283 Bloodless skirmish
The leader of the other party took a step forward and raised his axe. Mathew rushed forward… and reached the man before he could even prepare himself to attack.
‘They seem surprised,’ Mathew leisurely took note of the changing faces of the rest of the people within the other team. He then held himself back from yawning before swinging his saber and striking the man’s waist with the side of his weapon.
He had no reason to kill the man nor any wish to do so. All he wanted was to discipline him and show the difference in their power.
And yet, Mathew was still not used to his newfound strength. The zombies they encountered in the mall were too damn weak to serve as proper training dummies for him, too slow to make him realize the new limits of his body.
The man raised his axe… only to drop it when he suddenly bent in half and was sent flying several feet back.
He never managed to fully raise his weapon before the fight reached its conclusion.
“You…!” the other man of the more senior age in the group flared up… Only to end up with his stomach squeezed by the very same attack that Mathew brought upon his companion.
“Ugh…” rather than finishing his sentence and calling Mathew some sort of name, the man uttered a pained moan when he crashed into the others in his group.
‘How the hell did they survive for so long?’ Mathew asked himself. He then cast a quick glance at the rest of the group, eager to find out who the real powerhouse was.
‘They don’t seem to have that much ammunition, so there is no way they could make it that far into the apocalypse without a backer!’ he decided all on his own.
And so, worried that the powerhouse of the other party would misinterpret his intentions, Mathew decided not to give him or her any time to think or act at all.
p
‘This is making me feel weird,’ Mathew thought, reversing his grip over his sheathed saber as he turned his attention to the nearest of the adult females. He then slashed his saber from the bottom left to the upper right, only to reverse his grip again and suddenly pull the weapon down, changing the direction of his attack.
Yet, the woman he targeted… didn’t even get to react to his feint, leaning to the back in a desperate attempt to avoid his weapon.
‘Huh?’ Mathew opened his eyes wide, forced to watch how his sheathed saber struck the woman’s leg, causing her to lose her stability and start falling down to the ground.
‘Pull your punches, you idiot!’ Mathew reminded himself as he turned his attention to the other adult.
As skewed as it could be, he was likely to be the bigger threat among the only two adults in the middle of their twenties in the group. Yet, even when Mathew swung his saber again…
The man didn’t dodge.
‘Is he willing to take the hit to gain a positional advantage?’ Mathew thought, pushing his mind to the limits of how quickly he could analyze the situation.
Save for one encounter with Carol’s former boyfriend back at the school, it was his first, somewhat real fight with another human, after all!
The man stood still. The only movement he bothered to make… was raising his eyebrows.
And as soon as Mathew’s saber struck him squarely in his chest, he was sent flying just like the two Mathew dealt with first.
‘Don’t tell me, it’s the children?!’ the young man freaked out.
He already hesitated a little when he had no other choice but to brutally attack a woman. But attacking not only a female but also one that had yet to reach her adulthood?
‘What’s going on?’ Mathew freaked out, unable to make any sense of what was going on.
No matter how far he pushed the other party, there was no reaction. Just as if…
Mathew stopped his saber right as it was about to strike low, at the thigh of the high-school girl.
‘It’s like they never had any powerhouse among them,’ he thought, gritting his teeth as he pulled his weapon back a little.
“Kya!” the girl squealed, bending her knees and wrapping her hands around her thighs as she curled up into a small ball.
This wasn’t something one would do when expecting help to arrive. This was a display of a genuine fear that Mathew’s actions induced!
“YOU!!!” one of the elders that Mathew already dealt with screamed out. He then brandished his spear made from several different tools pieced together with glue, tape, and high hopes, before poking its blade made out of a simple screw right at Mathew’s side!
“Be careful!”
It wasn’t Nadia or any of Mathew’s girls that shouted the warning. It wasn’t Norbert either.
“Be careful!” Mathew shouted, right as he allowed the man’s spear to go right by his side by simply taking half of a step away and leaning his body away.
Yet, rather than making the opportunity to strike the man who ended up dragged along his own attack, Mathew reached out…
And grabbed the man’s collar before he would end up falling right into a puddle of zombie blood!
“Damn…” Mathew muttered, keeping the man suspended only an inch over the bloodied ground. He then lowered his spear and pulled the man back up to his legs. “That was close.”
“Who in all hells…” the youngest of the group muttered. Then, his eyes flashed a little. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “What in all hells are you?!”
Mathew twitched.
It was faint… but he finally detected exactly what he was looking for. A scent of moving mana.
“Hello,” Mathew said in a laid-back voice, straightening his back and throwing a curious look at the middle-school boy that remained in the back of his group. “I’m Mathew,” he said before reaching out with his now free left hand and pointing at his own group. “And those are my wives.”