Chapter Forty-Six: The Final Countdown Begins (1/4)

Something had happened!

Qi Xiaoxiao had not been sleeping very deeply, or rather, even in sleep, she remained awake. Draped in a white shirt, she went straight to the door next door and pounded on it.

The knocking rang far through the night.

With a sharp creak, Li Xin, whose arm had been severed, also slipped out from the doorway. It was plain to see that she had slept poorly; the pain in her missing arm had tormented her without pause. Yet this former public relations manager now seemed far more courageous and decisive.

"Someone betrayed us!"

The moment she saw Qi Xiaoxiao at the door, Li Xin swiftly voiced her conclusion.

"Yes." Qi Xiaoxiao nodded and said urgently, "We have to leave now and change our location. Wake everyone in the house."

Wake them?

Li Xin looked at her, then shook her head and refused.

Qi Xiaoxiao was about to speak when hurried footsteps sounded behind her.

Ito Makoto arrived in a rush with Ye Yutian at his side.

"If we don't go now, it'll be too late!"

Ito Makoto said with obvious urgency. Without Liu Mengchao by his side, he felt as though a great weight had been lifted from him. Most of all, no one would discover his true thoughts.

"The key is with me." Ye Yutian's gaze moved between Li Xin and Qi Xiaoxiao before he said firmly, "Takashiro Manor, far off over there, has suddenly lit up all at once, and there are noises coming from it too. If we don't leave now, I'm afraid we'll all die here!"

There was still one day left.

Qi Xiaoxiao gave a slight nod. There was still one day until the EMP pulse. Likewise, there was only one day left before the effect of the thirteen-counter poison she had taken wore off.

"What about Alice?"

Qi Xiaoxiao looked at the people inside and asked.

At once, cold sweat sprang out in beads along their temples. No one dared abandon someone connected to Liu Mengchao.

Not even a little girl.

"Take her with us." Ito Makoto's face was hardened with cruelty. "Takashi Komuro is already by the car. We take him with us too. If there is one less person on the vehicle, then so be it. As for the two of them, it will depend on their luck."

With that, Ito Makoto shut the door and locked it from the outside.

"Move!"

The Hummer was parked in the courtyard.

Takashi Komuro stood there anxiously gazing into the distance. The father of Saya Takashiro still had not appeared, and he had been caught by Ito Makoto. If he had not reacted on the spot and claimed he was worried something had happened at the Takashiro residence across the way, he would probably have been shot dead by now.

"What about my big brother?" Alice followed behind Qi Xiaoxiao as they ran downstairs toward the Hummer. Running, she asked, "Won't he come back for me?"

"He will. But we have to hide first." Qi Xiaoxiao smiled to comfort her as she opened the car door.

Gun in hand, Ito Makoto motioned at Takashi Komuro. Takashi immediately understood and opened the door, slipping inside.

"Watch carefully," Ito Makoto said to him.

"Watch what?" Takashi turned his head toward the house. "Why haven't Rei and Doctor Shizuka come out yet?"

"Because we've already crossed the boundary river. They no longer have any reason to exist." Ito Makoto's voice, to Takashi Komuro, was full of malice and murderous intent.

Click.

A small flame flickered to life in Ito Makoto's hand.

"What are you doing?" Takashi Komuro seemed to foresee what was about to happen and cried out in shock.

"What am I doing?" Ito Makoto's eyes were full of mocking amusement. "Of course I'm putting hell right in front of you."

As he spoke, he hurled the fire in his hand straight onto the house.

The grass on the ground suddenly burst into flame, then slowly but relentlessly spread toward the building.

Boom!

Ye Yutian slammed the accelerator and, under Takashi Komuro's despairing and hateful gaze, started the car.

"They'll all die in there!"

"Shut your mouth. Otherwise, before it's their turn, it'll be yours first!"

Ito Makoto laughed wildly. At last, he felt a sliver of the pleasure of revenge. They were all characters in the same story, so why had he been forced to endure those horrors? It was unfair.

Since suffering must be attempted, then you must share it too!

Takashi Komuro!

Watch your lovers and friends die one after another before your eyes!

He was gone in a flash.

Along the dark road, a pillar of fire suddenly rose into the sky. The blaze roared and raged like a natural pyre, proclaiming its position to those within the Takashiro estate.

At this moment, the two headlights of the vehicle looked almost understated in the darkness. If not for the occasional zombie drawn by the noise, running toward the Hummer and then being crushed beneath its wheels, the scene might have seemed almost serene.

How peaceful, how quiet it all would have been.

The reincarnators were fleeing for their lives, while Liu Mengchao smiled.

The towering flames could still be seen even from the shrine where Liu Mengchao stood. Even if he had not seen them, the steadily rising jackpot before him was already telling him what was happening to the reincarnators.

Run for your lives, reincarnators.

Liu Mengchao looked at the jackpot before him and laughed.

Jackpot total: four hundred thousand.

Just as he had thought, fear of death was the best fuel for the jackpot's rise.

In the dim night, apart from the starlight, only the mobile phone in Liu Mengchao's hand could shed any light.

The time on it, too, was moving quietly onward.

No sound, only fear.

Night, 12:00:00.

A new day had begun, or rather, it was about to end.

"When are we going there?" Saeko Busujima stood up and gazed toward the distance, now a sea of fire. "I wonder how Qi Xiaoxiao and the others are doing."

"They'll be fine." Liu Mengchao did not stand, only kept his attention on the jackpot in front of him. "Even if they're surrounded by zombies, Qi Xiaoxiao can still get out on her own."

"What about the others? Don't you care about them at all?"

Liu Mengchao gave no answer. Sometimes, no answer was the best answer of all.

He did not care.

The Hummer raced along the road, and Ye Yutian had never been this tense before. Since entering this reincarnated world, he had never felt much pressure.

Because death had never surrounded him so closely as it did now.

"Hurry, faster!"

His foot was locked hard on the accelerator. Seated beside him, Li Xin actually had a mobile phone in her hand as well. It had been taken from Shizuka Kuragawa.

"Hold on. It won't be long before the EMP goes off! Then we'll loop back around. You have to understand, after the electromagnetic pulse, the only vehicle still able to move freely will be this modified Hummer!"

Li Xin had never sounded so certain. She believed this was all arranged by the main god, and that the group was using the most appropriate method to complete the main god's task.

"In a few hours, we'll turn around and then..." Li Xin glanced at Takashi Komuro, who sat inside with a gun pointed at his head to guide them. "We'll rake in the points to our heart's content!"

Rumble.

The zombies across the entire city were awakened by the night's racing. They moved involuntarily toward the source of the noise. Those sources were the cars driving out of the Takashiro estate one after another.

The roar of engines, like the firelight of night, illuminated all of Tomoda City.

The zombies surged forward slowly, like a tide.

Far away, a nuclear submarine also surfaced at this moment, as if responding to the scene here.

"Strike. Nuclear strike. We cannot wait to retaliate after someone else has made the first move."

Inside the submarine, the captain's orders were relayed one after another.

"Begin countdown, six hours!"

Counting from the moment the order was issued, the time now was the second day after the zombie outbreak.

Exact time.

Night, 12:00:00.

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This is today's first update... and earlier, at eleven, there was another one... don't get the two mixed up...

Also, the next update will be posted at ten o'clock. Hmph.

Thanks to Frozen Speechless for the generous tip.