My Reality Became a Zombie Game World, but Only I Can Use the Game System

Chapter 6: To the Academy

As I stepped out into the corridor of the apartment building, I saw a chubby middle-aged man, a zombie, wandering around. It was our neighbor.

I already knew that there would be zombies nearby, as my father had become a zombie. If I checked the mini-map, I could sense the presence of zombies even through the door.

By the way, in the highest difficulty level, No Hope, of “DL4,” you couldn’t see the mini-map. Given the range of detection, this mini-map was probably the specification of the lowest difficulty level, Beginner.

It would be helpful if the strength of the zombies was also equivalent to the Beginner difficulty level…

“Aaaah… Aaahhhhhhhhhh… It hurtsssssssssss…”

I split the head of the neighbor zombie, who attacked me, vertically with the machete.

I felt a sense of disgust at the sensation of smashing flesh and bone, but I had to get used to it. Fortunately, with one blow, the zombie fell to the floor of the corridor.

I was able to defeat it. I felt a sense of relief.

I had been worried that the trauma of what happened with my father would prevent me from being able to swing the machete.

I was bracing myself for the possibility of vomiting again, but there was no sign of it. Rather, I didn’t feel much emotion, as if it were someone else’s business.

I had talked to the neighbor, who was friendly with my father, many times, and I didn’t dislike his kind personality. I felt a little sad that he had passed away, but that was all. It was a thin sadness that I would probably forget in a few minutes.

If it were the peaceful days of yesterday, I would have been much more sad.

Maybe something in me had changed because I killed my father.

I checked my pulse on my wrist, but it was normal.

It seemed that I wouldn’t have any problems defeating zombies that were once human.

“By the way, Ai, you might think I’m a cold-blooded person because I was calm when I split the neighbor’s head with the machete, but I’m actually feeling deep sadness inside.”

“What kind of excuse are you starting with?”

“No, I just didn’t want to be thought of as a murderer… By the way, how does this conversation look to other people?”

“It looks like a boy with a blood-stained machete muttering to himself!”

“That’s too much…”

Is there any way to prevent this?

“You can just try to tell me in your mind, you know? I can hear it.”

“(*Sigh* You should have told me that first!)”

“I’ve always answered when you asked me!”

I wonder if there are other things she’s keeping quiet about because I haven’t asked yet.

Anyway, it seems like it’s better to have conversations in my mind when other people are watching.

As I talked to Ai, I checked the surroundings. Looking around the floor of the apartment building’s corridor, I saw bloodstains in several places.

Were there people who had been attacked by the neighbor zombie, or were there other zombies as well?

In any case, it seemed that administrative agencies were already overwhelmed, as there were no police or ambulances coming to deal with the zombies.

I tried calling the police on my smartphone, but I couldn’t get through. All I heard was a message saying that it was currently difficult to connect. I gave up and hung up.

By the way, I might have received Info Value ORTA for defeating the zombie.

I displayed the menu in my vision, and the current Info Value had increased to 3.

“I got 3? It was only 1 for my father.”

“Zombies that have attacked more people will increase the Info Value ORTA obtained when defeated.”

In other words, my father hadn’t attacked anyone. I thought of that as a small consolation, and I looked at the scene below.

The cityscape I could see from the 8th-floor corridor. There, I could see zombies attacking people everywhere. Maybe my hearing had improved as a player, as I could hear distant screams clearly.

I bit my lip hard.

I did have the desire to help people being attacked in front of me. But I couldn’t save everyone. If I wasted time saving people in front of me, and Yume-nee couldn’t be saved, I would regret it.

In a situation where your life is in danger, the most important thing is to decide on a priority.

I had placed Yume-nee and Chihiro-kun above my own life. So, first, I had to go help Yume-nee.

I held the machete in my right hand and started running towards the academy.

The city had fallen into chaos.

Sirens could be heard everywhere, screams, and shouts.

I had some resistance to carrying a sharp blade in the city, but it didn’t seem like anyone would stop me.

Some people were startled to see me with a blood-stained blade, but they just hurriedly avoided me, as they were too busy trying to escape from the zombies.

I carefully advanced along the school route, defeating the zombies I encountered along the way.

It was a distance that didn’t take 20 minutes, but it was taking several times longer, and it felt incredibly far.

A car that had crashed into another car and exploded in flames, with the driver having become a zombie.

In “DL4,” the only thing you had to be careful of was zombies, but in the real world, you also had to be careful of accidents like this. A street tree that had caught fire and fallen blocked the road, forcing me to take a different route.

Of course, the situation was completely different from “DL4.”

I was already regretting having bought the assault rifle from the store.

In “DL4,” it was standard to use firearms to defeat zombies, but in the current situation, where many citizens were running around, there was a high possibility of accidentally shooting someone.

It was almost like firearms were prohibited, and I could only rely on melee weapons. When there were fewer people and more zombies, the use of guns would become valuable, but I didn’t want that to happen.

Of course, I couldn’t use offensive accessories like flag grenades or Molotov cocktails in this situation, as there was a possibility of involving humans. These were useful equipment when facing multiple zombies, but now I had to seal them and instead deal with the zombies one by one with melee weapons.

Deciding whether someone was a human or a zombie when I saw a figure running was also something that exhausted me.

In “DL4,” there were situations where it was definitely a zombie, but in the real world, it could be a person running away from a zombie. I had to go through the process of checking the mini-map or confirming that it was a zombie.

The structure of the city was more complex than the game, and I was caught off guard by zombies appearing from unexpected blind spots several times.

It was an incredibly hard situation.

I wanted to quickly join up with Yume-nee and return to the apartment building.

There was still no reply from Yume-nee. I couldn’t tell if she had dropped her smartphone or if it had broken. There were too many possibilities to consider.

Considering the time the last message was sent, it was certain that Yume-nee had been caught up in this incident while she was in class. The most likely place for Yume-nee to be was somewhere in the academy. I had to bet on that.

—Please be safe, Yume-nee!—

I advanced on the path to the academy, sometimes avoiding and sometimes defeating a large number of zombies.

Finally, the academy came into view, and I felt dizzy at the hellish scene.

The school gate was wide open, and countless zombies were wandering around. I could hear the screams of students being attacked, reaching me.

“There are more zombies here than in the city! Why is that?!”

“Zombies gather in places with a lot of people. This area has the most people in the academy, so that’s probably why.”

This was a setting that didn’t exist in “DL4,” where small teams moved. In the first place, that game was set one year after the zombie hazard had occurred, so there were few survivors.

“The academy is very dangerous. I don’t recommend going there.”

“But I have to save Yume-nee.”

“There’s a risk that you’ll lose your life, Rits-san. Please, I want you to live.”

Ai was hiding her purpose from me. To achieve that purpose, she probably didn’t want the player to die.

To be honest, I was a little bit torn. I had seen a lot of zombies on my way here. I could become one of them at any moment.

In fact, if I had made even a slight mistake in my choices, I would have lost my life. My head was spinning with fear, my body was shaking, and I couldn’t stop sweating. I was out of breath from the exhaustion I had experienced on my way here.

If I abandoned Yume-nee and turned back now, I could save myself.

But that would be meaningless. If I were the only one to survive alone, there would be no meaning to my life.

I remembered the smile that Yume-nee always gave me.

“I sometimes think that my life is at the bottom of the barrel because I’m being bullied at school. But I’ve been able to get by somehow because the people who are important to me have thought of me as important. No matter how lowly my life is or how hard it is, I’ve been able to live because someone has thought of me as important.”

So, just as Yume-nee had saved me, I had to save Yume-nee.

“Saving Yume-nee is for my sake. This is something I need to do as a human being. It’s definitely worth risking my life for.”

“I understand… After this battle is over, please live in a peaceful place.”

“Stop the death flag!”

I gripped the machete tightly. The current Info Value ORTA displayed in the menu was “124.”

The power given to me as a player was to be used to help me and those important to me.

With strength, I took the first step towards the academy.

“Yume-nee, I’m coming to save you now.”