Chapter 25 - November 23: The Smiley Shopping Mall Part One
Click, click, click...
The sound of buttons being pressed intermittently echoes.
Well, not so much "echoes"—I'm the one making the sound.
In my hands is a handheld game console, and on the screen, a girl is staring at me.
"I-It’s not like I like you or anything, okay?!"
With a sigh, I pull out the cartridge and fling it outside.
"Aaah! What are you doing?!"
"What do you mean, 'what am I doing'? What the hell was that?"
"That? It’s a dating sim!"
"And why did you make me play it?"
"Well, you know..."
"What do you mean, 'you know'?"
"Captain, you should be more considerate of girls."
"Not my problem."
This is the result of me being so unbearably bored that I tried out a game she recommended.
There had been no contact from headquarters whatsoever, and the information being broadcast by the TV stations had dwindled down to nothing but pre-recorded emergency messages from the government.
Even so, since I had been assigned this mission, I had no choice but to stay here. Unless it became undeniably clear that everything had collapsed, I had no intention of abandoning my post.
In front of the chair I had been sitting in yesterday was a large table, shaded by a beach umbrella we’d taken from the adjacent home improvement store. Across the table, the woman sat.
I swapped out the cartridge and started a new game.
It was a game based on the currently popular anime Cheer Fusion Godbind.
Using a variety of different mechs to defeat enemies—it’s surprisingly fun.
Right now, I’m playing what’s said to be the best scene in the entire series: the moment when Grick, who used to be one of their allies, betrays them and switches sides, only to be taken down by the protagonist, Jeeza.
Luckily, I had a charger that worked with batteries, so I brought a bunch of them from the electronics store and have been using those.
There’s also a mountain of game cartridges, so I figured I wouldn’t be bored for a while.
But...
"Captaiiin~~! I’m so boooored~~!"
Does this woman have no intention of letting me have a moment’s peace?
For a while now, we’ve been going in circles with the pointless back-and-forth of “I’m bored” and “Not my problem.”
Letting out a sigh, I pause the game, turn to face her, and toss her a game console from under my chair—along with the same game she forced me to play earlier.
"If you're that bored, then play that game you forced me to play earlier."
But what the woman said was nothing like the response I’d been expecting.
"Captain~ That game’s only fun because it’s played by boys~. It’s not interesting at all for a girl, you know? I mean, a girl playing a game where you date other girls… come on… pfft..."
She shook her head with an exaggerated good grief expression, trying to hold back her laughter.
Who the hell does she think she is?
I felt a strong urge to shove a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger—but I’m not that far gone—so instead, I gave her cheek a good, hard tug.
"Auuuugh—!"
After stretching her cheek so much that her face practically turned into a triangle, I let go with full force.
"Y-O-U are the one who said you were B-O-R-E-D!"
"S-Sorryyyyy..."
Honestly, I really have to question this woman’s mental age.
They say Heaven doesn’t give with both hands, and maybe in her case, she was granted exceptional sniper skills in exchange for skipping the stairs to adulthood entirely.
But there's no point in lamenting that now.
Just then, a series of intermittent warning beeps sounded. Beep beep, beep beep.
I leaned over the rooftop to take a look, and saw a car pulling into the parking lot.
It must’ve been an electric vehicle—there was barely any sound.
Zombies can’t drive cars, so it was probably a civilian.
The electric car came to a stop, and a man—presumably the driver—stepped out.
"A guy, huh..."
At a glance, he looked slender, with a somewhat sickly or delicate impression.
However, his face was fairly handsome—probably the kind of man who gets a lot of attention from women, I thought.
"Whoa, Captain! Look, look! He’s super hot! Total heartthrob!"
This woman...
I gave her a light knock on the head and then turned to speak to the man.
"Are you a civilian? Unfortunately, this area has been designated as a government outpost. No entry allowed."
The man looked over at us and smiled cheerfully, waving his hand.
I couldn’t read what he was thinking.
"...Can’t he hear me?"
I called out again, and this time the man raised his voice.
"Is it okay if I come over there?"
A wave of irritation washed over me.
Even though I clearly told him the area was off-limits, he still asked if he could come over—completely nonsensical.
And yet, at the same time, I felt something strange.
A crawling sensation, like insects skittering all over my body—it made my skin itch.
Whenever I’m hit by this indescribable feeling, it usually means one thing: my life is in danger.
Yes, this feeling... it’s fear.
“Hmm... So if this knife spins like this once... then…”
The man extended his arm straight toward us, muttering something under his breath.
“Probably around six or seven meters, yeah?”
But thanks to my instincts screaming in alarm, I could tell, without a doubt, that he intended to kill us.
The woman seemed to sense it too; her face stiffened.
“Shoot him.”
“Roger that.”
The woman started walking toward her sniper rifle.
At that moment—
From the parking lot, the woman’s upper body was visible.
The shopping mall wasn’t very tall in a straight line, so the distance to the rooftop was about six or seven meters.
“Hah!”
The man threw something with a strange shout.
That something glittered in the sunlight.
The light was somehow divine, and because of it, my reaction was delayed for a moment.
That was a knife.
“Get down!”
The moment I spoke, the knife thrown by the man pierced the woman’s side.
“Huh?”
The woman’s body buckled at the knees.
Blood splattered onto the floor as the woman collapsed.
It all happened in an instant.
The noisy woman in front of me had gone silent.