Chapter 18: Encounter
No, first I must regain the feel of shooting. If I have muscular strength, my shot is guaranteed to become stable, but my skills may still not be perfect.
To regain what I had in the past, I proceeded through each step of the process slowly and carefully. Before I let an arrow loose from my bow, I fixed my eyes on the mark and concentrated hard.
“Hit.”
And after I shoot three, with a glimpse I can see it was finally the on the edge of the mark. Because it lies at the edge of a 36cm mark, it may be off if I aim for a zombie’s head.- However, my heart gets excited by itself when I hit the mark.
When I have spare time, I will practice drawing the bow more, but for now, I will do it here.
After I thought so and looked back, Aya-chan who sat straight looked at me. Because I didn’t come back for a while, she came to see my state.
“I’m sorry, I’ve kept you waiting.”
Aya-chan shook her head.
“How was it? Watching from behind, was it cool?”
When I said as much as a joke while putting the bow away, Aya-chan nodded slowly. It was hard to understand, but she seemed to really think so – she was embarrassed and looked away when I faced her. She both really cute and dangerous.
“Okay, let’s return quickly. A tent is waiting.”
I only speak roughly, but regardless, it is inevitable, a matter of course. Aya-chan and I are already like a newly-married couple than being boyfriend and girlfriend. And because it’s a little too exciting for a honeymoon, we have to return to the roof of the mall quickly.
No, let’s stop using the canopy. A single house is dangerous, but an apartment will be safe. Zombies don’t come to the upper floors and survivor can’t come immediately either.
The problem is how to get a key. A key can’t be dropped like a game, and even if I knock down a zombie and get a key, I don’t know the place. Then, I could break a window and invade inside or? When that happens, it is dangerous for Aya-chan; therefore I need to unlock a door for her to enter from the front… oh, did my time to shine finally come?
Simple… if I climb to the fourth or fifth floor and fall, it’s the end of me. I can’t help but be careful.
――――Before I live alone, I’d rather die together!
Honjo-san’s words appeared in my mind suddenly.
Because I have Aya-chan, I can’t overdo it. This bow is enough for me to look good and it would be better not to cross a dangerous bridge.
“…is Honjo-san fine?”
I muttered this and Aya-chan observed me.
“N-Nnn”
I coughed. Thinking carefully now, it is a bad behavior to be anxious about the safety of your ex-girlfriend in front of your bride.
…I felt that Aya-chan looked at me and if she didn’t hear what I muttered she would say “Did you say something?”. I want it to be so. I mean, it is so!
I took various tools and left the archery ground.
The bow I have now is a little more than two meters of a typical bow, and I borrowed a quiver which is approximately 1m in height. 66 arrows are contained inside, and they are all made of good bamboo. The bow is made of carbon and aluminum and therefore has excellent durability, but the best durability is bamboo, which can’t be broken even if I shoot concrete.
With just that much, it will become moist and break. If you can’t take care of it, because the condition of the arrow changes by the day, it is a product for experts.
Even then, perhaps, it wouldn’t break when it goes through the head of a zombie several times.
For example, a pistol is easy to handle, but the power is high. It is easier to shot with a bow several times because the sound isn’t so loud, unlike a gunshot.
The gun which I got from Okada-san is able to shoot about ten bullets. Given that I’m able to kill a zombie with one shot for certain, more zombies will come from the gunshot and will make an uproar. If it is so, I will run out of bullets by all means.
For that aspect, a bow is superior for sneak attacks because you can collect the arrows again. It is inferior in firepower and handling, and having fallen into a hard situation, wouldn’t a gun be better?
Of course, if it is a machine gun? I’d like to see, where you would need many bullets, where you would acquire one? How likely is it that you would get one as a citizen?
“The bow is the strongest. Therefore banzai to the bow.”
I walk to the huge athletic ground while pushing the reality away and not looking back.
“Ah, now that I remember it, Aya-chan, I didn’t tell you why we came to this particular high school.”
Naturally, there is no response, and there are many cases that I don’t speak to Aya-chan.
“This here is my old high school.”
Aya-chan slightly opened her eyes wide when I said so… however I can’t see this because I am still turned towards the front.
“Electric power was also restored; therefore it is time for humanity to counterattack. I think that the number of zombies will reach its limit sometime soon. In a few years our normal world will return, and we can go to school as usual, Aya-chan wouldn’t you be my kouhai then?”
Of course, there was no answer. However, it is pleasant to imagine Aya-chan in a school uniform, while doing archery as a club activity.
I don’t know whether such a future will actually come. But Makoto seems to want to imagine the possibilities. Even if a zombie is a corpse, when leaving them alone just like this, they would decay or starve to death. Its impossible for a zombie to wander around the world forever.
It is different if they hunt animals, but it doesn’t need to be said that this is included in the menace of the zombies.
In games or movies, there are also zombie dogs and crows. Nevertheless, I haven’t seen such existences yet.
Does the zombie virus infect only humans? In spite of saying that only people are infected so far, there are a lot of infectious diseases and viruses. You wouldn’t be able to call a zombie virus an exception.
Then why would that be? In the first place why does a zombie only attack humans?
Perhaps the zombie virus…
“He-ey!”
I seemed to be drowned in the sea of my thoughts until now when I noticed that I was in front of the school gate.
Hearing a voice suddenly, I´m nervous instinctively. I look around from where I was called out, and another cry came.
“This way, this way!”
Somehow the owner of the voice seems to be addressing me. I looked up at the sky and saw two girls waving their hands from the roof while smiling lightly.