Born Into the Apocalypse, Somehow I Ended Up Leading a Hopeless Party
The world ended the day I was born.
Or more accurately, it had already ended forty years earlier. By the time I popped out screaming from my mother’s womb, the zombie outbreak had long since turned the Atlas Continent into a rotting hellscape. Cities lay in ruins, highways were graveyards of rusted metal, and the only law that remained was the one enforced by bullets and blades.
Yet somehow, humanity was still kicking. Eight massive factions carved up what was left of civilization, ruling from fortified megacities like Neon City. Between their territories sprawled the lawless gray zones—wilderness ruled by raiders, mutated beasts, and the occasional warlord with more ego than sense. And in the middle of all that mess?
Me. Claude Ban. Twenty-two years old, ridiculously lucky, and currently staring at the absolute train wreck of a party I’d somehow inherited.
“Boss, we’re fucked. Like, capital F, neon-sign-on-the-tombstone fucked.”
The one whining was a scrawny guy named Jax, our so-called scout. He was crouched behind an overturned bus, peeking at the horde of rotting corpses shambling toward us. His hands shook so badly I was surprised he hadn’t dropped his rifle yet.
I sighed and leaned against the same bus, chewing on a piece of jerky I’d found in an abandoned vending machine two days ago. Tasted like regret and artificial smoke flavor. “Jax, you’ve been saying that since we left the outpost. At this point it’s just your catchphrase.”
“Because it keeps being true!” He gestured wildly. “Look at us! We’ve got a trigger-happy idiot, a depressed medic who keeps trying to mercy-kill us, a tank who’s scared of blood, and me—the only one with half a brain—who’s about to piss himself. This isn’t a party, it’s a suicide support group!”
From behind a nearby wrecked car came a cheerful voice that absolutely did not match the situation.
“Hey, Captain! Should I just blow them all up? I brought the fun explosives~”
That was Mina. Our demolitions expert. Pink hair, even pinker personality, and a smile that suggested she’d enjoy watching the world burn if it came with pretty fireworks. She was currently juggling three grenades like they were stress balls.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Mina, if you throw those near the fuel tanker again, I swear I’m leaving you in the next gray zone we pass.”
“Aww, but last time it was so pretty! The explosion made a heart shape in the smoke!”
Behind her, our medic—Dr. Elena Voss—let out a long, exhausted sigh. She was beautiful in that ‘I haven’t slept in three days and might stab you’ kind of way. Her white coat was stained with old blood and what I hoped was just mud.
“If anyone wants me to end their suffering before the zombies get here,” she said in a monotone, “just raise your hand. I have enough morphine to make it feel like falling asleep. Mostly.”
Our tank, a mountain of a man named Bruno, whimpered from where he was curled up behind a concrete barrier. “Zombies have teeth… teeth are scary… blood is scary…”
I looked at the four disasters I was somehow responsible for and wondered, not for the first time, what cruel god had decided this was my life.
It had started three weeks ago. I woke up in a ruined hospital with nothing but the clothes on my back and an absurd amount of luck that seemed to bend probability itself. Within a day I’d found a working motorcycle, a cache of canned food that was still edible, and a group of survivors who were about to be eaten by mutants.
I saved them. They thanked me. Then they immediately made me their leader because “you look like you know what you’re doing.”
I did not.
But I also didn’t die, which in this world was basically the same as being a genius. So here I was. Leader of the worst party in the gray zones. The one every faction laughed about when they bothered to remember we existed.
The No-Hope Party. That’s what they called us behind our backs. I kind of liked the name. Had a nice ring to it.
“Alright, listen up,” I said, tossing the rest of the jerky to Bruno who caught it with surprising reflexes for someone having a panic attack. “We’re not dying today. We’re going to do what we always do.”
Jax peeked over the bus again. “Run away screaming?”
“No. We’re going to solve the problem.”
Mina’s eyes lit up. “With explosions?”
“Maybe. But first—” I pointed at the approaching horde. There were at least two hundred of them. Slow ones, mostly. The fresh ones hadn’t joined yet. “—we’re going to use our heads. Jax, how many bullets do we have left?”
“Not enough to kill all of them. Maybe enough to make them mad.”
“Perfect. Elena, any corpses nearby that still have working legs?”
She tilted her head, then pointed lazily toward a half-crushed ambulance. “Three. One looks like it used to be a sprinter before it got turned.”
“Good. Bruno, I need you to stop crying and flip that tanker truck onto its side. Can you do that?”
The big man sniffled but nodded, wiping his nose with a massive forearm. “If… if it means we don’t get eaten… yeah.”
I grinned. The kind of grin that usually preceded either brilliant ideas or absolute disasters. In my case, it was usually both at the same time.
“Mina, rig the tanker with your ‘fun explosives.’ Not too much. We want a nice big fireball, not a mushroom cloud. Jax, you’re on bait duty. Lead the horde in a circle around the tanker. Elena, wake up those three corpses and have them join the parade. We’re going to make the zombies dance.”
They stared at me like I’d lost my mind. Which, fair.
But they moved anyway. Because despite all the whining, crying, and general incompetence, they trusted me. Probably because I hadn’t gotten them killed yet.
That was the thing about this world. It didn’t matter if you were strong, smart, or even sane. What mattered was that you kept solving problems until the problems ran out.
And me? I was very, very good at solving problems.
Even if my methods looked like the fever dream of a B-movie director on a caffeine overdose.
As the first explosion lit up the evening sky and sent burning zombies flying like rotten fireworks, I couldn’t help but laugh.
Welcome to the apocalypse.
Try not to die. I’ve got a harem to build and a world to fix, and I’d rather not do it alone.