LEVELING UP WIVES IN THE APOCALYPSE

“Okay guys, chop chop!” Mathew called out as soon as he returned to the place where he got traumatized by getting yet another woman. “We will be moving out soon, so get ready!”

Both Norbert and Beatrice raised their heads and turned them towards Mathew. Judging from what the young man could see, they didn’t go back to fucking, or at the very least, they didn’t continue doing so all the way to the point where he returned.

‘They were just talking?’ Mathew thought, raising one of his eyebrows. ‘Well, what do I care?’

“Mathew, tell me one thing,” Norbert said while getting up to his legs. “What’s your plan for rescuing the people left in those cars?”

Mathew looked at Norbert’s face… only to then turn his eyes towards Beatrice’s hand.

Or rather, the stump that formerly would be her wrist.

“Why isn’t she healed yet?” Mathew asked, ignoring the question and asking one of his own. “We were away for quite a while. To be honest, I expected you guys would already be back!”

Norbert already proved that people with a system were capable of taking over merchants along with all the benefits that came with them. As such, there was no need for Mathew to go out of his way to get Beatrice’s hand healed!

“Because we were busy discussing the strategy!” Beatrice cried out with anger in her voice. “The fact that you got so far by risking everyone’s lives… It’s nothing more than dumb luck!”

“Well…” Mathew muttered, cutting his reply short. ‘I guess claiming that if it worked so far then there is no need to change our approach would be kinda out of place now,’ he thought.

After all, excluding his wives and other system users, Beatrice was right.

It was just dumb luck that there weren’t any casualties after the last raid. And now that the sun was up making Daria unable to use her stronger form…

“So you were discussing strategy, didn’t you?” Mathew then reiterated what he heard from them a little earlier. “Good,” he then nodded his head. “You can tell me about it while we are going to get your hand healed,” he informed.

Norbert and Beatrice looked at each other. Then, Norbert turned his eyes back towards Mathew. “I will be the one helping her to climb up,” he said, squinting his eyes as if to hide the suspicion that appeared on his expression.

Mathew only rolled his eyes.

“It’s fine,” he said while shrugging his shoulders. “Just in case you forgot, sleeping with her was a one-time thing. Oh, but try not to sleep with her before we heal her since we don’t know if that will revoke her wife’s status,” Mathew then warned before turning around and heading right back into the corridor he came from.

“Is it really okay?” Nadia then asked as she grabbed Mathew’s arm and wrapped herself around it. “To so easily allow them to fuck?”

“And why wouldn’t it be?” Mathew asked, looking down at the girl’s face with a puzzled expression on his face. “If it will mean reverting all the changes to the system I got from obtaining a fifth wife… Ah, I get it,” he quickly changed his approach.

In theory, reverting the changes to the system that came with its evolution would potentially mean removing the cap over how much Mathew’s stats could grow. Yet, at the same time, it would mean depriving him of all the stats that he already got from his wives!

“Are you going to change your mind, then?” Nadia inquired.

“Not at all,” Mathew replied while shaking his head. “Sure, it would be a pain to lose all the advantages the evolution offers but, at the same time, it would tell us whether we can let Carol loose,” he explained.

Up to this point, there was no telling what would happen if Mathew’s wife were to sleep with someone else. There was also no telling if that would mean removing her wife’s status and then what degree of intimacy was necessary to do so.

Would simple intercourse be enough? Maybe a declaration of love would suffice? Or maybe whoever wanted to overwrite one of Mathew’s wives’ status would have to do more than Mathew did while claiming her?

There were so many questions and too few answers. And given the specifics of Beatrice’s situation along with her relation to Norbert, she was the perfect fit to be used to find the solution to all those questions.

“Anyway,” Mathew muttered as they reached the first set of stairs, “I don’t mind letting the two of them test it all out. We just need to make sure it won’t happen before we will have the leeway to get weaker.”

The now increased group of Mathew, his wives, Norbert and Beatrice climbed up the stairs without a problem. After all, Beatrice was a hand behind everyone else, not a leg or foot.

The problems began when they reached the second floor and the hole in the wall. There, Beatrice ended up going first but instead of climbing… she practically ended up sitting on Norbert’s shoulders while helping out with her one healthy hand as much as she could.

In the end, the entire group reached the edge over which the merchant was situated nearly half an hour after their theoretically simple journey began.

And then…

“Well then, you should all pray for it to work,” Mathew requested while wrapping his arm around Beatrice’s waist before stepping forward and reaching out for the silvery orb of light that floated near the merchant.

Just like the few times he used it before, the orb of light exploded before turning into some sort of strange liquid that then crawled all over them.

For a moment, Mathew had no other choice but to accept his temporary blindness when the light solidified and not only covered his entire body but also created a strange barrier that separated the two of them from the rest of the world.

‘Now, did it work?’ he thought, turning his head to the side.

“Oh my god,” Beatrice muttered, her eyes going wide and her entire body tensing up.

All she did was simply raise her arm, eager to see whether Mathew’s ridiculous claims would actually turn true.

And just like Mathew announced, rather than looking down at a set of bloody bandages covering her stump, she looked directly at her formerly missing hand.

‘That will be all,’ Mathew thought, giving the order to the ‘touching grass’ function.

The silvery light flashed again before fully receding from his view and condensing back into the same orb that he touched before.

And now, it wasn’t only him that could see the change in the police officer.

“It worked!” Norbert screamed out, proving to be the one most enthusiastic about the change. He then rushed forth and wrapped his hands around Beatrice’s still tense body, pulling her into a bearish hug that belied his relatively slim body shape. “It really worked out!”

“Yeah, it did,” Beatrice muttered, too shocked to produce anything greater than a small, shaky voice.

And then, a strange change happened to her face.

The woman pushed Norbert out, as if in an attempt to test the strength of her recovered hand.

“It’s just as it was only a few days ago,” she muttered, unable to tear her eyes out of her hand.

Yet, rather than celebrating, she quickly brought her eyes to Mathew, forcing him to experience the sudden shift of her expression.

Right now, this wasn’t the weak, malnourished woman that he saw after she woke up and her initial wariness passed.

Right now, it wasn’t Beatrice that stood before him.

It was the commander of the anti-terrorist unit that brought heavy guns into the school and had both the balls and the wit to follow his requests once she realized how uncommon the situation was.

“Now then,” Beatrice spoke out, her voice turning stern and ragged. “Here is what we are going to do.”