Bang, bang, bang—despite the dozen-odd zombies blocking his path, Komuro Takashi still charged forward, swinging his baseball bat with reckless abandon. But his stamina was nearly gone, and his desperate struggle quickly led to him being completely engulfed by the undead.
Soon, his clothes were torn in several places, bright red blood seeping through… yet he remained oblivious, driven solely by the need to reach Miyamoto Rei.
"Hoo…hoo…"
"Roar!!"
Miyamoto Rei lay on the ground, staring up at the approaching zombies with their ferocious, decaying faces. Her delicate features had drained of all color, leaving her ashen with fright. While she had displayed bravery and courage during their earlier charge, that had been when she wasn't in immediate peril and when the zombies' combat abilities hadn't seemed overwhelming. In a one-on-one fight, she'd felt confident.
But now, she was truly facing death.
The crushing weight of despair settled upon her for the first time.
The apocalypse had truly arrived!
A moment's lapse in attention, and life could be extinguished in a gruesome instant.
The zombies were closing in, their fetid breath washing over her. The sickly-sweet, fishy odor was so overpowering that Miyamoto Rei felt a wave of nausea, yet her body remained frozen in terror. She could only stare blankly as the grotesque figures drew nearer.
Swish, swish, swish—at that critical moment, a dazzling flash of knife light suddenly erupted before her eyes.
Then!
Miyamoto Rei stared blankly as the heads of the dozen zombies flew off their shoulders, their headless corpses collapsing in a gruesome heap. Dark, viscous blood flowed across the ground like a morbid stream, quickly reaching Miyamoto Rei's feet and staining her shoes.
She noticed her JK short skirt, slightly hiked up from her seated position, was about to allow the white panties that symbolized her innocence to be sullied by the foul blood…
"What are you still standing there for? Don't you want the panties anymore?"
Seeing Miyamoto Rei staring at him in a daze, completely unresponsive, and glancing down at her exposed underwear several times… Tsubasa Amagiri, who had just saved her life, couldn't help but frown. Although he wasn't particularly fond of these protagonists, he couldn't be so cold-blooded as to stand by and watch someone die without intervening.
Besides, it had been a relatively simple task.
"Ah!!"
Hearing Tsubasa's voice, Miyamoto Rei, who had just narrowly escaped death's grasp, finally snapped out of her shock. Looking down at the dirty blood that had already spread to her thighs, she quickly grabbed her javelin and scrambled to her feet.
She reached down to pull her skirt lower, her delicate face flushed crimson, her eyes filled with a mixture of tension and helplessness.
"Thank you for saving me, Tsubasa..."
Just moments ago, she had truly believed her life was over.
She hadn't expected Tsubasa to appear just in time to rescue her.
And she certainly hadn't expected him to see her underwear!
"...Fortunately, the skirt was only lifted a little, and only Tsubasa saw it!"
Miyamoto Rei breathed a small sigh of relief.
At that very moment, Komuro Takashi and Kohta Hirano suddenly screamed in unison.
"Ah!! Get out of here!! All you monsters, get out of here!"
"Help me! It hurts! Don't bite my face, it really hurts!!!"
Miyamoto Rei's heart skipped a beat, and she immediately looked up.
She was stunned for a moment!
How could this be happening?...
"The plot has changed..."
Tsubasa stood beside her, casually hacking and killing the remaining zombies. Marikawa Shizuka hid obediently behind him, pressed close, even clinging to Tsubasa's back.
But at this moment, Tsubasa had no interest in appreciating this generous proximity.
He looked at Komuro Takashi, who was trapped in the overwhelming tide of zombies, his body already showing signs of bites and tears. At this moment, seven or eight zombies were thrown to the ground, biting and clawing madly, unable to struggle, and even the nail gun in Kohta Hirano's hand had been kicked far away by the frenzied undead.
Tsubasa's eyes narrowed, a deep intensity settling within them.
He had already sensed it while hiding in the teacher's office earlier.
This world seemed to be subtly different from the original anime!
For example!
Although Marikawa Shizuka was still innocent and kind, her hamster-like obsession with snacks and her tendency to hide them everywhere was something that had never occurred in the anime.
Although Saeko Busujima was still so cold and beautiful, with that hidden violent streak in her blood, she was also surprisingly love-struck and prone to jealousy…
This was also a deviation from the anime's portrayal!
Originally!
Tsubasa had chalked it up to the fact that while he had transmigrated into this world, it was now his reality, so it was natural for everyone to possess some previously unknown personality traits.
But just now, Miyamoto Rei had been in genuine peril…
And at this very moment!
The protagonists Komuro Takashi and Kohta Hirano were actually pounced on and bitten by zombies…
This wasn't in the anime, an outcome that felt utterly impossible!
Seriously!
The two core members of the protagonist group, especially the male lead Komuro Takashi, were dead… It was almost laughable in its absurdity!
Yet, it had just unfolded before his very eyes.
Even!
Tsubasa Amagiri hadn't intervened at all during the entire gruesome scene!
On the contrary, if he hadn't appeared when he did, even one of the protagonists, Miyamoto Rei, would likely have perished.
"Butterfly effect!"
Those two words slammed into Tsubasa's mind.
It was the only plausible explanation!
Tsubasa couldn't help but release a heavy breath.
He didn't particularly care about the life or death of the two protagonists, Komuro Takashi and Kohta Hirano. In fact, with his current strength, he could have likely rushed over and saved them just now.
But he hadn't!
In a selfish way, their demise was actually beneficial for him.
After all!
He still had Saeko Busujima and Marikawa Shizuka by his side!
He wanted to avoid any unnecessary entanglements with the protagonists during their subsequent escape.
But!
The death of these two people also forced Tsubasa to confront another significant problem.
If even the protagonists could die, then the zombies in this world were capable of evolving, mutating, and exhibiting other unexpected behaviors. It was definitely not a far-fetched possibility.
Damn it!
Thinking about this, Tsubasa couldn't help but feel a surge of irritation. It would have been so much simpler if the author had actually finished drawing this damn anime. At least then it would have been a somewhat predictable doomsday scenario!
This way, he wouldn't have to constantly worry about unforeseen and deadly surprises in the future…
In just a few agonizing seconds, Kohta Hirano and Komuro Takashi fell silent.
Komuro Takashi's demise was largely his own fault.
Had he not been so reckless, he wouldn't have been surrounded by the zombies, and he wouldn't have been bitten so brutally that there wasn't a single patch of intact flesh left on his body, not even a chance to mutate into a zombie himself.
Kohta Hirano, the poor, portly tech geek, had met a truly unfortunate end. Miyamoto Rei's scream had not only endangered herself but had also agitated the already aggressive zombies. Kohta Hirano had panicked, and his nail gun had run out of ammunition. Facing the onrushing horde, he hadn't even managed to turn and flee, and was thus devoured by the undead.