Given the terrible situation they were in, no one really had any expectations for lunch anymore. Especially Tsunade — even though Ryuji had still prepared food for her, it took her over an hour just to finish a single piece of bread.
As for why they didn't cook anything over a fire — the reason was simple. None of them wanted to risk drawing the attention of the zombies before the blood moon officially rose. If the undead discovered them early, it could force them into a desperate fight before they were ready.
The cold canned meat and water did little to lift anyone's spirits. In fact, it only made Ryuji feel even more tired. But no matter how drowsy he felt, he didn't dare close his eyes — not with the blood moon rising much earlier than expected. Falling asleep now would practically be suicide.
Compared to him, Kiri was doing much better. Though she'd never experienced a scene quite like this, the seasoned gunslinger's nerves were far steadier. She ate calmly while keeping an eye on the distant movements of the zombie horde.
Unlike Ryuji, Kiri found herself deeply curious about where exactly all these zombies were going. After all, they were heading in the same direction she and Ryuji had traveled before — yet they had never seen this many undead along the way. It was baffling.
What puzzled her even more was how the zombies avoided the sheer cliffs they couldn't cross.
Something about that didn't sit right with her.
If the zombies could see the cliffs and choose to avoid them, then wouldn't their current hideout have been discovered already? But if they couldn't see the cliffs, then how did they instinctively know not to try and cross them?
"This world really is full of mysteries..."
Kiri muttered as she absentmindedly toyed with the revolver in her hand, her sharp eyes still observing the pitted, scarred canyon beneath them — a terrain made even more treacherous by the crude explosive traps Ryuji had set up.
These zombies didn't have weapons or any special abilities. Even if there were thousands of them, at best it was comparable to facing a wave of Kallet soldiers.
And Kiri had faced down waves of Kallet soldiers more times than she could count. These zombies had no siege tactics, no ranged attacks — there was nothing about them that frightened her.
And yet... chewing on the tasteless canned meat, Kiri still couldn't help but ask:
"How did you survive last time?"
Ryuji shook his head. Honestly, he wasn't even sure himself.
To this day, he still felt like climbing onto that gas station roof was a miracle in itself — let alone surviving a horde of zombies this size.
But one thing was certain: whatever experience he had from last time was useless here.
This time... everything was different.
Last time, the blood moon didn't rise this early. And the zombies didn't move this fast.
"I don't know," Ryuji admitted. "After I climbed onto the gas station roof, I was pretty much on the verge of passing out. When I woke up again, it was already the next day. Maybe the fire burned the zombies to death... but honestly, I have no proof."
Kiri nodded thoughtfully. She remembered clearly that when they'd arrived back then, the ground had been littered with charred corpses. If that was the case, it did explain a lot.
Even if she didn't know why the bodies had disappeared later... at least it gave them a clue about how those zombies had been wiped out.
"So that's why you piled up all that wood and fuel down there, huh?"
Glancing at the stacked firewood and the powder-filled traps below, Kiri gave a small nod. She wasn't really expecting an answer — she was just making conversation to ease Ryuji's nerves.
"Yeah... I just don't know if it'll actually work. Maybe I should've added even more fuel."
Ryuji muttered while his eyes never left the sky. The red stains creeping across the moon were spreading, little by little, inch by inch.
He didn't dare bet on tonight being "normal." Based on how these kinds of games usually went... something worse was definitely coming.
His grip tightened around the gun in his hand, clinging to whatever little sense of security it provided.
But soon, Ryuji found another way to distract himself.
He began filling empty cans with gunpowder, lining them up one by one.
With no grenades at their disposal, this was the best he could come up with — makeshift bombs that might, at the very least, help ignite the wooden traps below.
As for how to set them off...
Ryuji wasn't foolish enough to believe these would function like real grenades. He just hoped they'd be good enough to start some fires if nothing else.
Unexpectedly, Kiri came over to help, pulling out some scrap paper to fashion crude fuses.
The fuses wouldn't let them light the cans and throw them like proper grenades. But if they tossed them into an already burning area, they'd ignite and explode just fine. And even without fire, Kiri was confident she could shoot the cans mid-air with her revolver to trigger them.
And so, the two of them continued working — building their little arsenal while keeping a close eye on the zombies below.
As the blood-red light of the moon intensified, the zombies grew more agile... and far more perceptive. Several times, both Ryuji and Kiri were nearly spotted while peeking out to observe them. If they hadn't quickly ducked back... they might have already been swarmed.
Time crawled by. Eventually, when hunger gnawed at them again, they allowed themselves to nibble on a bit more food.
And then, under Ryuji's watchful gaze...
The moon turned completely red.
Instantly, every zombie within sight — and even those they couldn't see — let out a monstrous howl. Bathed in the blood-red glow of the moon and the swirling desert sands, they snapped their heads toward Ryuji and Kiri's position.
Their faces twisted into grotesque snarls — rotting flesh illuminated like demons from hell.
As if obeying some primal instinct, the entire horde moved as one — spinning around and charging straight toward them.
Gone was the clumsy, shambling gait from before. Now, they sprinted with terrifying speed — faster than any Olympic sprinter — a horrifying wave of death crashing down on them.
The zombies that had once avoided the cliffs now threw themselves down without hesitation. The first wave shattered their legs upon impact, crushed beneath the stampede that followed — but still, they came. More and more. Unstoppable.
As they surged forward, a green light pulsed within their bodies — Ryuji saw it clearly: their eyes, their mouths, even their arms began to glow with an eerie green radiance.
The yellow sands of the wasteland were instantly swallowed by a tide of blackened flesh.
Kiri's instinct took over. She pulled the trigger — her voice sharp and commanding.
"OPEN FIRE!"
Without hesitation, Ryuji squeezed his own trigger.
Under the guidance of the system's targeting assist, the machine gun in his hands roared to life — spitting a deadly stream of fire and lead.
Bullets tore through the charging zombies, blasting apart limbs, ripping through rotting flesh, and dropping dozens of them in moments.
But it didn't matter.
Twenty zombies down... fifty... a hundred...
In the face of this endless tide...
It wasn't nearly enough.
"Don't panic! Wait until they're directly below us before throwing the Molotovs! And don't light them yourself — I'll ignite them with a bullet!"
Kiri shouted instructions to Ryuji as she kept firing steadily. With her extraordinary shooting skills, every shot she took cleanly burst open a zombie's skull.
She wasn't flustered — not by the zombies, at least — but she was worried about Ryuji accidentally lighting a Molotov too early and failing to throw it properly. It was obvious from one look that Ryuji lacked any formal combat training, and this wasn't the time to take that kind of risk.
"Got it."
Ryuji took a deep breath, carefully put the Molotov back in his bag, and like Kiri, kept shooting at the oncoming horde. Zombies fell one after another under their fire.
But it wasn't enough.
The two of them couldn't form an effective suppressive line of fire, and with only 15 rounds per magazine, the constant need to reload was a deadly disadvantage. They could only fire for two or three seconds before spending another two or three seconds reloading — far from the uninterrupted barrage they needed.
That was the real reason the zombies could keep pushing forward relentlessly.
If they had even two modern machine guns, Ryuji and Kiri could've set up a proper wall of lead and fire — shredding the swarm before it even got close.
Gunfire echoed through the canyon, relentless but ultimately futile. No matter how hard Ryuji and Kiri fought, it felt like trying to hold back the tide with their bare hands.
Below them, the sheer number of dead zombies was starting to form a grotesque, immobile mound. But the fresh zombies just kept coming — climbing over their fallen comrades, clawing at the earth beneath Ryuji and Kiri's position, desperately trying to dig their way up.
It was clear — these monsters weren't just charging blindly. They were trying to dig their way through to reach them.
Ryuji and Kiri exchanged a grim look. No words were needed — they were thinking the exact same thing.
Bad. Very bad.
If the zombies managed to tunnel through the dirt piled around their fallback route... their last retreat would be completely cut off.
"Damn it! These things are like cockroaches!" Kiri cursed bitterly, her frustration spilling out as she glanced at the unending waves of undead charging toward them from the distance.
It was absurd. No matter how many they killed, more just kept coming. It was as if every zombie in the world had suddenly sensed their location and was converging on them.
"Molotovs! Now!"
Grinding her teeth, Kiri gave the order. Without hesitation, Ryuji hurled two Molotovs out of the window. The moment they were about to hit the ground, Kiri drew her revolver and fired.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Six sharp shots.
To Ryuji's amazement, not only did the Molotovs ignite mid-air, casting a wall of blazing fire across the advancing zombies, but six zombies also had their heads blown apart at the same time.
In the blink of an eye, Kiri had already reloaded, shouting at him again.
"Throw more! Two isn't enough!"
Ryuji didn't hesitate — he grabbed Molotov after Molotov, hurling twelve more into the sea of zombies. Kiri's revolver blurred with motion, shooting each one mid-air, turning the canyon below into a hellish inferno.
The once-dark battlefield was now ablaze, the flickering flames casting horrifying shadows over the twisted, snarling faces of the undead.
XP notifications blinked rapidly at the edge of Ryuji's vision — but he had no time to care. Using the fire's illumination, he kept firing, killing any zombie that approached.
Shoot. Reload. Shoot. Reload.
His body moved mechanically, on pure instinct. He'd lost track of how many rounds he'd fired, how many times he'd patched up his battered pipe gun — but one thing was clear:
It wasn't enough.
There were still too many zombies. The pit was filling with them, and the horde from afar showed no sign of thinning out.
His mind was slipping into a daze, dulled by exhaustion, stress, and the endless noise — gunfire and the howling of the dead blending into one constant roar.
But then —
The ground shook.
Ryuji snapped out of his daze just in time to see a massive explosion in the distance. Zombies were hurled through the air like rag dolls, iron spikes whipping past like deadly projectiles. Some even clattered against their metal barricades.
For a brief moment, the relentless horde thinned out, the burning zombies igniting others in their fall.
That explosion reignited Ryuji's fighting spirit. He spun around, firing passionately once more, mowing down any zombie that dared approach their steel wall.
But just as he was lost in the rhythm of shooting down another hundred zombies...
Disaster struck.
One zombie — perhaps through sheer luck or desperate strength — grabbed onto a steel plate embedded in the dirt wall as it died, yanking the metal sheet loose as it fell.
Ryuji froze.
He and Kiri had long known this moment would come — that the zombies' digging would eventually tear down their makeshift defenses. But seeing their escape route truly breached right in front of him still sent a surge of cold terror through him.
Without thinking, he began hurling bottles of gunpowder, one after another, at the approaching zombies, trying desperately to stop them.
The explosions were weak — barely enough to topple three or four zombies at a time — most only producing a burst of bright sparks before setting nearby zombies on fire.
Seeing this, kiri didn't try to stop him. She simply kept firing in grim silence, covering him as he poured every last one of their makeshift bombs into the abyss.
But it was useless.
No matter how many improvised explosives Ryuji threw, nothing fundamentally changed. Sure, more zombies were killed — but their corpses only became stepping stones and shields for the ones behind them.
Another half hour passed.
Through the constant bursts of gunfire, Ryuji could clearly see it — another steel plate had been pried open.
Then a third. A fourth.
And with each new plate, the zombies were getting faster at tearing them apart.
By the time the sixth steel plate was lifted, some of the zombies had already squeezed through the dirt walls, starting to destroy the fortress from the inside.
Ryuji kept throwing out makeshift bombs, but it felt more like the last act of desperation, the frantic struggle of a doomed man.
And after tossing out every single explosive they'd made, their worst fear still came true — the emergency escape tunnel beneath their feet finally collapsed.
Steel plates and dirt came crashing down, and the zombies — who had almost reached their steel shelter — suddenly dropped three to four meters as the ground beneath them gave way.
But instead of relief, a chill seeped deep into both Ryuji and Kiri's hearts.
Because now, they could see it — a slope made entirely of zombie corpses and broken earth was steadily forming, leading directly to their shelter like a grotesque ramp.
Ryuji glanced at the time — not even ten o'clock.
With a bitter laugh, he pulled out the last of their Molotov cocktails.
Seeing the endless tide of monsters surging in from the distance, Kiri took a deep breath, then silently picked up one too.
There was no chance of stopping them anymore.
Fortunately, when Tsunade built this shelter, Ryuji had insisted she didn't expose a single system-placed block — so even now, at least their steel house could hold a little longer.
Molotovs rained down, one after another, splashing fire across the zombie-covered slope. This time, they didn't hold back at all. Ryuji even threw out a bag of gunpowder.
Kiri's mouth twitched at the sight of the sack scattering black powder through the air.
Even in this kind of hell, she could still force a laugh.
"This really is one hell of a world…"
With those words, she casually pulled the trigger of her revolver.
The bullet pierced the sack mid-air, and in an instant, the black powder burst into a cloud of fine dust — then caught fire from the already burning flames below, igniting into a rain of fire.
That blazing rain lit up the Molotovs they had thrown, setting off a chain of explosions that bathed the canyon in a demonic glow, like a hellscape of crimson lotus flames.
The firestorm was more intense than anything they'd managed before, illuminating the entire canyon like it was daytime.
Seeing this, Ryuji didn't hesitate to throw out the rest of their gunpowder — and in a final act of madness, even tossed most of their wooden planks into the inferno.
Wood and gunpowder scattered across the battlefield.
But even this blazing hell couldn't stop the zombies' advance.
They charged through the fire without hesitation, stomping through the flames, their bodies igniting but never slowing.
Until finally — the first zombie reached their steel shelter.
Its rotting arm slammed against the thick steel plates with a deafening bang, snapping on impact — but the creature didn't care. It simply raised its other arm and smashed it down too.
Another useless limb hung limply — and then it threw its entire head against the wall.
Throughout it all, Ryuji and Kiri never stopped shooting.
Round after round, they kept the zombies from reaching through the firing slits — until after barely ten minutes, they were forced to give up.
Dead zombies piled up against the firing holes, blocking their line of fire.
Reluctantly, they sealed the slits and sat in the darkness, listening helplessly to the relentless pounding of decaying limbs against their steel walls.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Without a way to see outside, all they could do was listen.
And then — the sound spread.
Higher. Closer.
Until even the ceiling above them echoed with the pounding of zombie fists.
"…This really is hopeless, huh."
Kiri couldn't help but speak.
Ryuji, silent, set down his gun — and quietly handed her a grenade.
If their shelter broke… this was worth more than any bullet.
"Save it for later."
"…Thanks."
Kiri accepted the grenade with a small, mischievous smile.
Not that anyone could see it here, in this darkness.
And then — silence.
But in that silence, Ryuji suddenly heard something strange.
Soft sobbing.
And a low, almost insane goans.
Confused, he turned toward Kiri— only to realize…
The sound wasn't coming from her.
It was coming from Tsunade.
~~~~~~~~~
Next Bonus Chapter target: 150 PS.