Novel Full 335 False exhaustion
‘That’s…’ Mathew thought, perfectly aware that his thoughts would be passed over to Norbert. He then breathed a sigh of relief, feeling how the additional tension that filled his body finally vanished.
“Haaa…” Mathew released another sigh, only for most of his remaining strength to evaporate as well.
‘That’s a relief,’ Mathew finally passed over a full message back only for his knees to wobble a little. ‘I will be coming over soon.’
Mathew closed his eyes. He then took two, deep breaths, giving his body some time to regenerate at least a minimal amount of energy.
Because now that the fight was over, the exhaustion of his body finally started to catch up to him.
“I really shouldn’t rely on that overdrive ability that much,” Mathew muttered to himself, looking down at his shaking knees.
For the current him, running a marathon would be equivalent to a short jog across the school’s corridor. Doing the Iron Man’s race would be as hard as running off to the shop to pick up the milk that ran out.
And yet, only a few minutes worths of fighting at a rate beyond his limits was enough to sap nearly all of his strength, leaving just enough for Mathew to keep himself up on his feet.
‘If that’s how all the battles are going to look like,’ Mathew thought, closing his eyes and hanging his head to the back. He then slowly pried his eyelids open before staring at the reddish sky of the sunset. ‘Then it is going to get really tough from now on.’
Mathew took yet another, long breath. He bit down on his lips all the way to the point it let out blood.
Another breath came.
And so, the young man forced his legs to move, taking the very first step since the fight ended.
Yet, rather than walking in the direction of the rest of his group, Mathew brandished his saber and started slashing away at the heads of the fallen zombies.
He first made sure to open all of the evolved zombies up before taking his time to harvest their cores. Then and only then did he bother to open up the mob of the horde, plucking out the cores over the next three minutes.
“Okay, that’s done,” the young man muttered a moment later, raising back up to his feet while keeping all of the harvested cores in yet another makeshift bag made out of a random piece of cloth Mathew cut out from the zombie’s clothes.
“And now…” he whispered, turning his head towards the road that would lead him to the rest of his group.
Mathew took yet another deep breath before raising his hands and slapping his cheeks.
He was tired. Exhausted beyond the level he ever thought possible.
‘But it’s not like it’s a true exhaustion,’ Mathew thought, forcing himself to believe in the theory he came up with in the spur of the moment.
‘I didn’t even approach the limits of my endurance. I just used too much energy in too little time. So…’ yet another breath followed, ‘I should be okay after taking things easy for some time.
Going by the rule of healing himself with the same thing that made him sick, Mathew pulled together all his strength before starting to jog down the street.
He passed through the first block by squeezing all that he could out of his tired body. He ran across the second block while squeezing his jaws to forcibly ignore the pain in his muscles. He covered the third block with ease.
It took the young man only a total of about one hundred and fifty meters to get his body accustomed to the new level of exercise. And by the time he started to run across the fourth block, his muscles managed to relax, allowing him to start regenerating his strength.
“It took you a while,” Norbert commented as soon as Mathew took the last corner and appeared on the street where the former police officer made his stance.
“I…” Mathew opened his mouth. Yet, rather than finishing up his reply, he simply shook his head and decided to drop the topic. “Nevermind,” he said with a shake of his head. “Are you guys okay?”
“Somehow,” Norbert replied right away, while Nadia kept her mouth shut and her eyes wide open and locked on Mathew.
“Do I have something on my face?” Mathew asked, raising his hand to his cheek in search of some wound or mark that could be the reason behind Nadia’s extreme attention.
“Matty…” Nadia whispered while squeezing her eyebrows together, focusing her sight on Mathew’s eyes. “I think we should be the ones asking if you are okay.”
Norbert’s state wasn’t good. He had his clothes ripped apart for the sake of using the material to bandage the deep wound on his left arm.
The former officer had several scratches on his face and a shallow cut going all across his chest.
And yet, even with Norbert in such a state, Nadia actually worried about Mathew’s more, even though he had little to no injuries.
“I’m just tired,” Mathew replied, waving his hand to shove the problem away. “I will be fine after taking it easy for a minute or two,” he then added before taking a quick look at the battlefield on the street.
It wasn’t all that easy to discern the level of the zombies once they were properly dead. Yet, in his current state, Mathew could somehow perceive the faint signs of residual mana that hung around the corpses of the fallen zombies.
‘Wait, is it because I’m tired,’ Mathew thought, squinting his eyes, ‘or is it because they were killed by firearms?’
There was only one zombie with residual energy on a considerably higher level than the ones around him. And yet…
‘It’s an evolved zombie for sure, but there is no way it’s on the same level as the one I fought with,’ Mathew thought.
“Shall we get some rest, then?” Nadia suggested, clearly too worried about Mathew’s state to even think about going through the next step of their plan.
According to the original strategy, now that their fight was more or less over, it was time to change their deployment and help the group that struggled with their fight the most.
‘Judging by how soon the night will start, Daria shouldn’t have any problems holding on against the mob horde,’ Mathew thought.
He blinked his eyes a few times to avert the early signs of extreme exhaustion before turning his sights to Norbert.
“Man, I know it has to be hard to work when you are injured like that, but could you please check on the other groups?” Mathew asked in a voice so polite it didn’t sound like him at all.
“I already did,” Norbert replied with a sigh. “The media building is holding pretty well. Peter’s base is yet to get hit,” he then quickly reported. “But there is still the group of ten evolved zombies heading straight for us and that massive monster lagging behind them.”
“We are going to wait here, then,” Nadia spoke out, standing up from Norbert’s side and approaching Mathew. She then snuck underneath Mathew’s arms before bringing it over her shoulders.
“Since the evolved ones are coming here, it would be for the best if we stopped them right in their tracks,” she muttered while kicking the doors to the four-floors-high residential building open. “And it will be for the best to fight that monster as far away from the school and the other bases as possible.”