It was hard to say how much he had killed after a while, they just kept coming. Until they didn't anymore. The more he had killed, the more his mana was depleting, the more he had to struggle to single most efficient way to manage his energy, and also his stamina.
At the end of the fight, which he logically knew only had to have lasted less than 10 minutes, but still seemed like hours to him. He was dead tired, heaving as he breathed in the awful smell of burned flesh, blood and dead bodies. And he had but maybe one or two weak bolt remaining in the tank. Barely enough to deal with five zombies if he was very miticulous.
Taking another deep breath, he shook his head and turned back the other way. "Lucky..."
Dragging his feet toward the rather large group of survivor who had stayed behind him while he fought, he ignored their looks of shocks and whatever else was in there and said. "The other classroom, secure it. I need to rest a bit before doing anything else." Vol paused. "I'm not sure how long, though. Anyway, I'll stay outside myself."
"Uh... I-" The group made confused noises and sent hesitant glances to each other before the closest one nodded. "Al-alright, we'll do that, I think it's the safest thing to do right now anyway..." The boy grimly said and went to do as was said. Most of the others present following him.
Vol nodded and went to rest against the wall opposite to the classroom having windows donning to the outside, leaning against it. His heart lurched instinctively at seeing the visible chaos present everywhere he looked, be it inside the courtyard of the school or out in wider city.
Now that he was at rest and that his tank was empty, he could surprisingly already feel his mana regenerate drop by drop. Even then, he still kinda hoped it'd be faster.
Maybe active regen was possible? Like if he did meditation or something. It'd be worth a try, but not now. It wasn't the right time to experiment.
Just as he thought that, he caught some movement from the corner of his eye and sighed as he saw another undead round the corner far away. It seemed he hadn't exactly cleared this section of the floor yet.
—————
As he went up and down the corridor killing a few strays in the next 10 or so minutes, he received a rather pleasant notification.
[Ding! New title available!
-Undead Slayer 1: Kill 100 undead type enemies, Effect: 10% more damage against undeads
Do you want to equip this title? YES/NO]
He promptly selected yes. 10% more damage means he lessen his mana use by the same amount for each kill.
After feeling that his mana was almost halfway full, Vol decided to go back to the classrooms and get a grip on the situation and possibly get moving. Doing so, he saw that most cases in the section he was roaming had been opened and plundered at some point and that many students were in the corridor and not actually in the classrooms, talking quietly and most of them sporting a makeshift weapons or another.
Upon seeing him, they became silent and let him pass. Their eyes, while still fearful, were determined and contained a spark of hope. Inside the classrooms, things were different, as people cried and desperately tried to make phone calls. To no avail, of course.
Vol sighed again. An apocalypse world as a tutorial definitely didn't allow him to feel good about anything really. Not even about getting involved into a scenario worthy of the fictions he had read in the past years.
Pausing for a second as he took a deep breath, he attracted everyone's attention by clapping his hands loudly twice. "Bucker up! I need everyone to gather outside the classroom, we can't stay here long. As we are, we have no food, no water, and our current shelter is not in the least secure. So we need to change that as soon as possible. That's now! Everyone who's not following the group will get left behind." Vol said consisely and in a hard voice.
"Whoa, that's pretty harsh words you're saying there. How can you say something like that right now? Have you no heart? And who put you in charge in the first place, uh?"
Vol turned his unimpressed amber eyes toward the slimy looking guy who said that and used identify for the first time.
[Ishiki Fuyaku - threat level: negligeable]
"There's around 70 students right now spread between the two classrooms and in the corridor. There need to be someone who call the shots and we don't have time right now to waste on 'deliberation'. As you've seen, I'm the one who can keep you all safe. I don't need you to survive, nor am I obligated to do it just because I can. So naturally, I'm the one in charge." Vol stayed silent for a while considering the other boy, before he continued, almost daringly. "Got a problem with that? Fuyaku-San?"
Seemingly startled by his answer and the saying of his name, the boy looked nervously at the other students and backed down. "N-no. None at all."
"Great." Vol casted a quick look to everyone in the room before he left to repeat himself in the other class. After that, he rounded up the group and actively asked for those who were ready to fight to come forward, to which the armed group he had seen upon returning did along with a few other students. In total, they amounted for 24. Less than a third of the group. He told them they would be responsible for the rear and the side, and to aim for the head and the zombies were unnaturally strong and that they should be careful to not get grabbed.
Then he told everyone else to grab whatever container, backpack and weapons possible and most importantly to stay as quiet as possible before he took the head of the group and he set out. Toward the cafeteria.
—————
Magicaly produced lightning was not natural lightning. It wasn't as hot, loud nor nearly as fast. However, every aspect of it was adjustable depending on his will and the mana he was willing to spend. He was lucky it was that way, because if the sound of his magic had been as loud as real thunder. Not only he would have deafened every students in his proximity with his first bolt but he also probably would have attracted every zombies in the school.
Additionally, adjustable parameters meant he could muffle the sound of his attacks for the price of more mana. It was crucial since moving with as big as a group as he had was making it impossible to ignore the undeads on their ways. Forcing him to dispatch them one by one or by batch if neccessary.
Nonetheless, by keeping to the tighter corridor and corners and avoiding the wider open space, they made it on rather good time to the cafeteria. Even when he had to occasionally take pauses to regenerate mana. They had lost one of the fighting guy along the way unfortunately, as he had been bitten by a lack of caution.
THAT had been an ugly scene. As he had been 'forced' to wait until the guy turned to kill him to not make all of the group unnecessarily panic by seeing him kill someone in seemingly cold blood. Cold blood he definitely was far from having, in fact.
He would probably never forget the weak, last blank look full of tears the boy sent him before he died and he rose back.
There were only a few zombies in the cafeteria, which were disposed quite easily as he was quite proeficient at one shot killing them at a distance at this point.
They found quite a bit of nonperishable food and stacked up on all they could find and ate the what couldn't be preserved for long. Since the school had more than a thousand students enrolled in it, the cafeteria was naturally well furnished.
Now with food in their stomach and proof of their working system, his group move with less fear as they retraced their steps to the higher floor and went toward the nurseries.
His next goal was naturally to get out of there, but he was both unwilling and incapable of leaving without the main cast and at least two adults to drive buses. Along the way, they met with a small group of very surprised survivor and they grouped up with him. Though their reasoning was that there was more safety in numbers. Which wasn't wrong per see, but in the present apocalypse. Not entirely true.
Anyway, it seemed he came late to the nursery. As there was no one in there aside from a bunch of zombies and a dead student who had a splited head. But going by the blood, it was relatively recent. Less than 5 minutes, maybe. To be frank, he had no idea, he wasn't an expert. He couldn't tell the difference of recently dried blood and not recently dried one beside that the later should be darker.
Anyway, after struggling hard to remember which way the purple haired girl and big boobied nurse went in the anime, he had difficulty recalling their names, he went left, which luckily not the way they were coming from. That meant he hadn't missed them.
Going on a faster pace since he knew the way would have been cleared already by S- something. He stopped as he reached an intersection, and as he was going to follow the trail of obvious dead zombies to the right, he froze as a familiar voice to his recent memories cried out in from the left.
"NO! STAY AWAY FROM ME! KYAAAAAA!"
He veered to the left and began to sprint, not even checking if the rest of his group was following him.
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A/N: Sorry, was sick for most of last week. Don't hesitate to say if you have any suggestion for the story.