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'Now it should go a little bit faster,' Mathew thought as he glanced over at the girl.
Yet, his eyes inevitably gravitated towards her partner, who was currently more busy with throwing hateful glares at Mathew than he was with picking up the stones.
"If you don't like it, feel free to leave," Mathew kindly informed his junior before turning his eyes back to more important tasks.
Namely, defending the two from the approaching group of zombies.
Just like it was the case with the matter in the wide universe, there were pockets dense with zombies to the point they would walk into each other.
For the last few moments, the backline of Mathew's group could rest a little. Not because the world suddenly turned kind, but because they just happened to be in one of the emptier pockets for a moment.
Yet, the eye of the storm would soon pass, putting them right back into a messy crowd of zombies.
"There is no end to them," Mathew muttered as he swung his ax.
This time, it wasn't some student of the school that he could recognize. It wasn't the staff either. And that got Mathew thinking.
'How could he be within the school?' the young man asked himself.
His clothes didn't indicate any reason why such an adult could be on the campus grounds.
And he couldn't stray into it either, given a massive wall that surrounded the entire school!
'Unless…' Mathew thought, clenching his teeth as he decapitated a few more zombies. 'No, it's better not to think about it,' he decided, focusing himself back on the indiscriminate slaughter of the zombies.
Yet, now that Mathew observed this peculiarity, he couldn't help but realize that something was seriously wrong.
'I don't remember when I saw a zombie that looked like a student,' he thought, cutting them down, seemingly not worried about that fact at all.
And then…
"Mat!" Daria shouted over from the staircase they used to reach the ground floor before. "You've gotta see this," she shouted with a grim look on her face.
'I really don't want to be a prophet here,' Mathew thought as his face darkened even further.
He then raised his hands to his face and rubbed his cheeks, ignoring how he painted blood all over his face by doing so.
'No can do,' he thought, closing his eyes only to follow his instinct alone and swing his ax twice to the sides.
The sound of the falling heads proved that this wasn't much of a feat for him.
"I'm on my way," Mathew finally replied after taking a moment to prepare himself. "Nadia!" he then shouted over.
'For as long as they work, we can't leave them alone,' Mathew thought, looking over at the couple.
"On my way!" the girl shouted back without even a moment of hesitation.
She dropped the corpse she was dragging to use as a building material for a barricade. She then bent her knees and leaped towards Mathew, cutting all the zombies that mindlessly stood in her path.
"I just need to keep them safe, right?" Nadia asked as she already jumped into action, smashing the head of the zombie approaching the couple from the other side.
"Correct," Mathew replied, nodding his head. "Good job," he added before looking away and rushing in the direction of the stairs.
"Come, quickly," Daria hurried the young man out before rushing up the stairs and leading the way.
But they didn't stop at the first or the second floor.
No.
Daria leads him all the way to the second-most top floor of the building.
'I guess she couldn't bring me any higher because the stairs are not here,' Mathew thought, trying to assess the situation as he followed after the girl.
"Look, here," the girl finally revealed her plans, pointing her hand at the window.
'She isn't trying to throw me out or anything, is she?' Mathew thought, only to shake his head and approach the window.
Thanks to their earlier culling, only a few zombies could be found on the upper floors of this wing of the campus. Sure, some managed to slip in while they were fighting on the ground floor, but their numbers were way too small to be any concern.
"What is this?" Mathew asked, approaching the window.
And then he saw it, the confirmation of what he fearfully concluded when seeing those strange zombies from before.
The wall that surrounded the school's compound… was broken.
"It's not as bad as I feared," Mathew commented while grasping tightly the edge of the window's shelf.
The opening most likely appeared when a huge chunk of the southern wing of the school came crushing down on it.
And there it was, a proper, concrete bridge that crushed the wall underneath and caused it to partially collapse.
The rift wasn't that big, only about five meters wide. And for now, the number of zombies pouring in was definitely smaller than what Mathew's group could handle.
And then, Mathew raised his eyes a little.
The rest of the city stood in flames.
Up until now, he didn't realize how far the situation would deteriorate and how quickly it would happen.
The situation at the breach was manageable for just a single reason.
The zombies in the city were far more occupied with the survivors out there. That's why only a handful of zombies ended up gravitating toward the school.
But it was only a matter of time before it would change. Once the zombies would clean up the system-less survivors in the city, their attention would obviously turn towards the pocket of surviving humans within the school.
"We need to seal it," Mathew muttered before raising his eyes and turning his head towards Daria. "And the sooner we start, the better," he added before looking up. "I wonder if anyone up there is still alive," Mathew whispered to himself.
A stray, weird thought appeared in the young man's head.
He mentioned other survivors because he wished for manpower to complete this next project. And as they were near where Mathew's journey started, he couldn't help but think of all the students he hoped to save before.
"Wait for a second," Mathew suddenly stopped, raising his eyes towards the broken floor of the topmost floor they could reach. He then looked at the gaping hole where the school's main staircase used to be.
"Why did Nadia leave the topmost floor?" Mathew posed the question that appeared in his mind.
'Was she looking to help me out? Or maybe she decided that she needs to do something? Or maybe?'
For a moment, the young man continued to stare as far as his eyes would allow…
And then, he turned back.
'It's easier to ask than to risk climbing there,' he thought before grabbing Daria's hand and leading her back down the stairs.
"Aren't you going to check that floor?" Daria asked, hurrying behind.
"There is no point," Mathew replied, shaking his head. "If anyone is left out there, they are people who have no will to change things," he added.
Everyone in the school's compound could hear the sounds of the monsters' rampage. Everyone could feel the trembling said rampage would cause throughout the building.
Yet, save for Nadia's small group, no one appeared to help them fight.
'It can mean there are no other survivors or it can mean they didn't bother to show up to help,' Mathew thought, putting the topic of the top floor aside for now.
"We still need to bring that floor under our control… But for now, it can wait."
Mathew used the time he took to run down the stairs to think.
'What should I do now?' he thought. 'If we ignore the collapsed wall, the situation will only get worse. But it's not like we can just walk outside and repair it while fighting.'
Mathew finally landed on the last step and scanned the situation on the ground floor.
Leila was nearly finished with her makeshift barricades. Two of them already redirected the flow of the zombies to the remaining ones.
It was only a matter of minutes before all the easy paths inside the school would be blocked off.
"Leila, leave one path!" Mathew shouted over. "We will need to sortie!"
"We what?" Leila raised her head, signs of boredom appearing on her face.
"We will need to repair the wall outside!" Mathew shouted the explanation before turning his eyes towards the other part of the group.
"Nadia, we will need you with us," Mathew ordered.
"But what about them?" Nadia asked, pointing with her chin at the hard-working couple.
"Daria will lead them to the upper floors," Mathew finally reached the girl's side, allowing him to switch from shouting to a normal speech. "We already cleaned them out. And those few zombies that could straggle there…" Mathew cut his words short before grabbing a random mental rod from the floor and passing it to his junior.
"You will need to take care of them," Mathew announced in a grim tone. Then, his face relaxed a bit. "You will hide in a classroom facing the place we will be at. If you get overwhelmed, make the girl shout for help."
Mathew had no plans of leaving the two on their own. But right now, leaving them alone was the only choice he had.
'Outside, they would be too much of a hindrance,' Mathew thought before turning his eyes back to Daria.
"Once you hide them away, join us at the southern wall!" Mathew ordered in a dead-pan voice before looking in the direction of the collapsed wing.
He then took a single, deep breath before closing his eyes.
He opened them only when the last bit of air left his lungs, forcefully relaxing his body.
And then, he stepped forward, ready to follow through with his plans with action.
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Stepping outside of the strict boundaries of the school's compound made Mathew shiver with a strange feeling.
Over the past two weeks of his former life and the entire today, he didn't go outside.
'Back then, it was way too dangerous outside to step foot away from the school's walls,' Mathew thought, recalling his memories.
The one and only time when he stepped outside in his past life were right at the end when he sought refugee with Nadia in the equipment shelter.
'But it's different now,' Mathew thought, blinking his eyes a few times to get them used to the intensity of the sunlight outside.
Thankfully, this was mostly a mental problem, as Mathew's eyes in this life have yet to forget the brightness of the sun.
And then, just like that, Mathew placed his foot on the last remaining path, effectively leaving the school's grounds.
'This terrain is going to be a pain,' Mathew thought, looking around the collapsed wing of the school.
With no roof above their heads, Mathew could no longer consider it a part of the compound. Yet, it also forced the young man to mentally split the widely-understood outside into several areas.
"We need to secure the ruins first," Mathew ordered before fixing the grip of his ax. "Once we cut all the zombies in ruins, try to spread towards the gap out there!" he shouted, pointing his hand in the direction he saw the collapsed wall.
"On it!" Leila didn't waste her time talking. She swung her machete in her hand before rushing in, eager to start the task as soon as possible.
'I can't let her outdo me, can I?' Mathew thought, a small smile appearing on his lips as he moved forward.
Outside of the obvious pathing issue, there was only one other reason why Mathew was set on clearing the ruins of the collapsed school's wing first.
And this very reason came to play right now, considerably slowing his steps down.
'Damn,' Mathew cursed under his breath when his swing once again sent his ax's blade towards a relatively sturdy piece of ruins.
The reason why Mathew decided to clear the ruins first was simple. They were the place where fighting was the most difficult. And it was also a place they had to go through whenever going in or out of the school.
In other words, it was a transit area for the zombies attempting to enter the school. And whoever controlled this point would later control the entire compound!
"There is far less of them than I expected," Nadia commented.
She quietly followed in Mathew's footsteps, bringing forth her top-level acrobatic skills to keep the young man's perimeter clean.
"It is hard to fight here because it's hard to move around freely," Mathew explained his take on the situation. "Most of the zombies already made their way towards the ground floor. Those here are likely just stragglers and newcomers."
Mathew then pulled on the handle of his ax, scratching the ground with the butt of its blade. He then kicked the lower part of the handle, sending the blade flying towards a zombie crawling from a hole in a pile of ruins.
"That makes sense." Nadia nodded her head only to bring her shoe down on another crawler's head. "But doesn't that mean that the zombies are breaching the wall at a relatively slow pace?" she suddenly asked.
"Pardon?" Mat leaned his head slightly to the side.
He wasn't surprised to hear about such a possibility. He saw the situation at the collapsed wall with his very own eyes.
What got him so curious, though, was just how did Nadia manage to figure it out?
"You know," the girl shook her head only to raise her hand and slam the bloody blade of the machete down on another zombie's head. "You said stragglers and newcomers," Nadia pointed out. "Stragglers, I can understand," she added, pointing her machete at a nearby zombie the size of three normal zombies.
It was the reformed body of the physical education teacher who used to be known for his weight and mocked for his choice of profession.
Nadia then shook her head before turning her eyes to a zombie a bit off in the distance, right at the edge of where the ruins turned from dense to sparse.
Shreds of a suit hung down from that zombie's corpse. In other words, his attire didn't suit the school grounds at all!
"Newcomers could only have a single meaning," Nadia said before shaking her shoulders and focusing back on her job.
"Yeah, you are totally right," Mathew nodded his head, looking at the girl from a new perspective. "And yes, I saw only a few zombies crossing the breach at a time," the young man added, using a piece of ruins as a foothold.
He jumped, swinging his ax down while mid-air, splitting the head of a zombie open. He then landed on another pile of rubble, sending another zombie off with a kick to its jaw before slamming the butt of his weapon into yet another opponent.
"To be completely honest, I think our rate of killing them right now is pretty similar to how fast they are coming in," Mathew stated. He then took another leap and reached the border, where Nadia noticed a newcomer zombie before.
"And now, this is going to change," Mathew added, a peculiar smile appearing on his lips.
He then jumped off the pile of rubble he was standing at, right into the embrace of a dense horde of zombies attempting to scale the ruins up.
His ax swung in the air, severing necks, splitting heads open, and pushing away any bloody hands that dared to reach out.
Mathew's body was soon covered with the blood of his already dead opponents as he carved out a path for himself and Nadia to enter the true outside.
And then, only a few minutes of intense slaughter later, Mathew's task was generally finished.
"Now, then," Mathew muttered, putting a blade over the zombie's neck like some sort of executioner before raising his weapon up.
For but a moment, Mathew looked at the zombie's features.
'Boy, seeing her like that makes me wonder if there are some psychos who would take this for an opportunity,' he thought before twisting his lips in disgust and bringing his ax down.
Mathew personally knew a few who wouldn't mind the bloody state of the victims of their lust. And seeing how even some of the top chicks in the school ended up as mindless zombies, Mathew couldn't help but think of such a scenario.
And then, for but a moment, he froze.
'Wait for a second,' Mathew thought, calling forth his system.
He did it for the second time since he received this ability.
The events around simply moved way too fast for Mathew to take it easy and waste several hours trying to learn more about his greatest advantage.
The system's information appeared right before Mathew's eyes, partially blinding his view.
A terrible mistake in the middle of a fight. Because even if it was a relatively easy conflict, a single mistake would be all it would take for Mathew's fate to go south.
And just like he remembered, a single line of text made Mathew feel insanely awkward.
[Wife #1]
[Name: Nadia Astra]
[Age: 19]
[Level: 159]
[Race: Half-zombie]
[Class: First Wife]
[Status: Focused]
'Doesn't this mean I'm likely the first one to actually fuck with a zombie, even if she's only a half of it?' I thought, sneaking a glance at Nadia.
I then shook my head before casting the system windows aside.
Right now, I couldn't afford to distract myself with it. Not when a damned horde of zombies surrounded me from each direction!
"I'm back!" Daria's voice brought some relief to my exhausted soul.
Even though the fight itself wasn't a challenge, constantly moving around, swinging the heavy ax all the while, the pressure on my mind reached an all-time high…
It wasn't something that I could keep for long.
"Check on Leila first!" I shouted over.
'I know she has some flaws, but I didn't hear anything from her in a while,' Mathew thought, anxiously looking around only to put his attention right back on the fight.
"On it!" Daria replied, plunging right into the ruins that we had just left.
'I hoped you would ask her to help us out a little," Nadia commented.
"It's better if both of them come to help," I countered before shaking my head. "Nadia, dear, I know that you don't like her. I personally find her annoying too at times…"
Mathew then shook his head.
The information of the system appeared before his eyes once again. And just like with Nadia's race, Mathew's memories of seeing Leila's name in the system weren't wrong.
"But for now, please, bear with her," he added before forcing his ax down on the massive corpse of the physical education teacher that somehow followed them outside the ruins.
"Will do," Nadia nodded her head before pointing her finger towards the nearby wall that surrounded the school's grounds.
"Look!" Nadia shouted, forcing Mathew to look after her hand. "It's the breach!"
And, just like the girl pointed out, over the course of their fight, they somehow made their way all the way to the breach.
'It's likely because we simply followed where the zombies are,' Mathew thought, only for a smile to appear on his face.
"Let's not waste time, then!" he shouted before swinging his ax in an encouraging manner and pushing towards the gap. "Let's block it!"
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"Heavy-ho!" Mathew uttered a small shout as he lifted a zombie's corpse before throwing it on the rubble behind the breach.
"Leave the corpses to us." Nadia was quick to approach Mathew's side. "The boulders from over there would be perfect to close the gap," she said as she pointed her hand at a nearby pile of rubble. "But I don't think any of us could as much as make it tremble," she added with a wry smile.
'I guess there are still limits to how strong we can get, even with the system,' Mathew thought before nodding his head.
"Will do," Mathew said as he clasped his hands to clear them out from dirt before moving in the direction the girl pointed at. "Right, make sure Leila won't venture too far," the young man added after making barely a few steps. "She's prone to getting emotional. And we can't afford to lose anyone right now."
The fight for the wall's breach… was even more disappointing than clearing the ruins of the southern wing of the compound.
At first, it was tough.
When Mathew's group finally reached the breach, it was filled with a horde of zombies nearly as dense as the one they fought off inside the school.
Yet, despite how many zombies there were on a small patch of land, their overall number wasn't all that bad.
And now, a measly quarter of an hour later, Mathew's group could finally move on to actually fixing the gap in the wall.
It took them only about fifteen minutes to clear the small horde and then the immediate surroundings of the wall.
Yet, for how quickly Mathew's group reached this point, their progress soon stalled.
'As easy as it is to kill zombies, fixing a damned wall is actually a damned challenge,' Mathew thought as he approached the boulder Nadia pointed at.
In reality, though, it wasn't a bolder but a broken piece of a building's wall. Yet, for the purpose in Mathew's head, it was perfect.
'MOVE!' Mathew screamed inwardly out, pushing his muscles to their limits in an attempt to push the piece of a demolished wall.
First, he failed.
Mathew put all his strength into his task, but it wasn't enough.
"Damn it," he muttered, airing the frustration that quickly built up in his soul. Mathew then took a step to the back to size the chunk of rubble up.
'Maybe I should break it down into smaller pieces?' the young man thought, hoping to find a solution to his current problem.
It would be most reasonable to simply give up and grab some smaller pieces. By standing and thinking, Mathew didn't contribute to rebuilding the wall at all.
Yet, there was a difference between stacking boulders on top of each other and actually building a wall capable of stopping zombies.
'If we don't want to go just for visuals alone, I can't break it down,' Mathew realized before clenching his teeth and approaching the wall once again.
'Off we…' Mathew thought, only to take a deep breath and keep it in his lungs.
'GO!" Mat shouted, exhaling the air while he used every last spark of energy left in his body.
And finally, the wall moved.
At first, it only wiggled a little, trying to regain a stable resting position. Yet, as the solid chunk of reinforced concrete started to move up and down, Mathew's strength proved to be finally sufficient to force it up.
"Do you need some help?" Nadia shouted over from the wall where she continued the task of moving the zombie corpses towards the bottom of the gap.
"Actually, yes," Mathew admitted.
'Sure, it would be lovely to carry it on my own and leave a good impression on her,' he thought, his eyes gravitating towards Nadia's face. 'But right now, I can't allow myself such shallow luxury,' he concluded.
The events from before proved that the apocalypse developed at a vastly different pace than what Mathew could remember from his previous attempt at surviving it.
'We can't tell when true hordes will start to gather,' he thought, only to breathe a sigh of relief when Nadia rushed to help.
With the girl's strength, moving the massive piece of concrete proved to be a manageable task. It still required the young man to put absolutely everything he had.
"I will hold it now," Mathew said. "Can you make some room to slide it in?" he instructed.
"Give me just a moment," Nadia replied before hurrying to pull some of the corpses away.
The reason why they stacked the bodies by the bottom of the broken wall was pretty simple.
They had no wet concrete or any kind of mortar. What was even worse, not a single one of them listened during the chemistry lessons that outlined the process of making the simplest mortar.
As such, even though they could likely find all the materials they needed, Mathew's group lacked the know-how to build anything that couldn't support its own weight.
'If we can't build a wall, then let's build a rampart!' Mathew thought back then.
And now, the corpse that the two of them stacked by the wall could serve as a support for the wall Mathew and Nadia brought!
"Okay, let's push it in." Nadia signaled as she stood in front of the wall only to pull it towards the gap she created.
'Just move!' Mathew urged the concrete in his hands, pushing his muscles to their limits to push it just a few inches further.
For the next few moments, all the young man knew was the pain of overusing his flesh.
'I just hope I won't end up paralyzed,' Mathew thought as a wry smile appeared on his lips.
And then, after a prolonged effort, the chunk of the building's wall finally rested against the destroyed wall of the compound.
"Can you hold it in here for a moment?" Nadia requested only to let go of the wall and take a few steps to the back.
"Sure thing," Mathew replied, even though Nadia already moved ahead with whatever idea popped in her head.
Yet, this time she didn't prove to be someone unorthodox. Rather than surprising Mathew with some ingenious solution, she simply moved over several bodies and chunks of rubble that she could lift before stacking them all at the bottom of the new piece of the wall.
"Okay, let's see if it will collapse," Nadia muttered before gesturing at Mathew. "Come here," she requested, reaching out with her hand.
"Steady…" Mathew muttered, freeing his hands from the burden of holding the wall, only to stop his arms and hold his palms right off the surface of the rubble's chunk.
He then slowly backed off, keeping his eyes alert for even the tiniest movement.
"But not for long," Nadia commented, squeezing her lips together into a single line. "Right now, all it needs is a small push to fall over," she pointed out before shaking her head and starting to move again.
"At least we can use it as the base for the rest of the gap," Mathew shared his idea. "We could stack the support for it first and then fill the rest of the gaps around it," he then explained his plan.
The gap was roughly five meters wide. And the chunk that Mathew and Nadia brought only covered about two meters at most.
All in all, for all the effort they had to expend, the progress appeared to be pretty disappointing. But what couldn't be easily noticed, was how much easier it would be to fill the gaps between the standing wall and the makeshift barricade than actually building a five-meters long rampart made of rubble and corpses alone!
"Guys!" A sudden shout stopped Mathew from delving into his thoughts any deeper.
The young man raised his head and looked in the direction of the voice… Only to see both Leila and Daria rushing back at a breakneck speed.
"What happened?" Mathew asked in a loud voice while rushing to the wall and pressing on it with his shoulder.
If either of the girls were to trip and crash into this wall, the measly support he and Nadia provided wouldn't be anywhere near enough to hold the huge chunk of the wall in place!
"Emergency," Leila said as she jumped over the unrepaired part of the wall only to fall down on her knees.
She didn't follow her initial report with any explanation as she turned out to be too busy fighting for her breath to speak at all.
"A massive horde is nearby," Daria finished the report for her partner, following closely after Leila.
She took a bit longer to reach and then jump over the broken part of the wall. Yet, she ended up capable of speaking way sooner than Leila managed to calm her breath.
"Are they attacking us?" Mathew asked, a bad feeling filling his gut.
"No, not yet." This time it was Leila who replied. "But what else they could attack?" she then asked, shaking her head.
Leila then stood up, clasped her open palms against her cheeks, and looked towards the gap in the wall.
"Do you guys want to use this as a sort of foundation?" she asked, guessing Mathew's and Nadia's intentions.
"That's right," Mathew nodded his head as he moved to the side to pick a suitable piece of rubble. "And since the two of you are here already, we should be able to finish it in no time!"
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"I guess this is my way out," Daniel muttered as he threw a glance towards the narrowing side of the corridor.
There was no way for him to reach the central point of the school. And as great as it would be to start there from a tactical point of view, such a daunting task simply laid outside of the scope of Daniel's ability.
Yet, that single quick look turned into a prolonged stare as the officer looked for any signs of survivors.
'I wasn't the only one who fell. I wasn't the only one who killed the zombie early on,' Daniel thought as he scanned every last detail of his immediate surroundings. 'That means I can't be the only one left alive from those who fell!'
The officer refused to accept such a random development.
The floor crumbling beneath his feat? He could accept that. In reality, it wasn't the first time Daniel to gone through an experience like this. Back during his deployment, he went through a far worse shit.
Yet, the same could be said of most of the fellow soldiers and officers that fell along with him. And yet, he couldn't spot a single soul left alive.
'Maybe they ended up on the surface, not hidden by anything, so they already became zombie's feast?' Daniel attempted to figure out any logic behind the situation.
And just as he was about to give up on his hope, a small stone rolled down a pile of ruins.
Seemingly, with no force causing it to fall down.
'Someone's there!' Daniel thought, instantly rushing in the direction he noticed the weird movement from.
But he wasn't the only one that took notice of the small detail.
Or rather, the second his movements became energetic and quick, the zombies that formerly ignored his presence now became attracted to it.
'I don't have much time,' Daniel thought, watching how the already massive horde of zombies filling the corridor all started to move towards him.
Daniel kicked the zombie that attempted to uncover whoever hid underneath the rubble. He then proceeded to wrestle with the next few of them.
'It's surprisingly hard without a gun,' he thought, his weapon lost somewhere amidst the rubble.
Any attempts at recovering it now could only succeed when all the rubble and bodies would get cleared out. Right now, looking for it amidst the ruins would be even harder than trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Then, the officer froze.
'I might not have a gun, but didn't I somehow receive a weapon just as powerful as a firearm?'
Daniel raised his eyes at the few nearest approaching zombies. And just like before, he started to sing the tune of one of his favorite rock songs.
And soon, his fists turned into rocks that stoned down the approaching zombies to the rhythm of the song Daniel hummed.
"Heck," the officer uttered a small cry of astonishment when he finally stopped fighting, already ten meters away from the potential survivor's site.
Lost in the power of music that used to be a major part of his life in the past, Daniel didn't even realize the results of his rampage.
'No, stop, I need to get them out,' he thought, turning around on his heel and tracking back his steps through the devastated area.
The zombies that he faced weren't just killed. He didn't offer them the mercy of final and hopefully absolute death. What Daniel offered, though, was his army training mixed with the power that he knew close to nothing about nor how to control it.
'This looks worse than the stuff at the siege of Tarnow,' he thought, recalling the unpleasant memories from the war.
It was a battle that devastated nearly half of the once prosperous city. Yet, surprisingly enough, the other half remained perfectly fine, with only an occasional bullet marking the wall of the antique buildings.
Even though the modern half of the city turned into the greatest bloodbath that history has seen in its course, both sides ended up respecting the legacy of the legendary family that turned this once small village into a local powerhouse, both within the country and on the international scene.
Daniel looked down at the fruits of his labor only to swallow a gulp of his saliva.
'To think that I would find something even worse than the tunnels,' Daniel thought, clenching his teeth and tensing up the muscles around his throat to stop himself from vomiting.
One could hardly recognize the corpses as what they were after Daniel's rampage.
His attacks bore far more strength than he expected his fists to hold.
An attack that would normally knock someone unconscious at best in the past was now well more than enough to blast a human skull and brain into smithereens.
"This system is really powerful," Daniel muttered under his breath before shaking his head and focusing back on what was truly important right now.
"Hey, can you hear me?!" the officer put his mouth by one of the many gaps left within the pile of ruins. "Make a double sound or something if you can!"
'There is a chance he can't speak or move all that much,' he thought… only for a blueish mist to suddenly start oozing out of the pile of rubble.
'What the hell is this?' Daniel thought, leaping to the back.
He then cast a quick glance deeper into the corner, only to realize that the zombie had already recovered half of the ground that he fought so had to clear.
And then, the blue mist suddenly all converged into a single point… only to take the shape of a human.
'Ghost?!' Daniel's eyes widened as he started at the unexpected apparition.
Yet, before he could as much as swallow his saliva, he recognized the face of the ghost.
"Norbert?" Daniel asked out, slowly approaching the blueish, half-transparent being.
"Daniel?" the ghost raised its face, only for it to explode in smiles. "I knew you would get to survive it!" it rejoices, executing a strange dance right before the officer's eyes.
"Are you real?" Daniel asked, suddenly acknowledging the other possibility. And judging from his experiences back before the floor of the school collapsed,
"As real as it gets, man," the ghost replied, a wry smile appearing on its lips. "But for now, could you take care of those?" Norbert's ghost asked before pointing at the mass of zombies already reaching the foothold of the pile on which Daniel stood.
"Sure thing," Daniel nodded his head.
Whether this ghost was real or not, whether it was really the ghost of his teammate or a malicious scheme aimed at somehow forcing him to the open?
Yet, for now, killing the approaching horde of zombies was of absolute importance. After all, it was the only immediate threat that Daniel had to face!
'I wonder if those kids survived,' the officer thought before shaking his hands up and down and pushing forward, right into the hungry embrace of the zombies' horde.
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The rhythm of Daniel's attack was perfectly aligned with the tune he hummed under his nose.
Every tact of the song would result in several zombies falling apart under the strength of Daniel's attack. Yet, it wasn't the times when the officer sang that were the most devastating for the horde.
It was when he would change the tune from one to another, throwing the zombies that slowly were starting to get used to his tempo off the beat.
This constant alternation of the titles that Daniel would hum was the one and only reason why someone like him managed to avoid getting swarmed.
Because even the system owners, if careless even for a moment, could fall prey to the ultimate monster of the apocalypse.
And it wasn't an evolved monster like those burly ones Mathew fought with before. It wasn't the super-evolved ones like the caterpillar either.
That dangerous monster was nothing more but a bunch of weak zombies clumped together dense enough to block the freedom of movements of its prey.
'Fuck,' Daniel cursed under his breath as the claw-like nails of the zombie tore several rifts in his left leg.
Surprised by the sudden bout of pain, Daniel retreated a few steps, buying himself just enough time to take a glance at the state of his leg.
'This is bad,' he thought, his face twisting as the sharp pain assaulted his mind.
But the officer had no time to lament over his situation. The zombies were slow for sure. But contrary to their alive counterpart, they never ceased to move.
'At this rate, I won't be able to pull him out,' the middle-aged man thought as his hand however over where the holster of his weapon would normally be, only to then stop as Daniel realized his mistake.
He lost his gun when he fell along with his companions and a huge chunk of the floor. And while it was still buried somewhere, the chances of just stumbling into it…
'I shouldn't waste my time even considering such a silly option,' Daniel thought, refocusing his attention on the things that actually mattered.
Or any gun, for that matter, given how the ruins buried all those who dared to step on the edge back then to provide support for that crazy young student from this school.
'I don't know why, but thinking about him…' words appeared in Daniel's mind, only for the middle-aged man to shake his head. 'Yeah, I can't picture him randomly dropping off dead,' he thought before opening his eyes and raising them on the approaching horde.
The corner of Daniel's lips quivered as he lowered himself slightly on his knees, bringing the center of his body's weight closer to the ground.
"Let's rock!" Mathew shouted right as the zombies were about to reach him, using his lowered position to shot his body forward for a loud opening of yet another bloody song of his.
Soon, the torn pieces of the corpses started to fly all over the place as Daniel's attack tore through skin, flesh and bones of the zombies alike.
Smash the zombie's knees and it will no longer be able to chase it. Take out its arms and it will only be able to bite you. Decorate the floor with its teeth and its greatest weapon would be gone.
There were many methods to defeating, or, at the very least, neutralizing zombies. Yet, despite all his tactical upbringing and then training in the army, when faced with his newfound power, Daniel couldn't really care.
He didn't aim to make a zombie harmless when he caught both of its wrists and then jumped up, bringing his knees all the way up to his chin only to then relax his thighs, kicking both of his legs against the chest of the very same zombie.
The officer wasn't trying to neutralize another zombie when a single, rocky punch of his turned three quarters of the zombie's teeth into a powder.
All that Daniel did was just his own way of fighting, something he learned in scuffles with his teammates rather than self-defense lessons they all had to participate in.
"Damn, boss," the blue ghost of Daniel's teammate somehow manged and decided to stick around. "You better not show this side of yourself to anyone else if you want to find any allies," the ghost advised, floating right above Daniel's shoulder.
'What, is it scared of the zombies?' Daniel asked out loud.
The zombie that Daniel held in his hands snapped in half, torn apart by his powerful grasp.
'Or is it scared of me?' he asked, unable to guess the answer. 'Wait, can I even attack it in the first place?' Daniel though, yet no answer came to his mind.
And soon, rather than lingering of the topic of the weird state of his companion, Daniels' focus returning right back at the incoming zombies.
His slaughter surely brought forth a desired effect. For every kill that Daniel made here, the threat of the zombies continued to weaken. But that didn't mean it dissipated completely.
"That should do for now," Mathew muttered when the last of the nearby zombies fell to its stomach, the open cut on its head giving some clues as the where said head flew off after Daniel's attack.
The middle-aged man didn't waste any time.
Just like he would rush to a wounded fellow soldier of his to bring him under cover, Daniel rushed towards the pile with the buried body of his companion.
"What's your position?" he asked, turning his head to the side to monitor the few zombies that would make their way inside from the main hall of the school.
"I'm stuck in this weird position. I need to make up a plank to survive for now!' the ghost explained.
It then hurried away, sinking right back into the pile of the rubble. And a mere moment later, it came out only to points its fingers at two specific spots of the pile.
"If you lift those two stones, I should be free," the ghost explained.
"Hungry and on the verge of death, but free," it added a moment later.
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"It's done," Mathew muttered as he took a step to the back and cast a long glance at the finished barricade.
It was impossible to call the end result of their job anything else but that.
One could tell that the part of the wall they fixed from the rest of the wall with a single glance, even from a super far away. Yet, in terms of a barrier for the horde of zombies, the barricade should do just as well of a job as the rest of the compound's wall.
"This took a lot more time and effort than I thought it would," Daria muttered under her nose, sliding down the barricade and resting her back against it.
From the outside, the difference between the reconstructed part and the normal wall was mostly visual. Yet, once one looked from the inside of the school grounds, the difference became obvious.
Because while the normal part of the wall was roughly a third of a meter wide, the barricade reached even two meters in width!
"Not a single one of us has any experience in construction," Mathew commented, only to release a sigh of exhaustion. "We couldn't know we would need that much support just to hold our makeshift wall in place."
This was the true form of the struggle that caused their barricade to swell up so much.
With no industrial-grade adherents available for the group, they could only rely on prompting the wall up from the inside.
They managed to make the wall stand relatively stable on its own several hours ago. Yet, a single push from any of the group was enough to topple it right back down.
"What are we going to do, now?" Nadia asked as she sat down by Mathew's side. She then rested her head on the young man's shoulder as she attempted to relax after a long period of intense effort.
"To be honest, I'm not really all that sure," Mathew admitted as he lowered his eyes. "We could either try to clean up the rest of the school or attempt to raise the fortress. But when it comes to deciding which idea is better?" Mathew asked, shaking his head. "I have no clue."
"Right, I wanted to ask this for a long time already," Leila joined in the discussion as she sat on top of the fixed part of the wall. "But what is this fortress that you speak of?"
If he didn't know any better, Mathew would assume Leila's position as nothing more but an attempt to make herself look cool. Yet, this time, it was his very own request that put her on top of the wall.
After all, they could only know what to expect from it later on by testing the quality of their barricade themselves. And while Leila herself didn't appear to weigh all that much, having her balance on the edge of the highest part of the barricade was enough proof of the stability of the wall.
"To be completely fair?" Mathew asked, shaking his head again. "I have no idea. We never managed to raise it back then," he added, too tired to care about the potential effects of revealing his situation to the rest of the group.
'Is there anything wrong with doing so in the first place?' Mathew asked himself.
In theory, it was always better to keep his own cards close to his chest, only revealing them when the right time came. But when it came to the truth about his past, Mathew couldn't see a single reason to not share it.
"Back then?" Leila asked, sliding down the wall and jumping only to land right by Mathew's side. She then fell down to her knees before sitting herself down on her heels. "What do you mean by that?"
The inquisitive look behind Leila's eyes made it fairly obvious it wasn't the only thing she was asking about.
'I guess she doesn't want to push me too hard,' Mathew thought as he released a deep sigh. 'But I used them for long enough for the two of them to earn the right to know the truth,' he concluded before swallowing his saliva and raising his eyes.
"This isn't the first…" Mathew attempted to explain the truth, only to stop his words when Nadia suddenly nudged his side.
"Are you sure?" she asked, looking him deeply in the eyes.
"I don't think I'm risking anything by telling them," Mathew explained. "And we already reached the point where it no longer matters if they know either," he added, only to shrug his shoulders and look back at Leila.
"It's not the first time that I went through all this shit," Mathew stated, only to bite down on his lips and shake his head. "No, that's not right. Back then, everything went differently," he added as he turned silent for a moment.
"Roughly a ten hours ago, I died," Mathew finally revealed the truth about his past in the simplest and the least confusing form. "Yet, rather than reincarnating, vanishing on the spot, or going to heaven, I somehow returned to my past," he finally revealed.
"I never asked this before," Nadia spoke out right as both Leila and Daria turned speechless. "But how did you actually die?" she asked, snuggling up even closer to Mathew's side.
For a moment, Mathew remained silent, refusing to open his mouth as he recalled the details of his last day in the previous run.
The fall of their makeshift fortress. The desperate rush to run from the horde. The bloodbath when they attempted to break away from the horde. And the moment when he forfeited his life for the sake of the girl that snuggled to his side right now.
"Back then, I didn't have a wives system that I have right now," Mathew revealed. "It was a miracle-sacrifice system that allowed me to sacrifice something of mine in order to invoke a miracle. It was also the only reason why I managed to bring the two of us as far as two weeks into the apocalypse," he added, moving his hand to the side to grab Naida's fingers and squeeze them a little.
"But…" Nadia hesitated. "Since I survived that long as well, how could you die?" she asked, a small, smuggish smile appearing on her lips. "It's not like I would ever allow you to get harm as long as I was by your side!" she stated, moving her free hand over Mathew's stomach to hug herself even closer to him.
"You had your leg injured. And you still managed to stay by my side until the very end, when we broke free from the school grounds and reached the last place with no zombies in it," Mathew revealed as he looked at Nadia's face with deep affection.
Sensing the intense emotions behind Mathew's weird smile, neither Leila nor Daria dared to interrupt the moment.
"Then what happened?" Nadia asked, unable to grasp at the hints Mathew left all over his explanation so far.
The young man turned his head away from Nadia's face.
'How the heck should I tell her what happened?' he thought, struggling to come up with any believable lie. 'Or should I just tell her the truth?'
"Well…" Mathew hesitated for a bit longer before resting the back of his head against the barricade's support and looking up.
"Back then, we were at the end of our rope. We had nowhere else to run and had no means of fighting off all the zombies within the school," he explained before turning silent for a moment. And then, he revealed the rest in one breath.
"So after enjoying our first, deep kiss for a while, I offered my life as a sacrifice to keep you safe," Mathew revealed, unable to look again at the girl.
'My cheeks are burning,' he realized, not sure what to expect. Because now that he put his past actions and decisions into words, he realized just how hasty and emotional they were.
"And then?" Seeing how Mathew had no intention of continuing and how Nadia was too shocked to ask about more details, Daria took this burden on herself. "What happened then?"
"I don't know," Mathew shrugged his arms as he looked down. "The second I finished the sacrifice, everything went black. And before I knew it, I was back to two hours before the apocalypse kicked in."
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"So that's why you were so frantic back then," Nadia muttered, taken aback by the revelation.
She knew the general idea of what happened and how Mathew got his hands on all the knowledge he shouldn't have… But she didn't know the details of the story.
"Wait, you seriously believe him?" Leila asked, refusing to accept Mathew's words. "Isn't this just some nice story to sweeten your relationship?" she asked as she raised her eyebrow to showcase just how doubtful she was regarding Mathew's words.
"It all checks up," Nadia shook her head. "Usually, he would be the one to get bullied whenever I entered the class. But when I did it today, he was changed," the girl said to her love rival before shaking her head and turning her eyes back to Mathew. "You must've been through a lot," she spoke softly before resting her forehead against Mathew's shoulder.
"If you claim he speaks the truth, then I'm in no position to doubt his words," Daria said. "Still, how come you returned to the time before the apocalypse if you wished to save Nadia?" she then asked. And then shook her head as if to ask to ignore the question she posed. "No, more importantly, if you knew of the apocalypse beforehand, why didn't you do anything?"
"Right, they do not know," Nadia muttered, a small smirk appearing on her face. "He did a lot. Back then, it didn't make much sense for me, but he really did a lot."
'You are always ready to take my side, aren't you?' Mathew thought, turning his head a little to the side to cast a quick glance at the girl.
The young man's soul was filled with hesitation and worry. Now that the school's area was more or less secured, all the social fears and problems he buried in his soul started to resurface.
"What did he do?" Leila asked, putting her doubts aside as she looked at Nadia with curiosity. "Outside of that message urging everyone to go out, I don't recall anything of importance happening," she added and then shook her shoulders.
"I only know the things that he did up until the apocalypse proper started," Nadia revealed, only for her eyes to flash a little. "Right, I've yet to ask, what did happen after I lost my consciousness?"
'Urgh…' Mathew's entire body shrugged when his primary wife posed this simple yet extremely dangerous question. 'How the heck am I supposed to tell her that I barely managed to save her this time?' Mathew asked himself, averting his eyes as he was unable to look at Nadia's face while trying to come up with some believable lie.
"Even if he did, I don't mind," Nadia didn't let Leila's words bother her at all. Yet, the same couldn't be said about Mat.
"This isn't the first time that I'm warning you," he said, rising to his feet only to stand up straight and look the rude girl in the eyes. "But it's the last time that I do.
"You are a valuable asset, a member of the group capable of pulling your own weight in a fight," Mathew admitted Leila's pros. "But if you don't stop messing with Nadia, I will not hesitate before pushing you away."
The air tensed up as the two seized each other with their eyes. Yet, this time, Mathew wasn't going to give in.
'It's better to nip the bud of the trouble while it's still small,' he thought, staring down Leila's eyes, ready to follow his words through right away if necessary.
And in the end, it was Leila that turned her eyes down.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, only for her cheeks to turn red. "Seeing how close you two got so quickly…" the girl hesitated only to turn her face and then her entire body away. "I was jealous and worried I was losing all my chances," she added as her voice turned softer and softer, almost to the point of disappearing.
The air was already tense… But Leila's honest admission of guilt allowed the atmosphere to somewhat relax.
"I understand," Nadia suddenly spoke up, raising up from her sitting position. Yet, despite what she just said, she still opted to wrap her arms around Mathew's arm. "I understand that you came to like him. Didn't he save your lives?" the girl asked, shaking her head and giving off a vibe of someone who made peace with just how powerless they were.
Nadia then took a deep breath before raising her face.
"I'm not ready yet to share him with anyone else. But I'm also aware that all the reasons why monogamy became a thing are now gone," she admitted.
Nadia then took a quick glance at Mathew's face, only for her cheeks to cover with blush as she retreated with her eyes to the side.
"Can you give me some more time to make peace with this situation?" Nadia requested, raising her eyes at Leila and looking her directly in the face.
"Tsk," Leila clicked her tongue as she broke off the eye contact and looked away. "It's hard to say no when you put it like this…" she said. Leila then bit on her lips as she raised her eyes back to Nadia's face. "You are not going to monopolize him forever. Can you promise me that?"
"And when am I going to get any say in this matter?" Mathew finally decided that it was the right time to join the discussion.
"Shut it." Nadia shot down Mathew's attempt in an instant. "I know you for long enough to know that those two are just in your hit zone, aren't they?" she asked before reaching out with her hand and grabbing Mathew by his crotch.
"I happened to sneak on you during several sessions of your jerking off," Nadia suddenly revealed while a small smirk crept up her lips. She then added some strength to the grip of her hand, sending a strangely pleasant bout of pain down Mathew's spine.
"And seeing for how long you could keep going back then, you won't convince me you would fail to satisfy all three of us!"
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"Am I supposed to now ignore the fact that you snuck on me to watch me jerk off?" Mathew asked, forcing the question out of his mouth while ignoring the extreme embarrassment that it caused him.
'I might not be a virgin anymore, but to have my dirty secrets pulled out like that…' he thought, a strange feeling of anger welling up in his soul.
And then, something clicked in his mind.
"Wait, don't answer that," Mathew requested as a small smirk appeared on his lips. "What I want to know instead is how could you know how long those sessions were?" he asked while gracing Nadia with the loveliest of the smiles he could produce.
"Huh? I…" the girl attempted to answer right away, only to figure out the meaning behind Mathew's words when her own lips had already started to move.
Nadia then turned her eyes away, her blush only intensifying.
"Come on, it's not nice to ask a lady such a question!" she finally responded, protesting rather than giving a straight-out answer.
"Are you seriously going to slap me with gender roles and privileges now?" Mathew asked, raising his eyebrows. Even though he cared little to not at all about those topics, he just couldn't help himself but parody them right now.
"The world falling into pieces doesn't mean you should be rude!" Nadia protested again.
'So you can embarrass me, but I can't repay you back in kind?' Mathew thought, only to end up rolling his eyes and dropping the topic. 'It's better to pull back now than to get on her bad side and suffer the consequences later,' he thought, ignoring just how obvious Nadia's attempt at changing the topic was.
"Anyway, we will need to watch this wall at all times," Mathew said as he turned his head to the school compound. He took only a moment to notice a single face flattened against one of the few windows that remained in place.
'Thinking about this, isn't it getting cold?' Mathew thought when he caught himself up rubbing his hands against his exposed arms. 'The winter might still be a few weeks away, but I guess we need to start looking after some basic necessities,' he thought.
It took only a second for the young man to recall all the trouble he went through to obtain simple stuff like food and clean water in his first run.
'At least we won't need to worry about wood to burn and warm ourselves or cook,' he thought, recalling all sorts of burnable furniture they could still find within the school's grounds.
"This is going to turn into a pain," Leila muttered under her nose. "But I guess you are right," she added a moment later as she turned her head around and looked in the direction of the city.
She and Daria were the only ones in Mathew's group that actually walked outside. As such, it was no wonder they could readily accept the importance of this weak point of the school's defenses.
"But why?" Daria asked, quickly proving Mathew's quick assumptions wrong. "It's not like this wall was designed to stop anyone in the first place," she stated as she knocked her knuckles against the healthy part of the wall.
The dull, reverberating sound that followed only served to prove her point.
"Murphy's law," Mathew replied with a wry smile as he grabbed Nadia's hand and started to move back into the partially ruined compound. "This place is the weak spot of the wall. On the other hand, the gate should be the strongest," he pointed out.
Then, Mathew shrugged his shoulders and released a deep breath.
"What do you want to bet that it will be this part of the wall that will see the bulk of the next horde that will attack this place?"
Daria turned silent upon hearing Mathew's words.
"We will just have to deal with it once it happens." Contrary to the others, Leila didn't seem to be bothered by the perspective of the wall falling. "It's not like we struggle when fighting zombies anymore, isn't it?"
Leila's question fell on deaf ears, as Mathew already moved too far to even hear her words.
Yet, Leila didn't bother to move yet. Instead, she looked at the young man's back. Then, her expression soured.
"Give you some time, huh?" she muttered to herself, ignoring the fact that even her own partner already moved ahead. She then turned her head to the back, throwing one last look towards the city outside the walls of the school.
"It doesn't look like we have that much time left, though," she muttered before shaking her head and following after the rest of the group.
"Did you seriously watch me masturbate?" Mathew asked in a low voice once he realized the girls ended up straying a bit to the back.
"You are still on this?" Nadia moaned a little only to then aver her eyes and for her face to cover in blush again. "Yes, I did," she admitted in a tiny voice, giving up on slapping Mat's thrust with further excuses.
"Do you want to get even, then?" Mathew leaned over Nadia's ear and whispered, only to see with satisfaction how even the girl's earlobe turned red from embarrassment.
"Wait, what?" Nadia nearly shouted, only managing to keep the reins of her voice at the very last moment.
"Huh?" Daria suddenly appeared behind them, her hurried breath signaling she gave it a bit of effort to catch up. "What was that?" she asked while moving her eyes from one lovebird to the other.
She didn't seem to hear the exchange… but the shy looks on the couple's faces were enough of a hint for the clever girl.
"I guess it wasn't anything important," Daria commented before taking a stop and looking back behind the corner she had just emerged from. When she turned her head back in the right direction, there was no more sign of confusion on it.
It was replaced with a small, smuggish smile.
"I want to go check on some things," Daria announced before hurrying forward and passing the couple. Yet, rather than stopping then, she accelerated her steps even further, fully ignoring how treacherous the area of the collapsed part of the compound was to tread on.
Yet, rather than keeping with her pretend act of not knowing what happened, Daria suddenly stopped and turned around on her heel.
"You know, I'm also extremely jealous of you," she suddenly announced, putting an end to the small flirt going on between Mathew and Nadia. "But I also want to respect your wish," Daria added, lowering her head.
For but a moment, there was only silence between the trio as all of them thought hard over what should they say next.
Yet, it turned out that Daria had it the easiest out of all three of them.
"I'm not going to impose on you right now. Heck, I will even make sure to pull Leila away as well so you two can get some well-deserved time together," Daria offered up, only to then lower her head and tighten her fists.
She then raised her eyes and looked directly into Nadia's face.
"I just hope… I hope this time that you need won't last longer than our lives in this brutal world," she explained before turning her eyes to Mathew. "You know, the two of us want to forget about all this shit, even if only for a moment, too," she explained before turning around on her heel and rushing back into the school's building.
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"Up we go!" Daniel shouted as he grabbed the edge of the stone and tensed his muscles to lift it up.
Yet, just as one could expect from a sizeable piece of concrete, it wasn't an easy task.
'If it was going to be easy, he would kick it off himself a long time ago,' Daniel thought as he felt fat drops of sweat slowly trickle down his forehead.
He pulled on the piece of rubble with all his might… but the most he managed to achieve was lifting its side by a few centimeters.
'I guess I need to roll it off, just like I did before,' he thought, allowing the stone to slip out of his hands only to then attempt to pull it again.
A few attempts like that later, the piece of rubble finally gained enough momentum to unlodge itself from its place and then slide down the pile of ruins.
"One more to go," Daniel announced out loud, hoping his words would reach the ears of his friend buried underneath.
"I can see it, you know?" Norbert asked, appearing in its ghost form right on top of Daniel's shoulder.
"Damn, man!" Daniel jumped out, almost smashing his fists into the ghastly projection. "Don't scare me like that!" he asked in a slightly raised voice.
Even though Daniel wasn't the one to fear ghosts or zombies, it didn't change the fact that the current situation made him quite jumpy.
'Do I have the time?' Daniel thought, sending a glance to the side, where he wreaked havoc just a few moments earlier.
"The coast is clear for now," Norbert's ghost reported as soon as he noticed where Daniel's stare went. "You can focus on trying to help me out; I will keep the lookout in your stead," he proposed before vanishing on the spot, only for his ghost to appear several meters away.
'Back to work, I guess,' Daniel thought before moving his hands to the other stone that his colleague marked out before.
This time, thankfully, the piece of rubble turned out to be far easier to move. And while Daniel didn't have enough strength to fully lift it, he was more than capable of moving it aside.
"Done!" Daniel shouted as soon as he pushed the stone to the side, allowing it to drop down to the bottom of the pile of rubble.
"Thanks, man," Norbert's ghost appeared right by Daniel's side. "Be warned, though, a new group is coming," Norbert's ghost informed his friend. "Can you deal with them while I will try to free myself?" he requested, only for the ghost to disappear.
"Sure thing," Daniel replied, even though he couldn't see the person he was talking to anymore.
He jumped down the pile of rubble without any hesitation. He then shook his arms in the air as if preparing them for the looming fight.
And sure enough, just a few moments later, a huge group of zombies started to fall down the staircase, indicating that the entire horde on the upper floors was now attracted to their presence.
'This could be dangerous,' Daniel thought, moving forward in rhythmic steps along to the tune of the music that started to play out in his mind.
Ever since he discovered the nature of his system, Daniel felt pressed to become better at using it.
'Judging by how pressed that young lad from before was to perfect his ability to use it, this should be the greatest source of our strength in this new, changing world,' Daniel thought, clenching his teeth when the music in his mind reached its first staccato.
And so, Daniel swung his fists, counting the number of zombies he fell along with the jumpy rhythm of the tune.
'I wonder if I could find a working VR set,' Daniel thought as he immersed himself in the fight, turning his punches, kicks, and blocks into an intricate dance.
The zombies no longer appeared as the mortal enemies that were out for his blood, or rather, brain. Right now, they were his partners in this strange dance, all voluntarily participating in what could only be called a slaughter.
BOOM!
A sudden explosion of noise right by Daniel's ear broke his momentum and focus, throwing his sense of rhythm off.
'What the hell,' he thought, feeling how the mysterious force behind his fists vanished into nothingness.
But he couldn't stop his fists any longer. And when his knuckles smashed into the head of what used to be a student of the school… Daniel failed to finish the zombie off with that single hit.
The zombie's head turned at an unnatural angle only to then brush its broken teeth against the skin of Daniel's fist.
'Fuck,' the officer cursed under his breath as he jumped to the back. It was only then that he finally got the time to look to the back to check what the heck was this familiar sound all about.
"Don't thank me!" Norbert said with a smile, lowering the gun he wielded in his hand.
'So he didn't lose his weapon,' Daniel thought, noticing the point only to then shake his head.
"Brother, I'm sorry, but can you fight any other way?" Daniel requested as he shook his arms to get rid of the residual blood on them. He then reached out to the bottom of his skirt only to tear a small piece out of it and first clean the broken skin on his knuckles from the foreign blood before wrapping it around to keep the wound relatively clean.
"Huh?" Norbert shook in surprise, not expecting his former senior officer to request him to give up his greatest weapon. "How else am I supposed to fight?" he asked, clearly confused by the order.
"The shooting throws me out of my rhythm," Daniel explained, only to shake his head and look towards the horde of zombies to judge how much time he had left. "Just like that ghost of yours, I got some sort of a strange ability. But for me to use it, I need to keep the rhythm of my fight!" he quickly explained the situation in the simplest way he could figure out.
"Ah, sorry about that, then," Norber quickly admitted to his mistake. "I didn't know," he added as he lowered his head in apology.
"You couldn't know," Daniel said, shaking his head. "Also, this ability of yours, can it do anything more than acting as a lookout?" Daniel asked.
'If the systems are our greatest ace cards, then I need to somehow get him to use and develop his as well,' he thought, turning his eyes to his colleague for but a moment.
"I…" Norbert hesitated for a little only to end up averting his eyes while a shameful blush appeared on his cheeks. "I don't think…" he shook his head. "No, I just don't know," he finally said only for the look behind the young officer's eyes to steel up. "But I will do my best to find out!"
"Good," Daniel nodded his head with satisfaction only to turn his eyes back towards the zombies. He then took a few seconds to hum a new tune under his nose before taking a step forward and starting the dance again.
"Let's hope you will find it out quickly, for those abilities of ours are our best bet for survival!"
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"And they all…" Daniel muttered under his nose as his knees smashed into a couple of two zombies. His body then turned on his heel. "will turn to dust," he sang in a silent voice, leaning his entire body forward only to throw a fist at the head of a relatively distant zombie.
Daniel's song finished. And so did the wave of the zombies that they attracted with all the noises they had made before.
"That was pretty scary," Norbert commented as he rested his hands on his knees while heavily breathing. He then shook his head and raised his eyes at his colleague. "Still, do you think there is any chance to find some food in this place?"
This was a surprisingly important question. Because after all the zombies would be finally put to rest, daily human needs would still remain.
And in a world where all the logistical chains were broken, procuring food would turn into the same kind of challenge as it used to be before farming allowed humanity to turn into proper civilization!
"There is a merchant at the top floor of the school," Daniel pointed out, only to smash the head of the nearest fallen zombie. He then leaned down and pushed his hand into the mushy brain matter scattered by his foot, only to pick up a small, shining stone hidden in it. "If we gather enough stones, we should be able to access its wares," he added, raising his eyes up to the ceiling of the corridor.
'Still, that doesn't mean reaching the top floor will be easy, not after we blew up all the stairs leading there,' Daniel thought, only to shake his head and keep his worries to himself.
"What are we waiting for, then?" Norbert asked only to pat himself on the stomach. "We won't be able to fight for long if we don't eat," he added, raising his eyes on his companion.
"That's true," Daniel agreed, only to turn around and look to the other side of the corridor, one that led back to the central point of the entire building. "The question is, should we try looking for other survivors first?"
"There is no point," Norbert replied as he hung his head low. "What do you think I did first when I noticed this new ability of mine?" he asked, only to shake his head. "We are the last ones standing. That is, from those who fell down," he quickly added. "There is a chance that those who stood back are still alive."
Not all the policemen joined in the firing squad that supported Mathew's efforts. As such, some of them could still be alive and waiting for them to hopefully return to the top floor of the school.
"With how he pressed everyone to go to the top floor, that young lad should still be there," Daniel thought out loud, only to clasp his lips together as he turned them into a straight, thin line. "If he survived the collapse of the floor, that is," he added in a lower voice.
"Anyway," Daniel turned his face back to his colleague. "We won't achieve anything by just standing here. Our best bet is to find others for now, so let's climb instead of wasting time here," he decided before pushing forward.
"There are close to no zombies left on the upper floor," Norbert reported as soon as they started to move.
"Wait, you can reach that far with that ghost of yours?" Daniel asked, his eyebrows skyrocketing up on his forehead.
"Yeah," Norbert replied. Yet, when he looked at Daniel's face and noticed the hopeful expression behind his eyes, all the younger of the officers could do was shake his head. "Sorry, but I can't any further. This ghost of mine can only move through open spaces, so in order to check the upper floor, I need to move it through the staircase. And currently, that's the limit of how far I can push it out," he explained.
"Figures," Daniel commented, shaking his head as he dropped the genius idea that his colleague just proved to be impossible. Yet, before his negative thoughts could get to him, he turned his eyes back to his colleague.
"You say that you can only push this ghost of yours through open spaces and for a limited distance away from you, right?" he reiterated what Norbert said before just to make sure he wasn't mistaken about any of the parts.
"That's right," Norber nodded his head, only to then trip on one of the zombie's corpses. He took a moment to regain his stability before picking up his explanation again. "This is the only reason why I could move it through the rubble. Ultimately, it's full of gaps," he explained, only for a powerful shudder to shake his body. "If not for how small the gap needs to be for my ghost to move through it…"
The younger of the officers didn't finish his sentence. He turned silent instead and locked his eyes on the staircase several meters away.
"If that's the case, then all we need to do is to get closer to the upper floors and the staircase in general, right?" Daniel suggested as a smile appeared on his lips. "In this way, we will be able to know what's going on on the top floor without taking the risk of somehow reaching it!"
Daniel's face filled with color as he could push away one of his greatest worries.
With no stairs left for them to climb to the last floor, they would have to somehow scale the walls to reach it. And if they were to go for such an extra effort only to learn that everyone on the top floor had already died or turned into zombies…
"Wait," Norbert suddenly called out. "I can already see it!" he announced. Yet, rather than stopping, he hurried his steps, eager to get closer to the stairs and, as such, see deeper into the top floor…
But he never reached the bottom of the staircase. After making only a few steps, he suddenly fell to his knees and started throwing up.
"Those fucking bastards…" Norbert managed to utter before his eyes moved up, showing the whites below, only to then fall down right into the pool of acid he just vomited out.
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