395 Misguided pride
‘She’s coming back,’ Mathew thought, noticing Nadia’s presence way before he actually saw the girl.
Still, her return was delayed by something.
He could easily tell that culling down the numbers of the basic zombies was as hard as walking in the park for his first wife. He could also tell that contrary to how the rest of their tight group was, Nadia actually took the casualty of the expedition to her heart.
He could tell that she went to kill the zombies not only to lessen the burden on the rest of the hunters in hopes no more death would come but also to let herself massacre everything that moved to calm her own sense of guilt.
But why she took so long to return, Mathew was pretty damn clueless.
“Hey,” Nadia called out with a light yet slightly anxious smile as she returned to her side.
Her attitude was already suspicious… but it was her looks that both answered Mathew’s question and also made him ask another one.
‘Didn’t she just curb a few hundred zombies all on her own?’ Mathew asked himself as he couldn’t help but stare at the girl’s profile from the side. ‘Then how come she’s all fresh and even slightly wet, as if she…’
Mathew’s thoughts stopped when the realization struck him. And then, his question changed.
‘Just how in all hells did she find a working shower to clean herself up?’ Mathew thought, puzzled by this seemingly unsolvable mystery.
“What are you looking so intensely at?” Nadia asked once she noticed Mathew’s stare. She then put a small smile as she brought her hands to her crotch before pressing her arms together to put an emphasis on her bosom. “Could it be, your other wives…”
“Auch!” Nadia cut her words short when Leila nudged her in the side.
“Don’t you dare to even try to put in on us!” she then warned Nadia with quite a feisty look on her face.
‘Oh right, we didn’t actually fuck back then,’ Mathew thought when he suddenly recalled the time he had with Leila.
It was one of the few fond memories he had of the recent world… but it went without question that indeed, he managed to get some rest from the devouring monster that hid between the legs of the great majority of girls.
“Sorry, sorry,” Nadia shook her head while properly apologizing. “I was just teasing him,” she admitted only to stand up straight… and then bow her head and even her upper body down to Leila. “For teasing him in a way that put blame on you, I’m sorry.”
“I… I mean…” Faced with such an honest and formal apology, Leila lost her mental ground and struggled to form a proper reply. “It’s nothing much… I guess?”
Nadia raised her face, finally allowing Leila to see a huge grin plastered all over her face.
“Oh…” Leila muttered, her eyes turning wide as she understood the apology… was just another part of Nadia’s tease. This time, however, rather than at Mathew, it was directed at her!
“You little…!” Leila fired up, rushing forth to smack Nadia’s bottom… Only to stop and turn her head to the side.
Now that the funeral was over, the hunters sent Carol to urge Mathew and his wives to join them.
“Why are they moving?” Mathew asked once Carol reported on the state of things. “This place, albeit not perfect, could work as a great chokepoint to face the horde!” he pointed out, baffled by the idea of moving everyone out right before the horde was about to clash against them.
“It’s stupid, I know,” Carol admitted with an extremely annoyed look on her face. “But it’s the result of inner conflict within the hunters,” she added while looking back over her shoulder… only for the look of annoyance on her face to turn into one of disgust.
‘Inner conflict?’ Mathew squinted his eyes.
To say that he was baffled by the news would be a gross understatement.
“Just who would be stupid enough to create conflict inside a group of hunters while out at the mercy of all the zombies that can come and attack us at any moment?” he then asked himself.
“It’s Frank,” Carol replied right away. She rested her hands on her hips and sighed. “It looks like he got worried when Pavel took charge of the fighting and now tried to enforce his authority as the quasi-leader of the group.”
‘Frank? Pavel?’ Mathew thought, trying to not show on his face how he had no idea who were the people the girl was talking about. ‘From the context, isn’t Frank that one guy who volunteered when I created the first batch of hunters?’
Even though Mathew didn’t recognize the names that Carol brought up, it wasn’t hard to figure out who was his latest real wife about.
‘Then, Pavel is the guy that I noticed,’ Mathew concluded his theory before putting his focus back.
“Just like you told me, I didn’t involve myself… But I really don’t think it’s a good idea for them to leave this spot. Not with zombies mere three hundred meters away or so,” Carol added only to look over her shoulder once again.
“Yeah, it’s stupid,” Mathew agreed without a second thought. “Even if there are less than thirty of them, the law of weight applies to any group, no matter how big or small.”
ραΠdαsΝοvel.cοm “The law of weight?” Leila asked while giving Mathew’s side a slight nudge.
Mathew waved his hand.
“Set of rules that apply to the movement of entire units,” Mathew replied before putting a smirk on his face. “Don’t worry about not knowing about this. I came up with the name for it just now,” he added with a shameless smile while spreading his arms out.
“You…” Leila pursed her lips, taken aback by Mathew’s words. Her hands tightened into fists, threatening that her next nudge wouldn’t be as light as the last one.
“Guys!” Carol shouted, forcing the group to refocus and look at her. “They are about to get massacred because of the misguided pride of a single guy,” she pointed out the likely course of the events. “Are we really not going to do anything about it?”