The Building

"Shhk!"

I pulled out the long saber, bringing a smear of bloody muck with its tip. I wiped it clean against the Zombie, but a strange thought nagged at me.

Maybe I was imagining it, but this Zombie had seemed unusually strong. I'd tripped it by using its own momentum,

so I hadn't had to pit my strength against it. Even so, it had put up quite a struggle.

That was odd. I could lift seventy kilograms with one arm, and this Zombie couldn't have weighed more than eighty kilograms

at most. Yet even though I had enough strength to lift its entire body,

handling it had felt difficult?

I shook my head. Maybe that strange feeling had come from facing a Zombie up close again

after my strength had diminished?

Maybe I'd simply been too strong before.

But I'd fought Zombies since my strength changed, and they hadn't seemed particularly strong then.

They'd only been a little stronger than ordinary people, right?

Wait... Had the Zombies evolved?

A chill ran through me. No matter how far Mutant Monsters evolved, their numbers were limited. At least,

the odds of encountering one were low. But Zombies were everywhere. If Zombies had grown stronger, humanity's chances of survival would plummet.

After all, Zombies were the main force behind this apocalypse.

If there had only been Mutant Monsters, humanity would probably have launched a counterattack long ago. But there were Zombies too,

along with Mutant Monsters that were formidable on their own. Together, they kept humanity from wiping them out in large numbers,

and that was why conditions kept getting worse.

No matter how strong a Zombie was, it was still a single target. With the right training and firearms, people stood a good chance

of killing one. But if vast numbers of