327 Assignments
“Five more minutes before the fast ones come,” Norbert reported right as all the girls finished touching the grass.
“Direction?” Mathew asked, done with distributing the weapons amongst his party.
“They are coming from the north,” Norbert replied.
“Huh?” Mathew shook, turning his head towards the officer with a slightly confused expression on his face. “Shouldn’t they be…”
“Approaching from North-west instead?” Norbert cut into Mathew’s words, guessing what the young man was about to say. “That’s what I expected too, but they moved west at first and only started going directly towards us once they could do so in a straight line.”
“And that’s how they can reach us so quickly,” Mathew muttered in response, only for his eyebrows to twitch a little. “No, they will be here even faster!”
‘They couldn’t showcase their full speed by going in a zig-zag pattern enforced by the blocky structure of the city,’ Mathew thought, rushing towards the northbound window and taking a look outside.
And just like he expected, there was a cloud of dust kicked by several monster-like zombies rushing down the street.
They were still about fifteen blocks away, right on the edge of how far into the city Mathew could see.
‘They will be here way sooner than in five minutes,’ he thought, gritting his teeth.
Mathew then turned his eyes up… only to see the sun slowly heading towards the line of the horizon.
‘It’s still about an hour or two before the sun will set,’ he noticed, only for his eyes to flash up.
Mathew turned around from the window and rushed back to where everyone was grouping up.
“Beatrice, I’m sorry, but I will take care of it after all,” Mathew started, butting in right as the woman was explaining the strategy she came up with.
“Daria, I’m sorry, but I will leave the horde at the media building to you and Carol,” Mathew announced. “Keep the defenses up until the night comes, then you should have an easy time cleaning it all up. Just be warned, there might be a powerful monster coming your way rather than heading here,” Mathew added, raising his eyes to the girl he didn’t see for quite some hours today.
“Sure thing,” Daria smiled, unable to stop herself from playing with the blade in her hands.
A single look at Leila and Carol sufficed for Mathew to confirm that the blades he brought out had some sort of a strange charm. Because not only all his girls but even Norbert appeared to be deep in love with it, either unable or unwilling to stop themselves from playing around with their new weapons.
“Leila, Nadia, I will need you two here with me. Oh, and Carol,” Mathew turned his eyes towards the girl he already dealt with, “you should take your hunters with you. They will be of no use here.”
“Mathew, bad news,” Norbert cut in, reaching out from behind for Mathew’s shoulder.
“What now?!” Mathew whined.
So far, the situation appeared to be manageable. But they were already stretching their forces thin while using everyone’s abilities to their utmost limits.
If more shit were to hit the fan at the same damn time, Mathew would have no other choice but pick up which location and group of people were the least important and thus would be abandoned!
‘But that’s weird,’ Mathew thought as Norbert opened up his mouth, ‘we already covered both of our bases and there are no expeditions. Where else could the zombies strike?’
“They are heading towards Marcus’ camp,” Norbert reported with a tense look on his face.
pAnDa (nov)e1 “Who?” Mathew asked. “Evolved ones? Higher zombies? Mass of the horde?”
“A mix of them all,” Norbert replied with a sigh. “I can see two higher zombies, one evolved monster, and a group of around two hundred zombies,” he reported.
“Those horde zombies…” Mathew muttered, squinting his eyes as suspicion filled his head.
“On the level of those we were fighting, not the ones we found at his place,” Norbert quickly dispelled Mathew’s hopes.
‘Shit,’ the young man cursed in his thoughts and lowered his head while closing his eyes. ‘We don’t have anyone else to send there.’
Mathew took a deep breath.
‘Should we split up even further? Or maybe try to hit various groups at different times? Or maybe abandon them to their own devices?’
Mathew squinted his already closed eyes to the point his eyeballs started to hurt.
“Ma…
“I will go,” Leila spoke out right as Nadia was about to volunteer herself. She then turned her head towards Nadia and looked the girl in the face. “I’m more suited for fighting a horde mixed with some stronger opponents,” she pointed out. “And you are stronger when you are fighting worse opponents,” Leila stated with a shrug of her shoulders.
“That’s…” Mathew muttered, opening his mouth only to end up failing to produce any further sound.
‘If you do that, you will give up on your night, won’t you?’ he thought, averting his eyes to allow his and Leila’s eyes to meet.
From all the preparation the girl made from the night ever since they returned to the school Mathew could tell just how much she was looking forward to it.
And yet, when the shit started to hit the fan, she was actually willing to potentially give up on it just for the sake of helping someone whom neither Mathew nor she nor anyone else in their group truly cared about?
“If we abandon them now, we won’t be able to count on those new workers to do their job properly,” Leila pointed out with a faint smile on her face. “Just like we can’t the workers not to incur the wrath of Marcus’ forces, we can’t abandon Marcus and his fighters if we want to keep the goodwill of the workers,” Leila explained as if it was the most obvious thing the world.
“And I’m the most fitting to go,” she then added while looking straight into Mathew’s face.
“Fine,” Mathew took a deep breath before nodding his head in agreement. “Leila, I’m really thankful for that,” he then added, finally gathering the courage to look the girl in her face. “And I won’t forget that,” he concluded.
“Stop setting up death flags,” Leila grinned, pulling out her saber and swinging it in a circle. “For now though,” she leaned her head before glancing over her shoulder towards the northbound window, “we do have some things to take care of, don’t we?”