fall asleep if I patted her head and sang her a lullaby.
But as long as the Swimsuit Class Rep wasn’t taken out, anything was fine by me.
In fact, wouldn’t it be for the best if my sisters settled things right away and the simulation ended?
“Mwa ha ha!! Now do you see what true infection is like, Onee-chan!? You don’t need the one-of-a-kind skill of an expert artisan!! It’s mass-produced fast food that covers the globe!! Now, prepare to be swallowed up by a mob of the dead!!”
Yeah, that girl did like her burgers and fried chicken.
It was something like 70 against 2.
Just as Erika finally got up from the floor, a crowd of zombies poured in from a different staircase too. The way was blocked in both directions.
Normally thinking, she was hopelessly outnumbered.
But once the wall of zombies started bumping shoulders, something strange happened.
“…Gau…”
“Ohhhhhhhhhh.”
“Oh, you wanna fight?”
“Flesh.”
Ah…
They were at it again.
They were devouring each other!
The zombies were supposedly on the same side, but they started glaring at each other, grabbing each other, and devouring each other’s shoulders.
Oh, dear. I didn’t want to see any of those colors and they’re splattered everywhere!!
Slender Ayumi seemed just as surprised.
“H-huh!? What are you biting at each other for!? Over there! My sister’s over there!! She’s right there, so hurry up and go get her!!”
“Hungry.”
“Flesh.”
“Flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh.”
Oh, I get it.
The more soldiers in your army, the more they had to be fed.
And unlike vampires, zombies had no clear hierarchy and no queen. They ignored all orders and simply jumped at the nearest flesh to satisfy their hunger. It didn’t matter to them if that flesh was a little rotten.
Simply put, they were idiots.
That description worked just as well for zombies as a whole and Ayumi in particular.
I stared up into the sky with a distant look in my eyes, but then I spotted a small drone. It was a six-rotor multi-copter rather than the balloon type I was using. As a disaster countermeasure city, there were lots of drones around. The university and disaster prevention foundation tended to send them around with meteorological sensors onboard. Someone may have been smart enough to send one out after noticing the situation at the school.
And that wasn’t the main issue now.
I had to focus on my stupid little sister.
“Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah!! Oh, no! They’re coming this way! Whyyyy are you locked onto the original, you ungrateful zombies!?”
“Eh heh heh. Oh, Ayumi-chan. You sure are a troublemaker☆”
“And when did Onee-chan recover!?”
“Why would they be grateful when you’re the one that bit them? Won’t their fading minds want to take you down with them? I bet they feel pretty heroic targeting you.”
Erika sounded pretty full of herself, but let’s not forget she had sucked that one teacher’s blood.
It would be a hell of a thing if the real versions of these people ever found out who was killed first. That could easily put some cracks in some relationships!!
I peeked in from the courtyard, but I didn’t see the Swimsuit Class Rep among the cannibal zombies.
“Heh heh heh. And while your pawns are killing each other, Ayumi-chan, I think I’ll get in a biiiiit of a preemptive strike☆”
“What? How? Even if they’re self-destructing an awful lot, you’re still outnumbered more than ten-to-one. I don’t care how cool and stylish a vampire is; you can’t take out the entire group around you like in a samurai show.”
“Wellll, I was thinking of increasing the number of my own pawns.”
“Even through your dress, I can tell your stomach is sticking out, so how?”
“You want to know?”
My vampire sister gave an elegant smile.
“Bfhhhhh!!!???”
“Vomiting!? You’re vomiting blood!?”
“Eh heh. Eh heh heh. Pant, pant. If the tank is full, then I just have to empty it out. I’ll empty out my stomach so I can suck more blood!!”
She was a lost cause.
What had happened to being a clean freak!? Was she the kind of girl who disturbed everyone around her by forcing herself to order a ton of food just to prove that she could eat a lot? Was her nickname “The Merlion”? And we weren’t talking about a sexy teacher holding her head due to a hangover, so what was I supposed to do with an elder sister character with a habit of throwing up!? How was I supposed to categorize this scene in my mind!?
“Anyway.”
The Swimsuit Class Rep did not seem to be at school, but my sisters were stuck there for the time being. Those two could have fun on their own. I needed to leave the school while the getting was good and find the Swimsuit Class Rep who was defenselessly wandering around Kukyou City.
“Sure. I have found you, user.”
But as soon as I turned around, the Class Rep was right there.
Despite the pandemonium, I was still at school during the afternoon.
Gentle sunlight fell on the pristine school building and everyone should have been wearing their school uniform.
But the forehead glasses Class Rep wore a swimsuit.
She stood there in confusion while wearing a white bikini.
“Well, that’s just unnatural!! Completely unnatural!! I feel like dying for dressing you up in that!!”
“I was merely obeying your request, user.”
The Class Rep did not question it.
She looked at me with a puzzled look and then looked to the broken hallway window.
“I entered the parameters myself, but that is quite a disaster.”
“Well, it is a vampire and zombie trying to show off their power.’
“Erika’s dress is unusual enough, but a middle school girl like Ayumi rampaging through a high school while so scantily clad is quite a rare sight.”
“I don’t want to hear that from a Bikini Class Rep!!”
“User, you seem dissatisfied, so should I switch to the Class Rep’s normal behavior pattern? (y/n)”
“Sure, sure. Let’s try it out. I’m open to anything that will comfort me!!”
Her pupils dilated a little.
“Ah! Amatsu’s older sister is at school in a dress!!”
“Well, that is more like her, but is she still ignoring the bikini!?”
“And Ayumi-chan is…wait. What is she doing at the high school?”
“Are you blind to everything inconvenient!? Y’know, like the red stuff splattered on the walls or the flesh-colored stuff lying on the floor!?”
The situation may have been so out of the ordinary that it took some time for her mind to catch up.
Or maybe her self-defense instincts were just a little off.
Either way, my comment seemed to help her focus on reality.
“G-…”
So she saw it.
She saw the zombie, the vampire, and “everyone else” who was scattered about after getting caught in the middle of my sister’s competition.
“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”
When she screamed, every head that could still move turned to face us.
And that included Ayumi and Erika.
“Maxwell!! Cancel the Class Rep mode! Are you trying to get us killed right away!!!???”
“Sure. Completing request.”
My only option was to climb aboard my bicycle with the Swimsuit Class Rep on the cargo rack.
As a side note, I was feeling a little sad.
At times like this, the Class Rep apparently went “gyah”. I had always imagined it would be a cute “kyah”, but I guess you can’t have everything.
[Pick up] The Meaning of the Bright Cross Disaster Prevention Foundation (PR Use) [Net Files]
As I am sure you are all aware, Kukyou City is designated a National Reinforced Planning Zone. The city is colored in the unique light of the disaster prevention and damage reduction business. Due to geographical issues, Kukyou City has long suffered from a variety of natural disasters, most notably flooding and lightning strikes, but we can take advantage of that trait to help reveal the inner workings of tornadoes and the notoriously complex mechanism behind their formation.
Of course, many corporations, research institutions, and universities are involved in this project, but unfortunately, conflicts form between different schools and companies.
Our existence might seem entirely meaningless to many of you.
But by acting as a cushion and a buffer to ensure capable people do not end up fighting among themselves, we can draw out the greatest specs from the participating groups.
We centralize the budget request and supervision process and we ensure that no two participating groups are duplicating any projects. That allows the most efficient use of the limited personnel and equipment. That is the purpose of our foundation.
The foundation itself is young, but we are a branch of the Bright Cross, which has a 1500 year history over which it has constantly fought the plague, dysentery, cholera, the Spanish flu, and more. Its activities are beyond number: disaster relief, emergency food distribution, financial support, improving medical technology, ending dangerous rumors in disaster areas, finding data on past disasters buried in old books, and more.
By inheriting that iron will and developing the cutting edge in technological information, we intend to reduce the victims of any future disasters as much as possible.
That is the greatest desire of our Bright Cross Disaster Prevention Foundation and its very reason for existing.
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