Even though there was no specific manifestation, everyone present sensed that the mastermind had lifted the so-called Newcomer Protection.
"I don't want to participate in any Survival Game; I want to go home! I want to go back; let me go back immediately!" A short, plain-looking young woman screamed suddenly. She then ran toward the door while yelling, "In the end, this is all a lie, isn't it? You are all lying, aren't you?"
"Yūko!? What are you doing?" A cute young woman with a ponytail cried out worriedly after seeing her friend, Yūko, suddenly screaming like she had gone mad. She chased after Yūko and grabbed her hand.
"Midori-chan, do you believe their lies too? This is definitely a prank... They even brought out real guns! Humph, they really went to great lengths to deceive us!" Yūko sneered and violently pulled her hand from her friend named Midori.
"..." Tsubasa watched coolly.
Under immense pressure, some people who couldn't endure tend to act recklessly, destabilizing the situation. The woman named Yūko was exactly like this. Just thinking about not seeing her family for a month and facing a terrifying zombie apocalypse, Yūko seemed to instinctively choose to avoid reality; she insisted that this was nothing more than a boring prank.
At this time, Yūko managed to break free from Midori's grasp. She quickly walked up to the door, and then started trying to move a chair piled up by the entrance. But because of pulling too hard, she stumbled back several steps and nearly fell.
"..." Yūko stared blankly at the chair in her hand, and her gaze then turned angry. After that, she turned her angry gaze to the crowd of young men and shouted at them: "And you said the chairs couldn't be moved? All of you must have teamed up with the production crew, right!?"
Seeing this scene, Taisuke and the other young men who had tried to move the desks and chairs earlier immediately gaped in disbelief.
The next moment, Taisuke shouted, "That's impossible! We clearly couldn't move them just now!"
Refusing to believe it, Taisuke quickly walked over, grabbed a desk, took a deep breath, and then forcefully lifted the desk. He even used too much force and lifted it above his head.
After being stunned for a few seconds, Taisuke was overjoyed. He turned to the crowd behind him and said, "Hey... It's true. The desks can be moved! Everyone come quickly and help! Makoto, you lend a hand too!"
"Ah, yes!" Makoto, having been staring blankly at several pretty women in the classroom, quickly replied. He quickly walked over to help his friend continuously move the desks and chairs piled up at the entrance.
Seeing the two of them move the objects so easily, the other young men also joined the effort to clear the barricade at the door. At this point, as everyone joined in, the obstructing desks and chairs were successively moved away. Soon, only a single podium remained at the entrance.
Yūko was currently straining to move the teacher's podium. But a young woman's strength was ultimately limited; even using all her might, the podium only lifted a few millimeters.
"Hey, what are you guys spacing out for! Hurry up and help move this podium!" Her dissatisfied voice called out. Whether it was a prank or some kind of reality show... Yūko truly didn't want to stay in this place any longer!
No sooner had Yūko spoken, all the students present suddenly heard a loud sound.
*BAM!*
The classroom door seemed to have suffered a violent impact.
*BAM!*
Another violent impact. It sounded as if someone outside was pounding heavily on the classroom door.
Then, a rapid succession of heavy impacts began to ring out.
*BAM, BAM, BAM!*
Who was outside the door? Just as everyone felt confused, Yūko shouted excitedly: "Quick, move the podium! It must be the production crew; they can't keep the act up anymore! Hahaha, I told you long ago this was just a boring prank, but none of you believed me!"
*BAM!*
Another heavy impact occurred. This time, the immense force caused cracks to appear in the wall around the door frame, forced the classroom door open, and revealed a gap of about fifteen centimeters.
Yūko was overjoyed; she reached out her hand and said, "Hey, let me out..." But, in the next moment, she let out a hysterical scream: "AAAHHHHH—!"
Yūko frantically tried to pull her hand back, but it was as if something outside was tugging her hand tightly and forcefully, causing her to be pressed firmly against the gap in the door; she was unable to pull herself back.
"Yūko?" Midori looked at her suddenly screaming, frantic friend with confusion.
"MIDORI! PULL ME IN! MONSTER! SAVE ME! AH! THEY'RE EATING MY HAND—AHH! MIDORI! IT HURTS SO MUCH! PLEASE! SAVE ME!"
Midori also panicked immediately. She quickly grabbed Yūko's other outstretched hand.
The two pulled together. They actually managed to pull the thing from the outside in.
It was a pair of withered, rotten hands, tightly gripping Yūko's forearm.
Plus, a dark gray head with a few strands of hair squeezed in.
This head looked as if it had been splashed with sulfuric acid; its appearance extremely grotesque and bizarre. Its mouth was lipless, revealing uneven, sharp teeth.
This creature then bit Yūko's forearm in its hands.
*CHOMP!*
*RIP!*
A large piece of bloody, sinewy flesh was forcefully torn off from Yūko's forearm.
Blood spurted out, splattering onto Midori's astonished face.
"Munch, Munch..." The monster's lipless mouth chewed wildly. Minced meat mixed with blood overflowed from the corners of its mouth, continuously dripping down its chin and staining the ground with a crimson bloodstain.
Even more horrifying was its throat. There was no skin or trachea left, only a rotten hole. As the monster swallowed the chewed meat pulp, half of it leaked out from that hole.
"AAAHHHHH! IT HURTS! IT HURTS SO MUCH! LET GO! LET GO OF ME!" Yūko desperately thrashed her bitten arm, while the nails of her other hand dug into the monster's rotten flesh, but she only pulled off a handful of dead tissue, and was instead dragged even tighter.
Her forearm had already exposed white bone, and blood streamed down from the torn flesh. Each time the monster bit her arm, her entire body convulsed violently.
Her screams eventually changed from heart-wrenching wails to leaky whimpers.
Midori, however, was already frozen in place from terror; she was still making pulling motions, but her hands had no strength.
As soon as Midori let go, Yūko was dragged back again. Yūko's entire body was pressed tightly against the gap in the door.
"Monster... I'm going to be eaten... Save... Save me..."
Everyone finally reacted.
"AAAHHHHH!"
The women collectively let out screams of horror, while the men were all trembling with fear, their legs weak.
Panic, fear, screams, and helplessness became the current reality.
Everyone scrambled to push backward, fearing that they too would be caught by the grotesque monster, which could only be a zombie.
*BAM, BAM, BAM!*
With no one blocking it, the gap in the doorway grew wider and wider. The classroom iron door was being distorted more and more.
The one that had been gnawing on Yūko was still clutching the woman's severed arm, and behind it, two more grotesque heads squeezed in.
As he saw several zombies emerging one after another, Tsubasa swiftly drew his Colt Python. His right index finger was steadily on the trigger.
His gaze was cold as ice, sweeping over the panicked crowd before directly locking onto the foremost zombie in the gap in the door. This zombie was lowering its head and still gnawing on Yūko's severed arm.
✱✱✱
Translator's Corner:
If you find any typos or grammatical errors, please report them in the comments; I'll fix them right away! If you have any constructive criticism or suggestions, please leave them in the comments! Thanks for reading!