LEVELING UP WIVES IN THE APOCALYPSE

“The path is clear until the next block,” Norbert reported after blinking his eyes a few times, a sign that he returned from the usage of his ghostly form.

“And after that?” Mathew asked while peeking over the small fence his group was hiding behind.

“Roughly a hundred wanders on the street directly adjacent to the building,” Norbert replied without a moment of hesitation. “Some are trying to get inside, some just wander around, others are trying to get around.”

“So their number is decreasing I presume?”

“It’s not,” Norbert shook his head. “For every zombie that finds a way around, another one appears from the other side, stranded from the main horde on the other side of the building. Oh, and most importantly,” Norbert swallowed his saliva, “the front of the building is torn open pretty bad.”

‘And yet, whoever is inside managed to pull the entire horde to the opposite side of it,’ Mathew thought, deriving his own conclusion from Norbert’s report. “And that means they have someone observant at the very least,” he added, not even realizing his thoughts slipped through his lips.

Mathew shook his head.

“Did you take a look inside?” he asked, sitting down on the ground by the fence as he dropped the idea of scouting the area with his own two eyes. With Norbert at his side, there was no logical point in doing so besides Mathew’s innate desire to ascertain the situation himself.

“Only scanned the insides for a preferable route up to the roof and potential dangers,” Norbert denied. “I was told not to waste time so I didn’t,” he added with a shrug of his shoulders.

“That’s true…” Mathew uttered. He then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Then let’s not waste any time,” he added before springing up, grabbing the edge of the fence, and jumping over it.

Just like Norbert reported, no zombies appeared to be in the direct vincity of Mathew’s group. And outside of the racket coming from where the horde was, their surroundings were so silent the atmosphere turned eeire.

“Are you really sure it’s okay to just walk through the middle of the street?” Daniel asked when Mathew reached the exact center of the open area.

“If they have someone capable of guiding the zombies by shifting the manpower inside the building, I bet they have someone on the lookout on this side as well,” Mathew pointed out. “With how unpredictable those zombies can be and with how little others can know about them, only an idiot would take their current behavior for granted,” Mathew stated.

‘And I’m exactly an idiot like that,’ Mathew thought, not holding his own self-critique down.

“Well then, here goes nothing,” Daniel muttered when their group moved past the last intersection and entered the street on which Norbert reported before.

“You guys know what to do,” Mathew said out loud, not minding the prospect of alerting the nearest zombies with his voice. He simply brandished his trusty ax before taking a step forward.

Just like one would expect, Mathew’s voice alerted some of the zombies. And as they turned around and started to slowly walk towards them while releasing their usual screeches, more and more of them took notice.

By the time Mathew made his way halfway across the streets, all the zombies on this side of the media building were now zeroed in on his group.

“Deploy,” Daniel ordered shortly, taking a position by Mathew’s far left himself.

The girls didn’t waste their breath on confirming they heard the order. Their group was small enough for there not to be any risk of disorganization.

Nadia stood directly to Mathew’s right, walking roughly half a step behind him. Leila moved a small distance away from the center of the group, taking care of the right-wing. As he had no innate means of fighting, Norbert was positioned right behind Mathew’s back with Daria shadowing every last of his moves as his private bodyguard.

Not a single one of them uttered a battle cry. As veterans of one and a half days of intense fighting, they no longer felt any rush when it came to fighting.

‘Off we go,’ Mathew thought as he swung his ax back and then rested it on his shoulder. He then hastened his steps a little, just enough to add some momentum to when he swung his ax next.

A hand of a zombie fell off its body. A kick to its side later, the unstable corpse fell to the side, freeing the path ahead for the center of the group.

“Leave the crystals to me,” Daria shouted over, just loud enough for her voice to cut through the massive racket coming from the other side of the building.

“Much appreciated,” Mathew replied, fixing both of his hands on his handle before lazily swinging his weapon.

Another zombie fell to the ground with its head rolling away to the side.

‘This feels like some kind of time-off,’ Mathew thought as he pushed further into the group of zombies.

His movements were sharp yet short, leaving the young man ready to commit to the fight the second he would notice the zombies suddenly changing.

“Norbert, it’s the time!” Mathew said several zombies later.

“On it,” Daria replied, even though the order, in theory, had nothing to do with her. In reality though, she dropped whatever she was doing before and brought Norbert’s arm over her shoulder, ready to carry him forward.

The younger of the officers closed his eyes. This time, however, he took only a moment to return from his scouting mission.

“Some are detaching from the horde and coming around to our right!” he reported before closing his eyes again.

“So I was right,” Mathew muttered, adding a bit more strength to his next swing.

It wasn’t as if Mathew’s opponent turned out to be somewhat harder to deal with. It was the same kind of zombies that the young man was already used to fighting. Mathew simply used this attack as a way to exhaust some of his frustration.

Because just like he predicted, those stragglers that their meet on the vulnerable side of the building, weren’t stragglers at all.

‘They are damned guards,’ Mathew thought, gritting his teeth as he focused on the fight even more than before.

After experiencing what it felt like to fight against those strange, red-eyed zombies, he had no intention of letting their appearance take him by a surprise.

“Kiddo! Over here!” Daniel shouted from Mathew’s right, not caring about the potential risks of using a loud voice in the proximity of a massive horde.

“Swing towards us!” Mathew shouted back, not even bothering to look to his side. Instead, he tightened the grip over the handle of his ax before ramping up the speed at which he continued to finish the task that the zombie virus failed to accomplish.

“Roughly three hundred detached and are heading around the building towards us,” Norbert reported.

“We do just as planned!” Mathew shouted as loud as he could.

A zombie rushed from ahead, spreading its arms open as if in an attempt to hug the young man. Rather than wasting a second to kill it, Mathew leaned his upper body to the back, reaching out with the handle of his weapon towards Nadia. At the same time, he swung his left leg forward, kicking the zombie away while also using the movement to keep himself stable in the awkward position he found himself in.

“Mathew!” Daria called out before throwing a small pebble at her leader.

“Thanks!” Mathew grabbed the shiny core that she got from one of the zombies he defeated before. “Leila, get ready!” he then shouted before fisting yet another zombie that made the mistake of getting close.

“Do you want me to clear the path?” Nadia as she swung Mathew’s ax around with an expression of wild amusement appearing on her face.

“I will be fine, thanks,” Mathew replied. And as soon as Leila reached out to the center of the group and tapped him on the shoulder, Mathew rushed ahead.

The rest of his group was perfectly capable of making their way toward any of the openings within the wall of the building. Be it the doors, the holes in the wall, or the dug-out path towards the hole in the basement’s wall, one could pick any path they wanted inside the building.

Yet, rather than following after the rest of his group, Mathew rushed to his right. And by the time he rubbed his shoulder against Daniel, who in turn was moving back towards the center of the formation, a huge unit of zombies finally appeared from beyond the corner of the building.

‘Now, let’s hope this building will withstand the shockwave,’ Mathew thought as he tightened his fists.

He raised his hand up to the sky before even reaching the group of fresh zombies. He brought it down right as he crashed directly into the army of normal zombies supported by several red-eyed ones.

And by the time the zombies finally had any realistic way of reaching out for his body, Mathew simply brought his hand down, crushing the stone against the concrete pavement while at the same time infusing it with all the energy that he could muster.

BOOM!

Mathew’s skill worked just the same way it did all the times when Mathew used it in the past. Some zombies ended up flattened against the nearby buildings. Others were sent flying in the air only to crash down on the ground.

Yet, for how gore the aftermatch of Mathew’s skill was, his attack only managed to claim a few zombies. A zombie would die only if its head would be crushed and its brain destroyed. And there were only a few of those that ended up crashing against a hard surface with their heads.

‘That should slow them down enough,’ Mathew thought, turning around on his feet before rushing towards the building.

Whoever was inside managed to take the advantage of the fact that zombies were attracted to living beings. And it appeared that even the evolved zombie that managed to escape Mathew’s culling before couldn’t go against this instinct of theirs.

As such, despite how easy reaching the building was, it wasn’t the end of Mathew’s initial task. Because if they took too long to reach the other side of the building insides, then all the efforts that the locals put to keep the zombies at bay would end up wasted!