The Unknown

"Pass your scrap metal? Hotwire? do you not know the risk if the alarm sounds?" Hayashi looked at his teacher in shock and disarray.

"There's no police so what consequences?" Dan stated nonchalantly

"Zombies." Hayashi said with a deadpan expression

"We can kill them all. Nothing to worry about." He opened the storage compartment to find a gun with ammo.

"Hayashi, found a gun, still loaded!"

"Don't yell out like that, keep it down!" Hayashi hushed Dan

"well if you don't want the alarm to sound, let's kill the remaining zombies"

"Best idea you had all night." he sighs taking out the [Hornet Emporer] slingshot and looking at nearby zombies and shooting them in the head with <Stinger> rounds efficiently killing them watching as his [ranged] and [Dual Wield] proficiencies go up.

"That's it..keep going..." Dan instructed as he walked around searching for the zombies killed by Hayashi until he finds a mutant.

"Damn...can't yell...no choice!" Dan took out his brass knuckles and tried to sneak up on the mutant, this one was only slightly louder and a bit more durable. Dan reeled back his arm and let out a savage death blow combined with his martial arts to knock the zombie down but not kill it as it was about to scream Hayashi looked at it and quickly aimed at its throat.

"[Eye of the Hunter]! [Strong Shot]!" Hayashi called out the moves feeling his stamina drain, firing the shot and piercing the throat of the mutant as it tried to screech to call more zombies over it could only let out raspy groans.

"Close one...this one is durable...so."Hayashi took out the [Ronin] Slingshot and fired a <Buster> round into its eyes. as it growled in pain striking Dan before attempting to run off.

"Agh!" Dan was thrown onto his back.

"Not on my watch! [Eye of the Hunter][Strong Shot][Create Munitions]" He released the shot as the injured mutant had bumped into a wall while trying to escape Hayashi shot it in the leg as its leg was ripped off and only being held by a bit of its undamaged bone, stopping in its tracks and trying to intimidate the duo by screeching at them, once again only letting out raspy groans, but this time tried to bite Dan.

"Animal." Hayashi shot the mutant from an angle, the <Buster> round shooting into its mouth and cutting off the central nerve through the back of its skull.

"Threat dispatched..." Hayashi looked at his ammo reserves seeing as it's low from his last few adventures he had about 20 of each round left and a few resources and medical items in his inventory then looked at the [Bag of Cores] and [Zombie Fangs] "Desperate times...desperate measures" Hayashi said "[Harvest]" watching the mutant shrivel up he collected the mutant's resources and core as it seemed to have an earth attribute of [Sand] nodding as he noticed he leveled up from the mutant alone feeling his wound heal. He then searched the body, going as far as to cut it open with the dagger end of the blade to see if anything in there was left, fortunately, there was, it seemed to be a black lump taking it out.

"PING!" Congratulations! You Leveled Up! LVL 10 > LVL11

He smiled seeing his wound heal. "Da- Sensei are you alright?"

"Yeah, just a few scratches and bumps, nothing to worry about." He looked at his arms

"Here then. We can get back to the school, with as much metal as the car can carry."

"As the car can carry?"Dan seemed confused "But we don't have the key, the key must have been given to a dealership or something."

"That's what you think" Hayashi spins the keys on his finger.

"The mutant had the key!?" Dan sounded excited. "Muscle car! oh, how I wanted you!"

"Yeah yeah, now help me get some metal in here so we can get out of here!" Hayashi opened the trunk and started putting in metal until he gets metal sheets.

"PING!" Would you like to perform an upgrade on your [Hornet Emporer] using the skill [Create Arms]? Hayashi looked at the system dumbfounded, before going back to the pile and looking for more metal sheets only to find 6 in total.

"PING" would you like to perform an upgrade on your [Hornet Emporer] using the skill [Create Arms]? Hayashi nods and quietly celebrates.

"Yes!"

"PING!" Now upgrading [Hornet Emporer]... Hornet Emporer was brought out of the inventory and started glowing before more grey lights were absorbed into it, it seemed the metal plates had turned into material for [Hornet Emporer] in order to upgrade.

"PING!" Upgrade successful! Rank up! RANK 0 > RANK 1 Hornet Emporer was returned to Hayashi's hand seeing as the appearance had changed a little bit. The handle now separated the blade from the slingshot by becoming slightly longer and making sections to separate the ends of the Slingshot, The string had changed drastically from a normal professional band to something akin to a bowstring, however, the center stayed the same but was rather more accurate. The slingshot part was now able to fit an attachment on it.

"Tonight was a good night.." He continued to load metal into the car until the trunk was full.

"Let us go" Hayashi gets in the passenger side and closed the door.

"There's a problem..." Dan put his head on the wheel.

"And that is?"

"We're nearly out of gas..."

"Oh well. Drive and don't waste our gas. We can find more and get a jerry can at a gas station." Hayashi said feeling pretty tired. "I'm going to sleep and recover...Zzzz..."

"Alright...sweet dreams..." Dan started to drive and did so with as much efficiency as possible getting to the gates and stopping before getting out of the car.

"Gate's closed, no matter." Dan opened the gate from the other side by climbing over."Okay, no more gate problems!" He drove in as slow as possible but ran out of gas having to push the car to the front of the school before opening the door to let Hayashi out, however, he was sleeping.

"Sigh...Another day for you pal." He picked up Hayashi and went in through the door but had a lot of difficulties seeing as Hayashi placed all the resources at the front door before finding a dorm with a couch and putting Hayashi there to sleep.

"'night my pupil, you've got training in the morning," Dan said, snickering as he knew who's the room he put him in as he closed the door and walked out to find a place to sleep, taking the infirmary to sleep. The sun would soon rise and another day would begin, the adults were the first to wake only to find countless resources at the door as if they were gifts, Hayashi would not wake up as Akari, Fueki, and Saito tried to wake him as all he did was unconsciously shrug off any attempt at waking him up making the three girls look at each other.

"Draw on his face?"

"Draw on his face"

"Get a bucket and pour water on the rogue." Akari didn't follow the pattern.

"H-Huh?" Fueki could barely hold in her laugh

Saito was giggling and then bursts into laughter "Get the bucket! Get the bucket! Hahahahahaha!!"

A few minutes later a bucket of freezing cold water was delivered to them because Akari ordered someone to get it.

"How do we lift that?"

"We don't have the strength of the football team-"

"Heave Ho!" Akari lifted it off the ground and onto her shoulder stumbling back and forth, struggling to regain her balance until the two other girls help her.

"Thank You, now let's get the rogue."

"Mhm!" Saito nodded looking pretty excited.

"3...2...1" As they reached 1 they poured the cold water over Hayashi waking him up instantly as he made the sounds of a drowning cat.

"Phew...that got him up- pfft hahaha!" Akari started laughing again as she sees Hayashi flopping around on the floor like a fish.

"I've seen things no man should see..." He continued to flop on the floor before he stopped flopping around and curled up in a ball. "Cold..." He said quietly making the three girls laugh even harder.

"What type of comedy routine was that!?" she was still laughing as Hayashi crawled out of the room making eye contact with a random person who was walking by.

"What happened-"

"The Ice bucket challenge," Hayashi sarcastically told him, making the other boy laugh a little.

"Go take a shower, and get some dry clothes."

"That's what I'm doing" He got up and started walking to his dorm room before the boy recognized who he was.

"Wait- ain't that the student who- I'm going to hell for not helping an injured man" The boy put his hands together as if he were praying as Hayashi would enter his dorm, what everyone was unaware of, was that he recovered due to leveling up.

"{let us see what I got to wear...}" Hayashi looked through his closet grabbing some underwear, Khakis, and a casual shirt along with a red and black zip-up hoodie."Until we find a better source of water we won't be able to do much within a few months." He went to the boys' locker room and started to take a shower looking at some of the other boys who were also taking a shower as they all stared at him.

"What?" They all said nothing and continued to bathe as they exited and started putting on their clothes, leaving him there as he was only there with one other person: Mizuki Kenji. Hayashi didn't dare utter a word as he was still a bit intimidated by him an awkward silence rang between the both of them.

"Hey, why did you go out all alone?" Mizuki asked finally breaking the silence as he shakes the water off himself while Hayashi was drying himself off.

"I never went anywhere, I was asleep-"

"Don't lie about it. I saw you leaving, and my sister saw you putting down logs and stuff at the front door"

"Looks like you caught my bluff...I went out to search for those thugs and deliver my revenge. Never saw them."

"So that's why you went alone?"

"Yeah, however, my new teacher wouldn't let me go."

"Is that why there's a sweet ride in the front?"

"Yeah but don't let looks fool you, that thing has no gas, from what I know we're lucky to have made it with only 5% gas left in the tank when we got the keys."

"Damn bro so now we have a car, thanks to you a place to call our home in the apocalypse, and a job to do, the best part, we get to kill the undead."

"Couldn't ask for a better life right?" Hayashi put on some socks

"You said it" Mizuki put on some shoes.

"I heard everyone is getting steel tools today, the combat team included."

"Damn Nishiwaka, outdoing yourself again." Hayashi smiled as he responded to Mizuki

"You know the smithy kid?"

"Yeah known him since we were babies"

"Is he good?"

"Yeah, he's a good person."Hayashi gets up shaking his legs into his pants

"no, I mean a good blacksmith-"

"is that a question?" Hayashi looked at him with uncertainty

"Yes? {I need to have my swords maintained and if they break I want to bring it to someone-}"

"Yeah he's a good blacksmith, He made my slingshots and the temporary modifications on the kendo team's blades so their wooden blades have a razor's edge"

"Nice to know, I'll bring my blades to him when they break, I want him to make me new ones custom-built for me," Mizuki said as he picked up his hook swords. "Like hook, line, and sinker"

"Making hook puns now?"

"I have to so I can stay sane in this new world..." Mizuki put his head down as Hayashi got up.

"I get how you feel man, don't worry we'll survive this" Hayashi said as he left the locker room and into the halls where he was approached by Dan and Akari.

"You reckless rogue!"

"At least I didn't endanger anyone else's life."

"You were shot, I told you to rest and recover"

"Who said I'd listen?"

"You knave.."

"Calm down you two all's well that ends well right?"

"And you! did you not have anyone to teach you right from wrong?" Akari ridiculed Dan as he and Hayashi made direct eye contact and start laughing.

"What's so funny!?" She yelled, "I'll put you in the detention room!"

they would continue to laugh at her before eventually stopping "ok ok"

"Damn children." Akari walked off.

"I believe you missed a few days of training. Come outside." Dan said as he led the grey-haired boy outside into the field.

"Come at me with everything you've got!" Dan yelled taking his signature stance

"AAAAGHH!" Hayashi ran at him with a combination of kicks and punches, however, it was different from when he first started fighting. His jabs had now become hooks and his movements seemed less orthodox as he remembered something from watching Dan fight as he blocked Hayashi's relentless attacks before he launched a solid uppercut, hitting Dan in the chin before hitting him with an overhand and hitting him in the forehead before stepping back and delivering a high kick to his chin making him fall over.

"Yes! it worked!" Hayashi celebrated although he had regressed to the past he smiled feeling as if he got stronger.

"Not bad kid..." he got up. "For someone who should still be recovering...your good, so don't get too cheeky!" Dan ran at him again taking the initiative to attack.

"Crap-" Hayashi said as Dan attacked him with just punches Hayashi manages to block them but feels his body getting numb with each direct hit to his guard. "{What do I do!?} I could barely feel my arms after just a few, now they're shaking..."

"PING!" DEF +1 DEF +1 DEF +1

"Things just keep getting better!" Hayashi tried to rush Dan, unconsciously moving into a boxer position as Dan initiated another assault as it slid off Hayashi's shoulders some of the students came to watch as they found this fight interesting seeing as how Hayashi was someone who fought more with weapons rather than his own fists as Hayashi's face looked grim again looking at the system notifications.

[Unarmed- Martial Arts] <Dragon God Fist Technique> LVL 3 0/215 (0%)

[Unarmed-Martial Arts] <Boxing> LVL 1 0/100 (0%)

"Alright then...I'll use everything I've got!" Hayashi narrowly avoided the hit from Dan before making his own attempt for a counterattack before having his attack caught by Dan.

"N-Not bad..." He said as he let go of his fist. "You've gotten better, even learning my favorite attack combination, [Dragons raised Rivers and Mountains] impressive."

"That's what that was called?"

"Yeah- I was raised by my sensei and taught this in order to defend myself, it got me places.."

"Nice to know..." Hayashi said feeling pretty sore.

"I'm going to go and rest now...my arms feel numb..." Hayashi started limping away while Dan went in the direction of Nishiwaka and seemed to be requesting something of him.

TO BE CONTINUED...