"Ah!"
Sirin's voice interrupted Bronya's thoughts.
"What happened?"
Bronya turned her head and looked toward Sirin, who had fallen face-first into the silver sand. She asked curiously, "What are you doing lying on the ground?"
Sirin lifted her head, shook the sand from her hair, and replied, "It's nothing... I just stepped on this fine sand and accidentally slipped..."
She stood up and brushed off the silver sand clinging to her body.
Bronya's gaze lowered to Sirin's jade-like feet wrapped in purple bandages, her eyes narrowing slightly.
"Sister, you weren't trying to fly and ended up falling, were you?"
In her memory, Sirin had rarely worn shoes when walking.
She either floated or teleported—almost never actually walked.
"N-no, I wasn't..."
Sirin's cheeks flushed slightly as she hurriedly denied it.
"..."
Bronya facepalmed, shifting her gaze away from Sirin's slender legs and feet with a sigh.
Those purple bandages wrapped around her calves and feet did carry a strange allure.
"You'd better make yourself a pair of shoes."
"Got it."
Using her administrator privileges, Sirin manipulated the nanomaterials to create a pair of white stockings and black shoes for herself.
After putting them on, she walked over to Bronya's side.
"Where should we start?"
"Let's observe for a while first."
Bronya hacked into the network and accessed the world's global view to assess the situation.
In the face of Honkai and Fleet of Fog technology, humanity in this world had no secrets.
This world could basically be confirmed to possess no extraordinary powers capable of producing superhuman individuals.
The strongest weapon they had was probably nuclear arms.
The transmission of Honkai energy into this world had already stopped.
Here, they only had one toy factory capable of producing nanomaterials.
Through that unstable interdimensional channel, they could tap into the quantum computing power of the Houkai Universe's celestial systems to remotely manipulate the nanomaterials produced in this world—and from them, manufacture soldiers.
There was no longer any need for Kiana Kaslana to endure the heavy loss of Honkai energy by continuously supplying it herself.
This was an experiment—to first send people to occupy and control the world, accelerating the spread of Honkai energy, and then stabilize the connection between the two universes.
The toy factory was equivalent to their crystal core.
If it were destroyed, they would have to consume a massive amount of Honkai energy to rebuild another core and gather it again.
Bronya collected intelligence on the new world while waiting for more nanomaterials to be produced.
Selected beta testers from Academy City began logging into Honkai Fantasy and entering this world one after another.
However—
An unexpected event occurred!
A zombie crisis suddenly broke out across the globe.
Zombies—these creatures were the lowest form of Honkai-infected beings, not even reaching the standard of zombies or Vigiles. Naturally, in their eyes, they posed no threat at all.
At first, Bronya thought it was caused by her mother releasing Honkai energy.
But upon noticing that the zombies carried no trace of Honkai energy fluctuations, Bronya realized it wasn't her mother's doing.
After the zombies appeared, Kiana Kaslana immediately thought of Resident Evil.
The most famous portrayal of zombies she remembered.
However, there was no Umbrella Corporation in this world.
So that could be ruled out.
These zombies were just ordinary ones—infecting others through scratches and bites.
Under normal circumstances, such a zombie outbreak would quickly be suppressed by the military.
However, this zombie virus erupted in most of the world's major cities simultaneously.
Before the armies could even respond, cities everywhere were already overrun.
It was obviously a man-made disaster.
Though a zombie virus outbreak had begun, it didn't affect Bronya much.
The hundred-plus testers online, working in small teams of three to five, went out to hunt zombies for fun.
Their bodies, formed from nanomaterials, wouldn't even attract zombies' interest—and even if the zombies tried to attack, they couldn't break through their defenses.
With sufficient computational power, the defensive strength of nanomaterial bodies could withstand even artillery shells. How could these mere flesh-and-blood zombies hope to bite through them?
If they consumed a bit more computational power and nanomaterials to construct a small core, they could even create a weakened version of the Klein Field.
That alone would be enough to withstand most modern conventional weaponry head-on.
In Tokonosu City—
On the streets.
Zofia held a baseball bat as she weaved through a horde of zombies.
Each swing of her arm smashed through a zombie's skull.
"These zombies are boring to fight."
Westminster thrust her rapier, piercing through a zombie's head, then withdrew the blade with a flick.
Glancing around at the approaching undead, she said, "Let's move."
Rvy stood over a dead zombie, looking down to study the corpse.
Weak point: the head.
No vision, no pain—only reacts to sound.
Zofia walked up beside Rvy and patted her on the shoulder.
"Enough looking. Let's go."
"Mm."
The three continued forward, passing through the streets until they reached the area near Fujimi Academy.
"There are survivors over there."
Westminster pointed toward a bus not far away.
"So what if there are survivors?"
Zofia looked in the direction she pointed and saw a yellow bus where a group of students was boarding.
Not far from the bus, a man wearing glasses kicked away a male student who had fallen and grabbed his leg. The man ruthlessly stomped the boy off and let him be devoured by the surrounding zombies, then walked calmly toward the bus.
Along the way, Zofia had seen plenty of similar scenes.
Humans were like that—when order collapsed, their true nature was unleashed.
After the zombie outbreak, other survivors had become far more dangerous than the brainless undead themselves.
The zombies could easily be avoided by staying calm and silent, never drawing attention.
From what could be seen so far, most of the world's city populations had turned into zombies—but national militaries still remained intact.
Human armies could easily exterminate these zombies.
They probably wouldn't even need to act.
Once the weather warmed up, given some time, these powerless corpses would simply rot away on their own.
This zombie outbreak seemed less like a natural disaster—and more like a deliberate human purge.
"They're coming toward us."
Rvy watched as the bus plowed through zombies, crashing through the school gate and heading their way.
Because Zofia, Rvy, and Westminster had already cleared the nearby area of zombies, the blonde, large-busted woman driving the bus pressed the brakes and stopped by the roadside.
"What are you stopping for? Do you want us to die?"
Koichi Shido shouted irritably.
"Yeah!"
"Drive, hurry up!"
"How do we know they haven't been bitten?"
The other students joined in his complaints.
Shizuka Marikawa, the driver, ignored them, opened the door, and shouted, "Get in, quick!"
"Should we get on?" Rvy asked.
"Let's take a look."
Zofia slung her bat over her shoulder and was the first to board the bus, with Westminster and Rvy following behind.
Once the three were on board, Shizuka started the engine again.
Zofia scanned the bus interior, her gaze finally settling on Saeko Busujima's face.
Since the people of this world were part of the system, she could directly access their personal information through the world's network database.
Noticing Zofia's gaze, Saeko instantly became alert.
Her body tensed, both hands gripping her wooden sword, ready to strike at any moment.
These three women were far too calm. Not a speck of blood stained their clothes—only the baseball bat carried traces of gore, proof enough that they had fought their way through the undead to get here.