# Chapter 1: The Blocky Savior
**Log Entry: Day 1, Unknown Location**
The last thing I remembered was the blinding blue light of my computer screen, the familiar blocky terrain of my Minecraft world, and the sudden, gut-wrenching sensation of falling through my chair. Now, I'm standing in the middle of a cracked asphalt road, the acrid smell of smoke and decay thick in the air. Panic clawed at my throat until a transparent, pixelated menu flickered into existence before my eyes.
**[MINECRAFT INTEGRATION SYSTEM v1.0 ACTIVATED]**
**[USER: DESIGNATION: O.C. CONFIRMED]**
**[WORLD ASSIMILATION: HIGH SCHOOL OF THE DEAD (VARIANT EARTH-732)… COMPLETE]**
**[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: ESTABLISH HAVEN. SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: SECURE ALLIES. SURVIVAL PARAMETERS: ACTIVE.]**
**[WARNING: LOCAL BIOMASS HOSTILES DETECTED. COMMENCING TUTORIAL.]**
"What the hell?" I whispered, my voice trembling. The system wasn't kidding. Down the street, a figure in a tattered business suit shuffled, its movements all wrong. A low, wet groan echoed off the silent storefronts. *Zombies. Actual, real, flesh-eating zombies.*
Before I could fully process it, the tutorial took over. My vision tinted green as a crafting grid superimposed itself on reality. A prompt appeared: *[Gather Resources: Punch Tree?]* I spun around. There, in a small, neatly kept front yard, stood a cherry blossom tree.
"Sorry," I muttered, and swung my fist. To my shock, instead of skin breaking against bark, a *thunk* sound echoed, and a cubic chunk of wood and pink leaves popped free from the tree, floating in the air. I touched it, and it vanished into my inventory. A new HUD element appeared in the corner of my vision showing a familiar 4x4 grid. After a few more punches, I had a stack of oak logs.
**[CRAFTING UNLOCKED]**
Instinct took over. I opened the grid. *Four planks. Two sticks. Workbench.* In a flash of particles, a crafting table materialized at my feet. I placed a hand on it, and a larger interface opened. My mind raced. I needed a weapon. *Two sticks, three planks. Crafting…*
*Thunk.*
A wooden sword, looking absurdly blocky and solid, settled into my grip. It had weight. It felt *real.*
The groan was closer. The businessman zombie had noticed me, its milky eyes locking on, mouth opening in a ragged hole. It lurched forward, speed increasing.
Fear turned to ice in my veins. This wasn't a game. This was *High School of the Dead*. People died here. Horribly. The secondary objective from the system flashed in my mind: *Secure Allies.* The harem thought from my old life felt distant, shameful now. This was about saving people. About preventing the horrors I remembered.
I sidestepped its clumsy grab, the Minecraft mechanics translating into fluid movement. I swung the wooden sword. It connected with the zombie's head with a solid *crack*, not of bone, but like hitting a tough melon. The zombie staggered, a red particle effect (♥) flashing above it. Two more swings, and it collapsed into a heap, dissolving into a few glowing orbs of experience and a single, rotten piece of flesh.
**[+10 XP]**
**[ACQUIRED: ROTTEN FLESH x1]**
**[LEVEL 1 REACHED]**
I stood there, panting, the reality of my situation crashing down. I had a Minecraft system in a zombie apocalypse. I could build, craft, mine. But I was in the world of *High School of the Dead*. That meant Takashi, Rei, Saeko, Saya, Shizuka, Alice… They were out here, right now, fighting for their lives.
A new quest notification pulsed.
**[QUEST RECEIVED: THE FUJIYAMA GROUP]**
**[OBJECTIVE: REACH FUJIYAMA HIGH SCHOOL AND SECURE THE INITIAL SURVIVORS BEFORE THE HELICOPTER DEPARTURE.]**
**[REWARDS: IRON INGROT x5, SYSTEM MAP UNLOCK, BED SPAWN POINT SET.]**
**[FAILURE: ISOLATION. HIGH PROBABILITY OF TOTAL PARTY DEATH.]**
A map marker, a glowing waypoint, appeared in my vision, pointing across the chaotic city. The school was miles away. The city was already falling. I had no time.
I looked at my crafting table. Wooden tools wouldn't be enough. I needed stone. I sprinted to the side of a nearby concrete building. Focusing, I punched the wall. A block of grey, pixelated *stone* popped free. My fist didn't hurt. The rules of Minecraft governed my interactions with the world.
Frantically, I crafted a stone pickaxe, then a stone sword and a full set of stone armor, which appeared on my body as a stylized, geometric cuirass, greaves, and helmet. I felt stronger, more durable. A status bar showed my health (10 hearts) and hunger (10 drumsticks, full).
I started running, following the waypoint. The streets were a tableau of nightmares—overturned cars, abandoned luggage, and more of the dead. I avoided large groups, using my ability to break a single lower block of a fence to slip through, then replacing it behind me to slow pursuers. The zombies couldn't break blocks, only pathfind. It was a game-changer.
After an hour of tense travel, leaping over roofs with impossible Minecraft parkour (three-block gaps were trivial), I heard it. The distinct *pop-pop-pop* of handgun fire, followed by the louder roar of a shotgun. My heart hammered. *The mall. It's happening at the mall near the school!*
I changed course, scrambling up a fire escape and sprinting across rooftop air conditioning units. I peered over the ledge of a department store overlooking a large parking lot.
There they were.
Takashi Komuro, wielding a steel pipe, guarding a young girl—Alice. The nurse, Shizuka Marikawa, was ushering them toward a bus. And there, holding off a horde with breathtaking, deadly grace, was Saeko Busujima, her bokken a blur, and Saya Takagi, firing a shotgun with grim determination. Rei Miyamoto was helping a wounded student.
They were cornered, the bus their only hope, but the dead were converging from all sides. Saeko was tiring, a scratch on her arm. Saya was reloading frantically. In moments, they'd be overwhelmed.
The system pinged.
**[CRITICAL MISSION: DEFEND THE POINT]**
**[OBJECTIVE: HOLD THE LINE FOR 120 SECONDS.]**
**[SUGGESTION: IMPROVISED FORTIFICATION.]**
I didn't hesitate. My inventory was full of cobblestone from my run. I leaped down from the roof, landing with a roll that absorbed the fall damage. I landed between the horde and the survivors, my stone sword in hand.
"Who the hell are you?!" Takashi yelled, shock evident on his face.
"A friend! Get to the bus!" I shouted, my voice firmer than I felt.
I didn't engage the zombies directly. Instead, I faced the open side of the parking lot entrance. I began placing blocks. *Thump. Thump. Thump.* Solid, one-meter cubes of cobblestone erupted from my hands, stacking rapidly into a three-block high wall, sealing the widest gap. The zombies slammed into it, clawing uselessly at the unyielding stone.
Saeko's eyes, fierce and analytical, widened in pure astonishment. "How…?"
"No time!" I grunted, building a second, smaller wall to funnel the remaining zombies into a choke point where Takashi and Saeko could cut them down efficiently. I pulled out my stone sword and joined the fray. My swings were mechanical but powerful, each strike dropping a zombie. I took a hit on my armored shoulder, feeling the impact but seeing only two hearts blink off my HUD.
With the flank secured, the group fought with renewed vigor. In sixty seconds, the immediate threat was cleared.
Panting, we backed toward the bus. All eyes were on me and my bizarre, blocky armor and the impossible wall now standing in the parking lot.
Shizuka, the bubbly nurse, was the first to speak, her curiosity overriding her fear. "Your clothes… and that wall! It just appeared! Are you a magician?"
Saya pushed her glasses up, her gaze sharp and skeptical. "More importantly, who are you and what do you want?"
I let my sword drop to my side, the interface fading slightly. I looked at them—Takashi's protective stance, Rei's wary hope, Saeko's intrigued intensity, Saya's intelligent suspicion, Shizuka's open wonder, and little Alice's scared eyes.
The system's secondary objective glowed in my mind. But looking at them, it wasn't about a harem. It was about the hollow, broken futures I'd seen in the anime. It was about Saeko's despair, Saya's guilt, Rei's loss, Shizuka's forced cheerfulness.
I met Saya's gaze.
"My name is O.C. What I want," I said, the words feeling true as I spoke them, "is to get you all to safety. All of you. And to build a place where nothing out there can get in. A real sanctuary."
A new notification, soft and warm, appeared.
**[FUJIYAMA GROUP SECURED.]**
**[REWARDS CLAIMED.]**
**[NEW QUEST: FOUNDATION. OBJECTIVE: ESTABLISH A SAFE HOUSE.]**
**[AFFINITY GAUGE UNLOCKED: MIYAMOTO REI (NEUTRAL), BUSUJIMA SAEKO (INTERESTED), TAKAGI SAYA (SKEPTICAL), MARIKAWA SHIZUKA (FRIENDLY)]**
As the bus engine roared to life, carrying us away from the immediate hell, I looked back at my cobblestone wall, standing defiant against the tide of the dead. I had the tools. I had the system. And now, I had the first precious lives to protect. The long road to saving everyone had just begun.