I came back from the nurses office with Rina firmly holding my arm between her bosom… It kind of looked like she was claiming me for herself, not that I was complaining …

Yuma, who was playing house with Miu and Sarah, looked up and asked me:

“Did you find anything useful Ren? You both were in there for a while…”

Luckily Rina changed my bandages before we left the nurses office.

“Aah yeah, Rina helped me change my bandages, it took a while… I also grabbed some disinfectant with me and stuff like that.”

“Right, she only helped you with bandages…”

Yuma winked at me, Rina and I couldn’t help but blush, which for some reason pissed off Aoi:

“Hmph… don’t leave like that from now on, it could be dangerous with just the two of you.”

“Oooh are you perhaps jealous? Do want to go help Ren ‘change his bandages’ next time? I can lend him to you for a while if you want…”

Rina was teasing Aoi again, it really became a habit of her.

“N-No! What are you talking about…”

She became flustered and quickly wanted to change the topic:

“A-Anyway, where do we go from here Ren, do you also plan on taking us to the military safe zone?”

“Hmm… I’m not sure, I think it would be better for us to first get a bit stronger before we meet other people. I’m afraid we would get taken advantage of if we’re not careful… especially the girls… Yeah, I think it’s best we find another altar and increase our fire power.”

Daichi speaks up:

“I agree, we should be able to take care of ourselves before we risk going into survivor camps… But I’m also worried about my parents, Although my parents live in the country side, I’m sure some people of our group want to find their family members as soon as possible…”

“Hmm… you’re right, I didn’t think of that, my family also lives in the countryside. Does anybody live nearby?”

“Me and Rina live near the Stadium, where the military safe zone is… Our parents probably already sought shelter there… I hope.” {Aoi}

“My parents and brother live nearby, they should still be inside, since it’s a gated residence zombies shouldn’t be able to enter it.” {Himari}

“My parents live a bit further, near the Mall” {Sarah}

“You guys are the only family me and Miu have left, we’ll come with you” {Yuma}

“Okay… we’ll first go visit the gated residence and pick up the parents of Himari, then we’ll go to the mall in order to exchange some crystals, there is probably an altar there since they appear in crowded areas. After we visit the mall we’ll go pick up Sarah’s parents and make our way to the Military safe zone, that’s the plan… for now at least.”

“W-We don’t have to take such a detour to pick up my family, like I said they are probably doing fine in their gated mansion… Not to brag, but my family is pretty rich and didn’t skimp on security costs…”

Yeah I heard her dad was the CEO of Japan’s top bank or something like that… It’s weird that she doesn’t want to go rescue her family members though…

“No it’s okay Himari, it’s in the same direction so it’s not much of a detour.”

“O-Okay then…”

She seems hesitant.

“Alright, let’s collect all the crystals from the zombies we defeated last night and take as much food as we can carry with us. We’ll depart in about an hour.”

Everybody hurriedly started putting the cafeteria food in bags and backpacks, Rina’s dimensional storage was already full. Me and Yuma went outside to collect all the crystals.

In total we killed 15 normal zombies and 1 mutant zombie, of course I doubled our revenue with my blood crystal refinement. I did have to empty my entire blood tank when I duplicated the mutant zombie crystal. In total, I now have 74 regular crystals and 2 mutant crystals… Jackpot! Although I’m not sure how many crystals one mutant crystal is worth, it’s probably pretty valuable.

Before we leave I use my 1x Item wheel draw ticket:

“1x Item wheel draw activated by the host… Spinning the wheel… Calculating…. Congratulations host, you received: Metal Bat of perseverance [C]. Host has received his first ranked weapon, these weapons usually have special abilities beyond just improving stats.”

“Status”

I click on the metal bat I just received in my inventory.

A window explaining the bat’s attributes suddenly shows up:

Name: Metal Bat of Perseverance

Rank: C

Ability: Strength of the user grows stronger the more the user suffers damage. The maximum strength enhancement is 2.5X, only occurs when the user is near death

Oooh this would be perfect for that reckless bastard Yuma.

“Here Yuma take this new bat I got for you, it will enhance your strength when you get damaged. Perfect for a brute such as yourself!”

“Hey, who are you calling a brute? At least I’m not the one who is too dense to notice all the flirting Rina is doing!”

Damn he got me, I can’t really deny that… at least until just recently.

“Besides where did you get this thing? You always just magically pull these things out of your backpack, same with that elixir you gave me…”

“Ah-ha don’t worry about it, let’s just say it’s part of my abilities, however I do need to clear certain objectives before I get these weapons. In the future I might need your help with some of them…”

“As long as you don’t ask me for advice regarding the ladies. You’re hopeless when it comes to that stuff, not even I, a master of romance, would be able to help you with that.”

“J-Just so you know, me and Rina are actually doing pretty good at the moment!”

“You beast, something did happen in the nurses office right? Come on tell uncle Yuma.”

“Aaah, just go back to playing house with Sarah, ‘master of romance’, don’t think I didn’t see your adorable ‘playtime’ with Miu…”

For the first time since I have known the guy, Yuma blushes.

“No way, Yuma do you actually have feeling for Sar-“

Aoi comes out of nowhere and interrupts me:

“Hey guys hurry up, we are all ready to leave, just waiting for you guys.”

“Ok ok, let’s go. By the way Aoi, is Sarah still single?”

“Yeah, why do you want to know? D-Don’t get any weird ideas, she hates you, besides you can’t betray Rina like that…”

I gave a thumbs up to Yuma who was still blushing a little bit, but he did seem happy with the news.

“Don’t worry, just asking out of curiosity.”

…

5 minutes later we are all standing outside of the kindergarten ready to leave and head towards Himari’s house.

“Alright Himari, lead the way! I’ll walk besides you in case any zombies show up, Yuma will stay behind me to protect the rest of the group if something goes wrong.”

Rina seems displeased with our formation, but she has to put up with it for a while, once we arrive I’ll try comfort her.

“Okay guys, my house is not very far, we should arrive after 10 minutes of walking.”

I thought she didn’t want to bother us with a detour… I think there is something she isn’t telling us… since me and Himari are walking a few meters in front of the rest of the group, I don’t think they’ll hear our conversation:

“Hey Himari, is there something bothering you? It’s almost like you don’t want to meet up with your parents…”

“W-Well, we don’t have the best relationship, my parents and I… They only really care about my older brother since he will take over the company later… They also arranged that marriage with Reo which was against my wishes… Never mind, you must probably think that I’m just a spoiled lady who’s complaining ha-ha.”

“No, I understand… To be honest, I also don’t have the best relationship with my family, it’s not like they are abusing me or something, but it’s just hard to be around them sometimes, my family was definitely one of the main reasons I moved to Tokyo for uni…”

She suddenly gets a lot closer to my face, her hair swinging forwards and caressing my cheek in the process.

“I totally get what you mean! It’s not like they held a gun to my head in order to force me into that marriage with Reo, but they just don’t ever take my feelings into account… At the end of the day, they’re still my family, so I can’t exactly ignore or run away from them…”

I’ve never seen her so enthusiastic.

“Well, since it’s the end of the world, you don’t really have to listen to them anymore… If we safely drop them off at the military zone, you can still decide to come with us instead, I’ll make sure to protect you!”

Wait… that sounded more romantic than I intended it to…

I look over and, sure enough Himari is blushing due to the embarring things I just said.

“T-Thanks Ren, I think I will take you up on that offer. Make sure you don’t only give Rina preferential treatment.”

“Ha, it almost sounds like you’re jealous of my attitude toward Rina.”

I think I might have pushed my luck... she pouts her cheeks and turns her head away from me.

…

We finally arrive at Himari’s house… even though I expected a mansion, I was still perplexed. This wasn’t just a regular mansion, it was more like a giant castle!

“Well come on in guys, don't just stand there.”

She pushed some buttons and the gate to the castle opened, I wasn’t the only one who was shocked, Rina asked Himari:

“A-Are you sure you’re not a princess of a foreign country or something?”

“Ha, what are you talking about Rina, the Belgian Princess lives two houses further. Her house is way smaller than this one silly.”

I think that was the first and last time I’ll ever hear that sentence…

“W-Was that a joke?... No?... Whatever, let’s just go inside, it’s getting dark.”