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“What the…” Mathew mouthed. His eyes opened wide as he started right at the backs of the zombies.

‘Is this another bait?’ the young man thought, looking around to check the movements of the zombie army in general. Standing on the ground, though, made him lose the height advantage he had atop the compound’s wall.

‘I can’t see shit.” Mathew gritted his teeth. No matter how much he strained his eyes, the rows of the zombies ahead blocked his sight of what was happening to the back. ‘Is that how the commanders in the medieval battles felt like?’

‘Norbert!’ Mathew suddenly thought, turning around and looking up the wall. Yet, the policeman stood atop the wall with an empty expression in his eyes. ‘What is he staring off in the distance, for?’ Mathew asked himself, gritting his teeth in silent frustration.

“Mathew?” Daria asked.

The orders were given. The objectives were specified. The whole plan was ready to be executed. And yet, by simply turning around and leaving, those zombies managed to throw a wrench into the gears of Mathew’s strategy.

“Damn it!” Mathew tightened his hands into fists. He then looked down and took a single, short breath.

There was no time for profound deliberations. With every second, the zombies were getting further and further away. And while, with their extremely slow speed, it would take them a while to leave the area…

‘With every step they take away from us, it’s one more step we will need to make while retreating,’ Mathew noted. ‘I know I’m not a good strategist. All the battles I could ever properly manage are confined to the code of the games I used to play,’ he thought.

And with a heavy heart, Mathew raised his hand up.

“We are dropping the plan,” he announced.

“Excuse me, what?” Nadia asked, her usually relaxed and smiling face suddenly souring. “Are you that worried about us?” she then asked as a small smile returned on her face. Yet, the girl then shook her head before stretching her leading arm out in the direction of the retreating army of zombies.

“They are retreating because we are stronger than those evolved commanders thought we would be,” she stated a possible explanation of the situation.

‘Isn’t that just wishful thinking?’ Mathew retorted in his thoughts, struggling to open his mouth and openly stand up to his beloved. ‘While she wouldn’t hate me for saying that out loud, I was the one who asked all of them to provide input,’ Mathew thought. His teeth then bit down on his lip so hard that blood started to ooze out of his mouth.

“I’ve got it!” A sudden shout brought the much-needed change to the stalemate Mathew found himself in. He raised his head and looked at the source of the voice. “They are heading to another siege nearby, roughly two klicks away!”

Norbert’s gift, although battle-unrelated, proved its worth.

“Then there is no time to wait!” Mathew shouted back before brandishing his ax from a makeshift holster he attached to the back of his suit. And then, as if no further word of explanation was needed, he rushed forward.

“Everything goes just as we planned!” Mathew shouted before taking a breath and pushing his body to its natural limits.

It took Mathew three seconds to reach his top speed. And then, a single second to reach the retreating line of the zombies.

“DIE!” he shouted, swinging his ax sideways.

Killing a zombie was one thing. But now that Norbert proved the value of his system, Mathew’s mind was already set on helping him to level up. And for that end, collecting the heads for Norbert to finish off was the easiest method.

“Haaaa!” Leila shouted, plunging herself right into the unit on Mathew’s right.

To the left, Nadia didn’t waste her breath on shouting, opting to rush into the battle without a word.

For the initial clash, it could only be described as a cold-blooded massacre.

Mathew spun around his ax, cutting the zombie’s head like a farmer would cut down his bountiful harvest. The difference was in how a farmer had to work hard to earn his keep in form of a grain stockpile while Mathew was here just to pluck the goodies out!

‘There is no end to them,’ Mathew thought as he cut through the zombie ranks. Yet, instead of anxiety, his face continued to grow fat with self-satisfaction. ‘It would be a pity if we allowed them to just run away,’ Mathew thought while committing the crime against his own beliefs and bringing the ax down on the zombie, cutting through its entire body from the top of its head to its crotch.

“Haaa…” Mathew released a deep breath from his lungs as he slammed the top of his ax into the ground before resting on the butt end of its handle.

He wasn’t physically tired after just a few minutes of this kind of light exercise. Yet, the same couldn’t be said about his mental state.

Even though Mathew was long used to the presence of zombies and could handle killing scores of them, in a bloodbath like that… Even he would falter.

“There is no time for idle thought,” Mathew scolded himself before kicking the back of his ax’s blade to make it draw a small arc in the air before the topmost part of its handle landed on his shoulder. “Less talking, more culling!”

Yet, as if fate itself wanted to spit Mathew in the face, the zombies stopped running away. Just the fact that they all stopped forced the young man to do the same.

‘What now?’ Mathew thought as he slowed his movements down to the level where he could flexibly react to the ongoing changes on the battlefield. He even took a step back.

Right in the nick of time.

After a short delay after stopping, the zombies started to turn around. At first, only one or two turned to face Mathew’s wrath. Yet, as seconds continued to trickle between his fingers, more and more zombies decided to do the same.

‘This is bad,’ Mathew thought when he realized that there was something weird about those zombies. And then his eyes happened to land on the face of one of them.

It belonged to a kid a few years younger than him. Back when the kid was alive, it likely went to the upper years of middle school.

Yet, for how insane pity it was to see children involved in this cataclysm, it wasn’t the age of the zombie’s original host that caught Mathew’s attention.

It was its eyes. Because contrary to all the other zombies Mathew met in both of his lives so far, it was the first time he faced a zombie whose eyes turned red.

‘Are they all evolving?’ Mathew thought, taking a step back as the disastrous reality dawned upon him. He then gnashed his jaws together. ‘No, it’s not possible for all of them to evolve at once!’

Mathew took another step back.

At this point, all the zombies that surrounded him now bore the same characteristic trait that caught Mathew’s attention.

‘I guess it’s time to enter the second stage of the plan!’ Mathew thought.

The zombies started to move. Their normally erratic movements were now well planned and executed. And while each individual one of them was still a far cry from the evolved monsters, they were no longer the cannon fodder that Mathew’s group could kill at their own leisure.

‘This is bad,’ Mathew thought as he used his ax not to kill a zombie, but to ward off its attack.

In the process of his charge right in the middle of the zombie units, Mathew forgone any sense of self-security. And now, with the zombies somehow reaching a new level all at once, he was stuck deep within their ranks.

“Mathew!” A shout forced the young man out of his stupor. “You need to run, now!”

‘Daria?’ the young man thought, easily recognizing the voice. But just like his entire team acted when he decided to push through with the plan, Mathew didn’t hesitate either.

‘If she made the effort to go all the way to here, the situation really has to be dire,’ Mathew thought as he swung his ax for one last time and turned around…

Only to see one of those red-eyed zombies reaching out for Daria’s unsuspecting head.

“BEHIND!” Mathew shouted. Any longer form of expression would make his words arrive too late.

“HoAGH!” Daria only managed to shake before a zombie sank its teeth right into the corner between her shoulder and her neck, like some sort of discounted vampire.

“Get the hell off me!” Daria shouted, reaching out for the zombie’s head before tearing it off her neck.

The girl stood up straight, vigilant once again. Yet, she couldn’t stop a small smile of self-satisfaction from appearing on her lips.

She then fell down on her knees, her eyes turned cloudy.

‘Damn it!’ Mathew screamed inwardly out. He then lunged forth, covering the distance separating him from the girl in just two leaps.

“I’m sorry,” Daria muttered weakly.

The attack she took wasn’t light. It was a serious bite that warranted a full stop to the mission even if she didn’t come bearing the news for Mathew to retreat in the first place.

“It’s okay,” Mathew said as he tore off a piece of his own clothing before pressing it against Daria’s injury. He then grabbed her hand and pressed it against the cloth before raising up and pulling out one of the cores that he brought with him.

‘That’s not how I wanted the second phase to go,’ Mathew thought as he gritted his teeth and tensed his fist. He then raised his fist to the air before leaning over Daria and shielding her with his own body.

“For now, just leave everything to me,” Mathew whispered, before bringing his hand down and smashing the core in his fist against the ground.