Novel Full 62 Reaching the breach
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: 15+9]
[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!”