The clock ticked down as the six of us waited in the central room of the Home Floor of the Dungeon. I meant that literally too, I had Ed make a clock that ticked ominously and it was the only sound in the room as we waited.

All of us were dressed accordingly. Which was to say, in our normal outfits. Except for Lili, who was wearing a slightly modified and heavily restored version of her normal red and white outfit. It was a little strange by modern standards, but shouldn't stand out, and the same should be true for most fantasy settings we could end up in. Not that I cared that much about blending in. I wore my punk rock outfit or my Barrier Jacket no matter where I went.

We had spent the past several days doing not much else besides training and fucking. Dia had just updated our Falna, and we had a decent amount of growth for just three days of training. Asuna and I had both hit triple digits in one of our stats, albeit just barely. It wasn't a massive difference, in truth, but Lili couldn't stop going on about how impressive our growth was.

To be honest though, I wasn't paying much attention to the numbers. Lili had the highest ones by far, but she was the second weakest one here, since the Falna was all she had to push her past her base strength. And, being a pallum, her base strength was fairly low to start with.

But seeing numbers go up was always nice, as it was a clear sign of progress.

And speaking of progress… Asuna was just now starting to show signs of her arousal. The multiple days focused on training, and therefore spending less time having sex with my girls, definitely slowed it down enough to put us in the position where we're going into another world with her partially aroused, which was less than ideal.

Thankfully it didn't seem to be at the point where it was distracting her. The signs were still subtle, after all. Her skin was slightly more red than usual, signs of a constant but low level flush. She squirmed sometimes, especially after looking at me or one of the others. And sometimes she watched me with eyes squinted in suspicion, clearly having noticed something was going on and suspecting me of being the cause.

She was right, of course. There was no other suspect after all, only I had the motive and the means. But she hadn't said anything yet, whether out of pride, stubbornness, or something else. Which was fine, though I made a mental note to speed up the process a bit after the portal trip. I wanted her with a clear head for when our first challengers arrived in the Dungeon.

I relaxed with my eyes closed as I listened to the ticking clock. The room was dark, since we had started relying on the cycling ceiling crystals as our normal light source, meaning we had to bust out the lanterns again. Ed had spent the past few hours since midnight setting up lights on the wall attached to a switch since we'd be in this room in the middle of the night at least once a week.

Normally the portal would have opened at midnight, but thanks to our stunt of speedrunning the Orario Dungeon last week, we had a three hour penalty to contend with. I wasn't too worried about it. Three hours in the middle of the night probably wasn't going to be a big deal, and even if it was, the rewards had been worth it.

The clock chimed and I opened my eyes right as the portal appeared in the middle of the room. I barely paid it any mind as I checked my phone to discover the name of the world.

Highschool of the Dead.

"Hmm…" I hummed, considering my options.

"What is it? Something fun?" Maria asked.

"Is it dangerous?" Asuna asked, looking at me with concern.

"Please tell me we can get supplies from it," Ed pleaded.

"Yes, yes, and yes," I answered. "It's a pretty lewd world, with a lot of very busty girls who frequently get disrobed for one reason or another. Unfortunately, those reasons usually have to do with the zombie apocalypse that is currently happening. But we can definitely scavenge a lot of supplies."

"Z-zombies?!" Maria went from excited to scared in no time flat. "Like… real zombies?!"

"As in the reanimated undead who crave the flesh of the living, yes. Is that a problem?"

"N-n-n-not at all!" she stammered, trying and utterly failing to put on a brave face.

"Animated dead huh?" Ed said more pensively. "Can't say I like that."

Lili and Dia were frowning, but didn't comment. Asuna, on the other hand, had a much more interesting expression. One of recognition.

"Oh?" I looked at her with a grin. "Asuna, are you familiar with this place?"

She grimaced. "Unfortunately."

I laughed. "The prim and proper Asuna has watched such an ecchi anime? Do you have a secret hobby you haven't shared with us?"

"No, I don't!" she snapped. "It was Liz's idea actually. We were having a girl's night and she said she had found a scary zombie anime, so we decided to binge it." Asuna shrugged. "We ended up rolling our eyes at the fan service so much that it wasn't scary."

"Did you finish it?"

"Somehow. We almost stopped a few times, but we decided to keep pushing through."

"Oh? Then let me ask you, what are your opinions on the girls? Who is worth getting?"

She glared at me. "None of them. They're normal girls trying to live through the apocalypse and they should be left alone. None of them are useful to you."

"You're not wrong," I replied as I scrolled through the Catalog, filtered to only show characters from the Highschool of the Dead world. I stopped and focused on an entry, Busijima Saeko. "But… there is one I have my eye on anyway."

I stood up, plans forming in my head. "Alright. It's a zombie apocalypse world, but we shouldn't be in much danger. In fact, this is a great opportunity for us. Dia, you stay here. Be ready for me to come back at any moment looking to give someone a Falna."

"Okay," she nodded. "I'll have some snacks ready as well."

"Ed, Maria, and Lili, the three of you are on shopping duty. And by shopping, I mean looting. The listed Danger Rating of the world confirms that the apocalypse has already kicked off, so just grab everything you want. Food and clothes and whatever you want. Hell, Ed, you can reduce a building to its constituent parts and take home all the metal or whatever you want from it." I handed my phone to her. "Use Pocket Space to transfer it back here automatically."

"Got it," Ed said.

"Wait… you want us to go out when there are zombies everywhere?!" Maria asked, obviously scared.

"Yes. And I want you to kill as many as you come across. That's free XP for your Falna after all."

"But they're scary!"

I gave her a flat look. "Maria… you could punch a hole in like ten of them in one go. They're not a threat to you."

"But, but," she stammered. "What if they bite me?!"

"Oh, right, thanks for the reminder." I took the phone back from Ed and purchased two copies of Body Defense. I got a small rebate on one of the copies, thanks to Montmorency, meaning I only had to pay 8 Credits for both copies, leaving me with 21. Four short of the Lure perk I would need once the Gateway opened, but in the worst case scenario I'd just take out a small Loan.

I also checked the missions list, but nothing really caught my eye. There were a couple of cucking ones that seemed kind of fun, but the rewards weren't very compelling and if I was being honest, Saeko was the only girl from the setting that I had any interest in. The rest were dumb or annoying in some way. And sadly there weren't any Saeko related missions, except the one that involved getting her alongside all of the other main girls.

I handed the phone back to Ed. "There. We're now immune to the zombie virus. Probably."

"Probably?!" Maria repeated.

I ignored her and turned to Asuna. "You're with me. We're going after my target. Switch to your ALO form so we can fly around."

Asuna sighed. "Fine." She shifted with a brief spark of light, her hair turning blue and her height increasing slightly.

I turned back to the others. "We're going first. Shoot up a flare or something if something happens and you need us. But mostly, just don't hold back. Loot as much as you can, and kill whatever zombies get in your way. Just don't let them slow you down."

"Got it, Boss," Ed said with a grin. Lili nodded with determination and Maria nodded with nervousness.

"Come on Asuna, let's go." I turned on my Barrier Jacket, clothes shifting to something more defensive, and stepped through the portal.

I was immediately greeted by the night sky, filled with stars and a bright full moon. And most noticeably of all, pillars of smoke and distant screams filled the air.

I looked around. I was on a rooftop, the tallest one in the immediate area, though I saw several taller buildings a few blocks away. There weren't any zombies here either, but I hadn't been really worried about that. My employers weren't the type to fuck over their own people by dumping them into a waiting horde.

Apparently Asuna didn't have as much confidence in them, as she stepped through the portal with her sword drawn, muscles tense and eyes scanning. She only sheathed it after confirming that the coast was clear.

I summoned the Tome to me in its staff form and triggered the spell that was already implanted in my Barrier Jacket. "Sleipnir."

Once again, six black feathered wings sprouted from my back. Without a word I took off into the air, with Asuna following just a few moments later. My training for the past few days had improved my flight time a lot, at least for casual traversal. It was like the magical equivalent of running now. 'Sprinting' would tire me out faster, but I could 'jog' for a decent amount of time.

I headed for the tallest building that I could see just a few blocks away and settled on top of it. I didn't really care about being seen. The chances were low considering it was night and there were far fewer living people in the city, but also if they did see me, so what? I'd be gone soon.

Asuna landed on the roof next to me as I looked around. "So, who is it that we're going after? Please tell me it's not the little girl."

"Even I have standards, you know?" I answered. "And she's not nearly cute enough for me to break them."

"...the fact that you acknowledge that there's a point where you would break them is concerning."

"Wow, more problematic behavior from me, what a shocker." I scanned the city, looking for any kind of landmarks or signs of conflict. "But since you want to know so badly, it's Saeko. Her design might be a straight up rip-off of Mitsurugi Meiya, but her bloodlust and sadism are hot and I want to help her cultivate that."

"Ugh."

"Don't be like that. I'm gonna be placing you in charge of her after all. She's already pretty good with a sword, but you can train her up a bit more once we slap a Falna on her."

"Can you, just once, not get a pervert?"

"Dia was a roll of the dice, and Lili's not a pervert. She's an affection-starved psychopath."

"Oh, right, my bad," Asuna replied sarcastically. "How silly of me."

"I'm glad you realize how silly you are." I turned away from the skyline. "I'm not seeing anything, unfortunately."

"What are you even looking for? We're too high up to see them and they're probably holed up right now."

"Well, that depends on when we are," I said. "Though, truth be told, I don't remember the timeline all that well."

"Were you too busy staring at their tits?"

"I was, yeah. Weren't you? Or are you saying you remember the timeline?" She glared at me and didn't respond, simply crossing her arms. So I shrugged. "I'm looking for anything interesting or vaguely familiar, to be honest."

Asuna looked around, peering over the edge of the roof. "The lights are still on," she pointed out. "So the EMP hasn't happened yet."

I glanced down and noticed the streetlights were on and there were a few lit up windows in the buildings across the street. "Well spotted, Asuna. Not that it helps up much. Let's take to the skies."

"Wait," Asuna said as I was about to take off. I stopped and looked at her. She was grimacing, her expression ashamed, but there was determination in her gaze as well. "If I see someone in trouble… can I help them?"

It must have burned her to have to ask for my permission to save people, but after her stunt in Orario I had made it clear that she wasn't to act on her own. It worked out then, but it could have been an issue.

I didn't respond immediately and instead took a moment to think over it, weighing the pros and cons of it. I had the mission I had accepted the other day to consider, after all. Corrupting Asuna had turned from something I was letting happen passively to a real goal to work toward, since I had to push her into a very specific direction rather than just letting the dice land how they will.

Saving people didn't directly relate to corrupting her into willingly corrupting her friends in turn… but it could serve as a foundation to work off of.

I shrugged. "I mean, sure, if you really want to," I replied casually, as if I didn't care. "Just don't waste too much time on it."

"I- wait, really?" Asuna said, clearly surprised.

"Yeah, why not? We're not on a super strict time table today. If you want to take a few detours to indulge in your savior fetish and kill some zombies in the process, then I don't care. Just stick to your ALO Avatar. I don't care about hiding your powers, but we might want to blend in later so I'd rather not have your real appearance tied to the mysterious flying girl."

"It's not a savior fetish," she snapped. "But fine, whatever, I can do that." Then, before I could say anything, she activated her wings again and shot off of the rooftop and down into the city. No doubt she was afraid I'd change my mind. Or that I would just snark at her some more.

I waited on the roof for a moment, letting her get some distance away. As I did, I shifted the Tome from its staff form and back into a book before flipping through the pages.

"Let's see, I haven't practiced with this one much but…" I mumbled to myself as I looked for a specific spell. "Ah, there it . Okay, that's not too complicated." I channeled my magic in a specific way, following the diagram of the circle inscribed on the page. "Mirror of Prospection."

A purple triangle appeared in the air in front of me, almost a meter tall. Asuna was displayed within its borders, flying through the air. It was a basic scrying spell, though I did have to put some effort into setting the target coordinates, which was achieved by using another spell, one so minor it didn't even have a name, to track the coordinates of her magical signature and feeding them into the Mirror of Prospection.

Casting two spells at once was a little tricky but thankfully something I had mastered already, at least for the handful of different coordinate retrieval spells there were. They were basically required for accurate use of some spells such as binds.

Although it was another case where a Control Program for the Tome would have been very nice, as an AI that could calculate all of that for me would free up a lot of my own processing ability for other spells. Such as flying, or doing anything besides standing here on the roof. But that was fine, I wasn't in a rush. Attending to Asuna and my plans for her was more important right now.

I did keep looking around the city though while keeping half an eye on the magical camera following Asuna around. She was mostly flying around, occasionally dropping down to the street to kill some zombies, but it was almost half an hour before she found her first survivors, a middle aged couple dragging luggage behind them.

The Mirror of Prospection didn't transmit sound, so I couldn't hear what was being said when Asuna dropped down in front of them and cut down the zombies chasing them. But I could more or less guess based on their expressions. They were scared and shocked, and then extremely confused at the sight of the flying blue haired girl. I saw the woman pinch herself as if she thought she was dreaming.

Asuna looked a little frustrated, and she was yelling and gesturing. But she seemed to get her point across, as the two others ended up nodding and dropping their luggage before running down the street. Asuna watched them for a moment before taking back to the skies, no doubt seeking to get the most out of her limited flight time as possible.

I stopped following Asuna with the Mirror and focused on the two individuals instead, manually moving the coordinates to track them while I waited. They slowly made their way down another street, one that had a couple of zombies on it, but they were being quiet so they were making their way through unnoticed.

"Now then… time to teach Asuna a lesson," I mused as I prepared another spell.

It was clear to me that saving people was something core to Asuna's personality. Two years of living on the front lines of a life or death battle had a way of leaving a pretty deep impact on your personality and values, especially during your teenage years. Discouraging her of that habit entirely would require breaking her down completely and building her back up to my tastes.

Which was an option, though not my preferred one. It wasn't as fun, and the timing on doing so while still completing the mission would be tricky, as breaking Asuna so completely would require doing something to Kirito, so I would have to wait to do it until I lured her friends in. It was doable, but tricky.

What was far easier was to instead twist her definition of what 'saving' meant. And the first step of that was to keep hammering in what I had been doing for weeks, with her challenges for her panties that she never won and the selection and corruption of every girl I've picked up since her.

"The only winning side is mine. Shoot Bullet."

An orb of magical energy manifested before me and shot into the sky, arcing over the city, nearly invisible. I turned my attention back to the Mirror of Prospection and pulled its view back, so I could see more of the street that the couple were still creeping down. Specifically, so I could also see the abandoned car just a few meters away from them.

My timing was perfect. Just as they were starting to approach the car my Shoot Bullet zipped down from the sky and slammed into it. It was a relatively low power shot, but it was more than enough to trigger the car alarm.

I could see the lights on the car start flashing, and the couple jumped in fear. Fear that only escalated as the few zombies on the street turned toward them, and more stumbled out of alleys and broken doorways, drawn by the noise. In just a moment, they were surrounded.

I turned my attention, and the target of the Mirror of Prospection, back to Asuna who was a few streets over by then. I switched back to her just in time to see her eyes widen as she looked off into the distance, no doubt hearing the car alarm. She rushed back, heading straight for the couple.

Suffice to say, she was too late. By the time she arrived the couple had fallen to the zombie horde and laid dead on the ground, blood seeping from their cooling bodies.

I watched Asuna's face as she saw them and the car, piecing together what happened. Or at least, what she thought happened. There was no sign of my attack against the car aside from some superficial denting that really could have been from anything. There was nothing to point to my sabotage at all. So the only thing she could assume was that the two of them somehow set off the car alarm and paid the price for it.

So I watched her expression closely. I saw the grief. I saw the disappointment. And then I saw the rage. She descended into the crowd of zombies with her rapier drawn and brutalized them. Limbs and blood flew through the air and she turned the undead into mincemeat.

The car's alarm was still going off, so more and more zombies were drawn to the area as she killed them, going at it so intensely it was as if she intended to kill every undead in the city single handedly.

I hummed. "She's not doing much searching like this… I suppose I should handle that myself." At the very least, I needed to move, to look like I was searching. The Master-Servant Contract allowed either of us to know where the other was, but it wasn't something you were constantly aware of. You had to think of it, to want to know where the other person was, to be able to tell.

I was pretty sure Asuna didn't check often, so strong was her aversion to thinking about me, but it was better to be safe than sorry. My efforts and the innocent lives of that couple would be wasted if she suspected me of being the one to kill them.

I paused before taking off with Sleipnir as it registered that I had in fact killed those people. It was the first time I was directly responsible for taking someone's lives, even if it was in a roundabout manner. I had kidnapped, cheated, robbed, and I had even encouraged Lili to kill her former Familia members. But I hadn't taken a life until now.

And now I had, and that was kind of all I felt about it. There was a part of me that said that was wrong, but that part had been raised in a modern society that shoved its values down the throat of every child for the sake of building a peaceful world. And, as always, I ignored that part of me. I wanted nothing to do with such a stagnant and peaceful world.

The rest of me was just satisfied that my plan had worked out so well. Who gave a fuck if it cost the live of two dipshits that probably would have died anyway. They weren't me or mine, and their deaths were the best way to further my goals. It was as simple as that.

Satisfied with my introspection, I took off, the Mirror of Prospection following me so I could keep an eye on Asuna as I made my way to another rooftop. I was ready to intervene once more to ruin her efforts and would do so again and again until she learned that any efforts she took on her own were doomed to failure and that only I could bring salvation.


Over the next couple of hours I flew from rooftop to rooftop, spending my spare time looking for anything familiar while I primarily focused on keeping an eye on Asuna and sabotaging her plans to help people. Thankfully she only found two more groups, since most people weren't moving around in the middle of the night.

If it had been more, I might have had some trouble. Arranging for the people she saved to get swarmed by zombies in a way that didn't implicate me and drew her attention was very tricky. Though the fact that this was an actual zombie apocalypse helped a lot.

The second group she stuck with for a while, bringing them to a building that she personally cleared out and then killed the zombies nearby before leaving. I had to break a window, drawing the zombies' attention and causing them to push their way inside. That didn't draw her attention, but she went back on her own twenty minutes later and discovered it for herself.

With the third group, a large group of middle school students, I didn't even have to do anything. I just watched as Asuna's attention was spread too thinly, one of the students got grabbed by a zombie that wasn't as dead as it looked, and things descended into chaos from there. Every superhuman strength only went so far when you were just one person.

I watched her face carefully after that, worried I might have pushed too far as she looked upon the scene with despair. But she was made of sterner stuff than that, and that despair shifted into determination as she left the scene to find more people to help.

Fortunately, I had found what I needed in order to move on with the main mission, and I decided that was enough bullying of Asuna for now. I made my way to her and dropped down in the street in front of her.

She blinked in surprise. "Oh, it's you. How did you find me?"

"The Master-Servant Contract, duh," I said. "How's your search going?"

"I haven't found them yet," she said, eyes shifting away in guilt. She hadn't put more than a token effort into searching.

"Too busy saving people?" I asked, carefully keeping my tone slightly exasperated. I glanced around. "Did you at least ask the people you saved about the ones we're looking for?" She paused, and I sighed. "You didn't even think of that did you."

"Saving people was more important than tracking down another girl for you to enslave and turn into a fuck pet."

"Well, first off, I'm proud of you for using such crude language. That's great progress. Secondly, you're wrong, acquiring fuck pets is the most important thing. And thirdly… how many people did you actually manage to save? A handful? I bet you at least half of them will be dead within the next twenty-four hours. The world is going through a literally apocalyptic event. There's no real safety anywhere in this god forsaken world. The only safe place here is the Stoneblock, so really I'm doing Saeko a favor. Unfortunately for the rest of this world, slots are limited, and I'm very picky about who I'm letting on."

"Shut up," Asuna seethed. I had hit a sore point, accidentally so, as far as she knew.

"Sorry, does the truth interfere with your savior fetish stuff? I didn't mean to ruin your sexual fantasies."

She glared at me and opened her mouth, but no rebuttal came out. After a few moments she snapped it shut and growled in frustration. "Just… ugh. Leave me alone and go back to searching or whatever!"

"No need, I found them already, that's why I came to get you. Well, technically speaking I didn't find them, but I found where they will be, the Takagi mansion. I'm not sure exactly when, but they should be arriving there sometime today. We'll just wait for them there."

Asuna's brow furrowed for a moment before recognition flickered over her face, quickly replaced with disgust. "Oh. The home of that ultra-nationalist guy."

"That's the one!" I said cheerfully as I dropped my Barrier Jacket. "And we're gonna ask them to save us, two poor little girls in over their heads and just barely able to fend for ourselves. So shift to your SAO avatar and change out of your armor and into something that can pass as a normal girl's outfit."

Asuna sighed, shoulders deflating. "Fine," she said a little tersely. I didn't comment on it. She was a little too wound up, so a nice calming walk through a zombie infested city would let her cool her head a bit before we reached the mansion. I needed her to stabilize before I could start prodding her in the direction I wanted again.

So I remained quiet and didn't make conversation or tease her as we headed for the Takagi mansion on foot. I had made good progress in just a couple hours of work, and had managed to plant several seeds of ideas in her head. Now I just needed to water them and let them grow.

With Asuna having her game stats and Falna, and me with my Contracts and Falna, a few metal bars that we found were all we needed to fend off the zombies we encountered on our way. We honestly didn't come across too many zombies, but any that we did we easily struck down. Free XP was free XP after all.

We got a bit of blood spattered on our clothes as well. Which was annoying, but I was sure that Ed could work her magic and get it out. And it sold our story as well.

Finally, as the sky was starting to brighten, we reached a wall made of stacked concrete dividers, the kind usually used to block off areas under construction or as other kinds of temporary walls. And standing behind it, a short distance away from it, were two men with a gun.

"Show time, Asuna," I whispered before I turned my attention to them. "H-help!" I called out to them, injecting panic and desperation into my voice. I rushed toward the barrier. "Are you military? Can you help us?!"

The two men snapped their heads toward me as I called out to them, the points of their guns just barely starting to rise before they recognized me as a person and not a zombie. They quickly lifted their fingers to their lips though. "Shh!" one of the men hissed. He looked around and then jogged to the divider. "They're attracted to sound!" His tone was sharp, but he kept his voice to a whisper.

"T-they are?" I asked, feigning ignorance. "Oh my god, I totally didn't realize that. I'm so sorry. It's just… we've been running all night long and we've barely managed to survive and I was just so happy to see someone who could help us." Tears started welling up in my eyes.

"It's fine, it's fine," the man said with a sigh before turning to the other man. "Kenji, you see any movement?"

The other man, Kenji, was peering around, past us down the street and into the nearby buildings. "Looks clear to me."

The man turned back to us. "Alright, just… keep calm. We're not military, exactly, but we are part of a group that are helping keep people safe. Just give us a second and we'll get the barrier open to let you in." He looked at Kenji again and jerked his head. Kenji nodded and ran off.

"Oh thank god," I said as I fell to my knees, tears running down my face. "I thought… I thought we were going to die."

The man looked decidedly uncomfortable. "I- look. It's okay, you'll be fine now, okay? So please stop crying. Please."

I nodded and wiped my tears away. "No, you're right, I'm sorry." I glanced at Asuna, who had a stony face, either unwilling or unable to commit to the act. "Oh, don't mind her," I said to the man, covering for her. "She's just been on edge since… well, there was a guy who said he could help us, but…" I trailed off suggestively.

The man winced. "There's been too much of that going around. Don't worry. Takagi-dono runs a tight ship around here. You won't have to deal with that sort of thing." He looked at us. "What are your names?"

"This is Yuuki Asuna," I said, naming her first to buy myself a second to think. I couldn't exactly call myself 'Morgan' without drawing attention, but I didn't have a fake name prepared ahead of time. "And I'm… Kanemaru Kaguya."

He raised an eyebrow at my name and I internally cursed a bit, immediately regretting using that name. Thankfully, he didn't comment on it. "Well, Yuuki-san, Kanemaru-san, I can assure you, once you're inside you'll be safe here. We have plenty of supplies and complete walls, and Takagi-dono is in contact with rescue forces so it's only a matter of time before this situation is handled."

I wasn't sure that last one was even remotely true, but I didn't blame them for lying to people to keep them calm. Or as propaganda. It was probably both.

"Thank you, thank you," I said. I sniffled. "We're finally safe."

We had to awkwardly wait a few minutes as I prattled on some more before someone with a forklift showed up to move the barriers out of the way so we could enter. We could have easily climbed over, but that would have defeated the point of not drawing attention.

Once inside the wall, we were led to the actual mansion, which had another wall around it, and let in through the gate. Another man pointed us towards the tents set up on the lawn with food, water, and shelter.

The sun was slowly rising, but already a few people, survivors who had found their way here, were up and about near the tents. They watched us as we approached, eyes full of wariness, pity, and despair. One older woman approached us and explained a few more things about how the place operated, told us not to bother the men with guns unless it was important, offered us some vague condolences while basically telling us we didn't have to say anything about what happened and not to ask anyone else, and then left us alone.

I grabbed a few bits of food, most of it was cheap mass produced stuff that would go bad within a few weeks, and then dragged Asuna to a spot that had a good view of the central area and gate.

"I didn't realize you could act so well," Asuna commented once we were finally alone.

"Did you already forget our first meeting?" I pointed out. "Acting is one of my strong suits."

"Somehow, among all the horrible things you've done, you pretending to be part of a charity slipped my mind," she replied in a dry tone. "What was up with that name though?"

"I couldn't exactly call myself Morgan now, could I? It stands out."

"I've been wondering about that, actually. Is Morgan even your real name? Was the name you gave him your real name?"

"Kaguya is a girl's name."

"And you're very girl-like."

"Which my parents hated, I can promise you that. It was just a name from an anime I've seen."

"Ah, I should have guessed. You avoided my question though."

I sighed. "No, Morgan is obviously not the name I was given when I was born. But I left that other name behind and picked one that suited me better."

Asuna paused for a moment. "I've been meaning to ask this for a while… but are you a chuunibyou?" I glared at her and she shrugged. "I mean, the black and purple outfit, the black angel wings, that stuff about Dark Queen Morgan when you were sparring with Ed and Maria the other day… That's all chuuni stuff, right?"

"It's not chuuni if it's real," I replied, turning back to the gate.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you were crowned as a Queen." I could hear the grin in her tone.

"I'm the ruler of the Stoneblock, aren't I? I can choose my own title. Besides, it's a better title than 'The Flash'. What an original name for someone who's fast. Or did they call you that because you flashed your panties all the time in that short skirt of yours?"

"Excuse you? What exactly is original about 'Dark Queen'? I don't even have to be an otaku to know that is probably the most generic name you could have come up with. Besides, I didn't choose it, other people just started calling me that. And it's not because I flashed my panties!"

"Sure, sure, keep telling yourself that," I snarked back. "But if we're talking about bad titles, Kirito is the worst offender of them all. Seriously, the gall of him to call himself the Black Swordsman, like Guts doesn't exist and isn't better than him in every conceivable way."

Asuna didn't reply immediately, and I knew I fucked up after a moment of silence. I glanced at her to find her glaring at me, but there was a pensive and melancholic look to her as well. I held back a sigh and looked away.

I had been avoiding mentioning Kirito as much as possible. The less she thought about him, the more the distance between them grew. Mentioning him just depressed her and strengthened her feelings for him when I wanted to keep her mind on her new life, without him, and firm her attachments to me.

Mentioning him now, especially after my earlier mental and emotional manipulation had left her sore, was a mistake. One I could only blame on myself and my frustrations.

She ended up not replying, and I didn't poke her for another response or try to change the subject, allowing the awkward silence to extend into an awkward atmosphere as we sat there and waited for the protagonists of this world to arrive.

A few more survivors trickled in over the next few hours, usually alone or in groups no larger than three. All of them looked pretty identical to the way Asuna and I had presented ourselves. Covered in dried blood, scared, and just glad to be somewhere 'safe'.

But eventually, the heroes arrived. I could tell they were close when I heard a commotion a bit beyond the walls. Gunshots rang out a few blocks away, and several of the armed men started moving, speaking into walkie talkies and rushing out of the mansion.

Asuna sat up, looking around, as did most of the other survivors. "Is that-?" she started to ask.

"It's most likely them, yes," I confirmed. "They got in a tight spot before arriving, remember?"

"Oh, right. I remember that ridiculous shot between her boobs."

"I'm honestly kind of curious to see if that actually happens here… but I guess it's too late to check it out without drawing suspicion."

"There's no way, right?" Asuna replied, unsure. I didn't answer, and she sighed. "I hate this world."

I snorted, amused, but didn't reply. My focus was on listening for more noises coming from beyond the walls, trying to judge what was going on. Eventually the gunshots stopped, and for several minutes things stayed quiet.

And then a group approached the front gate, which was opened for them, and I got my first look at the protagonists. They were hobbling, bruised and beat up, clothes wet and bags under their eyes. But they walked in with determined gazes and relieved smiles on their faces.

"And there they are," I said quietly.

"So… what is your actual plan here?" Asuna asked as we watched them hobble their way to the main house. "Please tell me we're not doing it by force. Or worse, you need me to help you do one of those rituals."

"Those are good backup plans, but I have another idea I want to try first," I replied. "It's easy. I'm going to wait until she's alone and then I'm simply going to ask her to join us."

She was quiet for a moment. "This is going to be just like with Lili, isn't it?"

"Probably."

"Ugh."

I watched as their group was ushered into the house before leaning back. Having to go back to waiting after they arrived was a little frustrating, but I did my best not to pay it any mind.

Sure, as Asuna said, taking Saeko by force was easily doable. A bind and a flight back to the Skyblock was all I needed. But I wanted to try to convince her first.

Why? Well, mostly because I enjoyed manipulating people like that. Sure, I had plenty of cheats at my disposal now, and I was more than happy to make use of them, but sometimes it was nice to go back to my roots and do it the old fashioned way.

It didn't hurt that I had a pretty good angle or two to work from, and that doing so also helped manipulate Asuna even more. The more girls that joined me of their own volition, or at least were moderately happy after they did join me, the more she stood out as the odd one out, and that would have a subtle but important effect on her as I continued to twist her perception.

So I waited. It didn't take too long, and their group split up immediately. I spotted Kohta, the fat military otaku talking with some of the soldiers. I saw Alice, the little girl, with her dog and Saya's mom. And finally, I saw Saeko, walking the grounds alone, dressed in a kimono and pondering something.

"This is our shot, come on," I said as I stood up.

"Do I really have to be there?" Asuna groaned, even as she followed me.

"You're my bodyguard, so yes." Not that Saeko was dangerous enough that I needed a bodyguard. I just wanted to give Asuna a front row seat to what was about to happen.

We followed her around a corner to a quieter part of the mansion's grounds, where no one else was in sight. She stopped at one of the ponds that littered the grounds and crouched down to peer into it. We continued to approach her and I got my first good look at Busujima Saeko.

Her hair was dark and long, hanging straight down her back and she wore an ornate and traditional blue kimono that covered most of her body. And that was it. Her kimono compressed her chest a bit, making her bust look slightly smaller than it was, though even with that it was clear that she had a larger chest than Asuna, who so far had been at the top of that particular list.

She noticed us approaching and stood up to meet us, and I noted that she beat Asuna in height as well, though only slightly. She was probably just as tall as Asuna's ALO avatar, which was just a bit taller than her normal self.

Saeko looked at us with detached curiosity. It wasn't a cold or unfriendly look, but it was very polite and impersonal. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"No, but there's something I can help you with, Busujima Saeko." I didn't bother with my innocent girl persona and instead just smiled at her.

I was going to give her an offer that she couldn't refuse.


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AN: So, important note, I'm using the manga timeline and not the anime one, which shifts the order of events around. The portal opened in the early morning of the first full day of the zombie apocalypse, after they spent some of the night at the Nurse's apartment and then drove out to cross the river. They were actually crossing the river when the portal opened. Which means that Saeko hasn't had that night in the shrine with Takashi where he accepted her sadism. That's important. Secondly, Morgan's opinions on the girls of Highschool of the Dead do not reflect my own. I don't believe that Saeko is the only worthwhile waifu. Saya is good too. Alice is also very good, in a non-lewd way. Top tier daughteru material tbh, which is precisely why she will be staying far far away from Morgan.

Anyway, I decided to give Asuna metaknowledge of this world. Why? Reasons that I'll get to soon. Suffice to say, it's all in the name of the Asuna manipulation, which is starting in earnest with this chapter. It won't be a fast or immediate process, but Asuna's time as the default bullying target is entering its sunset. Enjoy it while you can.