Black Sword Shusui.
A famed Great Grade blade said to cut iron like mud and harden through battle—rumor held it could absorb energy and never bow, "not even if a dinosaur stepped on it," as one swordsman once bragged. A treasure even in the One Piece world.
So when Fenric calmly asked for it, of course the young D‑class—Solis—bared his teeth.
"You really don’t understand your position, do you?" he said coldly. "In your condition, killing you would be like crushing a bug. Don’t refuse a toast just to drink forfeit wine."
Fenric sighed. "Could’ve saved us both time if you’d opened with that," he said. "So we’re done talking?"
"What do you mean—?" Solis brought the riot shield up fully, angling it to cover his torso from the sniper rifle still in Fenric’s hands. D‑class stats or not, a close headshot could end him.
Fenric didn’t aim. Instead, he produced a small remote trigger from a pocket—and pressed the red button.
BOOM!
The barricade sealing the rooftop stairwell blew apart. Smoke and splinters vomited outward, exposing the packed corridor below—wall‑to‑wall zombies now freed to surge.
He’d wired the charge earlier while fortifying the police HQ. Draw attention, stockpile weapons—and defend against opportunistic Samsara players. Of course he’d left traps.
"ROAR! ROAR!"
The newly freed zombies slammed forward.
"!!"
Solis’s face drained. "Are you insane!?"
"Enjoy the zombie party I prepared for you~ Idiot!" Fenric laughed, sprinted for the ledge, and jumped.
Solis lunged after him—just in time to see Fenric bounce off a mattress on the street below.
A Simmons mattress—the one Fenric had tossed hours earlier as part of his escape plan—now broke most of his fall. It still hit hard though; a four‑story drop wasn’t nothing. But Fenric’s boosted stats took the shock.
Below, the streets writhed with zombies. They converged on the noise of the blast—and on the fresh body that had just landed among them.
Solis watched, expecting Fenric to be torn apart.
Instead, something weird happened.
The first wave of zombies skidded to a halt a meter out—sniffing, shuddering, jaws working—but none committed. They edged sideways, as if repelled, and flowed around him.
Fenric simply stood, dusted himself off... and walked.
Where he moved, the horde parted.
"!!"
Solis’s eyes went wide. What—? He’d just seen the biggest secret in the mission: some condition made the zombies refuse Fenric as prey.
If he could capture him—get the method—
"ROAR!"
The stairwell behind Solis thundered again. He spun. Reality reasserted itself: an avalanche of undead was already flooding the rooftop he stood on.
He couldn’t jump back the way he’d entered; the opposite balcony was too high from this side. The street was a death ocean—for him, anyway.
Only option: fight, clear the rooftop, re‑block the entrance, survive the last hours.
Solis gripped Shusui with both hands, set his shield, and charged the first wave.
He intended to live!
—--
"..."
Fenric didn’t go far. He couldn’t. Other Samsara players had surely noticed the police HQ detonation. Any open street was sniper territory. But here—the densest zombie concentration in Boston—no one sane would enter.
Which made it the safest place for him.
He waded deeper into the corpse tide, letting the infected flow around him like a river around a rock. To the undead he was spoiled meat—his deliberate KBN infection marking him as unfit host. To hunters watching from distance, he was functionally invisible, lost in motion.
Umbrella tactics. Hide under what everyone else avoids.
Plot knowledge paid off again~
—--
Across broken high‑rises and shattered office towers, binocular lenses glittered. Several Samsara players—those still clinging to life—had their scopes trained on the police HQ district.
They watched a lone figure stroll through the dead as if walking a garden path.
Shock. Envy. Calculation.
But none moved.
No.
They can’t. With the sea of zombies in their way.