Kore wa Zombie desu ka?:Volume 1 Prologue

(!)

Note: At the beginning of every chapter is a short aside/preview by one character, that (usually) has something to do with the section to follow. I will be translating these in bold before the main story part.

Could you dodge a meteorite?

Well I did. But really I didn't.

An encounter is kind of like a meteorite that suddenly falls on you.

You never know when it will hit, and even if you did you could do nothing to stop it.

What the meteorite is made of, where it came from and what it will do... you can't know any of that.

All I can say is, when a meteorite falls, something gets damaged.

Prologue: As of This Moment, You're Now a Masou Shoujo! Aren't You Honored?

The first summer since I came to this high school has arrived.

Every year it seems someone is debating "When does summer really begin?", but I don't care about that. "If it's hot, it's summertime." Isn't that enough?

I looked up at the clear skies with no trace of the previous rainy season, ignored whatever very useful thing the teacher was talking about, and just sat there enjoying the dullness of the lesson.

Oh, this is so boring. So wonderfully boring. Boredom itself is the most supreme luxury, in my opinion.

I slumped over my desk, exhausted. We were in the middle of a math lesson, but I didn't give a damn right then. I can't help it, ok? I hate the sunlight.

It isn't that I don't like the window side of the room. I consider the second seat from the back on the window side to be a very good position.

Jeez, how dare they throw water-- er, sun on my precious boredom time.

If this were night school, I wouldn't be so bothered. It isn't really about the heat.

It's the sunlight I can't stand. The sunlight!

There's no use in sitting here going on about it. I offer my thanks to whoever invented the curtain.

In an effort to cut off the sunlight, which they say is bad for your skin, too, I leaned back my seat and poked the boy sleeping behind me with my pencil.

"You mind closing the curtain?"

He just kept on snoring away, with no sign of waking up. I ought to just make this jerk sleep for all eternity. You hear me, jerk? I'm gonna eat you up!

Not good, I'm starting to lose it here... I squinted my eyes and glared at the abominable sunlight.

Damn it, if it weren't for the light from that blasted sun, I would fear nothing at all!

Well, if you've been awake through this your brain is probably melting away like a snow cone from the confusion, so let me put this as bluntly as I can.

I'm a zombie.

Uh, also a Masou Shoujo.

Yes. That was my once in a lifetime coming out speech. Okay, time to sleep now. Please let me sleep.

...And would someone please get that curtain?

As I recall, it happened around 7:12 PM.

That day, I had passed the time idling around school until the sun departed; when night came I left the gates.

You're probably wondering why I had to wait for nightfall, but I couldn't help it. If I tried to walk around under the sunlight I would collapse into the dirt almost immediately.

Despite appearances, I am a zombie, you know?

My house is about five minutes' walk away from the school. And of course at this late hour I don't exactly have a love interest to walk with me, so I headed home all alone.

I should have made it home in five minutes, but that day I felt like taking a detour.

Near my house there is a graveyard. It's fairly big graveyard, and like the typical zombie that I am, naturally I love the place.

Perhaps in defiance of the hot end-of-June air, the wind that blew there was cool. In the sky no stars were visible, only the glow of moonlight.

As I proceeded to about midway in, my footsteps made an enjoyably crunchy sound on the gravel. There, in complete disregard for prudence I sat directly on top of one of the tombstones. The chill of the rock felt unbearably good.

In the mood for some moon gazing, I stuffed my cheeks with an onigiri I had just bought. It was a moment of bliss. Ever since I became a zombie, I've been a lot more hungry than usual.

I may seem like a lonely sort of person, but I believe being alone is proof that one is at peace. Alone I can waste time at my leisure. This in itself is my ideal lifestyle.

So, just when I was feeling blissful...

I think I had built up some tension. I took the plastic bottle of green tea I had just finished and hurled it into the sky. It flew so far that it looked like a speck of dust.

As I watched the night sky wondering when it would finally land, I caught sight of something else shining.

A bird? No no, too big to be a bird. And there were two of them. And no matter how I looked neither of them seemed to be my plastic bottle.

I fled from that spot. I didn't panic, nor did I rush. I simply observed their trajectory, figured out where would be a safe place to stand, and moved myself there.

There was a loud "CRASH!" and a hole opened up in the place I was standing.

It blew the gravel on the ground into a tremendous cloud, and sand and rock poured down over the tombstones.

Now I see, this must be what they mean by "heavy rain", eh?

As I silently promised God I would never ever litter again, I made my way back to the newly formed crater.

I mean, come on, anyone would be curious. It had nothing at all to do with me being a zombie.

"Owowowowow!"

A girl wearing a cosplay you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere but a doujinshi sale was there clutching her hip. I estimated her height to be around 145cm.

Underneath the girl, an Asian black bear wearing a school uniform lay senseless on the ground. Also, for some reason there was a chainsaw off to one side.

When I picked it up, it was definitely a lot lighter than I thought. Or maybe it just felt light because I'm a zombie. ...But enough of that.

"Heey!" I called out to the girl holding her hips. She shook her chestnut colored, soft looking shoulder length hair and glared back at me.

Her pupils were large and intense, like a cat's. I wanted to stare lovingly into those pretty eyes, but my gaze kept drifting upward.

The reason for that was the bit of hair bouncing at the very top of her head, a unique phenomenon known as an ahoge.

"Are you all right?"

"Aaaahhh!"

Her mouth opened wide, the girl pointed her finger in my direction. What did she see? Could it be that she figured out I'm a zombie?

"My masou-renki! Give it back! Quickly! Hurry up! Immediately, this moment, quickly, rapidly, directly, in the blink of an eye, shortly, instantly, in a flash, at once, right now, swiftly,　immediately give it back!"

With a clattering noise she stomped her way across the gravel, drawing closer to me.

"Wait! Just hold on a minute. What the hell is a masou-renki?"

As she menaced her way across the gravel her ahoge waved back and forth. But what is the deal with her outfit, anyway? That costume, embarrassing just to look at, went "whoosh" and vanished, twinkling away to reveal her white skin... wait, she's naked?

"That thing that you have! If I don't have it then I can't use my attack magic!"

It seemed she was so angry she didn't even realize her own clothes had disappeared.

At any rate, she had such cute little breasts. It was awesome. Mother, I now know how it feels to truly be alive! ...Even though I'm dead.

"This?" I pointed to the chainsaw in my hand. She made a grab for it.

When she tried to touch it, the chainsaw released a spark like static electricity and stopped her white hand from getting close.

"Ouch! Why?!"

She tried again and again. Each time she came near it sparked. When she tried to force herself to hold on anyway, it turned into a powerful electric shock.

"All that aside, do you have a change of clothes or something?"

"Ah, huh?"

She was probably repeating my words in her head. She thought about it for around 2 seconds. Then her cheeks, ears, her whole face, even her entire body turned red.

"Don't look at me! Pervert! You Ero-Special!"

"Ero-Special? Don't call me something that sounds like Warsman's finishing move!"

Without stopping to debate the matter she kicked me in the face as hard as she could, then hid behind a nearby tombstone.

I wasn't even given a chance to consider going down there with her.

The more than 3 meters tall bear wearing a school uniform bent its knees and jumped into the air, throwing gravel all around. It was the one other thing that fell down here with the girl. Even a zombie like me would be startled, right? It was so sudden.

From when the bear rose high into the air to when it hit me with a flying kick took no more than about 1 second, as I remember. A magnificent quick attack, indeed.

But this was no time to be admiring it. As the heavily muscled foot struck my cheek with full force, my head collided with a tombstone.

Oh, my. I'm so glad I'm a zombie. I feel no pain at all. With my body, I could even smash my little toe into a corner and it wouldn't hurt. I am dead, after all.

I stood up and faced off against the bear. That last attack had knocked the chainsaw from my hand, and it fell to the ground nearby. The naked girl timidly tried to touch it, but of course it zapped her with a spark and rejected her.

"I've just got one question; what is this bear?"

Out of the corner of my eye I watched the girl turn her eyes back to the bear. I don't know where the heck it learned to, but the bear was taking a stance very much like kung fu.

"That's the fiendish high-school girl Kumatchi! You'd better run away! If you don't you'll be killed in an instant!"

The shocking truth. Somehow this bear is a high school girl... or is it? It is wearing a school uniform. That at least makes it a student. Well, taking 700 grains of salt with that,

"Doesn't seem all that fiendish to me?"

The bear before me had big round eyes like a teddy bear. Its fur was pretty, and it was actually kind of cute, ok? Enough so that if it weren't moving it would look just like an enormous teddy bear itself.

"Idiot! You are really stupid! Can't you measure your enemy's strength at all? This is why I can't stand the humans in this world!"

The girl continued on in an amazed tone of voice. You haven't really measured my strength right either, you know.

The not very strong looking, teddy-bear-like, cute faced bear opened its mouth. Then, with its fangs out it turned toward the moon and howled. It was the cry of a wild beast.

At that atmosphere-shaking roar, the girl and I both stiffened in fear. From the bear's mouth a purple poisonous-looking breath rose like a mist around us.

I closed my fists lightly and squinted my eyes.