Novel Full 174 Bloody cough
“Is it over?” Mathew muttered, watching how the headless corpse of the zombie leader fell first to its knees, only for its weight to take over and push it fully down on the ground.
Daria’s shadowy form landed roughly two meters to the back of the zombie’s corpse. She trodded several steps forward to disperse her momentum only to then sling on her heel as she turned around, ready to face the zombie leader again.
But there was no need for it anymore.
The headless corpse of the zombie leader remained exactly in the same spot that it fell to the ground.
There were no suspicious twitches that would signal the fight wasn’t over yet. Mathew couldn’t feel the mana converging in this place in an unnatural way.
The entire field calmed down, as if the exciting arc of the story came to an end, giving the participating characters time to calm down and enjoy their moment of victory.
“We won?” Daria shyly muttered, her voice indicating she didn’t really believe in her own words.
Her shadowy form dispersed, finally revealing several cuts and holes in her clothes that gave birth to the ever-evolving red roses of her blood.
The girl suddenly fell down on one of her knees. Her head slumped down on her shoulders as she started to breathe heavily, struggling to catch a breath.
“Fuck,” Mathew cursed under his breath, shedding all the joy of winning the encounter. ‘Should we take her back to the school?’ he thought, gritting his teeth as he rushed ahead.
Mathew made several steps ahead, rushing towards the girl…
But his own injuries quickly caught up to him as well.
‘We are in really bad shape right now,’ he thought, unable to stop the feeling of powerlessness from taking over his entire self.
‘If I can’t even properly take care of enemies on this level, how the hell am I supposed to defy whoever is behind this apocalypse?’ the young man lamented in his thoughts.
Those vile, unproductive, and depressing thoughts invaded Mathew’s head and refused to go away. And for up to entire five seconds, they paralyzed his movements, forcing him to stay in his place, watching how the rest of his group rushed over to Daria’s side.
“You will be alright!” Leila stated in a tone that wouldn’t accept any disagreement. “Just press those wounds and wait for us to organize you a way back to the compound!”
‘Fuck this all,’ Mathew thought, gritting his teeth as he ignored his own pain and broke free from his physical stupor, taking those last few steps that separated him from the girl.
‘There is one way to immediately help her,’ Mathew thought. Yet, as his mind was about to analyze the downsides of such a solution, the young man quickly turned his eyes towards Daria’s wounds.
The sight of her exposed flesh and blood pumping out of the unnatural openings in her body were both enough on their own to kill all the hesitation Mathew dared to harbor. And when they both assaulted the young man’s eyes at once, his internal self made the decision on its own and proceeded to fulfill it before Mathew’s self could even catch up.
‘Status,’ Mathew thought, even though the information was always there, right in the corner of his peripheral vision. And with a single glance alone he could tell what kind of small detail on his own status page changed.
[Mathew Karian]
[Accumulated Levels – 34/35] > [Accumulated Levels – 34/43]
[Avaible points: 10] > [Avaible points: 90]
‘That’s quite a few levels I gained from this battle,’ he thought, coldly accepting the fact that just this single fight alone amounted to nearly a third of all his accumulated efforts so far.
This was an increase that Mathew would normally love to enjoy and then strategize over how to make the most of it. But in the current situation, he hardly had any option to do so.
‘I wish to donate levels,’ Mathew’s inner-self thought. ‘Four levels to my second, second wife.’
The order was simple. Yet, besides what Mathew thought to get it done, he also infused the order with the idea of how the gifted stats should be distributed. And just like one could expect from the situation they were in, Mathew put a massive focus on Daria’s vitality.
Yet, vitality wasn’t the only thing that Mathew raised when it came to Daria’s statistics. Sure, he dedicated thirty out of forty statistics points to raise her vitality and thus rendered her wounds meaningless, he still decided to add ten more points to her mind.
‘Back in her shadowy form, she didn’t appear to be affected much by her wounds,’ Mathew thought, doing his absolute best to think of a plan on the spot, despite how stressful the situation was for him. ‘Then if I enable her to stay in that form for a little longer, she should be able to make the trip back to the compound,’ he thought.
And as such, Mathew ended up unable to do anything but observe to see whether his gamble would pay off this time.
“Hah?” Daria suddenly stopped her pained moans and released a small, confused sound. She then raised her hands from her wounds only to then drop them back and pat her injuries a few times.
“Are you any better?” Mathew asked, kneeling down before the girl and looking her directly in the face.
“I do,” Daria replied. Her eyes were wide open while her face froze in shock. Not her experience at rapidly leveling up nor her memories of healing up all at once could prepare her for the effects of healing through leveling.
Because while her wounds stopped bleeding, her body didn’t shed its wounds.
‘It’s puzzling how our health works as it would usually do rather than following some sort of a game system,’ Mathew thought, suddenly struck by the realization.
He couldn’t see a new number appearing beside their vitality whenever someone in his group got hit. There was no indicator of the health they had left within the bounds of the system. And while raising vitality made them generally stronger, harder to injure, and more prone to natural healing…
‘When we are struck hard enough, we bleed,’ Mathew thought, putting his sudden realization into words. ‘And we bleed just like everyone else.’
This simple realization implied a greater truth about this strange, new world.
‘It feels like a status detailing system vitality should appear now, all to spite me,’ Mathew thought, feeling the changes going on in his mind.
The momentary fury caused by the irrationality of the new rules continued to bother the young man. His calculative mind simply couldn’t grasp the world where everything was vague and unspoken.
‘And with all of that in my head I already forgot about not spending many coins,’ the young man suddenly realized the potential connection between all the events of the last two days.
“Fuck it all,” Mathew uttered through his lips. He refused to let all the bullshit around keep getting him. And so, he raised his chin and looked at the girls.
“Daria, you might be better now but you are still far from being healthy,” Mathew commanded, sharpening his look as his mind fell back into the track of constructive planning. “I need you to get some rest first. Once you feel better, Leila will escort you back to the compound,” Mathew gave his orders and turned his eyes to his first lover.
“The two of us are going for the usual and will gather the cores,” Mathew said, looking Nadia in her eyes after ensuring she bore no heavy wounds. “We need to get this place secured as soon as possible, then get the survivors out of the shed…”
Mathew’s words slowed down. His lips moved at a slower pace with each passing second. And at the end of it all…
A single cough escaped his lips.
“Cough!”
Mathew looked down at the hand that he reasonably raised to cover his mouth. In the soul, he felt a tinge of tiny relief due to how massive this sudden cough was.
Yet, he didn’t see any phlegm on his palm. Instead, it was covered in blood.
And there was only one source of where this red liquid could come from.
“Then we will all make a trip back to the compound,” Mathew added with his quivering mouth.
“Mat!” Nadia shouted, leaning herself forward as she launched ahead.
Yet, before her hands could offer the young man any rest, Mathew’s vision darkened before his consciousness turned off.