Chapter 5
Students slowly filled the corridor.
Sensing our presence, one of the boys turned his body toward us and pointed his sword in this direction.
“Who is there!”
He shouted at the top of his lungs.
His voice was so loud that I worried the zombies we had herded upstairs might come back down.
The other two also tensed up at his shout and watched us warily.
“We are not monsters. We are survivors, just like you, who stayed alive in this dormitory by avoiding those things.”
I answered in a calm, coaxing tone.
“Where did you come from? The main gate should be completely blocked.”
“We came from upstairs. I am from the fourth floor, and this girl here is from the third.”
I introduced Tania, who stood beside me.
Their eyes were flustered.
They must have been shocked because they had just been talking about her a moment ago.
They had probably thought she was dead.
“You are the one, right? The person I talked to before.”
Tania stepped forward.
She seemed to listen carefully to his voice.
Her eyes shone with the certainty of someone who is sure.
“Ah, hello. Looks like you are all right, thankfully.”
“I was worried about you. Our contact was cut off so suddenly that I thought those things got you.”
“There were a few close calls. Once things settled down on our side, I planned to come and rescue you, but things got delayed more than I expected.”
The boy clearly wanted to gloss over that part.
I did not pry into what he had done.
This was not a situation where anyone needed to argue about right and wrong.
Pretending not to see other people’s circumstances was common in this world.
Someday I might make the same choice they did.
So I decided to drop the hypocrisy.
“Are you the only ones downstairs?”
“No. There are about two more below.”
“Do you have enough food and supplies?”
“Hold on. You keep trying to ask things, but you are the one who should bow your head right now, not us.”
He frowned.
Even the dullest person knew who held the initiative.
The harder I pressed, the more defiant he became.
“Listen up. If you are planning to get something from us, you had better not act so high and mighty. We ask the questions first, and we make the final decisions!”
I studied his face.
No particular character came to mind.
He was an extra who did not influence the flow of the game.
If the apocalypse had not suddenly arrived, he would have lived an ordinary life.
That boy had gotten his hands on power in the form of food, and he had tasted how sweet power was.
It was no surprise he was intoxicated.
“That sounds like you want to give me orders?”
“You understood it correctly. If you don’t like it, then get lost! This is our territory, you hear me! And I am warning you now, if you even lay your eyes on our stuff, you better be prepared.”
“Prepared?”
“Do you not even understand that? What an idiot this guy is. You see this sword I am holding? What do you think I will do with it if I get angry?”
He jabbed the sword forward as if he meant to stab.
The two behind him snickered.
I gave a short laugh.
This was more than enough to count as clear intimidation.
“Why are you smiling like that? Do I sound like I am joking? Or do you think I am too much of a coward to swing this sword?”
“No, that is not the problem here.”
He glared at me sharply.
The two behind him also puffed themselves up.
I stepped forward and raised my right hand.
Then I slapped the boy across the face with all my strength.
He lost his balance and rolled on the floor.
Even a knight apprentice has a hard time blocking a close range surprise attack.
He could not have predicted it.
It was a blow that landed right in the middle of a calm conversation.
Before he could accept the pain, pure shock came first.
“What the hell?!”
He exploded.
His face flushed red in an instant.
He pressed his hand to his cheek and glared at me like he wanted to kill me.
“What the hell, you say? Looks like you still have not come to your senses huh!”
I snapped at him instead, aiming my anger in his direction.
His body froze.
“You just made a serious mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“Depending on the situation, it is a crime that could cost you your life.”
“Stop acting all high and mighty and say it. What mistake did I make?”
“Insult. The girl next to me is Tania Rainwood. She is the young lady of Duke Belliom, who protects the western region of the royal domain.”
A hell where zombies swarmed like insects.
Even in a situation like this, the power of social status was still strong.
“Young lady of House Rainwood?”
“I have heard of her. There is a capable second year girl with red hair, and they say she is the daughter of House Rainwood.”
The boy and his friends trembled with fear.
Their faces turned pale.
Even if they did not know Tania, there was no one who did not know her house.
In this academy, grades alone did not decide a student’s rank.
A family’s fame and influence also mattered.
Rainwood was a prestigious name that everyone recognized.
“If she reports what you did to her to her family, what do you think will happen? The family’s soldiers would storm this place and demand that you answer for your crime. No one will help you. Who would dare oppose House Rainwood? The professors will surely stand aside and watch.”
The boy clamped his mouth shut.
His confident attitude from before vanished without a trace.
He lay where he had fallen and could not stand.
In real life, my words might have sounded like nonsense, yet here they gained weight because the culture and values were different.
People in this place did not understand zombies.
They also did not know how long this situation would last.
There were only a handful who knew what was happening outside, so most believed things would be resolved soon.
The kids before me were no different.
If the incident ended, the cleanup would reveal who was in the wrong.
What the boy had done to Tania would also come to light.
If that happened, he would face harsh punishment, or so I said.
In truth, that would never happen.
I recalled the game’s setting.
Each family struggled just to pacify its own territory. The entire kingdom was in turmoil to the point that they ignored the king’s mobilization order.
I had information, and that information was the leverage I used to control the boy.
“However, there is still a chance.”
“A chance?”
He reacted to the word chance.
“She has been humiliated, but depending on how you behave, she might be willing to show mercy.”
The boys exchanged glances and hesitated.
The power nobles held in this world was immense.
Rainwood held power that stood near the top even among them.
One boy bowed his head.
The other two quietly followed his lead.
“I acted rashly. If I had known you were with House Rainwood, I would never have behaved so arrogantly. Please forgive me!”
I gestured to Tania.
Her eyes were filled with confusion.
While she hesitated, the situation had flipped, and the initiative had passed to our side.
All that remained was the finishing touch.
She cleared her throat and straightened her back.
“This will be the last time I forgive you. If something like this happens again, you had better be ready to offer your neck.”
“Thank you!”
He sounded truly relieved.
The other students also sighed as if a weight had lifted from their shoulders.
I felt much the same.
I kept it inside and did not show it, yet my legs shook a little.
[Cool] whipped my mind and told me to wake up.
“Now I want to hear about your situation.”
“S-Sorry for the late introduction. My name is Talleon. My friends in the back are Brindel and Gavinu.”
He was clearly different from when we first met.
He spoke politely and carefully.
They might act bold, yet they were still teenagers.
Once you planted fear in them, they would obey faithfully until an even stronger person appeared.
“Have you finished searching the first and second floors?”
“Yes. We checked this floor completely. Only a few rooms on the first floor remain.”
“Why could you not enter them?”
“They were sealed with a spell formation. It looks like a device set up by the professor who managed this dormitory. None of us were skilled enough to undo it.”
The personal storage room and the warden’s lounge.
Those two rooms were always locked if you started the game in this dormitory.
Protective spell formations used high level magic, so unless you majored in magic, you could not break them.
“We already checked the floors above. We have no reason to go back up.”
“Then we have to make do with what we have below?”
“Yes.”
“So what are we supposed to do now?”
“First, we go down to the lower floor. There we meet your other friends and check the doors you said you could not open.”
When Talleon, who seemed to be the leader of their group, asked about the future plan, I realized that the web of people connected to him had fallen into my hands.
Including the ones I had not met yet, there were five in total.
They might be nameless extras, yet anyone who enrolled in this academy had solid backing.
If they were commoners, they entered on ability.
If they were nobles, they had powerful families behind them.
Either way, there was no downside to becoming close.
This was also why the academy was called a social stage.
The only problem was that I currently inhabited Joshua’s body.
Number one least liked student in the academy.
He was a character who knew better than anyone the contemptuous looks and whispers of others.
“I still have not heard your name. How should I address you?”
“Joshua.”
Talleon’s eyes sharpened.
He had not recognized Tania, yet he reacted to the name Joshua.
There was no need to make excuses.
It was better to stand my ground and confuse him even more.
“Do you have something you want to say?”
“What?”
“Your face says everything. You are filled with distrust toward me.”
“…No. I must’ve confused you with someone else for a moment.”
His face did not look like he had shaken off his true feelings.
He simply knew this was not a good time to reveal them in public.
He had already knelt, so he could not take back his words and actions.
If he charged at me now, he might regain his role as leader, yet he would be broken in the process.
He would wait for me to make a mistake.
I felt a bit sorry for him, yet there would be no restoration of his honor.
I was no longer the old Joshua.
“If you have nothing more to ask, let us go down to the first floor. What happened to the monsters?”
“There are none.”
“Did you guys deal with them?”
“No. To be honest, we got lucky. Do you remember the commotion in front of this dormitory a few days ago? Some student brought one of his friends and shouted for help.”
Ah, yes. I do.
He was talking about what I saw when I came out into the corridor after regaining my senses.
I nodded and Talleon continued.
“He was so loud that all the monsters on the first floor rushed out. Because of that, a lot of windows and doors were broken, but we thought it was our chance to explore the inside of the building, so we rushed out. Thankfully, the ones that ran out never came back and disappeared somewhere. In the meantime, we claimed this place.”
“What did you do about the doors and windows the monsters broke?”
“For now we blocked them with wardrobes and sofas. It was only a temporary measure, yet it seemed to work, since no creatures have gotten in recently.”
For a knight apprentice, that was the best barrier they could have set up.
I had no intention of blaming them.
We took the stairs down to the first floor.
The smell of blood was stronger here than upstairs.
Tania pressed her hand over her mouth to suppress a gag.
She had already looked unsteady when I took her outside.
She had endured well, but her limit was near.
“She needs a place to rest. She also needs something to eat.”
“There are some ingredients in the dining hall. Gavinu, can I ask you to handle that?”
The brown haired boy named Gavinu gave a thumbs up and disappeared down the opposite corridor.
“She is a woman, so I would prefer if we had a separate room for her.”
“That is not difficult. All these rooms are empty anyway, since they all lost their owners.”
Talleon led the way, saying the room at the end would be best.
He volunteered to guide us, yet suddenly stopped in his tracks.
He turned his head.
The room he had promised to show us was still a good distance away.
Why?
He offered no explanation and stood in place like ice.
Cold sweat trickled down his face.
He was brave enough that all he did when he saw bloodstained floors and torn zombie flesh was frown.
I waited for a moment, yet he kept his silence.
So I had no choice but to reason it out myself.
I followed his gaze.
It was deep into the night now.
The moon was full, which meant moonlight alone gave us enough light to see without any tools.
I had let go of Tania’s hand because I no longer needed to guide her by touch.
Yet the room he was looking at was strange.
The shadow reflected through the window was unnaturally clear.
Its outline wavered every now and then.
Thanks to my cleverness, it did not take long to conclude that it was candlelight.
“Is that where your friends are?”
“…Yes.”
For someone who had just caught sight of friends, Talleon’s reaction was far too unnatural.
Once again, my cleverness helped me judge the situation.
“Are they injured? For example, badly enough that they cannot move.”
“H-How did you know that?”
This was bad.
I had not seen them directly, yet it felt like a scene beyond the door unfolded in front of my eyes as if I had a scope.
If their injuries came from zombies, there was a high chance they were infected.
I did not know how far along it was, yet if someone who could not stand had somehow gotten to their feet, it was already too late.
The writhing shadow turned its body and moved toward us.
I had muttered on purpose in a very low voice, yet even that faint sound had been enough for it to pick up.
“Draw your weapon.”
“What?”
There was no time to explain.
The shadow that had been walking at a normal pace suddenly broke into a run and charged in our direction.