"C'mon, hurry it up, ladies! This stuff is not heavy at all!!" A pot-bellied man hollered the muscular men as they moved the stuff from the mansion into the trucks.

Saya was watching with her arms folded under her delicate breasts from her balcony.

It has been seven days since that smug mercenary had left with Marikawa-Sensei and Saeko to god knows where.

Arthur won't be returning for at least a month, and yesterday as it was the eight day, Saya's father finally ordered his men to get packing, to move the stronghold to Hokkaido.

In a couple of hours, or by noon, the moving would be all but done and after lunch, they'd leave, that's what he had announced last night.

A part of the survivor's group that Saya's father took under him became slightly recalcitrant, saying whatever nonsense their feeble minds cooked up, that those undeads are just ill people and they should remain in the city helping more survivors or such jargons.

Of course, they were coldly told off to do whatever the fuck they wanted — Leave or Join.

And that was it. Everyone one of those foolish people shut their mouth and chose follow Saya's father like the pathetic little sheep they were.

Taking in any more people was inconceivable, Saya's father had already taken in more people than he could manage already. Even though he was trying to do good for the people, he was not a god and he understood that fact well enough, he was the Don of the prefectural area, not the Massiah. That's why he didn't shy away from telling off those people.

And then there was that matter with Takashi. It appears that his mother didn't make it but what's surprising is that he never shed a single tear of grief...

He was 'acting' all fine and gullible. It wasn't strength he was displaying by 'acting' tough, rather it was his weakness to be afraid of showing his emotion that was being shown. It was obvious that he was hurting inside, and as his childhood friend, Saya couldn't help but notice and she couldn't even bear his miserable state. These past few days she tried many ways to talk through with him but whenever she tried to console him, he always said that — He was fine...

Saya also didn't have time and luxury to give too much time to Takashi, she was busy helping her Papa and Mamma, besides Takashi wasn't a child anymore, he should be fine...

"Takagi-San,"

It was Kohta who broke Saya's musing, seemed like he was looking for someone.

"Have you seen Kazu, he told me—"

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM*

A sudden massive explosion! The whole mansion trembled due to the shockwaves.

"Kyaa!!!" Saya fell to the floor, she pressed her ears and rolled herself up into a ball.

Kohta was also shocked but he quickly recovered and ran toward her to cover her, thankfully, Saya was safe and sound as the explosion was far from the balcony.

He took into the surroundings, people were running in a frenzy, away from the entrance where the fire from the blast was spreading.

Utter chaos was in motion. But somehow it seemed like it was just the beginning.

'What the hell happened?!'

Kohta thought with widened eyes, getting his bearings together, he slouched and shook Saya and she also quickly recovering from her shock-stricken state stood up and observed the situation.

One of the trucks had exploded.

'Maybe, someone miscarried a grenade or something like that... Fuck it!!!!!'

"This is bad, Kohta. Really bad! Hurry get everyone ready with weapons, we're heading to where papa and mamma are!"

"Yes!" Kohta replied, sweat dripping like buckets from his forehead.

Kohta and Saya hurriedly made their way to find everyone. Seems like everyone had the same idea in mind, as armed with their weapons they were already looking for Saya.

Grouped up with the team and some of the guardians and parents of the students which they have found across the whole city in the previous week, Saya and others ran to find her parents. A couple of more large-scale explosions were heard as they moved.

Along the way, they met up with Kazu, Marikawa-Sensei's friends, Rika and Tajima, and then they finally found Soichiro and Yuriko.

Soichiro was commanding his subordinates on something while Yuriko was just standing beside him gracefully.

"Papa! We need to hurry! Whatever caused those explosions, they must've attracted all the undeads in the vicinity! We need to leave right now!!"

Soichiro turned toward her, his face grim, a hint of frustration leaking from his face which could be only noticed by his wife, Yuriko. He shook his head, "Saya, it's too late."

She gasped.

"My men from the lookout team from all directions sent emergency messages. Hoards of undeads are approaching this way. They're coming here, an enormous hoard. About fifteen thousand of them. There is no escaping it. All the routes are blocked."

On any other day, it would've taken at least a few hours for this many undeads to get so close to the mansion. But since yesterday, the sounds of the engines of buses and trucks moving to and fro the mansion was guiding those wretched creatures towards the estate.

These undeads had another characteristic, the louder the sound was the faster their approaching speed became. They could run as fast as a regular human. And this series of huge explosions invoked a rush in the undeads.

"But it's not like this is the end, right?" Kohta spoke up, "We can still find a way to leave the premise, undeads can't climb walls. We can use that to our advantage! We... We can walk on the top of boundary walls and escape!"

'Walking on boundaries? Is he joking?' Saya winced at his stupid suggestion. 'That's right! I should think of a way too!' she thought.

"Kohta, there are too many people, children, elderly, women. Such ways are not possible for them, it's safe for no one, not even us when all the streets are full to the brim with those rotten Bastards. Besides, Don wants a way that could save most lives. Isn't that right, Don Takagi, what will you do?" Rika tilted her head as she dismissed Kohta's suggestion and asked Soichiro.

Soichiro just stared at them, his eyes looked as if they were glaring.

He couldn't dawdle around anymore. The more the time passes, the more closer the dead walked. And once they're surrounded from all directions it'd all but over for everyone.

"Right now, there is only one way to protect everyone and my family. A frontal confrontation." Saying so, Soichiro swiftly turned around, and stopped for a moment, as if waiting for someone.

"I'm ready, Soichiro-San, are you?" Yuriko also stood up and smiled.

"Yes, I am." He replied as he brushed his hand on the hilt of the sword tied to his waist.

"We are too!" Saya and others followed up with a burning resolve to survive this adversity.

In the original, something similar happened, there Soichiro and Yuriko told Saya to escape with her friends as they guarded the mansion and the survivors from the undeads.

In this timeline, they didn't ask Saya such a thing, it wasn't like in this timeline they didn't care for her, but there was no other option, no other escape, no way to protect anyone but to take the help of every person available!

Exiting the mansion, Soichiro hollered up the defense unit. With all his subordinates and his whole family covering his back in a fight for survival, Soichiro marched ahead. The undeads were just a few hundred meters away from the back gate.

Whether it be the burly man from the defense unit or the sickly thin old guy from the survivors that took shelter in Takagi estate, every one of the 300 people in the mansion carried something to protect themselves, be it a gun or a meager stick.

But due to the lack of time, there was no time to plan out a proper formation. Don Takagi just shouted and ordered the men to fight and women, children, and elderly to stay at the back of the line.

Seeing their leader fighting to protect everyone's life was sure to motivate the masses and they were sure to fight behind him. And that did happen, but unfortunately, at a diminutive scale.

Most of the people that consisted of the survivors' group in Soichiro's mansion were just ordinary people, they were too afraid. Frightened to become like 'them'. They didn't want to even imagine suffering the fate of being alive in the form of that kind of monstrosity. Becoming like 'them' was the same as dying if not worse. No... eating one's own kind... It's definitely the worse!

Soichiro, his wife, his defense unit, and some of the men from the survivors' group had already charged ahead and were battling the dead.

"Why are you guys not moving!" Saya shouted.

Just like most people in the back, afraid of these undeads, habitual to entrusting their fates to someone else, the parents and guardians of the students in Saya's group were reluctant to fight as well. And due to that those students including Miku, Kurokami, Tsunoda, and others also couldn't join in the fight.

'Don's people are strong!'

'They can save us!'

'We don't have to do anything when they are already on it, do we?'

Or such excuses were in their minds as their weak minds refused to take charge and bear the responsibility for their own lives. But the truth was that this threat could never be just handled by Don's people!

The Don needed everyone to fight for at least one percent chance of victory in this battle of survival.

At such a moment, people needed a bit of push. A push to take the plunge and jump into their deaths for the greater good.

The role to provide such a push could only be fulfilled by an exceptional leader like Erwin Smith ( from AOT) or even an ordinary speech by the main character and his overpowered plot armor would do all the work.

And as if it was his fate, Takashi tore through the crowd and stood in the front.

For whatever reason, a moment of pin-drop silence ensued as Takashi inhaled to speak.

The Main Character that the world had chosen was finally, after a long long slumber, was waking up and going to fulfil his duty...

=================

Thanks for reading!

Hmm, and so, we rise the curtain of the finale of the HOTD arc!

Comment section is quite lonely dez daz...🫥

Support me and read ahead on pa treon upto 5 advanced chapters! There are more benefits than just advanced chaps there, the total benefits are :

1. Advanced chaps.

2. Choosing your favorite waifu as a harem member.

3. Hiring Omniversal Mercenary for a mission in the world of your choosing, obviously you get to choose harem member too.

4. The power behind your votes will have the power depending on your tier, which is obviously, much higher than the free readers on webnovel, scribbleHub or Royal Road.

https://www.pat reon.com/marveller

(remove the space)

Oh, I now have a ko fi as well! You can sub there too if you wanna read ahead.

Ko-fi Link: Ko-fi.com/marveller

Discord Link: https://discord.gg/T3GN7nqKgS