219 Casuality...?
‘This idiot!’ Mathew opened up his eyes wide.
He noticed what Carol was doing too late to stop her. And as such, he could only watch how she raised her hands, and with an unhinged look on her face, she shoved them forward.
Following her movements, the burning stones that the girl created flew forth. They passed right through the school’s barrier with no trouble only to loop around the first few rows of the zombies before crashing right into the sides of the horde.
BOOM!
As if someone threw out a stick of dynamite, Carol’s projectiles exploded into hundreds of pieces, each of which continued to burn any and all that was unlucky enough to stay in its path.
‘Does she want to burn an entire district?!’ Mathew screamed out internally. Yet, rather than just whining about the situation, he turned around on his feet. “I’m leaving this place to you for a sec,” he informed Daria only to bolt back toward the safety of the school’s compound.
“That’s right!” Carol screamed out from the bottom of her lungs, already forming a new set of projectiles.
“STOP IT, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!” Mathew screamed out, landing right by the side of the girl.
And then, without any hesitation, he sent his fist right toward her stomach.
It was soft. As soft as it was as when he gripped it only about an hour prior.
Yet, the softness that Mathew enjoyed quite a lot before now turned into a fatal flaw.
“Gheeee…” Mathew’s attack squeezed all the air out of the girl’s lungs, instantly distracting her and forcing the girl to lose her focus, dropping her shards of earth and stone back to the ground. “Do you want to burn this entire city down?!” he then screamed out right in her face.
“Haaa…” Carol let out all the air from her lungs as she fell to her knees. She then prompted herself on her hand, unable to keep herself stable even when kneeling down.
“You can use those stones all you want, but don’t go overboard. What will you do if this barrier won’t hold against fire that you could cause?” he scolded the girl, only to turn right back on the spot.
Mathew’s detour lasted only for a few seconds but it was more than enough for the zombies at the gate to quickly start overwhelming the defenses consisting of Daria and the newbies from the hunting squad.
“I’m sorry…” Carol uttered in a surprisingly meek voice once she managed to recover herself from Mathew’s physical scold. “I… I didn’t think about that.”
“You better do in the future,” Mathew replied in a cold tone only to rush right back towards the gate.
He ran forth, readying his saber as he ran.
‘I was away only for a second but it’s already bad,’ he thought, gritting his teeth only to use the momentum of his dash to kick the zombie that made it the furthest inside the compound right back into the horde.
Mathew’s kick ended up heavy enough to throw the screeching zombie back… and then topple several more of them when they crashed into each other.
“Right in time,” Daria commented half-heartedly, too focused on warding off the attacks of several zombies at once to properly address her husband.
“Sorry for that,” Mathew said, brandishing his blade and cutting through the zombies the girl was fighting with.
“AARGH!” a desperate scream then reached from his side.
‘Fuck,’ Mathew cursed in his thoughts, leaving Daria to her own devices again only to rush towards the voice and cut open the head of the zombie whose teeth sank into the shoulder of one of the hunters. ‘Tsk,’ he clicked his tongue, kicking the properly dead corpses away only to turn around on the spot and send his foot right into the injured hunter’s stomach, sending him flying through the air back towards Carol. “Cauterize the wound!” he shouted, only to realize the problem with his order.
In the heat of the moment, using high-end words like that was akin to not giving orders at all.
“Burn his shoulder out!” he then screamed out again, only to rush ahead, making his way right into the crowd of zombies.
‘If the fire will stop the spread of the virus, there might still be enough time to save that guy,’ he thought, making his way through the zombies by slashing left and right, seemingly without any real plan.
“Nadia! Leila!” he then shouted once he got close enough to the girls ahead. “We need to retreat for now!” he then shouted, only to turn right back and start cutting his way through the zombies that already managed to fill the hole he made when pushing forth.
“On it!” Leila shouted back. On the other hand, Nadia simply appeared right by Mathew’s side, proving that not even a horde could stop her from freely moving around.
“What happened?” Nadia asked in a bathed breath, too busy cutting down zombies to utter more words in a sentence.
“We got a casualty,” Mathew replied, stopping in his tracks to avoid four different zombies grabbing at him only to then push ahead as soon as said zombies lost their stability and thus rendered themselves unable to attack again for a short while.
“That sucks,” Nadia admitted right as the two of them passed by the open wings of the gate.
“Can you close the gate on your own?” Mathew asked shortly, turning around to check Leila’s progress.
“Don’t worry about it,” Nadia replied right away. “Go and try to help the poor guy. If we lose someone right away, no one will dare to go hunt again,” she then proved that she understood what Mathew was really worried about.
In the world of apocalypse, death turned from a sad novelty into a depressing reality of one’s everyday life. And for the nearly twenty days of the apocalypse that Mathew survived through, he grew more than numb to the notion of losing friends and compatriots.
“I’m here!” Leila shouted a moment later once she dropped down right by the two of them. “We will take care of the gate, you can go!” she then shouted, only to turn around on the spot and start grinding through the incoming zombies.
“Thanks!” Mathew shouted only to turn around on the spot and dash toward Carol. “How is he?” he then asked, taking a quick look at the guy lying down by the girl’s feet.
“He lost consciousness so far,” Carol reported. The look on her face made it clear that in the current situation she left the former conflict aside, focusing on the actual problem at hand. “But he didn’t turn yet,” she then said, only for the poor hunter’s body to start trembling as if to spite her words.
“Hold him down for now,” Mathew then ordered, turning himself towards the compound only to bolt forward. He ran as fast as he could only to use the ruins as a stepping stone before jumping up and towards the window on the second floor. ‘The merchant allowed me to help Nadia,’ he thought, gritting his teeth while midair only to then tense his body up to prepare for the impact. ‘That means, there is still hope for that guy!’ he thought, right as his body slammed into the glass of the window, shattering it into thousand pieces.