In the blink of an eye, the twin sisters stood there watching the departing figure—until he turned into a streak of light and vanished.
That was not a metaphor. He truly disappeared into the night sky like a shooting star.
"Stop spacing out. He's gone."
"I-I'm not spacing out. The night looks nice today, that's all. The stars are pretty."
"The stars are pretty?"
Oriha glanced up at the sky, then looked back at the older twin—Mikazuki Haron—with an almost-smiling, almost-not smile.
This girl was… interesting.
That sudden gunshot had saved her, sure. But with Haron's usual bratty, spoiled attitude, she should have been sulking—putting on a show of being angry, acting all proud and prickly.
Instead, after that shot, she looked like she'd been scared stiff. She did not dare show even a hint of irritation or resentment toward him. She even looked afraid of him, her eyes refusing to meet his.
"I-Is it not allowed? I just like the night sky in weather like this."
Haron kept stubbornly talking back.
In truth, the moment he fired, she had been badly frightened.
But once she realized he had shot the corpse behind them, that fear—and anger—twisted into something else entirely. Her heart had started pounding like crazy.
Just replaying the image of him drawing and firing without hesitation… it felt ridiculously cool.
He had been rude. Insultingly rude. She should have been furious.
And yet she could not stay mad at all anymore.
She had even tried to force herself into a pretend "I'm mad at you" mood, but the second she saw him frown slightly, she panicked and backed down.
It was not that she genuinely feared he would shoot her too.
She was afraid he would decide she was annoying, and truly start hating her.
And in that moment, Haron understood something she did not want to admit.
From that instant on, she had become—love at first sight.
"Sure, sure."
Oriha had been about to tease her a little more, poke at her for fun, but the radio crackled, calling her over, so she gave it up.
They had already rechecked the corpse situation. They confirmed it was an infection brought in from outside, not something caused by the base itself.
Now they were rushing to prevent any further infections through food. They were pushing Oriha to help inspect things—use her computer skills to comb through the surveillance feeds, watch for anyone suspicious hiding among the civilians, someone who might try to poison supplies.
As for why that guy left—because the Earth Elixir had successfully entered production.
But production did not mean they could immediately supply the entire shelter. They still had to stay on high alert for the virus slipping in.
…
At the moment, there were sixteen hours left until Kain returned.
When he arrived in this world, the time had been exactly midnight.
He could remain here for one hundred hours—four days and four hours.
Which meant that right now, it was noon.
In twelve more hours, it would be exactly four full days since he arrived.
And four hours after that—at four in the morning—would be the moment he left this world.
So Kain was currently doing some "zero-dollar shopping," wandering through a large supermarket picking out food.
He had a one-cubic-meter storage space. It would be stupid not to use it.
Because space was limited—and he had already stored part of the Earth Elixir, plus the D99 virus and hot-melt rounds—he had about two-thirds of the space left. He needed to use it carefully, not waste it on bulky foods that took up too much room.
As for the powered armor that could arm his body and also transform into an unmanned combat drone, he had no intention of bringing it back with him. He planned to leave it in this world.
The Syringe organization had not been completely wiped out yet. With that suit here, Saeko and the others would be significantly safer.
All of a sudden, a faint, clean fragrance drifted toward him with the airflow.
He looked over.
A girl with long, deep-purple hair stood there. Her beautiful face looked oddly excited.
"It's full. I recalculated it."
The seemingly random statement made Kain blink, then he understood.
"Then keep it for now," he said. "We don't need to use it yet."
Clearly, the energy bar had filled up. She had gained an Energy Coin.
He had not asked how things were progressing these last two days, but from Saeko's behavior, he could roughly guess: she had been aggressively clearing corpses to accelerate the bar, and she was probably making real progress.
It even looked like she might be able to get one before he left.
And now, it had happened sooner than expected.
"Also," Saeko added, "we ran into a special corpse."
"A special corpse?"
As Saeko explained, Kain understood what she meant.
It was a corpse that could run. A normal person might not even be able to outrun it. Its strength was also about three times that of an ordinary corpse.
On top of that, it seemed… a little smarter.
At first, Saeko thought maybe the brain had regained a faint trace of awareness—so weak it was like someone half-awake.
But after testing it, she concluded it was not consciousness at all. It was a kind of instinctive reaction—body memory.
For example, if corpses truly had no awareness, they should not "know" how to walk. They should not be able to.
And yet corpses did walk.
That was clearly muscle memory—an ingrained, physical habit formed through long-term repetition.
"If this is just an isolated case, fine," Saeko said. "But if corpses are changing—evolving—then we're in trouble."
"…If it's the second one," Saya said grimly, speaking from somewhere nearby before anyone noticed she'd come over.
If something like this could appear after only a few days, then what would things look like in a few more?
With such a massive number of corpses out there, this kind of "special" corpse would not be rare. And the more of them there were, the harder it would be to deal with them—meaning the more likely it became that people going out would die.
"Um… do you really have to leave?" Saya asked suddenly, her voice awkward and uneasy.
He had already told them: tomorrow, he would leave.
As for when he would return, he could not promise anything.
"Yeah," Kain said. "You going to miss me?"
"Yeah," Saya said. "I'm going to miss you."
She admitted it outright—and then she hugged him.
But it did not look like a shy confession.
The expression on her face was more lost than anything, unsettled and afraid.
…
"Dad is gone, and Mom like that… she probably will…"
Her voice caught, and the words broke apart, turning into a tremble running through her body.
"She probably will?" Kain asked.
Yuriko seemed fine on the surface, so he did not understand where this girl's grief was coming from.
"S-She'll… she'll go be with Dad."
"Follow him?" Kain said quietly.
At that, Kain's eyes narrowed slightly in understanding.
No way, right?
Would she really leave Saya behind?
"If you stayed," Saya said, forcing the words out, "Mom would still be on guard around you. To make sure I'm okay… until she's sure I can stand on my own, until she can truly feel at ease, she'll stay with me."
That was half an excuse.
The other half was selfishness—she did not want him to go.
But the part about her mother "following" her father… she was not saying it randomly.
She was Yuriko's daughter. She knew her mother better than anyone.
And last night, by accident, she had heard her mother's drunken voice… and it had only made her more certain. It left her completely at a loss.
The two people she could rely on most were about to leave her, one after the other.
She was terrified.
Of course, it was not like Kain leaving would make her mother immediately do something irreversible.
Because he might still come back, Yuriko would not abandon her right away. And as Saya's mother, she still needed to help her settle the Takagi household and leave her enough strength to survive.
But if Kain stayed away too long—if he did not come back—then the time her mother could bear would shrink.
So Saya desperately wanted him not to go.
Watching this, Saeko realized she could not keep delaying.
A thought surfaced in her mind.
A special send-off.
A candlelit dinner.
And then… to finish what had not been finished in the bathroom that day.
(End of Chapter)
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