Chapter 22 - A Panicked Girl Becomes a Queen

"The monster probably isn’t dead. Its core likely isn’t in the head—probably somewhere else. But finding it would take hours, so for now, I’ll just make sure it can’t move."

With that, Rei began dissecting the creature.

She cut off its tongue and sliced through the tendons in its arms and legs with a knife.

The red creature occasionally twitched, but showed no sign of getting up, remaining sprawled out on the floor.

Daiki hadn’t suffered any damage to his bones or organs—it seemed he had only lost consciousness due to a mild concussion.

However, only Yamashita Sakura was panicking.

When Daiki had pushed her out of the way, the truth was that the creature’s tongue had grazed her arm.

She had barely managed to hide the torn uniform and the blood that flowed from the wound, but it was only a matter of time.

Because—she had been infected.

Her vision blurred and warped.

It was as if she were being tormented by a raging fever.

"Um..."

She somehow managed to maintain her composure and spoke up.

"With everything happening so suddenly, I'm... a little tired. Would it be okay if I rested for a bit?"

Rei looked over at her, then eventually nodded in understanding.

Maybe this dazed feeling of hers really did make her look exhausted.

She couldn’t be sure what Rei was really thinking, but for now, she decided to take advantage of the offered sympathy.

She picked up a futon, still slightly damp from the sprinkler water, and moved to the studio.

Think, me.

How can I ensure I survive?

Even if it means sacrificing everyone else here, I will survive

Even if the infection has a 100% fatality rate, there’s no way I’ll be one of them.

I’m the object of envy, someone everyone looks up to.

There’s no way I’m meant to die in a place like this.

I must be loved even by God Himself.

That’s why I’ll overcome a virus like this easily.

Thump — her heart pounded violently.

“Haa... haa...!”

She gripped the futon tightly, desperately enduring.

She’d made it through plenty of crises before.

There’s no way something like this could stop her.

She wasn’t like ordinary people.

And yet, she couldn’t stop her consciousness from slipping away, and her mind melted into darkness.

BRRRRRING! BRRRRRING!

A sudden loud sound blared, and Tooru looked around.

It took him a moment to realize it was the fire alarm.

“Did something happen...?”

Tsubasa muttered with concern.

Everyone else present seemed to be thinking the same thing.

“Alright, I’ll head back and check it out. If it’s nothing, I’ll come right back.”

There was no reason to turn down Kazuma’s offer, so they let him go and turned their attention back to the zombie in front of them.

“None of you know this guy, right?”

The zombie approaching them was male.

Rather than saying they didn’t know him, it would be more accurate to say it was impossible to know him, his face had been gruesomely devoured.

It looked almost like he was wearing a red mask.

“Okay, I’ll get his attention. Honma-senpai, please get the gag on him from behind. Jun-senpai, you go for the legs.”

Tooru approached the zombie, clapped his hands together like a sumo wrestler’s feint, making a sharp noise.

“Aaaarrrgh… grrraaa…”

The zombie turned toward him, arms outstretched, and started closing in.

That’s when Tsubasa moved.

He quietly brought the rope up to the zombie’s face, then jammed it into its mouth from behind, like putting someone in a chokehold.

Whether from the force or because the flesh was already soft, the zombie’s front teeth popped out and rolled down the hallway.

At the same time, Tooru grabbed its outstretched arms and tied them up with rope.

Jun pushed the zombie over and bound its legs. With that, the capture was complete.

A few more rounds of this, and their mission would be done.

She woke up.

Had she been unconscious for a few minutes? Or was it hours?

Her pounding heart had settled.

And a clear sense of fulfillment filled her body.

She rolled up the sleeves of her uniform to her elbows and licked the blood on her hand.

Then, the wound that had looked gouged open was now closed, and the bleeding had completely stopped.

A sly smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

“Ah... ahahahahaha!”

She had adapted.

The haze clouding her vision was gone, and the high fever had disappeared.

“Ugh!?”

Right after, a ringing noise assaulted her ears.

Then, various pieces of information flooded her mind.

Listening carefully, she realized it was the voices of the cleanup squad.

She could hear the Cleaning Team’s voices even from inside this soundproof room.

Given the quality of the facility, it was hard to believe the soundproofing was faulty, so it wasn’t that her hearing had simply been heightened to an extreme degree.

That meant these weren’t sounds she was hearing herself.

They must be sounds heard by some third party.

The only thing that fit was the sounds heard by the zombies fighting the cleanup squad.

She had fully taken control of the zombies’ extremely sharpened sense of hearing.

“Ahahahahaha!”

Despite the headache pounding in her skull, she couldn’t stop laughing.

She could now understand the one sense zombies relied on the most: their hearing.

Eventually, even this headache would fade.

What she had gained was a regenerative ability that could close simple wounds within minutes, and the ability to hear the sounds zombies within several dozen meters—enough to cover the whole school—were hearing.

She would probably even be able to give them commands.

She could hear it.

The voices of zombies seeking orders.

The zombies were waiting.

Waiting for her to take command.

So that frog… it hadn’t simply been infected by the virus.

The virus had mutated inside that frog, and she had adapted to that mutation.

In other words, she had become the apex among the apex.

A power equal to that of a queen.

At this very moment, she became a queen.

The queen at the pinnacle of the dead that roamed this world.

Click. The sound of a door opening.

“Saaakura-chan! You alright~?”

A boy entered with an unusually high energy.

Whether he liked her or was just a womanizer was unclear.

Probably the latter, judging by how casually he came up beside her.

Ah, now that she thought about it… she was hungry.