Chapter 6 - Rescue mission


“Rena, wake up!” a voice echoed in Rena’s ears.

“M-Melon pan…” Rena merely mumbled.

“Wake up, Rena!” this time, Rena felt somebody nudges her hard and finally opened her eyes.

“W-What is it, Takamina?” Rena asked in a sleepy voice.

“Acchan is gone!”

“What!!” Takamina’s statement caused Rena to shot up from her bed. Jurina then immediately came.

“What happened? I heard Rena-chan shouting.” Jurina said.

“Acchan’s gone, Jurina. Where could she have gone? It’s too dangerous for her to go out alone.” Takamina explained.

“Wait. Don’t tell me that she actually turned herself in?” Rena questioned.

“No! Why would she? We told her that we could protect her!

“She must have thought she didn’t want the zombies to harm us anymore.” Jurina said.

“We need to save her, Rena, Jurina, please!” Takamina begged them.

“I only know that the lair of the zombies is deep down the sewers of this city according to Akane. But it will be like a maze to find our way in the sewers.” Jurina said.

“I know! Vampires and werewolves have enhanced smelling. We can ask for help from Yuko and Yuki to track Acchan’s position.” Rena suggested.

“Ok then. I’ll get Yuko and Yuki. Then we’ll meet up at Mayu’s house.” Jurina said, before teleporting away.



At Mayu’s house

“What!? You want me to sniff for corpses in the sewers? You must be out of your mind!” Yuko complained.

“It’s alright if Yuko-san doesn’t want to. I’ll offer myself, since vampires have a better sense of smell than werewolves.” Yuki stated.

“As if! Everybody knows werewolves have a better sense of smell!” Yuko replied.

“Then prove it to us, Yuko-san.” Yuki said.

“Fine! I’ll show you who is the boss around here!” Yuko said out loud.

“I’m coming with you guys!” Takamina suggested.

“No, Takamina. We can’t afford to bring anybody who can’t fight. It’s too dangerous.” Rena said.

“Then promise me something, Rena. Promise me that you will bring Acchan back. Please!” Takamina begged with her eyes filled with tears.

“We may not know what hardships we will encounter on the way. But we WILL bring Acchan back. I promise. She’s our friend. We will not leave any of our friends behind.” Rena said confidently, assuring Takamina.

“Will all of you be alright?” Kojiharu asked in a worried tone.

“Nyan Nyan.. you don’t have to worry about us. All of us are skilled in combat… Except for this bat right here.” Yuko said, with her fingers pointing at Yuki.

“Point your furry fingers away from me. I know that I’m a skilled fighter myself. It doesn’t matter if you do not acknowledge it. As long as everybody else knows, it doesn’t matter.” Yuki said. Yuko merely rolled her eyes at Yuki’s comment.

“Let’s go, guys! We have a friend to save!” Rena voiced out loud as four of them walked out the door together.

“Nee, Mayu.. I need some help from you.” Takamina said.

“What kind of help?” Mayu questioned.

“An information searching kind of help.” Takamina answered.

“Ah.. Information searching, huh? Leave it to the great Nezumi!” Mayu bragged out loud.



In the main sewers

“Damn it stinks like hell! I feel like my nose is going to drop off!” Yuko complained.

“Try to focus, Yuko. Focus on the smell of corpses instead of the other smells.” Rena said.

“Yea.. Try to focus, Yuko-san. I seem to be doing quite a good job over here!” Yuki bragged.

“Shut up, vampire!” Yuko shouted.

“Hey.. We’ve been here for about an hour. Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Jurina questioned.

“What now you’re doubting us after believing in our sense of smell? Of course this is the right way.” Yuko answered.

“Wow. Then these zombies really are confined out of our reach. I have no idea how many floors we’ve gone down.” Rena said, until they reached a T-junction.

“This way!” Yuki said while pointing on left side.

“The hell it is! It’s this way!” this time Yuko said, pointing on the right side.

“I said left, wolf!” Yuki voiced out loud.

“And I said right, ty vampire! You probably sniffed some corpse of some dead rat.” Yuko voiced out loud.

“Stop arguing guys! Yuki, we’ll try Yuko’s way first, ok?” Rena suggested. Yuko then shot a look of victory to Yuki who replied with a glare. After another half an hour of walking, they’ve finally reached…a dead end.

“Do you see what I mean now? I told you it was left just now!” Yuki scolded Yuko.

“No! It’s impossible! It definitely smelled weird here!” Yuko said. Yuki then proceeded to sniff the surroundings.

“Now that you’ve mentioned it, it really does smell a little weird here.” Yuki said.

“Hey, guys! This wall feels weird!” Jurina then tried knocking on the wall causing a sound to echo in the sewers.

“This wall sounded hollow. Maybe this wall IS the entrance. Let’s try pushing this wall.” Rena suggested.

Then four of them tried pushing the wall together to notice the wall starting to slide open by itself. Before them was a world they’ve never seen before. The place was slightly misty and there were tombstones everywhere, as if they were in the middle of a graveyard. An endless graveyard. The numbers of tombstones were uncountable. A few figures are seen limping around within the mist. The four of them then noticed a huge mansion on the top of a nearby hill.

“I think that’s where the Zombie Lord is staying.” Rena stated.

“Then Maeda-sama should be within the mansion. Let’s go.” Yuki said. As soon as they started walking towards the huge mansion, Rena’s SPTdex sounded.

Beep! Beep!

Rena then took a look at her device. Her eyes immediately widened in horror.

“Erm.. Guys, I think we might have a little problem.” Rena said.

“What is it, Rena-sama?” Yuki asked.

“Well, for sure it detected zombies. Big deal..” Yuko said

Jurina then looked into Rena’s eyes. “Wait. Rena, how many are there?”

This statement attracted both Yuko and Yuki’s attention.

“Why don’t all of you look at this yourself?” Rena said as she lifted up her SPTdex towards their direction.

2029 supernatural beings identified
Species : Zombie
Type : Normal infected
Threat : Medium

All three of their eyes widened.

“2000 zombies!? We could barely handle 20 of them the last time we fought them!” Yuko sounded.

“That’s because we’re pretty much exhausted when we finally found out about their weakness, Yuko-san. I think we could have done better than that.” Yuki said.

“Yuki. You might be right. But this time is 2000. That’s like 100 times more than what you and Yuko fought!” Jurina complained.

“Wow. You’re a nephilim and you’re afraid? You have an angelic scythe don’t you?” Yuko stated.

"Yuko. Listen. Eventhough Jurina and I wield the weaknesses of these zombies, we’re not even sure if we can take out all of them.” Rena explained.

“But for the sake of Maeda-sama, we have to try.” Yuki said.

“This could be a good training for me.” Yuko said confidently.

Rena then snickered and said “I never thought that I would be slaying zombies instead of vampires and werewolves. This could actually be interesting.”

“Well, we promised Takamina to bring Acchan back after all.” Jurina said.

The zombies started groaning louder and louder as they turned their head facing the four of them. It seems like the zombies had already sensed them. During that time, more zombies crawled out from the ground. All of them let out a scream before charging towards them in a whole bunch like ants.

“This might be a little too much for a human like me. But that’s the thing about me. I just love challenges. ” Rena held her semi-automatic gun on her left hand and her katana on her right hand.

“Do you still remember our bet, vampire?” Yuko transformed into her lycan form.

“Ready to kneel down before me?” Yuki snickered as she cracked her fingers and neck.

“Let the rescue mission begin!” Jurina summoned her scythe as all four of them charged in together.

Both Yuki and Yuko used Mayu’s tactic to immobilize the zombies and decided to leave the slaying for Rena and Jurina since they couldn’t kill zombies.

“Guys, remember! They may not have any strength, but they have extremely deadly bites! Try not to get bitten by any means necessary! One bite and you’re done for!” Rena reminded three of them while cutting the zombies in half with her right hand and blasting off their heads with her left hand.

Things seemed a little simpler for Jurina as she swinged her scythe, creating shockwaves that cut through a few zombies in half with just one slash. As Jurina’s scythe was about 2 meters long, this gives her an extra advantage as none of the zombies are able to get close to her at all. Being too excited in slaying these zombies, Jurina accidentally sent a shockwave into Yuko’s direction. Upon noticing it, Yuko immediately leaped 15feet in front to dodge it.

“Hey! Watch where you swing that thing! You almost killed me!” Yuko shouted at Jurina.

Jurina just smiled and apologized, “Gomen! Gomen!”

“That’s because you’re slow, Yuko-san. I would have dodged that shockwave perfectly with my speed. Besides, I already have 92 knockdowns.” Yuki bragged.

Yuko then snickered and said, “That’s really speedy for you, vampire. I have 93! Take that!”

As soon as Yuki heard Yuko’s statement, she grabbed a zombie which was reaching for her, slide to its back and delivering a powerful kick to its backbone before landing a heavy punch on another zombie’s back after it missed Yuki. Yuki then dusted her hands and looked at Yuko. “94.”

“You did it while I was talking! That doesn’t count!” Yuko glared at Yuki.

“No. This is called grabbing the opportunity.” Yuki said before smiling sarcastically.

“Stop arguing in this situation, two of you!” Rena scolded both Yuko and Yuki while fending off all the zombies reaching for her.

All four of them continued their counter attack non-stop but the number of zombies seemed never ending. Maybe it really was way too much for them to handle. All the zombies kept on flowing in like ants.

“They just keep coming! There’s countless of them!” Rena complained.

“I hate to say this, but I’m starting to feel a little tired.” Yuko said, while panting.

“Hang in there, Yuko! We can’t stop here!” Jurina said.

“My movements are slowing down little by little.” Yuki is also panting.

Then all of a sudden, all the zombies stopped moving in their tracks as an applause came from the mansion. A black figure is seen walking out of the mansion. It then leaped all the way in front of them, startling them.

Beep! Beep!
1 supernatural creature identified
Species : Zombie
Type : Lord
Threat : Immeasurable

“What!? You’re the lord?” Rena questioned.

“Ah.. That weird looking device. You must be a hunter.” Sasshi said confidently.

“Hey! Where did you keep Acchan?!” Yuko shouted.

“And who might all of you be?” Sasshi questioned.

“We’re friends of Acchan. We came here to save her.” Jurina explained.

“You better have not done anything to Maeda-sama!” Yuki warned.

“A hunter, a werewolf, a vampire and a nephilim. Seems like Acchan had some special friends, huh? I never thought any of her friends would risk their lives coming here just to save her. I got to say that I’m really impressed with all four of you. Seems like the four of you took out about 500 of my troops.” Sasshi said while smiling.

 “Are you done talking? Tell us where’s Acchan now!” Rena warned.

“Do you think that I will just tell you where she is like this? You know, I love games. So, I’m going to tell a riddle. If you’re able to answer, then I’ll show you where Acchan is.” Sasshi explained.

“Deal!” Jurina accepted the challenge.

You heard me before,
Yet you hear me again.
Then I die,
Till you call me again.

“So, what am I?” Sasshi smiled confidently.

Rena, Jurina and Yuko kept on giving their own respective answers again and again, but none of them were right. After countless of attempts, all three of them start giving weird answers such as aliens, your mom, melon pan, my hairdresser and so on.. Except for Yuki. Yuki just stood there the whole time with her eyes closed. Then, she finally opened her eyes.

“An echo.” Yuki finally answered.

“Correct answer.” Sasshi nodded her head being impressed with Yuki’s intellect.

“Wow, Yuki. You’re smart!” Jurina complimented.

“Well, I did spend a lot of time with Nezumi-sama.” Yuki shrugged her shoulders.

“Alright, now show us where Acchan is!” Yuko growled.

“Well, you’re standing on top of her now.” Sasshi said.

“What are you talking about?” Rena questioned with a frown.

Sasshi then flicked her index finger upwards. The ground beneath the four of them starts to rumble. They immediately leaped out of the way and noticed a silver cage emerging from the ground with Acchan inside of it, panting and screaming in pain.

“Acchan!” All of them screamed at the same time.

“G-Get o-out of h-here…” Maeda powerlessly answered.

“No! we promised Takamina to bring you home.” Rena voiced out loud.

“Let her go, you stupid zombie!” Jurina shouted.

Sasshi then nodded. “Ok. I’ll let her go.”

“E-Eh?” All four of them are now wearing a confused expression.

“But only if you’re able to reach my requirements. As I said just now, I love games. Let’s play a game of life and death now with you four as the players and Acchan as the spectator. Eliminate the rest of my troops here, and she’ll be out of the cage. There’s only about 1500 of them left. So the four of you may still have a chance.” Sasshi proposed.

“We accept your challenge.” Rena sounded.

Sasshi then applauded. “Good. Very good.. I like you guys. Very entertaining indeed. But.. If you’re not able to fend off my troops, well it’s obvious. Zombie food.”


Chapter 6 - Rescue mission
END


Next Chapter : Chapter 7 - A choice