January 17
Three hours later, the safe zone's defensive construction was mostly complete.
Working under flashlight beams in the dead of night to lay down fortifications, Kyoko had been absurdly diligent.
Together, she and Brent had built a layered barrier around the base—roof-shaped wire entanglements, concertina-style coils, and other three-dimensional barbed-wire structures, all meant to create a dense obstruction zone. They also set up spike traps triggered by a seesaw-like mechanism, capable of punching straight through an intruder's limbs.
The infected might not feel pain, but all that razor wire still did a fine job of hindering movement.
After all, the point of these defenses was never to kill the infected outright. Their real purpose was to slow them down and give the people behind the line much cleaner shots.
And when combined with mines, the true killing power lay there.
Earlier, Kyoko had already turned the surrounding ground into a disaster zone—broken bricks and rubble, chunks of corpse-flesh, shattered glass, splintered debris. That chaotic terrain made perfect camouflage for buried explosives.
She had even gone so far as to plant some booby traps beneath dead bodies.
At present, she was relying mainly on two types of mines.
The first was a directional anti-personnel mine, which sprayed steel balls in a fan-shaped kill zone reaching up to fifty meters and was ideal for the front edge of a defensive line.
The second was a bounding mine, which would spring up into the air before exploding, with a lethal radius of twenty-four meters—excellent for hitting clustered targets. Kyoko had even set up layered trap combinations, linking directional mines with grenades through tripwires so that triggering one would unleash a double blast and sharply increase lethality.
Together with the barbed wire, that created a full composite defense system covering a radius of fifty meters around the base.
Naturally, they had left themselves a safe route in and out. Everywhere else was trapped. Since vehicles might still need to pass through later, one side had been left free of concealed explosives, protected only by multiple layers of wire and iron thorn barriers.
Now that everything was almost finished, both Kyoko and Brent were drenched in sweat. But no matter how tired their bodies felt, the peace of mind mattered more. Security came first.
This safe zone could now truly be called a model fortress.
Unless the attackers came from the air, or bombarded the building until it collapsed, or an enormous horde descended on them—
Otherwise, Kyoko simply could not imagine how a place this well-prepared could fall.
"All right, Brent, hang the rest of that wire over there. Once that's done, we pack up and go home."
Passing one end of the barbed wire to Brent, Kyoko seized the other and drove it down along the roadside.
Brent handled the roll with practiced ease, dragging it along the ground and fixing it in place at the designated points. With a metallic shing, another silver-white thorn barrier rose up from the earth.
"At last, we're almost done. Setting up obstacles is way more exhausting than the demolition work I used to do."
She brushed the iron filings from her gloves—and immediately realized she had said too much.
Damn it. Brent had let something slip.
She had accidentally mentioned the kind of work she used to do before becoming a bodyguard. Hopefully Miss Kyoko hadn't noticed anything too strange. Though even if she had, it probably wasn't that big a deal.
"Hm? Aren't you a bodyguard, Brent? How are you so good at this? What did you used to do?"
Sure enough, after finishing with the last of the equipment, Kyoko's curiosity was stirred.
Someone who could handle firearms this smoothly, install mines, and set traps with such confidence—was that really just an ordinary bodyguard?
"There's not much to tell. I had military experience before. Learned a little on the battlefield."
Brent shifted awkwardly, then turned away from Takagi Kyoko to look up at the stars.
Only after a long silence did she answer.
From her expression alone, Kyoko could sense there was more buried underneath. Somewhere in Brent Hood's heart, there must be memories of slaughter and bloodshed too painful to speak aloud.
Otherwise, how had Brent gone from soldier to bodyguard?
At her age, it didn't look like a normal retirement from service.
Maybe a mercenary, Kyoko thought. But then she shook the thought away.
Enough. No need to dig deeper. It was time to head upstairs and sleep.
There would be nothing good for either of them if this conversation continued. Kyoko was not the sort of person who enjoyed tearing open other people's scars for fun.
"Come on. Stop staring at the stars and fantasizing. It's almost three in the morning. Hang around any longer and you'll be seeing the sun come back up."
Kyoko tugged at Brent—but Brent still didn't move.
What was this?
Had she sunk so deep into some miserable memory that she couldn't pull herself out?
That was way too fragile.
Seeing Brent remain unresponsive, Kyoko walked around in front of her, intending to snap her out of it directly.
She waved a hand in front of Brent's eyes and leaned close.
"Brent, aren't you going to sleep? It's already the dead of night. Stay out here too long and bad things might happen, you know."
Her voice was completely ordinary. She wasn't shouting, just speaking in a normal tone.
To be honest, Kyoko was starting to feel that something was seriously wrong.
No normal person would fail to notice someone touching them like this.
What the hell was going on?
And the air itself seemed to have thickened into something almost liquid.
Stillness.
A dead, suffocating stillness.
The wind, blocked somewhat by the surrounding high-rises, was no longer howling as fiercely, but the temperature had clearly dropped.
Midnight was now in its final stretch.
Midnight—usually meaning around twelve o'clock at night, the dead middle of the night—was often the quietest part of the day, when most people were already deep asleep.
The word itself carried a certain weight in old stories and folklore. It wasn't merely a time of day; it was an atmosphere, something used in literature, film, and everyday speech to evoke mystery or dread.
In the folk traditions of her previous life—back when she had grown up in the country west of Japan—Kyoko had heard countless such tales from older relatives. She only remembered a few of the taboos.
Don't look in mirrors at midnight. They said you might see another soul staring back, and bring misfortune on yourself.
Don't stare at windows. There might be something strange waiting outside.
Don't walk night roads. You might meet something unclean.
Don't sleep with another person at the turning of the hour. Yin energy would be too heavy, and it could drain your vitality.
Don't make important decisions at midnight, when yin and yang cross and the world stands on unstable ground.
…
In other words, this was the perfect hour for a horror movie.
Kyoko wasn't afraid of ghosts or spirits in the abstract. The cold steel in her hands and the hard certainty of gunpowder were enough to answer any phantom.
But under these conditions, the atmosphere was still deeply unsettling.
The rot-stench she hadn't noticed before had now become overpowering.
Her sharpened senses were not imaginary. It was her body reacting on its own—detecting an imminent threat and redistributing its functions to heighten her awareness.
When Brent still showed no reaction, Kyoko's patience snapped.
She grabbed Brent hard by the waist and shook her.
That finally did something.
Brent's eyes, which had almost completely lost focus, flickered back to life.
Then she jolted so violently in fright that her legs went weak, and she nearly collapsed onto the concrete strewn with debris. Kyoko caught her in time.
Otherwise Brent's backside would have been in real trouble.
"Brent, what's wrong with you?!"
Holding her up, Kyoko felt more certain than ever that this was bad.
What had just happened was not normal.
Could it be another psychic-type infected?
Damn it—then they had to get upstairs now.
There were still three people at home with almost no combat ability.
Grabbing Brent, Kyoko ran for the ladder, forgetting even to pick up the portable flashlight that had fallen from her head.
"Miss Kyoko—my head hurt just now! My vision went blurry! There's something in the sky watching us! Run!!"
Once Brent came back to herself, she forgot even the most basic apocalypse rule—not to shout.
Instead, she yelled out the warning in pure panic.
But they were already too late.
One shadow.
Then two.
Then three, four…
Dozens of red eyes, gleaming like a ring of cat's eyes, lit up in the darkness.
A pack of bizarre infected was closing in.
The battle was about to begin.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 126)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter130)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter89)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter157)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 133
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 125
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 84
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 143
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 115
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 99
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 53
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 75
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 66
Uma Musume: From Beginner 75
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 52
Uma Musume: I Want All 51
I Can Copy Unique Skills 53
A Guide to Aid in the Underwor 26
Summoning an Evil God, but the 27
Supernatural Multiverse 27
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