“Bang!”
The explosive gunshot unique to the Colt Python suddenly rang out.
The Hunter let out a pained screech.
Its right arm was struck by the bullet, and a large amount of crimson blood instantly burst out.
Under the intense pain, it immediately fled into a corner in panic.
Kasumigaoka Utaha, who had already fallen into despair, hurriedly opened her eyes, only to discover that Yuto and Yukino had returned at some unknown point.
Yuto’s expression was cold and stern.
At the critical moment, he had directly wounded the Hunter with a single shot.
This kind of highly agile monster was truly astonishingly alert.
The moment it heard the gunshot, its body had already twisted strangely through the air, trying to dodge the bullet.
But even so, under Yuto’s Elite-Level Marksmanship, it was still injured.
At this moment, Yukino also rushed in.
Her compound bow was drawn to its fullest like a full moon, the arrowhead aimed straight at the back of the zombified Ikuko’s head as she gnawed on a student’s corpse.
“Whoosh!”
The metal arrow pierced through the skull with precision, sending red and white matter splattering across the floor.
The zombified Ikuko trembled twice before finally collapsing beside her friend Midori.
“Everyone, get down!”
Before Yuto’s roar had even faded, his muzzle was already aimed at the Hunter constantly shifting its position.
His finger had just been about to pull the trigger.
But the monster suddenly turned its head and pounced toward him at a speed difficult to distinguish with the naked eye.
It was so fast that everyone present froze in place.
Even their breathing nearly stopped!
Hayama Hayato’s pupils abruptly contracted, and his heart almost stopped beating.
“Not good!”
But not only did Yuto not retreat, the corner of his mouth instead curved into a cold arc.
He slightly raised his palm.
The magic source within his body surged abruptly, and magic power rapidly flowed along his magic circuits.
In an instant, surging lightning brewed in his palm.
The “szzzt” of electric current instantly drowned out everyone’s heartbeat.
“That’s…?!”
Hayato’s eyes widened as he stared in disbelief at the ball of lightning constantly swelling in the boy’s palm.
His entire body fell into a daze.
Within the brilliant lightning, a three-inch-long Lightning Arc Arrow quietly took shape.
The arrow’s body was slightly curved like a new moon, and the lightning plasma flickering on its surface seemed as though it was about to break free of its restraints.
In an instant, the lightning was dazzling, almost stealing away the entire classroom’s vision!
“Whoosh!”
Yuto flicked his hand, and the Lightning Arc Arrow shot out like a meteor, accurately striking the chest of the lunging Hunter.
“Zzzzt—!”
The lightning plasma burst apart with a roar!
Within the dazzling white light, the Hunter’s entire body suddenly trembled.
Fine arcs of electricity instantly crawled all over its surface.
Its originally swift movements abruptly froze, and its limbs began twitching uncontrollably.
It had perfectly triggered the paralysis special effect of Lightning Arc Arrow!
That pause lasted less than half a second, but it was enough to be fatal.
Yuto’s eyes sharpened.
The muzzle of his AK-105 instantly lifted.
Aiming at the Hunter’s open hood, his finger pressed heavily on the trigger.
“Bang!”
The bullet accurately blasted through its skull.
The Hunter’s body paused in midair before crashing heavily to the ground.
It twitched twice and then stopped breathing, while the lightning remaining on its body continued to sizzle.
[Player Yuto has successfully killed a Special Infected—Hunter.
Reward: 500 points!]
The entire classroom fell silent.
Only everyone’s heavy breathing remained.
The crowd stood frozen in place, their pupils shrunk to pinpoints.
Their gazes were fixed on the Hunter’s corpse on the floor, their eyes filled with disbelief.
Unexpectedly, at the critical moment, it was still Yuto who had returned to save the day.
Click!
Yuto changed magazines, then turned to look at Hayato, who was kneeling on the floor with a deathly pale face.
“What happened on your side?
You were just supposed to stay quiet, yet you still managed to draw a Hunter over?”
As the effects of adrenaline gradually faded,
Hayato finally came back to his senses.
Looking at the wreckage around them, he could not help swallowing, his voice trembling.
“Y-Yuto-kun… thank goodness you came.
Otherwise, we…”
He truly had no face to meet Yuto.
More than twenty people, even while armed with guns, had nearly been wiped out…
If the boy before him had not arrived in time, perhaps none of them would have escaped that strange cat-like infected monster.
“Deal with the bodies first.” Yuto interrupted his self-reproach and pointed at the corpses on the floor.
“Clean them up quickly.
The smell of blood will attract more zombies.”
“Okay…”
Hayato replied.
Only then did he discover that some of the students who had been bitten to death had already begun transforming.
…
After a flurry of work, the surviving group finally managed to stop and rest.
Looking at the blood-soaked classroom filled with severed human remains, everyone’s mood became extremely low.
“Wuu… Mom!
Dad!”
Someone could no longer endure such a despairing atmosphere.
They covered their faces and burst into tears.
It was as if a signal had been set off.
The painful cries gradually infected all the students.
Even those who managed to hold back their tears felt heavy-hearted, lowering their heads in dejection.
The atmosphere was utterly bleak.
“Yuto-kun, I’m sorry.
I was too arrogant before.”
Hayato’s face was miserable.
He clenched his fists and looked at the silent Yuto.
Suddenly, under everyone’s astonished gazes, he knelt down in a dogeza.
“This is my way of expressing my apology to you.
This is all my fault.”
“…”
“Hayama, you really are an incurable good guy.”
Yuto rubbed his brow.
For a moment, he did not know what to say.
This fellow Hayama Hayato had actually blamed himself for everyone’s life and death.
Such a mentality was truly hard to judge.
“Kneeling to me won’t bring the dead back to life.
It has no meaning.”
Yuto frowned slightly, speechless.
“No matter what, this is what I want to do right now.
At least… this makes me feel a little better.”
Hayato raised his head miserably and let out a long sigh.
“It was all because I was blind, indecisive, and failed to truly see reality.”
“Yuto-kun, I want to ask you again.
Do the conditions you proposed earlier for joining your team still count?”
“They do.”
“Then I’ve decided to join and obey your orders!”
Now, Hayato agreed to the condition without the slightest hesitation.
Previously, he had thought Yuto was overestimating himself…
But now, he only hated himself for being blind and unable to see the situation clearly.
Why had he not cooperated with Yuto sooner?
Perhaps…if he had, everyone might have survived.
“U-um… may I join too?”
“Me too!
And me!”
“Yuto-kun, please let me join your team!”
“Yuto-kun, we know we were wrong… From now on, we will absolutely obey your orders.”
“If you say one, we absolutely won’t say two!”
With Hayato taking the lead, the students who had been too embarrassed to lower themselves also began wanting to join Yuto’s team one after another.
“…”
Tobe Kakeru hid among the crowd.
His face turned from red to white, then from white to green.
It was as if someone had slapped him hard across the face, leaving a burning pain behind.
Regret surged up in his heart like gnawing ants.
Previously, he had even thought Yuto was arrogant and conceited…
But now, reality had slapped him brutally across the face instead.
Yuto’s abilities far exceeded his imagination.
If Tobe Kakeru wants to survive, then he has no choice but to follow the boy.
“Yuto-kun… will he let me join his team?”
Kasumigaoka Utaha looked at Sato Yuto’s tall, slender back, and her heart was filled with complicated emotions.
She had originally thought he was merely a boy pretending to be mysterious and profound.
But that clean, decisive kill just now had completely overturned her understanding.
The girl lightly bit her thin lips.
A misty haze appeared in her ruby-like beautiful eyes.
Intense regret and a trace of indescribable throbbing quietly spread through her heart at the same time.
Just now, after calmly thinking things through, the black-haired literary girl had already realized that Yuto had not intentionally peeped at her earlier.
Instead, she had misunderstood him.