January 18
Forks in the main roads on the outskirts were where traffic accidents loved to happen, especially when traffic was heavy.
Drivers were forever wiping out in places like these. Even seasoned veterans with decades behind the wheel were not immune. If you spent enough time by the river, sooner or later your shoes were going to get wet.
The people fleeing south from the north had been wrestling with these miserable roads the entire way. With no maintenance crews clearing the routes, the piled-up snow had mercilessly punished anything on wheels.
And every now and then there were nasty little surprises buried beneath the white blanket—like a blown tire waiting to happen.
They had started with seven vehicles.
Now only two remained.
On the road, they had run into a huge pack of infected. Their once orderly escape formation had been scattered, and Zeteng's little civilian sedan, following behind a van, had panicked and veered off the planned route, leaving the coastal road for the E4 highway.
And now, just to make things worse, the car had struck something at the fork. The hood had flipped up.
There had been no way to brake. Even with multiple chains wrapped around the tires, the slick road made stopping impossible. The two vehicles had slammed into each other.
The impact had mangled the cars. Thick smoke billowed, then the first explosion came, and flames instantly swallowed the vehicle whole.
The front of the van was already a mass of fire. Through the twisted frame of the door, a motionless body could still be seen inside.
By the time Xiangzi arrived, all she saw was the aftermath of a horrific traffic accident.
"A crash…" she muttered. "In weather like this, why were they driving so fast?"
The scene was too miserable to look at. The flames still covered everything, and even if there were survivors or supplies inside, Xiangzi had no way of approaching the vehicles through the blaze.
If there was a secondary explosion, she would be finished.
The armor protecting her torso could stop fragments and rifle rounds, sure—but the ballistic rating on her helmet, especially the visor, was much lower.
If a high-speed shard of metal came flying in and hit her in the face, what then?
Well, so much for that. A random encounter, but no reward.
Still… why had those cars been going so fast?
Were they being chased?
Xiangzi couldn't make sense of it.
She ducked into a nearby detached house, pulled up the real-time map, and launched the Samurai-3 system's drone.
Under both aerial and ground observation, Xiangzi could see much more clearly.
The drone became her third eye in the sky. From above, she saw infected streaming toward the accident site from all directions.
But farther back, beyond the crash, she saw nothing that looked like a pursuer or any other immediate threat.
Maybe it really had just been a plain old traffic accident caused by the road conditions…
Whatever. The infected were here now.
She had gotten so caught up watching the spectacle that she had forgotten the sound of explosions would draw them in.
And now, as expected, a new batch of those damn things was crawling out of the woodwork.
[Did you already forget yesterday's lesson? Miranda and Brent are still lying at home because of this, you know.]
The system, which had been observing her the whole time, chose that moment to sneer.
"I kind of want to see just how far this body of mine can go now that I've got this Russian gear on," Xiangzi replied.
If she had been alone yesterday, there had actually been a lot of ways she could have handled things.
The problem was that she had brought two teammates with her.
That was why it had turned into such a disaster.
Now Xiangzi genuinely wanted to vent all the frustration that had built up over the past few days—yesterday's and today's alike.
As long as she didn't get surrounded, she wasn't afraid of these things at all.
They were just infected. Easy.
That was the confidence technology gave her.
As she reeled the drone back in, Xiangzi caught sight of movement near the accident scene—something seemed to be crawling out of the van's rear compartment.
Wait… that looked like…
A person?
The figure was rolling in the snow, desperately trying to put out the flames on its body.
No way.
The vehicle had already exploded. It was still burning.
How was that person still alive?
She had to go check. If it was massive full-body burns, then even Xiangzi wouldn't be able to do anything—but what if it wasn't?
Forget worrying about a second explosion. Xiangzi dashed straight toward the wreck, cutting down a few infected along the way.
"Can you still talk?"
She approached the blackened shape with extreme caution.
The man was sprawled in the snow, his body burned so badly he was almost unrecognizable. His skin, black-red and grotesquely swollen, looked unreal. And even in that state, both arms were still wrapped around something protectively.
"I… save me… my daughter… save… her… please… go south…" he rasped.
His voice came out like a broken bellows, barely holding together.
This was Zeteng, one of the lucky ones—or rather, one of the almost-lucky.
He had been seated in the back row of the van. After the collision he'd been knocked senseless, but not killed outright.
Then the explosion had thrown him into unconsciousness again. He had only regained awareness when the flames reached his body and the pain dragged him back.
But by then, he couldn't stand.
He had only been able to crawl out. The door wouldn't open, and the supplies they had crammed into the back now blocked his escape.
He regretted it bitterly.
To make room for more goods before setting out, they had reduced passenger space even further.
His wife had been left behind.
Only his daughter had been brought along.
Xiangzi had just opened her mouth to say something when the surrounding infected closed in again.
She raised her gun and dealt with them—it only took a few shots.
Though at this point, her ammunition was running low.
"Hold on a second. Let me deal with these first, and then—"
She turned back toward Zeteng.
He wasn't moving anymore.
"That fast?"
Then what about his daughter?
But the pressure from the infected was getting heavier. A cluster of dozens was already shuffling closer.
And among them were several that moved far faster than the rest, sprinting ahead of the pack.
Zombie dogs?
After all this time, Xiangzi had finally run into one of the classic staples of old-school zombie fiction.
Fast, agile, and quick, the infected dogs easily outstripped the stumbling ordinary infected. Their mouths gaped open, thick saliva hanging from their jaws. Their fangs jutted out, scraps of flesh still jammed between them.
Disgusting.
Xiangzi quickly used the last few rounds in her pistol to drop the charging dogs.
Even after taking bullets, the things kept coming, showing barely any stagger at all.
Her pistol clicked empty.
Reloading now wasn't practical.
So Xiangzi drew her Miao Dao.
This blade had earned its place a hundred times over. It had been with her since the beginning. Other swords from the same batch had already broken, but this one still gleamed cold and deadly, still cutting through infected as easily as chopping vegetables.
One of the big dogs lunged from her left, eager to sink its teeth into the fresh prey hidden inside that strange suit of armor.
But the instant it tried to move—
its body stopped listening.
In the next blink, its head was already on the ground.
The others met the same fate.
Now that she had full-body protective armor, Xiangzi's style had become even more aggressively offense-oriented.
Her attacks were broad and forceful, each swing aimed straight for the neck.
One slash, one cut—
and heads dropped.
Since this was a highway off-ramp on the E4, far from the main city area, there wasn't much danger left after she finished off this batch.
The next wave of infected would still take a while to arrive.
At last, Xiangzi had a moment to breathe.
She ran back to the crash site.
By now, the snow had smothered most of the fire. Zeteng lay motionless on the ground, already dusted in white.
"No heartbeat… breathing's stopped too. He's gone."
Xiangzi hurriedly rolled him over and checked as best she could.
But it was too late.
No breathing. No pulse. There was nothing she could do.
The child he had been clutching fared even worse.
The little girl, held tightly in his arms, had been spared major burns. But her face was swollen dark red.
She was dead too.
Cause: mechanical asphyxiation.
She had probably suffocated inside the vehicle before Zeteng ever managed to pull her out. And after that, pinned down under his body against the ground…
All of them had died.
Just like the people they had abandoned back at the shelter.
There was no time to mourn. Xiangzi had no chance to give them any real burial or proper dignity.
They had only crossed paths by chance.
That had to count for something.
In the end, she moved the two bodies into a nearby vehicle—if only to satisfy her own need to show some minimal respect for human life.
"I've slaughtered countless infected," she thought, "and I don't hesitate to crush scum. But when normal people die like this… it still feels wrong."
Not enough to break her down completely.
But the feeling was there all the same—life in the apocalypse was terribly cheap, and far too easy to lose.
To make sure the two of them wouldn't get back up as infected, Xiangzi drew her freshly reloaded pistol and put rounds through the tops of their skulls.
Then she looked again at the map.
Within a radius of one square kilometer, infected were converging in dense numbers toward the explosion site.
It was five in the afternoon.
Xiangzi decided it was time to go back.
She had come out today for equipment.
Who knew she'd run into this mess instead?
Then, while thinking about how to retreat without getting tangled up in the corpse clusters, an idea suddenly came to her.
Her method was… unconventional.
She attached an alarm clock to one of the small drones and set it to go off in two minutes.
When it rang, the noise would draw the infected.
Then Xiangzi could turn around and run.
And on top of that, the Samurai-3's snow camouflage was good enough to pass for the real thing.
Snowy weather already severely dulled a creature's sense of smell, not to mention vision.
Their hearing was probably the only thing likely to track her.
Perfect.
Hang the alarm, bait the infected elsewhere.
Clocks were easy to find—almost every bedroom in these homes had one.
Hiding on the second floor of a detached house, Xiangzi watched the infected gather at the accident site, then sent up the drone into the storm.
Two minutes later, the alarm clock dropped from the drone and hit the ground.
Its twin bells and built-in speaker let loose an utterly deranged racket.
Success.
The infected moved.
Some of the dumber ones even hurled themselves straight down from higher ground, kicking up huge sprays of snow.
These damned things were so stupid. Xiangzi only had to make a little noise, and off they went in a frenzy.
Plan successful.
Time to run.
She sprinted back toward the IFV, meeting almost no serious resistance.
Honestly, were all the powerful special infected in Nihonmatsu gone?
She had made this much noise, and there were only a handful of notable ones.
It was almost like the strong infected were all solitary martial arts masters wandering alone.
Never mind that now.
Xiangzi grabbed the fuel can and started siphoning fuel from the other vehicles.
She had no idea whether the fuel grade from those machines was fully compatible with the Type 24 IFV, but they were all military vehicles. It ought to be fine.
Surely the engine wouldn't break down just because of a fuel difference…
"Please don't blow up on me," she muttered.
Praying under her breath, Xiangzi climbed back into the driver's seat and started the engine.
Good.
That powerful vibration.
Girls und Panzer: live serialization edition.
Wait.
Didn't that survivor say something about going south before he died?
Only now did Xiangzi remember the key detail.
Danger.
South?
And not the kind of southward advance that meant conquering the Korean Peninsula, either.
Nor was it some absurd scenario of the Russians pushing south through the Kuril Islands to invade Japan.
No.
That meant the infected were moving south.
Right.
She remembered that old data packet about the infected.
They were affected by climate too.
Which meant that in the bitter cold of the north, they would migrate just like animals—moving toward warmer, wetter, more survivable southern regions.
Which meant—
the million-strong corpse tide from the north was coming.
"…Ah?"
Then—
"Holy shit."
A catastrophe.
A real one.
There was no way the safehouse she had built could withstand something on that scale.
A thousand infected? Ten thousand? Fine. With her defenses, weapons, supplies, and the others helping, maybe she could hold.
But a million?
What the hell was she supposed to fight that with?
Not to mention the special infected mixed in.
Tell me this:
Even organized professional armies—the actual institutions of state violence—had failed to stop something like that.
And now it was going to be left to her?
To a high school girl?
"Oh, sure, sure," she muttered darkly. "Xiangzi has tons of traits, and defensive fortifications, and a system, and heaps of gear, so obviously she can solo a corpse tide."
To that thought, Xiangzi had only one response:
She still wanted to live.
Anybody suggesting she go die against a corpse tide could go line up for a 381mm naval broadside from Vittorio Veneto.
So what now?
Xiangzi thought maybe she should go back first and ask the others.
Honestly, she couldn't make up her mind.
She couldn't bear to leave the fortress she had spent so long building.
She couldn't bear to leave the stove, the hot spring, the little greenhouse, her warm home…
Maybe they could hide in the building. Live miserably for a while, stay quiet, and wait for the horde to pass.
But if they were discovered, it would be over.
They would become an isolated island in a mountain of flesh and blood, like the giant building in Resident Evil 4, trapped in a sea of corpses.
And if they chose to flee, they would have to abandon an enormous amount.
At the very least, the Type 24 couldn't carry all their food and water.
Even if they somehow got a second vehicle, who among them could drive it?
Brent probably could.
But Brent was injured.
This was a real problem.
Better get home first.
Who knew how close the northern horde already was?
They could discuss countermeasures there.
If they did have to run, they needed to start preparing in advance—
otherwise they would end up like the line from Li Yu's poem and Mao's rewriting of it:
"Most hurried was the day we left the ancestral shrine; even then, court musicians still played farewell songs, while tears fell before the palace maids."
If she really left Nihonmatsu, Xiangzi had a feeling she would never come back.
Damn it.
Life had only just begun to improve.
And now this corpse tide?
While Xiangzi was lost in thought, the sound of the engine attracted an unwelcome visitor.
She had been so focused on the problem that she had stopped paying proper attention to her surroundings.
"Ah—holy shit!"
An infected slammed itself against the driver's side window.
The sudden noise scared the life out of her, and that split-second jolt nearly made her fumble.
Today really just wouldn't let her finish anything in peace.
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 138)
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 (Chapter160)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter98)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter175)
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 163
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 150
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 100
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 170
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 145
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 125
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 69
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 90
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 66
Uma Musume: From Beginner 100
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 70
Uma Musume: I Want All 90
I Can Copy Unique Skills 65
Summoning an Evil God, but the 52
Supernatural Multiverse 65
My Harem Is Indescribable 55
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 55
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 66
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 55
Still playing traditional Honk 35
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 35
What Should I Do After Switchi 24
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 35
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