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It didn't take Julian long to figure it out.
These zombies had probably been drawn here the last time he smashed that Maybach.
…Yeah.
He'd really dug himself a hole with that one.
Still, the underground parking garage was fairly open. Good terrain. Perfect for him and Mafuyu Kirisu to stretch their legs a little.
"Mafuyu, clear them out."
Julian shrugged off his hiking backpack and drew his Tang blade, settling into a fighting stance.
Mafuyu rolled her wrists, loosening up.
Then the two of them strolled out like they were taking a casual walk.
"Raaagh…"
A few nearby zombies noticed them and lunged immediately.
Julian and Mafuyu split left and right and went to work.
In an open space like this, these low-level zombies didn't stand a chance.
Every swing of Julian's blade hacked off a limb.
Mafuyu was even more brutal. Almost every punch crushed a skull.
Two or three minutes later, the garage was silent again.
Julian was breathing a little harder. He had taken down more than a dozen himself.
The scariest thing about getting swarmed by zombies wasn't their strength. It was stamina. No matter how powerful you were, if you got swallowed by a sea of them, you'd eventually run out of strength.
Before he transmigrated, Julian had been ambushed, trapped in a zombie horde, and torn apart piece by piece.
"Master, they're so weak," Mafuyu said, casually tearing a strip of cloth from a corpse to wipe the blood off her hands. All zombie blood, of course.
"It's not that they're weak," Julian said with a shrug. "It's that you're too strong."
A mutated zombie appearing on the second day of the apocalypse could only be described as overwhelmingly powerful.
There wasn't a single zombie here who could match Mafuyu.
Just then, a faint rustling sound came from the side.
Julian turned sharply. A skinny kid with dyed yellow hair was sneaking toward the backpack he'd set down.
"Damn it! You've got the guts to steal my stuff?" Julian snapped. "Mafuyu grab him."
His legs were a little sore, so he left the chasing to her.
The yellow-haired punk froze when he realized he'd been spotted, then hoisted the backpack and bolted for the garage exit.
Too bad for him, he was up against someone with mutated-zombie-level strength.
In seconds, Mafuyu caught up.
She grabbed the backpack and flipped him clean over her shoulder.
He hit the ground so hard he instantly lost the will to fight back.
Mafuyu dragged him back like a sack of trash and dropped him at Julian's feet.
"Stealing from me?" Julian leaned on his blade and looked down at him coldly.
"Stealing? What stealing?" the punk shot back stubbornly. "It was just sitting there! Nobody claimed it. I picked it up. What's the big deal?"
Julian smiled faintly.
Clearly, this idiot hadn't received his crash course in apocalypse reality yet.
In this world, people would kill over a single can of food.
A backpack full of supplies? That was enough to get him killed ten times over.
And even after getting caught, he still looked like he didn't think it was a big deal.
Yeah. He needed to be taught a lesson.
"I'm telling you, let me go right now!" the punk barked. "Or I'll call my boys!"
"There are six or seven of them upstairs! When they get here, you'll both be kneeling!"
He still looked cocky, sneaking glances at Mafuyu every few seconds.
He'd never seen a girl this pretty before.
If he could call his crew down…
Heh. Maybe things could get real interesting.
"Calling for backup?" Julian leaned casually against a car. "Fine. I'll give you five minutes. Go ahead."
"Master, aren't we just going to kill him?" Mafuyu asked curiously.
Julian smiled and shook his head.
"Got guts, huh?" the punk sneered. "I'll call them right now."
He whipped out his phone and made the call, already fantasizing about what would happen in a few minutes.
When Mafuyu had called Julian "Master" earlier, it had nearly made his legs give out.
If he could experience that himself…
Tsk. Just thinking about it—
Not long after, a few street thugs with hair dyed every color of the rainbow came down into the garage, carrying clubs.
"Ryuta Kise, what the hell did you call us down for?" a red-haired guy complained. "It's dangerous out here!"
Then he saw Mafuyu.
He froze.
Damn. She was stunning.
Kise really was a bro.
The others quickly showed the same leering expressions.
"Kid, I won't bully you," Yellow Hair said with a filthy grin. "Since you were nice enough to let me call my guys, I'll let you go last."
"Mafuyu," Julian said calmly, patting her head, "don't kill them. Just break their arms and legs."
"Okay, Master!" she replied sweetly.
Breaking limbs was a bit more troublesome than killing.
But nothing she couldn't handle.
"Oh? Walking over on your own?" Yellow Hair wiped drool from the corner of his mouth. "Smart girl—"
Crack.
A single kick from Mafuyu shattered his leg bone.
Then came a rapid chorus of cracking sounds.
"My leg! Help!"
"My arm—my arm's broken!"
"It hurts! This is illegal!"
One by one, the thugs rolled around on the ground screaming.
They couldn't win.
They couldn't run.
All they could do was watch in horror as this terrifying woman calmly snapped their limbs with her bare hands.
"Master, all done!" Mafuyu dusted off her hands, looking pleased with herself.
"Throw them next to that car," Julian said, pointing at the Maybach.
Like tossing chickens, Mafuyu carried them over one by one and dumped them beside it.
"Welcome to the apocalypse," Julian said.
Then he lifted his foot and kicked the front of the Maybach hard.
The alarm shrieked to life again.
The thugs' faces went pale.
They knew zombies followed noise.
With an alarm this loud, what would happen?
But with broken arms and legs, none of them could escape.
Despair spread among them like a virus.
"This is your fault!" one of them screamed at Yellow Hair. "Why did you call us down here?"
"You got us killed!"
If their limbs weren't broken, they probably would have beaten him to death on the spot.
"Let's go, Mafuyu."
Julian picked up his backpack and used the key to locate the old man's car.
It was an old manual Jetta.
They got in, but Julian didn't start the engine yet.
Zombies were already being drawn in by the alarm.
If he drove out now, they'd run straight into them.
And this old Jetta… it wasn't exactly built for performance. Better to wait.
Drawn by the blaring alarm, the zombies surged forward like starving wolves, throwing themselves at the helpless thugs.
Their screams echoed endlessly through the garage.
"....."