The vehicles sped across the road buried under thick snow, all sixteen wheels rolling forward as they crushed the snowpack beneath them. Exhaust blasted out from behind, whipping loose snow into the air and creating a fog-like haze.
"What a terrible road. The vehicle nearly lost control and tipped over just now."
Cold sweat beaded on Kyoko's forehead and ran down naturally, because both her hands were locked tightly around the controls.
When they had passed through that little village where survivors might still be hiding, Kyoko had been genuinely on edge. If those people had gotten their hands on an M72 LAW from one of the supply drops, things could have turned ugly fast.
Fortunately, they had already left the village behind. On either side of the road were scattered houses and broad stretches of forest. But if that village still had survivors, what about the others along the route? Would there be more of them waiting ahead?
Maintaining the highest level of caution, Kyoko kept her real-time map open at all times, zoomed all the way in to its ten-meter scale.
It could monitor a full square kilometer around her in real time, but it still couldn't tell friend from foe, and visibility was heavily affected by the weather and the time of day. It also couldn't see through enclosed buildings. That was why Kyoko hadn't used it much in combat before. Otherwise, she would have spotted the midnight attack the moment it started.
Honestly, in these conditions she probably ought to have driven more conservatively. If the armored vehicle flipped, that would be a real disaster. The odds of taking a rocket hit out here were actually pretty low... probably.
There were hardly any infected on the road at all. Now and then, a few wanderers staggered through the storm, only to be left far behind by the convoy.
Go choke on our exhaust, you paratrooper zombies.
They swerved past abandoned cars and other obstacles. With Driver supporting her, Kyoko handled the armored vehicle with surprising ease. Driving a military transport, at least for now, was no great challenge.
Layered mountain ridges slid past the windows like pages in a flipbook. The landscape was monotonous, mostly white, with the green of the trees buried under the snow. Kyoko wondered how muddy this place would become once spring came and everything thawed.
"Miss Kyoko, are we almost out of Nihonmatsu now?" Dorothy asked, her cheeks puffed out in boredom. Even the prettiest scenery became dull when you stared at endless snow long enough.
And to be honest, Dorothy's body was not made for long, bumpy rides. She was already starting to feel carsick.
"Not yet. We're only at Ōzeki. It'll probably take another half hour before we reach Yukawa." Because Kyoko was in the front driving compartment and the APC had no interior rearview mirror, she couldn't see Dorothy's face, pale as wax.
Hearing the exchange, Huaxiu climbed down from the open turret and finally noticed that something was wrong with Dorothy.
"Dorothy, are you not feeling well? Motion sickness? A cold? Fever? Something else?"
Huaxiu sat beside her and pulled off her gloves, reaching out to feel Dorothy's forehead.
"You're not feverish... ah."
Dorothy caught Huaxiu's hand and gently moved it away from her head. She did not slap it aside—she was too weak for that—but the meaning was clear enough.
"Don't touch my head. I'll stop growing taller. I'm just tired. Riding in cars makes me dizzy."
Not even five foot three, Dorothy turned her head away from Huaxiu, her red hair sweeping out in a bright half-circle like a crimson blade.
Aside from her sister and her family's bodyguard, she absolutely did not want other women touching her so casually.
"If you feel worse, tell me or tell Kyoko. We've got motion sickness medicine in the kit if you need it."
"For now... I'm... fine."
Arms folded over her chest, Dorothy answered slowly. Her weakened state made it hard even to speak clearly. Japanese still wasn't as natural to her as her mother tongue.
Looking at the prickly little hedgehog she'd become, Huaxiu could only conclude that Dorothy's siscon tendencies had gone terminal. When it came to chores, Dorothy was obedient enough. But the moment anything felt like it encroached on Miranda, or crossed one of her emotional lines, the young lady's temper flared instantly.
Huaxiu had noticed a few nights ago that Dorothy's attachment to Miranda was far from ordinary sisterly affection.
Her girl-love radar had done its job.
Since Dorothy refused to engage, Huaxiu decided not to keep pressing and instead headed back toward Kyoko.
Kyoko had heard the conversation, but she didn't interfere. A kid getting cranky because she felt sick wasn't a big deal. There were no infected nearby, and all they were doing was driving. It wasn't worth getting involved.
"It's three-thirty now, Kyoko," Huaxiu said as she sat down beside the driver's seat. "When do you think we'll reach the place you picked?"
"Soon. But it looks like the situation up ahead may be a little messy."
"How can you tell? I don't see anything."
Huaxiu widened her eyes, but she still couldn't spot whatever had alerted Kyoko.
Was Kyoko joking? That seemed unlikely. When Kyoko wore that expression, she was always serious.
So Huaxiu picked up the compound bow Kyoko had handed her earlier and moved toward the turret, preparing to provide cover fire if necessary.
"Wait—don't go up there. Come back. We're just going to accelerate and push through. There's no need to fight."
The road still wound through dense forest, with nothing but trees ahead. To the naked eye, no danger was visible at all.
But Kyoko's real-time map had already shown her the truth: a large group of infected had gathered in Yukawa. What was going on? It was such a tiny place—how had that many infected ended up there?
"Ah! Are they... eating?" Huaxiu peered through the scope and finally spotted the infected gathered ahead, hunched over corpses and feeding.
"Hold on tight. I'm pushing the engine harder."
There was no other choice. Kyoko was driving an armored military vehicle. She could simply crush straight through them.
With one hard push of the throttle, the APC's 570-horsepower Mitsubishi diesel engine roared to life, propelling nearly thirty tons of metal straight into the infected mass.
The tires left bloody tracks stretched far behind them.
"Brent, fasten your seatbelt!"
Compared to Kyoko's APC, the jeep Miranda and Brent were riding in was much rougher going.
Bodies scattered across the road jolted the vehicle violently as they passed over them.
Brent, in particular, looked like she was about to throw up.
Still, they made it through the cluster.
"That was close," Kyoko said. "A corpse rolled right under one of the tires. If I hadn't pushed the engine hard enough, we'd have been in trouble."
The infected had gotten tangled into the wheels, clothing and flesh being dragged beneath the chassis. If the vehicle had stalled there, Kyoko and the others would have had to stop and hack their way through the crowd.
It wasn't that Kyoko couldn't handle a fight like that. She just didn't want to waste precious time.
"So," Huaxiu said, "we passed the place you were aiming for. Where are we going now?"
"To..." Kyoko hesitated for half a second before deciding. "Up ahead there's a service station. We'll spend the night there. The sun's already going down, and I do not want anything happening on the road after dark."
Huaxiu's question had already been on Kyoko's mind. Thankfully, there was still somewhere ahead they could use as a temporary shelter.
"Good. We've entered Fukushima City now. That hill we just passed was Mount Kuromori—the border between Fukushima and Nihonmatsu."
Now they were truly beyond Nihonmatsu's boundaries.
And as for the service station Kyoko had mentioned, it wasn't far at all. It stood at the junction of Route 115 and Route 459.
Less than ten minutes later, both vehicles arrived.
Good news: there were no wandering infected in the parking area.
"My God, these roads are terrible," Miranda said as she climbed out of the Toyota Hayate, panting. "If our tires hadn't been wrapped in all those chains, Brent and I would've been thrown clear out of the vehicle."
"No kidding. We didn't have it much better," Kyoko replied as she scraped ice off the windshield with the back of her drawn blade. "This kind of road would make anyone despair."
"Huaxiu, give me a hand. Let's throw the weatherproof tarp over the vehicles. Otherwise the doors will freeze shut by morning."
"Coming."
After spraying antifreeze where she could and confirming the area was safe, Kyoko began setting up protection over the vehicles. Brent and Miranda, meanwhile, entered the large combined service building to check it out.
They were definitely sleeping indoors tonight.
Staying in the vehicles would be a good way to freeze to death. Even with the heater on, the engine noise would only draw infected in from the surrounding area. So Huaxiu stayed with Kyoko to cover the vehicles, while Dorothy stood watch in case anything approached.
"All right. Let's head inside. Since Miranda and Brent haven't fired any shots, it should be safe."
Kyoko led Huaxiu and Dorothy into the building without much concern. A moment later, a strong smell of burning wood hit them. Just as expected—Miranda and Brent had already built a fire in the lobby and were warming themselves beside it.
"You're finally here," Miranda called. "We checked upstairs. No infected. The few downstairs we killed with knives. It's safe now. Come warm yourselves."
"So what exactly did you burn to get a fire this strong?" Huaxiu asked.
"Oh, some of the local specialty items from the gift shop," Miranda answered, producing one of them from behind her back.
It was a beautifully crafted wooden ornament.
"So pretty! Could we maybe—"
Before Dorothy could finish, Miranda tossed it straight into the flames.
"Shame. But now it's firewood."
"Big sis!"
Dorothy looked ready to die on the spot. She had no idea what to say to her sister at moments like this. Couldn't Miranda let her be happy for once?
"What are the rooms upstairs like?" Kyoko asked first. "Do they have doors?"
What mattered most to her right now was sleep security. Outside their home, caution had to come before everything else. There were too many stories of people dying because they got careless. No one ever knew what might be hiding in the dark.
"They have doors," Miranda said. "They're not bedrooms, though. Just a small office floor. Two big leather sofas, some desks, some chairs, that's about it."
"Good. After dinner, we'll go get blankets from the vehicles. The five of us can squeeze together for one night. There's no heating here, and we're deep in the mountains. A fire alone won't keep us warm enough."
"In that case, Miss Huaxiu, Brent, and Dorothy can stay here," Miranda said. "Kyoko and I will go get the upstairs room ready."
"Be careful."
"We will."
The two women crossed the glossy marble floor. The shine was so bright that if either of them had been wearing skirts, someone would have been able to see straight up to their safety shorts.
There were only desks and chairs on the second floor. Huge floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the outside.
Not bad at all.
Once they confirmed the area was truly clear, they began arranging the room.
They pushed the two leather sofas together, facing each other. That made a temporary bed wide enough for three people, or five if they squeezed together.
Problem solved. Sleeping close would also help conserve warmth.
As for the desks and chairs, Kyoko dragged them all to the staircase entrance, leaving only a single narrow gap wide enough for one person to pass. If anything came up the stairs in the night, it would have to jostle the furniture and make noise.
They weren't meant as a real barricade—just as an alarm.
"All right," Kyoko said, brushing the dust from her hands. Then she smacked Miranda lightly on the ass, drawing an embarrassed blush from the older woman.
Damn. That had become a habit.
After finishing some kind of task with a partner, Kyoko always ended up doing that. This time it had come out almost automatically.
Awkward, but not enough to make her panic.
The two of them headed back downstairs. Huaxiu already had dinner laid out, and the smell was amazing.
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
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 27
Transmigrated as Sukuna 27
Checking In in Demon Slayer 32
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 44
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