241 Discussing the deal
“What is it in us to risk our lives for the sake of some random civilians?”
Mathew forcefully restrained his face from showing up an unpleasant grin as soon as he uttered this question. It wasn’t easy for him to act so cold-heartedly, not even after everything he went through.
“What do you want?” Beatrice barked, taking the hint hidden behind Mathew’s words.
“It’s simple,” Mathew replied, leaning his head over his shoulder while smiling at the policewoman. “I want you,” he stated only to then glance over at the two other policemen still asleep by her side. “And I want the two of them as well.”
Both Beatrice and the two men that she was stuck in a car with were left behind when Daniel requested reinforcements.
There was a chance they were told to stay back so that the field headquarters of the operation would have some manpower to defend against some sort of attack…
‘But let’s not forget this wasn’t some sort of high-stakes anti-terror operation,’ Mathew thought ‘They all believed they were going to take down a single teenage freak. Which means…’
“Just like you, they are good administrators, are they not?” Mathew then asked. Yet, rather than hoping for an answer, he simply shed some light on the meaning of his request.
“And here I was about to turn quite judgemental of you,” Beatrice sighed only to shake her head before grabbing at the plastic package with food rations.
She then brought the entire thing to her mouth only to bite at the wrapping and then tear it off.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Mathew said as soon as the woman laid the still-hot package on her lap before spooning a bit of the rice with her finger and stuffing it in her mouth. “I’m likely going to do something to you that you have never done before,” he said.
“Hah?”
Beatrice was stuck without food and water for three whole days. Right now, she finally got to eat something… Only for her mouth to stop moving at all as she looked up and stared down at Mathew’s face with her eyes wide open.
Gulp.
The woman swallowed the tiny amount of rice she managed to get before blinking her eyes a few times.
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“I said the bad news first,” Mathew replied only to slap his hands against his hips. “Norbert has the system that allows him to become a ghost and move freely around. Daniel, who is currently overseeing another place, has a system that allows him to strike stuff,” Mathew explained, only for his face to twist as a sudden question appeared in his mind.
‘Wait, I wonder what his system actually does,’ he thought, taking some time to analyze all the memories he had about the man fighting.
And if there was anything that struck him about Daniel’s fighting style… it was how rhythmical it was.
“Well, whatever,” Mathew muttered. He then shook his head, pushing the non-topic stuff out of his mind as he focused on the woman before him again. “On the other hand, my system allows me to take wives and grant them the benefits of my own system.”
“Speaking of Daniel, I would really like to meet with him,” Beatrice muttered only to lower her head. Then, rather than picking the topic that Mathew started, she opted to move her healthy hand back into the task of scooping rice and sauce out of the package and then stuffing it into her mouth.
“Here,” Leila then approached the woman with a spoon she snatched from another package. And as soon as the policewoman took the utensil, Leila tore out a small piece of cloth from her shirt before passing it over as well.
“Eating with your hand so oily can’t be comfortable,” she said, showing a surprising degree of empathy.
‘Is she trying to make her less wary of us?’ Mathew thought, observing the girl with one of his eyebrows slightly raised.
‘I saw her parade through a corpse-filled corridor as if she was on some flowery plain. And now she is pretending to be a nice, thoughtful person?’
“Okay then, why do you want me to take me as your wife?” Beatrice swallowed the food she had in her mouth before lowering the spoon and focusing her eyes on Mathew’s face.
“To potentially restore your hand,” Mathew replied without hesitation. “Listen, I know how it sounds…”
“Wait for a moment,” the policewoman raised her healthy hand to stop Mathew from speaking. “I’m aware of how it sounds. But I’m also aware of how little I understand about how the world changed.”
The woman then took a deep breath and even stopped herself from snacking on the food.
“You want me to work for you. Not for the sake of killing zombies but for the sake of managing the survivors,” Beatrice said.
“That’s right, but…”
“How did I know it?” Norbert’s crush smiled, cutting Mathew’s words before he could even pose his question. “You gave me enough hints for that already,” she stated only to then put a cute smile on her lips before leaning her head to the side. “I bet the three of us working under you was the condition for you saving the rest of the survivors, right?”
Although initially surprised, Mathew quickly overcame his shock before showcasing a small, satisfied smile.
“I never expected you to be able to accept the different reality and then process the information so quickly,” he admitted, not holding back from praising the woman. “It also proves I was right when deciding it’s worth trying to recruit you.”
“Come on,” Beatrice smiled as well as if the two of them turned into conspirators of some sort. “It wasn’t the muscles that got me the job I had before everything went to shit,” she stated, tapping her temple with her spoon only to bring it back to the food ration as she resumed her task of filling her starving stomach. “So,” she then added, raising her stump and waving it in the air. “Can you really fix it?”
Mathew took a deep breath… only to then release a long sigh.
“To be honest, I don’t know,” he admitted. “I have no idea how a certain service we obtained works. Maybe it will register the state you are in when you become my wife and always bring you back to it?” he suggested only to shake his head. “Or maybe it heals you to the state you believe to be perfectly healthy?”
Mathew shook his head again, bitting down at his lips when the degree of how little he knew about the stuff he used dawned upon him again.
“I don’t think it’s the first option,” Nadia then spoke out, breaking the silent mood she was in ever since the conversation started. “If that were to be the case, wouldn’t our levels revert every time we used the touching grass feature?”
Nadia’s suggestion filled Mathew’s mind with another bout of analysis while making Beatrice twist her face in a weird grin.
“Touch grass…?” she muttered, squinting her eyes as she looked at Norbert in hopes of getting some answers.
“I will explain later…” Norbert replied with a helpless look on his face.
“Anyway,” Mathew said, clapping his hand together to produce a sound that drew everyone’s attention back to him. “I can’t say for sure it will work. But by becoming my wife, you will get the benefits of my system. And that means, we will always be able to restore you to…” he attempted to say something, only to cut his words short and avert his eyes.
“To a state that you cannot exactly describe now,” Beatrice finished Mathew’s words for him. “I understand the uncertainty,” she then stated only to look at everyone’s faces while she took a moment to think.
“Okay, fine. What do I need to do, then?” she asked, turning her eyes back to Mathew’s face. “Kiss you? Accept your proposal?” she asked, raising her eyebrows as she stared right at Mathew’s face.
“If only it was that simple…” Mathew muttered, averting his eyes to the side when he felt the burning glance of Nadia drilling right into his cheek.
“Just say it,” Beatrice pressed. Yet, as the silence prolonged, she finally got the hint that something was amiss. And as she looked over to Norbert in hopes of getting some answers only to see a flustered look on his own face, the policewoman finally realized that things weren’t as simple as she took them to be.
“It’s what I said before,” Mathew finally took a deep breath before opening up. “It’s either doing something you’ve never done before in your life or something that I’ve never done before with anyone,” he stated.
Mathew then shrugged his shoulders and then moved his eyes back to the woman. “Or maybe it’s something that fulfills both of the criteria at once?”
“Don’t push your luck,” Nadia muttered in a guttural tone. “Assuming she is not the kind of slut that Carol is, you can start from a far lower bar of the escalation ladder,” she pointed out.
“Ah, that’s right,” Mathew admitted as he realized how else his suggestion could potentially be taken by others. “I didn’t mean to imply anything. But since we are only doing it to get the system to her, I hoped to limit the number of attempts,” he then added.
‘If anything, I’m not really into older women at all,’ he thought, starting right into Nadia’s eyes with the intensity he rarely could produce. ‘This time it’s strictly business. Even if she’s cute, I’m not attracted to her at all,’ he thought, hoping that his first wife could somehow read his mind this once.
“I’ve never done it in public,” Beatrice then said, quickly averting her eyes from Norbert’s face. “Does a cuckold play works for you?” she then suggested, turning her eyes to Mathew and staring right into his flustered face.