The path to Don Quijote was pretty empty, since all the nearby zombies got lured away by the first group of idiotic teenagers.
Further down the street, zombies could be seen walking around aimlessly.
A couple dozen meters away from him, Kio could see a vehicle collision involving a truck and a police car in his field of view.
Hoping to get a lucky find, he quietly walked to the crash site. Looking through the broken window of the police car, he noticed the messed up body of a policeman, with dried blood all around his uniform as a result of the crash. Shifting his vision away from all the gore, he noticed a gun holster around the policeman's hip.
To his luck, Kio managed to find a fully loaded S&W M37 handgun, which uses .38 caliber and can hold a maximum of 5 bullets in its chamber. In addition, there were also 2 speed loaders in the pouch that was strapped to the policeman's belt. Each speed loader already had 5 bullets attached, allowing the handgun to be quickly reloaded.
Due to the low gun crime in Japan, the police force only carries a few bullets on them and they rarely use their guns unless it's unavoidable.
After taking the weapon and bullets for himself, he attached the gun holster and pouch onto his own belt before concealing it under his black suit.
Although there's a slight bulge if somebody paid careful attention, it would otherwise be concealed.
Rejoicing at the lucky find, Kio turned around from the car and looked towards Yuki.
"Let's go, quietly."
"Okay. Kio, is it okay to just take the gun like that?"
"Huh? Of course it is, we need it to protect ourselves. Besides, the owner is already dead."
Although he understands the reason for her question, he knows how important it is to have a weapon for protection.
While he was replying to Yuki, at the edge of his field of view, he noticed a girl that was running towards them from the hotel.
"Riko you idiot! Why did you come, it's dangerous out here."
"I was just worried about you…"
"What if something happened to you when you ran here by yourself? I just don't want to see you getting hurt."
Although Kio was dissatisfied with Riko's decision to run out here on her own, there's nothing he could do about it now.
Continuing onwards to Don Quijote, they noticed two males standing guard beside the entrance.
"Stop! This place is ours once we finish clearing all the crazed humans inside."
One of the guards spoke in a harsh tone, showing his unfriendly attitude to Kio and the two girls. Due to the limited amount of supply, he didn't want to shelter more people in this store.
"Hey hey, wait a moment," The second guard quickly spoke up. "The two ladies can stay, but as for you, get the fuck out of my sight."
Although this attitude scared Riko and Yuki, Kio understood the second guard's intentions.
"I saw you guys leave the hotel to come here not less than 30 minutes ago, so how could you already claim this place as your own. And these two ladies are with me; you better not have any disgusting intention towards them."
While standing in front of the two girls, Kio stated his intention to protect them.
"Huhh? The fuck did you just say to me?"
Taking out a knife, the second guard began to threaten Kio.
"Why can't you guys share the food inside? We're all human beings!" Yuki protested in anger at the unreasonable demands made by the guard. Although she knows that he's after her body, their group can't venture to another place to scavenge for food safely due to the amount of zombies around the area.
"Heh heh, I'll share some food with you if you are willing to be my woman." While appraising Yuki's body from top to bottom, the guard licked his lips as if he can already imagine the fun he will have tonight.
"Fuck off, why would I become your woman just for some food!?" Yuki refused the outrageous demands made by the guard.
While they were arguing, Riko was hiding behind Kio's back, hoping that the guard wouldn't suggest the same ideas towards her body.
Kio contemplated if it's a good idea to take out his gun now to threaten the guard, but he knows that he wouldn't be able to shoot it. Otherwise, all the nearby zombies would swarm towards their location from the sound.
If the guards knew of his dilemma after he takes out his gun, they would try to steal it from him or take one of the girls as a hostage.
While he was thinking of the best course of action, another man showed up from the inside of the store.
"What's with all the commotion out here? We just finished killing all the zombies inside."
"Jay, these guys want to enter the store after they spotted us coming here," The first guard replied respectfully.
"Yea Jay, they just want to get free food without working for it," The second guard chimed in, wanting to prevent Kio's group from joining theirs. He already has a plan to bring in the two girls into their group after kicking the male away from them.
'Based on how polite they are to this guy named Jay, he must be the leader of their group…' Kio deduced after listening to their conversation.
After understanding the situation, Jay replied, "I see, well you guys are welcome to join us. The more the merrier since we need to be able to defend this place if zombies ever attack us."
"What!? We will have three more people to feed if we bring them in!" Dissatisfied with Jay's opinion, the lecherous guard spoke up.
"Ren, are you displeased about my decision? After saving all of you guys earlier, every one of you decided to make me the leader, and now you won't even listen to me?"
"N-no… I just didn't want to share what little food we have…"
"We have enough food to include three more people. Our group is small enough that adding a few more won't affect things too much."
"...I'll listen to your decision then," Ren, the lecherous guard who wanted Yuki to become his woman, couldn't go against Jay's decision.
Feeling discontent, he began to plot up some ideas on how to kill Kio secretly to claim Yuki afterwards. 'If I give the other girl to Jay, he won't complain after Kio dies from an accident! Hehehe...'
"Hello, my name's Jay, and I guess I'm the leader of our group."
"Hi, I'm Kio, and these two are Riko and Yuki."
After their introductions ended, Kio wanted to know why Jay also called these things as zombies. "You also know that these are zombies? Your two guards called them crazy humans earlier."
"Haha, yea, I've watched a fair bit of zombie movies, so I just felt like calling them zombies since they bite people and turn them into new zombies," Jay responded, feeling glad about getting another person into their group that knows about zombies.
"I see. Were there a lot of them inside? You did say you finished killing them all earlier."
"Yea. I think most of the ones inside were attracted by the loud noises made by the teenagers awhile ago. There were only a few left inside, which made it easy for us to kill them one by one."
"That's good. Did… any of you guys get bitten or scratched?" Kio asked, worried about the possibility of one of Jay's group members turning into a zombie since he doesn't know how long it takes for one to turn into a zombie after getting infected.
"I know what you're concerned about. One woman did indeed get bitten on her right leg after we entered. We decided to tie her up for now and see if she will be fine. We told her we would release her if nothing happens after a short period of observation." Jay calmly told Kio's group about what transpired inside.
"Okay, this will at least help us understand how long it takes for a person to change into a zombie after getting bitten. Good thing you guys didn't kill her right away, otherwise we would be worried about staying together with your group."
"Haha, we aren't that cruel."
"That's a relief. Do you mind if we grab some snacks for now? We barely ate anything all day."
"Sure, help yourself."
"Thanks, I owe you one."
Receiving permission to enter and get food, Kio, Riko, and Yuki breathed a sigh of relief from the aid given by Jay.
Just as they walked a few steps into the store, shouts could be heard in the distance.
"HELP!!!"
"SAVE US!!!"
"PLEASE LET US ENTER!"
Approximately six men and women, dressed in business-wear, were running in their direction while shouting for help.
As one would expect, all the shouting attracted many zombies nearby and they began to chase after them.
Hot on their tail, two zombie dogs could be seen chasing after them, with torn, bloody limbs in their mouths. Since these six still had all their limbs attached, one could guess that their group was slightly bigger before and the limbs came from one of their former group members.