What do you mean the games you make are all real?!

Chapter 81 Emergency Response in Japan (4600)

Kyoto, shrouded in night, has completely transformed.

The neon lights in Kabukicho were still flashing, but no one was leisurely strolling and drinking on the streets under the lights anymore.

Screams, cries, the sound of breaking glass, and the piercing wail of car sirens filled the air.

Kabukicho and three surrounding neighborhoods were the first to fall.

Those who inhaled the spores showed no abnormalities for the first ten minutes or so; they walked, chatted, and shopped as usual. But when the hyphae completed the final stage of parasitism inside the brain, it was as if a switch had been flipped. Their pupils instantly became covered with a grayish-white film of hyphae, and hyphae began to seep from their skin. Then they started biting people.

They are much stronger than normal people. A frail woman weighing less than 45 kilograms, after being completely parasitized, can pin an adult man to the ground with her bare hands and bite off his carotid artery.

The police responded relatively quickly to the initial riots. Kabukicho is one of the most densely populated areas in Kyoto, and police officers patrol the area on foot year-round to prevent drunk people from causing trouble.

After receiving the first emergency call, nearby police officers were all mobilized in less than ten minutes, but the equipment they carried was not prepared for this situation at all. Tear gas was completely ineffective against the spore zombies, and rubber batons had no effect on them, as if hitting wood.

Ultimately, they failed to nip the crisis in the bud, and in the ensuing chaos, one by one they became part of the zombies.

Inside an izakaya (Japanese pub), a girl in a kimono covered her mouth tightly with her hand, watching everything happening on the street outside through the gaps in the wooden lattice window.

A police officer in uniform was pinned to the ground by several zombies, who were covered in mushrooms and were tearing at him.

Her name is Misaki, she is nineteen years old, and a first-year student in the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University.

Today is her first day working in Kabukicho to earn a living. She works as a waitress in an izakaya (Japanese pub), wearing a kimono and serving drinks to customers. Her hourly wage is much higher than that of a convenience store.

She had already mentally prepared herself to be stared at with lecherous eyes by those greasy old men, and perhaps even to be touched on the hand in a seemingly accidental manner.

But right now, there's something fucking like cannibalism happening outside.

She was prepared to be groped, but she was definitely not prepared to have her neck bitten off, nor was she prepared to grow mushrooms all over her face and then bite others.

She nervously pulled out her phone to record the scene in front of her, then typed and posted it on Little Bluebird with trembling hands.

"A zombie outbreak has occurred in Kabukicho. How can I escape? I need help urgently!"

Almost instantly, I received several replies after posting the message.

"Zombies? That's so fake! The special effects are pretty good. Which movie trailer is this?"

"Didn't you see the news, upstairs? Something really happened in Japan! The speedrunning competition was forced to stop!"

"Miss, find a good place to hide! Don't go out! Lock the door! Don't make a sound!"

"I'm a reporter from a TV station. May I ask your exact location? We can connect live—"

"The army has been deployed! Hold on a little longer!"

Misaki looked at the growing number of comments, but none of them were useful. They all told her to hide, and the next moment the network would be cut off, with no signal at all.

"What's going on?" Misaki asked anxiously, waving her phone above her head in an attempt to find even a single bar of signal.

This was her only means of contacting the outside world. She was waiting to see how the army was progressing into the city and how long she would have to hide here.

"What's going on?" Misaki asked anxiously. This was the only way she could contact the outside world, and she was waiting to see how the army was progressing.

In her haste, she accidentally knocked a bottle of sake off the shelf next to her with her elbow, and the bottle shattered on the ground.

Suddenly, the three spore zombies that had been wandering outside turned their heads to look in her direction, and then pounced on her like cheetahs, completely unlike their slow and sluggish appearance in the game.

When Misaki saw the three zombies charging towards her, she was completely terrified and forgot to run away.

Just as the zombies were about to rush up and tear her apart, a barrage of gunfire rang out. The heads of the two spore zombies at the forefront exploded at the same moment, and grayish-white mycelium and dark red blood mingled and splattered all over the noren curtain at the entrance of the izakaya.

Strangely, the third zombie was not shot in the head; the bullets accurately hit its limb joints, severing both its arms and legs.

It writhed wildly on the ground like a piece of meat that had been chopped into a human pig, its limbless torso still trying to wriggle towards the izakaya with the strength of its waist and abdomen.

The next moment, a series of hurried footsteps came from the other end of the street.

Misaki saw three people dressed in black combat uniforms, carrying submachine guns, and wearing red, fly-head-like gas masks walking quickly from the shadows at the alley entrance.

"Hurry up, the Japanese government has cut off all the network and signals in the area, and they should be coming over soon to carry out a large-scale cleanup. We must take this opportunity to bring a sample back to the company," the leader said.

One of the team members immediately ran to the spore zombie whose limbs had been severed and which was still writhing on the ground. He pulled out a strap from his waist and skillfully tied up the zombie's still struggling torso. Then he took out a gag from his backpack, which he had picked up from some nightclub, and stuffed it into the zombie's mouth to prevent it from biting people during transport.

Another team member stood guard at the alley entrance, sweeping the muzzle of his submachine gun back and forth, bringing every corner where zombies might emerge into his firing range.

Then he saw Misaki huddled behind the wooden lattice window of the izakaya, shivering, and immediately reported to the leader, "Captain, there's a survivor here. Should we rescue her?"

"We don't have that much time to rescue the survivors; we must leave Japan immediately with the samples," the leader said, then walked a short distance in front of Misaki, pulled out a pistol from his waist, and threw it at her feet.

"The Japanese government will send people soon, so you should continue to hide here."

Misaki looked down at the black pistol at her feet, then looked up at the three people in front of her wearing red fly-head gas masks. Her lips trembled several times before she managed to squeeze out a sentence: "You—who are you people?"

She had no idea what was going on, or whether the three people in front of her were good or bad, but someone who gave her a gun probably wasn't a bad person.

The leader didn't answer; he had already turned around and, together with the teammate who had picked up the zombie, quickly ran towards the exit of Kabukicho.

Misaki wanted to give chase, but the last guard suddenly turned around and spoke in a deep voice through his red gas mask: "Go back inside! Don't follow me."

His tone was devoid of warmth as he raised his submachine gun.

Startled by his gesture of raising the gun, Misaki took a big step back, then bent down, grabbed the gun from the ground, turned around, and crawled back into the izakaya next door.

After seeing her hide inside, the guard turned around and quickly followed his teammates, soon disappearing into the night.

Misaki hid back in the izakaya, gripping her gun tightly. Although the three mysterious men hadn't taken her out, they had at least given her a gun, which made her feel much more at ease.

Because of militaristic education, Japan included "Battlefield Vanguard" in the compulsory courses for middle school students. Misaki naturally played it too, and even got an A in shooting. So, she was naturally good at using guns.

Although she had never seen the gun the mysterious man gave her before, she figured out how to use it after a while. However, this was the first time she had ever touched a real gun.

Just as she continued to ponder the gun in her hand, she suddenly heard a flurry of footsteps outside. She turned her head to look outside, wanting to find a zombie to practice on and see how different shooting in the game was from the real world.

But she was stunned for a moment, because more than twenty zombies appeared outside. These zombies must have been attracted by the gunshots of the three mysterious people.

Her hand holding the gun began to tremble again. There were just too many zombies outside, and she didn't have enough bullets for her pistol. Just as she was hesitating whether to shoot herself to die a quick death, she heard footsteps coming from the roof of the izakaya.

Then a dense hail of bullets rained down on the zombies, quickly turning them into sieves. Misaki also soon discovered dozens of ninjas dressed in the same kind of clothing as those in the movies standing on the roof, with numbers on their backs.

The old man standing at the front wore a different ninja outfit than the others. His cuffs and collar were embroidered with dark gold cloud patterns, and instead of numbers, a large character for "heaven" was printed on the back.

"Squad 1, seal off Kabukicho. Don't let a single zombie get out. Wait for reinforcements to come in and disinfect." The old man's voice wasn't loud, but it was exceptionally clear in the quiet street.

"Hey!" Dozens of black figures moved at the same time, rapidly moving along the eaves of the houses on both sides of the street.

Misaki lay behind the counter of the izakaya, looking at everything outside through the glass window. She felt like she was watching a movie, except that the ninjas were holding submachine guns instead of samurai swords.

Just then, the old man on the roof lowered his head and looked down at Misaki in the izakaya. The two looked at each other, and Misaki immediately felt a pressure and even held her breath.

"Take her with you too." Genichi Yamashita ordered his subordinate in a hoarse voice, then turned and disappeared into the rooftops of Kabukicho in a few leaps.

Two members of the Sky Hunting Group jumped off the roof and landed at the entrance of the izakaya. Their movements were as light as cats, making almost no sound.

One of them tapped on the half-broken door frame of the izakaya with his knuckles and said to Misaki inside in a cold, emotionless tone, "Come out and come with us."

Misaki took a step back, gun in hand, her back slamming against the edge of the bar. Instinctively, she raised her gun and pointed it at the two people in the doorway: "You—who are you?"

The two Sky Hunters exchanged a glance, somewhat surprised that Misaki actually had a gun.

A moment later, one of them replied in a calm tone, "Sky Hunt Group, we are here on the orders of our leader to take you to a safe area. The gun in your hand poses no threat to us, please put it down."

Misaki had never heard of the Tenshou Group before, but she remembered the old man with the character "Ten" printed on his back, and then looked at the ninja uniforms worn by the two people at the door.

Regardless of who this Sky Hunting Group is, at least they killed those zombies just now, and they didn't shoot at her right away.

She slowly lowered the gun, but her fingers remained tightly gripping the handle: "I'll go with you."

Soon the two members of the Sky Hunting Group confiscated the gun from Misaki's hand, and then took her to a temporary shelter not far from Kabukicho, where she was disinfected and quarantined.

Meanwhile, inside the Ministry of Defense, Defense Minister Shinji Torii was berating Lieutenant General Hiroshi Takeda, while the other high-ranking officers and staff stood by, not daring to utter a sound. "What have you done?! Why did the virus leak in the city?!"

Hiroshi Takeda stood silently to the side, bowing deeply with his head down. He was still completely bewildered, not understanding what had happened. He had only learned about the virus leak from the internet. Before he could even ask the lab, he was called over and scolded.

But no matter what, as the liaison for the laboratory, he is responsible for this incident. His political career may be over, but he must clean up this mess before it is over, otherwise not only will his political career be over, but his life will also be over.

"Where is the army?! Haven't they entered the city yet?!" Defense Minister Shinji Torii continued to shout loudly.

A general standing nearby stood up and said, forcing a smile, "Our troops are stuck in traffic on the outskirts of town—"

"Traffic jam?! You're talking to me about traffic jam?!" Shinji Torii's voice boomed in the conference room.

His face turned a deep purplish-red, and the veins on his forehead bulged as he struggled to believe what he was hearing.

"Yes, there's a traffic jam—" The general's back was already soaked with cold sweat, but he still forced himself to continue.

"Although we cut off the internet immediately, videos still circulated and caused panic. A large number of civilians are driving away from Kyoto, and our troops are stuck on the road. It will take about three hours to reach Kabukicho."

"Three hours?! By then everyone in Kabukicho will be dead! Which unit can go there immediately?"

"Tori Shinji continued to shout loudly."

Hiroshi Takeda finally spoke up, saying, "The Nine-Tailed Fox Special Forces can be airdropped by helicopter. The helicopter development has recently been completed, and the Nine-Tailed Fox Special Forces have been conducting airdrop training. Their training is very close to Kyoto; they can get there in half an hour."

"Nine-tailed fox? Wasn't that unit wiped out in Nusantara?" Shinji Torii frowned.

His impression of the Nine-Tailed Fox was still based on that headline news that made him and the Prime Minister the laughingstock of the world for half a month.

The most elite special forces unit in Japan, fifty men, were wiped out at the factory gate by the security forces of a skincare company, and photos of their bodies were posted all over the internet.

"That means the first company was wiped out. Nine-Tailed Fox has four battalions, which can be divided into twenty companies, totaling a thousand men. After the first company was destroyed, the remaining companies have been undergoing reorganization and training, and their equipment has been completely replaced with the latest individual weapon systems, which are more than enough to deal with these zombies," Hiroshi Takeda reported.

"Then send out the Nine-Tailed Fox! Target Kabukicho! Clean it up at all costs!"

"Yes." Hiroshi Takeda stood at attention, saluted, turned around, and strode out of the meeting room.

The moment the meeting room door closed behind him, Hiroshi Takeda's face contorted in pain. He strode toward the encrypted communications room at the end of the corridor, pulling out his phone from his pocket and dialing a number as he went.

The phone rang seven times, but no one answered.

He dialed again, and this time it connected on the third ring, but there was no sound from the other end, only heavy breathing.

"Dr. Nakajima, you're still alive," Hiroshi Takeda said coldly.

"I almost died. Several researchers died in the lab riot, but thankfully it was contained." Nobuyuki Nakajima's voice came through the receiver, carrying a sense of relief at surviving a close call.

"Then explain to me why your zombie virus appeared in Kabukicho!" Hiroshi Takeda roared, unable to contain his anger any longer.

Shinichi Nakajima on the other end of the phone was taken aback, then quickly said, "Impossible! Although there were two riots in the lab, we absolutely did not allow any virus to leak out."

"No matter how you try to explain, it's useless. The zombie virus appeared in Kabukicho and infected hundreds or thousands of people into zombies. We are currently cleaning up the area. I hope that once we're done, you can give us a reasonable explanation." Hiroshi Takeda hung up the phone without waiting for Nobuyuki Nakajima to reply.