286 Teaching others about the system
A moment of silence only proved just how accurate Mathew was with his strike.
The shocked look on their faces, the way they gritted their teeth, the look of desperation in their eyes…
All of those proved beyond any doubt that if there was any group in direct proximity of the mall that the horde could target, it would be the main group those people came from.
“We need to go,” the leader of the group muttered after taking a few moments to deal with the shock. “We need to go…” he whispered, “NOW!” he then turned his voice into a shout.
The man didn’t limit himself to just speaking out loud, instantly pushing himself forward with the clear intention of heading straight to his own demise.
“No, you don’t,” Mathew said, reaching out with his left hand and stopping the man in his tracks.
He had no angle to put any real pressure against the man’s stomach… and yet, Mathew couldn’t even feel the pressure of the man trying to just push his hand aside!
‘Am I still a human at this point?’ Mathew thought, baffled by how weak the leader of the other group was when compared to him. ‘No, wait, that’s not the time to think about it, he decided.’
“Seeing how that kid at the back of your group is hiding his abilities, you guys clearly have no idea about the existence of the system,” Mathew said.
In theory, the young man should keep all his cards as close to his chest as he could. And the existence of a system was one of the most important points that he could bring.
But right now, it was the absolute minimum that he had to use in order to rein the other group in and stop them from returning to their currently besieged headquarters.
“System?” the middle-aged man asked, turning his head to look at Mathew once he gave up on his attempts at pushing his hand aside.
In theory, he could simply take a step to the back and then two steps to the side to move around Mathew’s reach…
But he wasn’t as dumb as to expect Mathew to let him do so. He had no other choice but to accept the difference in strength between the two of them. And Mathew’s unvoiced message was clear.
They have yet to stop talking, as their group wasn’t free to leave until they were done.
“What do you mean by that?” the leader asked, squinting his eyes as he looked at Mathew.
‘It’s all out for everyone to see,’ Mathew thought, looking back into the man’s eyes. ‘Your anxiety, desperation, impatience…’ Mathew closed his eyes for a second. ‘Hiding those emotions wouldn’t hurt and could give you a better position to negotiate, you know?’
“Yeah, system,” Mathew said, keeping his advice safely behind the barrier of his lips. It was one thing to comment on the man’s fault, but he wasn’t as naive as to help him become a better negotiator… right as they were in the middle of negotiating!
“System… as in, in games?” the woman in the middle of her twenties muttered. “Or, like in those novels that got popular recently?” she asked for clarification, stepping up and taking an active part in the conversation for the first time since the encounter started.
pAn,Da-n0v e1,c
The leader of the group locked his eyes on Mathew’s face, holding whatever he wanted to say behind his lips. He then took a deep breath and looked towards the back of his group and right at the middle-school kid hiding there.
“And you are saying that he…”
The leader cut his sentence in half. His face tensed up, suggesting he found it hard to actually spell the truth about the situation out.
Contrary to the leader, the kid he mentioned… twitched. His eyes moved rapidly around, only to showcase the panic mode his mind fell into.
He looked towards the two high-school girls that kept him company at the back, only to see them straight right back at him. He then looked towards the two young adults… Only to see curiosity in the woman and fury in the eyes of the man.
The kid’s panic continued for one moment longer… before his face calmed down all at once.
‘So not only he was hiding his abilities, he was pretending to be a helpless kid as well,’ Mathew thought before releasing a sigh.
“He most likely killed a zombie within the first hour of the apocalypse,” Mathew said, revealing the very basics of the system acquisition rule. “That’s how I got my own system anyway,” he revealed.
The leader turned his eyes away from the kid and at Mathew’s face. Then, he pushed them even further, turning his body around and casting a quick glance at the rest of Mathew’s party.
“Do they have a system as well?” The leader asked.
Yet, the true question that he wanted an answer to was different.
‘Do you mean to say they are all as strong as you are?’ Mathew thought, feeling as if he was reading the man’s mind.
“The guy in the middle used to be a policeman. He was dispatched to my school when I pretended to act like a school shooter-to-be,” Mathew said, catching himself by his tongue just a second too late again.
“Well, it’s a long story,” he quickly added, waving his hand away to cut any and all attempts at digging into this particular topic.
“Anyway, he ended up with a system on his own. And while he isn’t a combatant, his skill…” Mathew took a short pause, taking his sweet time to figure out how he should frame Norbert’s importance. “Let’s say his ability is of great use, just not in combat,” Mathew stated.
“As for my wives, they don’t have a system of their own,” Mathew revealed only to show the leader of the other group a wide smile. “But they are beneficiaries of my own system.”
“So…” the leader gulped his saliva down as he alternated his eyes between Mathew’s wives and Mathew himself, “they are as strong as you?” he asked in a slightly shaky voice.
“With exception of Norbert whose ability has other uses…” Mathew intentionally stretched his answer out, “yeah. Or rather,” his smile deepened, “in certain scenarios, they are even stronger.”
“Guys, I don’t understand one thing,” the other of the middle-aged men of the party stepped up.
He was massaging his stomach right where Mathew’s scabbard struck him before. His other hand, though, he had raised slightly above his head like some sort of a student in a classroom.
“Yes,” Mathew asked, curious about what made the man act like that.
“I killed several zombies as soon as I spotted the first few of them,” he revealed. The man then lowered his face a little and bit his lips. “Does that mean… I’ve got a system as well?”