Bio Defense ~A City Built in a World That Has Ended~

Chapter 3-2

There is a slightly unpleasant development here. If you are sensitive to such content or find it disturbing, please skip this page.

…Katsuya woke up feeling hungry.

“Huh?! It’s already three o’clock! What the hell have you I been doing?”

He opened the door angrily, slamming it open, and went downstairs. His mother should be in the living room or the kitchen.

“Hey, old hag! What about my food? Do you want me to starve to death?”

It was a bit of an exaggeration for just one missed meal, but this was the daily routine in the Okura household. Katsuya wasn’t being bullied at school, but his personality probably meant he had no friends and was rather avoided by others. School was no fun for him, and he often skipped classes, so he hadn’t been attending lessons properly. He wasn’t particularly smart, and tests were nothing but torture for him. After all, he had to face his miserable self twice: when taking the test and when the answers were returned. So, he had been skipping school during the recent test period.

Katsuya looked into the kitchen and living room, raising his voice, but there was no one there. Of course, no meal had been prepared.

“That old hag… Fine, if that’s how you want it, I have my own plans too.”

Katsuya smiled evilly and pulled out one of the drawers from the dresser in the living room. He reached into the back of the drawer and found an envelope.

When he turned the envelope upside down, he found a passbook, a card, and a stamp inside.

“How naive. Do you think you can fool my eyes?”

Katsuya smirked and turned around, looking at the hidden camera in the gap between the beams. There were similar cameras installed in all the main rooms of the house. Katsuya had set them up when he skipped school during the weekdays, when his parents were at work, and he had plenty of time to do so.

The reason Katsuya had to hide these cameras was because he had taken and used her card without permission more than once or twice. His mother had changed the hiding place many times, but Katsuya had secretly filmed the house and found the new hiding place.

Katsuya felt great and changed into his favorite clothes, thinking of going out for a meal. Just as he opened the front door, he noticed an infected person across the street, and he almost shouted out loud, but managed to control himself and closed the door, locking it carefully.

He tiptoed back to his room and let out a breath he had been holding.

“Oh, come on! What is this? I thought it was just a distant story, but they’re nearby!”

Katsuya was trying to hold back his cry of joy. He believed his time had come, and he remembered the ways to deal with zombies from movies and manga. First… it’s a bit cheesy, but he took off his favorite jacket, which he thought was stylish, and put on a thick denim jacket. Of course, he wore the same pants too. Then, he put a small survival knife he had bought online in his belt. He also remembered that pepper spray could work in some cases. He didn’t have any, but he put an insecticide spray in his shoulder bag. Of course, he didn’t forget his lighter, so he could create a makeshift flamethrower by lighting it while spraying. Katsuya’s mouth was twisted in a smile.

“They’re sensitive to sound, so we must not make any noise.”

Although Katsuya was saying something right for once, no one was listening. He was just muttering the zombie settings he had in mind.

“Damn. If only I had a gun… I would have won easily for sure.”

Mumbling to himself, Katsuya started walking towards the bank. He seemed to have forgotten what he had said earlier about not making any noise. Moreover, even if a novice miraculously managed to take down an infected person with a single bullet, the gunshot would still echo and attract many more infected. The bullets would run out quickly.

He continued walking, spouting useless knowledge that might or might not be useful.

“Help! Someone, anyone!”

Katsuya, who was avoiding the main streets and moving through the gaps between buildings, heard a young woman’s scream. There had been occasional screams and shouts before, but he hadn’t felt like doing anything about them. But this time, the scream seemed to be coming from nearby, in the direction he was heading.

“Is it already my turn…? This is what happens when you’re the protagonist.”

Sighing and muttering incomprehensible things, Katsuya went in the direction of the scream and saw a woman being chased by an infected person. He had intended to observe the situation secretly, but the woman was desperate. She noticed Katsuya and called out for help.

“Help me, please, help me!”

Katsuya didn’t move, even at the woman’s desperate plea.

“I’m not really into her, to be honest. In movies, that’s the hero’s job, right?”

“What are you doing? Come on, please help me!”

The woman, with tears streaming down her face, was desperately calling for help, clearly looking at Katsuya, but he didn’t move.

“Damn! She’s making such an ugly scene. It’s disgusting.”

Katsuya muttered to himself and thought about just leaving her there, but he decided to use this as a practical training exercise and approached the infected person from behind, quietly.

“Hurry, please, hurry!”

The woman, who had been sitting and backing up, finally hit the wall with her back, and the infected person’s hand was about to reach her body.

“Nooooo!”

“Shut up!”

Katsuya shouted back and stabbed the knife towards the infected person’s head.

In most zombie stories, the head is the weak point. The protagonists use fruit knives or even glass shards to easily pierce the head and defeat the infected.

Katsuya’s knowledge was limited to this extent. He didn’t realize that there was a hard, round bone called the skull in the head.

However, he was lucky this time. The knife of the weak and unskilled Katsuya slipped and slid down, cutting a large wound in the back of it’s neck, as he couldn’t stop the momentum. Moreover, Katsuya had closed his eyes when he stabbed it, so he didn’t understand the trajectory of his knife.

He didn’t know what was good about it, but after Katsuya’s strike, the infected person collapsed from the knees and fell to the ground.

The woman, whose face was covered in sweat and tears, was staring at the infected person, looking like her soul had left her body. She was wearing a uniform that was dirty but familiar. It seemed that the woman was a bank clerk from the bank Katsuya was heading to. Katsuya approached the woman, who was in a daze, and grabbed her arm forcefully.

“H-!”

“Hey, is the bank open?”

Katsuya asked the terrified woman without any concern, only interested in hearing what he wanted to know. The woman looked confused, but after he repeated the question, she answered in a faint voice.

“U-um… in case of trouble in the neighborhood, we… are supposed to close for security reasons…”

In summary, it seemed that the bank was closed. Katsuya wanted to ask if at least the ATM was open, but he gave up as it seemed too much trouble.

“Damn!”

Katsuya couldn’t help but utter a curse, and the woman trembled her shoulders pitifully in fear. She had almost been caught by the infected person, so it was no wonder she was scared. However, Katsuya had no sympathy for her.

On the contrary, he felt a sadistic urge towards the woman who was shrinking, as if she wanted to disappear from the scene.

Katsuya thought of himself as the woman’s savior, so he naturally kicked her to the ground.

“W-what… what are you going to do?” The woman tried to say, but Katsuya started groping her body before she could finish her sentence.

“No! What do you want to do… stop it!”

Another scream echoed. Katsuya looked around, worried that the infected person might come, but fortunately for him and unfortunately for the woman, there was no movement nearby.

The woman tried to escape when Katsuya looked around, but she couldn’t move, perhaps because her waist was weak or she was injured. Still, she tried to crawl away from the scene.

“Hey, where are you going? You ungrateful woman, leaving without thanking your savior…”

As he said this, Katsuya’s hand stopped moving towards the woman.

“You… have you been bitten?”

Katsuya muttered in a cold voice, and the woman accidentally followed his gaze. At the end of her left calf, there was a large wound that looked like it had been gouged. It must have happened just as Katsuya arrived, when she was sitting on the ground and backing up.

In her panic, she hadn’t noticed the severe bleeding from her leg, and she hurriedly called for help.

“Help me, please help me! To the hospital, no, call an ambulance!”

The woman pleaded with Katsuya, who was looking at her coldly. There was no one else around. Even if the woman had tried to attack her, she had no choice but to cling to her.

“Hah… If you’ve been bitten, there’s no hope. There’s no way to stop the infection.”

Katsuya said this as if he knew what he was talking about, but the woman was desperate. She tried to ask for help, but she couldn’t speak due to the shock.

Katsuya didn’t feel like attacking her anymore, so he stood up silently.

“U-um…”

Then, without even looking at the woman, who was overwhelmed with despair and pale, Katsuya left the scene.

TIPS: Baidefu Setting Collection 4: Onimaru

The “Onimaru” Hinata attached to the iron pipe is derived from the Onimaru Kunitsuna, a famous sword from the Kamakura period. It is said to have been used to slay an ogre that appeared in a dream and caused suffering. By the way, it seems Hinata also debated whether to use Dōjigiri Yasutsuna, another sword. Dōjigiri is a sword believed to have slain the ogre Shōnōdōji, and both swords still exist today. While both are among the more famous Japanese swords, the fact that Hinata casually references them shows how much of a sword enthusiast she is.