Chapter 76: A city on fire (3)

Those words sounded too ominous, but in the end, Luke wouldn't let anything surprise him. Before leaving the house, Luke checked the garage for some nails, and he found a box of those. While five Spark Balls did the trick in killing the red fangs, Luke couldn't forget Weapon Augmentation. It was pretty hard to make the skills reach level four, so they never will level up unless he trains them regularly. Besides, Weapon Augmentation was a lot more silent when used alongside small projectiles. At the same time, Spark Ball made those noises of high voltage.

Once Luke left the house, he immediately found some Red Fangs running toward him. Despite the smoke, they tracked his smell… the smoke wasn't that dense in the residential area, so the beasts used Flamethrower first. Luke used Stinger to move away instantly from there, and then he fired Spark Balls toward the enemies' heads. Once all of them stopped, Luke used Stinger again to impale one of the beasts. Instead of pulling his sword, Luke turned around and then used Spark Balls to paralyze the monsters yet again. He did so until they died when their monsters began to emit steam.

You obtained 20 experience points.

You obtained 20 gold coins.

You obtained 20 experience points.

You obtained 20 gold coins.

…

Luke had killed a few dozen of those monsters already, so he couldn't help but wonder why they didn't drop anything until now. Not even potions… Nevertheless, he left the residential area and then headed toward the northeast.

Once Luke left the residential area, the smoke curtain got thicker again. Fortunately, he got the map of Billy's room, so he won't get lost. As he headed toward that direction, Luke noticed that the number of encounters was getting high. Still, finding the crystal will be hard with all that smoke.

After a while, Luke also began to find some corpses of the red fangs. The bodies didn't have a hard bite mark, so he confirmed that they had been killed by humans. That was a good sign… the survivors of the city could fight back even against those beasts. So, there was hope for them.

Eventually, Luke reached the area where the school was supposed to be, but he found some barricades blocking his path. The survivors had used all kinds of vehicles to stop the zombies and monsters on the barricade, even buses, and trucks. Not to mention, Luke could see hundreds of zombies corpses in front of them, and there was a sign of red fangs as well. However, those bodies seemed relatively fresh… It looked like the survivors cleaned the area periodically. Still, Luke didn't find anyone when he approached the barricades. 

The barricades had been set to completely isolate the school, Luke walked around it to confirm that and to look for lookouts, but he didn't find any.

"Something is off here…" Luke said.

"Just jump over it," Shalia said.

"Ah… I don't want to cause a bad impression here," Luke said. "If Billy's family isn't guarding this place, then I will have to find the people who do that and ask them to guide me to them."

"Still, what can you do?" Rina asked. "They notice you until now, so unless you do something, they won't show up."

It was weird that the four sides of the barricades were unguarded. Maybe the monsters only show up at a certain time, but that was unlikely. Something must have happened inside… without any other choice. Luke slowly approached and focused his senses to see and hear everything around. While they improved, Luke couldn't sense anyone nearby.

"Stay here for a while, Arcanine," Luke said. "Your strength is on the same level as the others, so you should hide for the time being."

It was hard for Arcanine to find a suitable place to hide, but in the end, he took shelter inside a random shop that had destroyed doors. Once that was done, Luke jumped over the wall and confirmed that no one was guarding the place. Unfortunately, Luke found some blood marks above and beyond the barricades.

"It seems that the red fangs managed to reach this far…" Luke said.

When Luke jumped to the other side, he saw the school's gates open, but he didn't find any signs of battle. He slowly approached, but it seemed that his timing wasn't that good… some shadows began to leave the building and head toward him, and when they noticed Luke, they grabbed their weapons.

"Just my luck…" Luke said and then sighed.

Luke didn't move a single inch, but he didn't raise his hands and kept holding his weapon. Until he confirms that he found the right place, he can't drop his guard.

"... Who are you?" A tall and bulky man armed with a spear asked.

"My name is Luke and I am looking for Royce, Abby, and Chloe," Luke replied. "A man called Billy asked me."

The spear user looked at Luke from head to toe. That guy had short black hair, brown eyes, and skin that looked pretty red. It seemed that he faced the red fangs more than a few times, and he felt the heat of their spells quite a lot as well. Nevertheless, the others looked pretty nervous while the spear wielder was taking his sweet time deciding what he should do.

"Go and check with them if they know someone called Luke and Billy," The spear wielder said, and then one of his allies nodded and left. "Do you mind if I ask where you are from? By the way, my name is Julius."

"Not at all, I am from Miami," Luke said. "It might be hard to believe, but I escaped the city alongside another group and a friend asked me to find his family."

"I see…" Julius said, still looking at Luke's gear and weapon.

Based on what he saw, the equipment of those people was of tier four and five, so it wasn't surprising that they were interested in Luke's, which were two levels above them.