Reborn As A Doomsday Villainess-Chapter 151: The school(2)

With careful speed, they climbed.

Inside, the school was worse.

Blood smeared the walls. Locker doors swung on broken hinges. The air was thick with rot.

And everywhere, everywhere, the low groaning and dragging footsteps of the dead.

Lingquan’s voice buzzed in her mind [Life signs detected. Survivors located: 3rd floor gymnasium. Approximately 12 individuals. Infection risk: Medium.]

Qingran’s jaw tightened. "Third floor is the Gym."

They didn’t have much time.

Already, a small cluster of zombies on the second floor had caught their scent. Sluggish at first, then quicker as they groaned and charged.

"Move," Qingran snapped, firing twice.

Bang!!

Bang!!

These were clean headshots.

Yuxi slammed her baseball bat into another’s skull with a sickening crunch.

But for every one they killed, three more stumbled from classrooms, their numbers swelling.

It became a running battle through the halls Qingran leading, Yuxi covering the rear.

They ducked under swinging arms, jumped fallen debris, slammed doors shut behind them.

When they finally kicked open the stairwell door, the way up was half-blocked by broken lockers and corpses.

"Clear it." Qingran ordered.

Together, they hauled aside debris just enough to squeeze through. The sound of the dead thudding against walls and screeching down the corridors grew louder and closer.

They pushed through the stairwell, boots thudding against cracked tiles.

Every sound seemed deafening in the grim silence, the scrape of metal, the grunt of effort, the low hiss of the infected below, growing hungrier by the second.

The third floor was worse.

Here, the air was heavy, almost wet with the stink of death. Broken fire extinguishers had sprayed powder over the floors, mixing with old blood into a sticky, gray mess.

Zombies wandered through the halls, heads snapping toward every creak or whisper of movement.

Qingran kept her gun up, her expression cold and focused.

Lingquan pinged softly in her mind:

[Survivors: straight ahead, past the science wing. Gymnasium sealed. Structural integrity: compromised. Caution advised.]

She held up two fingers to Yuxi (Move fast and move quiet.)

They sprinted low through the science wing, past shattered lab tables and broken glass.

Once, Qingran had to pull Yuxi back sharply when a zombie lurched out of a doorway, glass tubing skewered through its chest like a macabre trophy.

Yuxi dispatched it with a brutal swing of her bat, and they kept moving, their breath coming out hot and fast.

Finally, the double doors to the gym loomed ahead.

Someone inside had barricaded it, it wasn’t much, just overturned benches and mats piled against the doors, it was barely holding anything.

Handwritten notes were taped to the walls: "HELP" "IN HERE," "ALIVE."

Qingran knocked sharply.

From inside, a muffled voice: "Who— who’s there?!"

"Rescue team" Qingran called back. "Open up. Fast."

There was a frantic scrabbling of hands and dragging of furniture.

The door cracked open just wide enough for a face to peer out, a girl, maybe sixteen, her eyes wide and terrified.

"Are you bitten?" Qingran demanded.

The girl shook her head wildly.

"Good. Move."

The doors swung open, and Qingran and Yuxi slipped inside, slamming them shut behind them.

The gym was cold and dark, lit only by thin beams of dusty sunlight through cracked windows.

A dozen people huddled at the far end, a mix of students, a young male teacher clutching a broken hockey stick, two cafeteria workers and a janitor.

They looked starved, filthy, but at least they were alive.

Qingran’s gaze swept the group, noting down the injuries, a sprained ankle, minor cuts but no visible bites.

She turned to the teacher.

"You’re in charge?"

He nodded numbly.

"Good. Listen up," Qingran said, voice cutting through the gloom like a whip.

"We’re getting you out. But you follow my orders exactly. Anyone disobeys,I’ll have to leave you behind."

Fear flickered across their faces, but no one argued.

Feng Yuxi moved among them quickly, handing out strips of cloth to cover their mouths and muffled their steps.

Noise would get them killed before the infected even touched them.

Qingran took a moment to plan.

Front entrance: suicide.

Back doors: buried under debris.

Only way out, was to go up.

"Rooftop extraction.." she decided. "Lingquan, options?"

[Building rooftop is accessible via fire stairs. Structural risk: moderate. Helicopter extraction unavailable. Recommend emergency rappel.]

Qingran cursed under her breath.

They’d have to climb down the side of the building with half-starved civilians.

"Yuxi, prep the lines," she ordered, tossing over coiled rope from her SUV.

The survivors stared at them like they were mad.

"Climb down?!" one girl whimpered. "I— I can’t do that "

"You will" Qingran said coldly. "Or you’ll stay for dinner."

The distant groan of the horde echoed down the halls.

The sound of the dead were getting closer.

They moved fast but Qingran had more strain in her body than she had expected.

Up the fire stairs, carrying the weak, and steadying the injured.

Qingran fired three times on the way up, these were clean shots, clearing a path through a narrow hall where zombies clotted the stairwell like rotting driftwood.

At last, they burst onto the roof.

The afternoon sun was blinding. The wind whipped at their clothes.

Far below, the ruined city stretched endlessly, broken buildings, burning cars, the dark, slow ripple of infected moving like ants through the streets.

Feng Yuxi anchored the ropes to an old ventilation duct.

Qingran tested the knot herself, it held but she didn’t know how long the duct would hold.

"In pairs please" she said sharply. "Lightest first. I’ll cover from above. Yuxi, you go halfway down, guide the landing."

The first pair were two small boys who shakily rappelled over the edge.

Below, the street was swarming. Zombies were pouring toward the noise now.

Hundreds of them, poured out, drawn by scent, by sound and by instinct.

Every second mattered. It was the third pair’s turn, Qingran had advised the girl to be as quiet as possible but half way down a scream tore from a girl’s throat.

Loud enough for all the zombies below to hear, their hands stretching toward the sound.

Qingran gritted her teeth, covering the ground with gunfire, these were clean precise shots, picking off the closest threats.

Lingquan’s voice buzzed sharply [Warning! Large cluster approaching from west street. Time to breach: 3 minutes.]