Chapter 57: Change of plans (1)

Congratulations! You have leveled up.

You obtained 05 status points.

Luke grinned when his HP, MP, and SP were restored, so he didn't waste time and impaled some zombies with Stinger, while Shalia beheaded others with her magic. After doing that so many times, Luke could see that the effects of her power had increased yet again, and now she could restore eight points of his mana per second. Meanwhile, Rina was still only restoring six points of HP and SP. It couldn't be helped since she was on the support duty, and Luke rarely got hurt.

"Inform me if you find any other skill books," Luke said and then grabbed another grenade and threw it.

After the explosions, Luke waited for Rina to tell him anything, but she stayed silent. To make matters worse, Luke didn't find any weapon either. On the other hand, he found a round shield, but soon he passed it to Amanda's father. Shields didn't work with Weapon Augmentation. The same thing happened three more times, and Luke was finally out of grenades. When he used a handgun, he had to fire five timed in the head to kill a fat zombie and three to kill the fire zombies.

"I should have expected this…" Luke frowned while looking at the weapon.

Still, Luke had a last resort: Weapon Augmentation. When he used it, the handgun fired a beam of energy that pierced the heads of many zombies, but it disappeared after flying for eighty meters. In the end, the machine gun probably wouldn't be much better. So after unloading it on the enemies, Luke used Weapon Augmentation level three, and the weapon fired multiple magic bullets that flew directly to the heads of some zombies around.

Luke equipped his sword while checking the time of the quest. Half an hour had passed, and many corpses of zombies were wounded. At that rate, they could create a massive wall that would block their path. The horde of zombies still seemed as endless as before, so Luke could only see two options ahead… Leave the pickup behind and keep fighting while they advance or retreat slowly while fighting and hope that they will have time to run away once the attack starts because the path would still be filled with corpses.

Even Luke wasn't confident that he could keep on fighting while he crossed the 8th street, so the odds for there others were much worse. Luke couldn't see any zombies on the other side of the river, but crossing it didn't like a bad idea. Whoever the type of creature in there is, they will have the absolute advantage. Luke could try to fight if it was just one, but he doubted that a single big creature would live in such a place. Even if he kills one, another one will show and take its place. Jumping over the river was the best option, but not even Luke could pull that off.

After looking around and not finding anything that he could use, Luke began to get angry. The plan to force their way wasn't going to work, even though he was increasing his strength with each level up… even though the power of the arrows and bolts from the others were increasing… That was truly annoying. Still, Luke couldn't give up for two reasons. First of all, the whole group was getting stronger insanely fast, and the second was because they were getting tons of coins. If by some miracle they succeed, things will be easier for them from that moment onwards.

"Shalia, can you enhance my sword with ice magic?" Luke asked. "Like increasing its length and sharpness? I want to test something new..."

"I can, but it won't be that good, support isn't my specialty," Shalia replied. "If you are planning to spin around with your sword and behead the zombies in an unsightly manner as you did before, I won't he able to stop the fire zombies, since I will have to control the mana in your sword, to prevent them from cracking instantly. There are spells that made for that, but I don't know them."

It was possible, but it wasn't that convenient. In the end, Luke just gave up on that and told Rina to keep using his potions nonstop. Thanks to that, he managed to kill many zombies with them, and some items were dropped and used.

After a while, Luke confirmed that only tier four items were dropping. At that rate, he couldn't help to upgrade the gear of everyone to increase their hunting speed. On the other hand, Luke finally obtained a new type of armor, one that could be used alongside the chainmail since it was normal for people back in the day to use both at the same time. It was a dark-blue armor...

Brigandine

A simple armor that offers relatively Protection to your torso.

END + 4, RES + 03

Durability: 30/30

Now that most parts of his body were protected, Luke felt more confident in attacking the monsters without worrying about big wounds. That increased the hunting speed of the group, but in the end, they didn't make much progress on decimating the hordes. Despite everything, the remaining two hours passed in the blink of an eye, and the group had retreated more than five hundred meters and had to worry about enemies attacking from behind as well.

At that point in time, Luke didn't have any other choice. They would have to cross the river, the sun was about to set, and the attack might start at any moment. Still, even if that was the case, some choppers should have appeared by now… Something was wrong and Luke could only think of a single possibility. While it seemed convenient for him to gain more time, it would be troublesome because it was the only place where he could find an airplane and people that could pilot it.

"Did something happen in the military base?" Luke asked.