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The moment Saeko saw it, her pupils shrank. A cold shiver ran up her spine.
It had been a long time since the outbreak, but she'd never seen anything this grotesque.
It was fast—frighteningly so—its oversized claws gripping concrete like an octopus's suckers, hauling it upward at impossible speed.
Every zombie that got in its way was shredded apart in passing.
"A… Licker?"
Her mind flashed back to the files she'd studied: a bio-weapon created by mutating humans or other four-limbed animals. They could occur naturally or be artificially mass-produced.
And given the chat group's mission announcement… these were probably Umbrella's doing.
Saeko shot to her feet.
She didn't know when her teammates would arrive, but for now, her life was in her own hands.
Grabbing the katana from her bedside, she burst from her room into the living area, where several others were sprawled out asleep.
"Get up! We've got incoming!"
It was the middle of summer, heat pressing in from all sides.
To save on power, the large living room had only one fan lazily turning back and forth.
Even dressed light, the girls inside were sluggish and half-asleep, the oppressive warmth sapping their energy.
One tall, voluptuous blonde blinked blearily at her.
"Visitors? Rescue? Huh?"
That was Shizuka Marikawa, the school nurse at Saeko's academy and owner of the luxury house they'd taken shelter in. Stunning figure, straight out of a manga panel… and a complete airhead.
If Saeko hadn't been there, Shizuka would've been torn apart by zombies long ago.
"Enemy?"
From the couch, Saya Takagi sprang upright, grabbing a pistol from the table. Saeko was her upperclassman from the kendo club, the one who'd rescued them all—and now, with her awakened abilities, was the group's de facto leader.
When she moved with that kind of urgency, Saya followed suit.
"Enemy?!"
Rei Miyamoto, another student from Fujimi Academy, scrambled off a lounge chair, instinctively grabbing a makeshift spear. She wasn't trained with firearms but was part of the school's spear-fighting club.
"What's going on, big sis?"
"Woof! Woof! Woof!"
Little Alice, the youngest of their group and another Saeko rescue, stood at the window, peering outside. At her feet, a small white dog barked furiously at the street below.
Then came the gunfire.
A single shot from the roof, followed by several more.
Everyone froze.
Up there, keeping watch, were Rika Minami of the SAT police force—one of Shizuka's close friends—and Yuriko Takagi, Saya's mother. Normally, they wouldn't fire a shot without good reason.
Footsteps thundered on the stairs.
Yuriko appeared.
"Mutated creatures incoming. A lot of them. Even Rika's struggling to hold them off."
That short sentence was all it took to make everyone grasp the danger.
Rika was one of the top five snipers in the country—if she couldn't keep them back, this was bad.
"Stick to the plan we trained on. I'll hold the front."
Saeko drew her blade and stepped to the window.
Her sharp eyes caught shapes nearly a kilometer away.
Whether the others could stay calm after seeing a Licker up close was another story.
They were fast—up to sixty kilometers an hour—and never tired.
Rika had already blown a few brains apart, but five or six were still closing in.
Saeko vaulted out the high window, landing light as a swallow. She sprinted through the narrow streets.
Three of the creatures broke off toward her, the rest toward the shelter.
"What the hell are those?!"
Even at a hundred meters, the sight of the blood-red, skinless monsters was enough to make fear claw up your spine.
Even in Raccoon City's story, the first time cops ran into Lickers, they froze in shock.
"..."
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