Elijah approached a car and saw a gaunt zombie sitting in the driver's seat. He opened the door and said to Bella, "Bella, you go first."
Bella took a deep breath and stepped forward. Despite preparing herself mentally, seeing the zombie inside the car still shocked her greatly.
This zombie, deprived of food for a long time, had dry, wrinkled skin and a severely emaciated body.
Its once thick hair now clung sparsely to its scalp.
Bella's first impression of it resembled a terrifying witch from a horror story, standing alive right in front of her, making her extremely uncomfortable. Meanwhile, this witch, starved and sluggish, showed little response even as Elijah opened the car door and stood there.
It wasn't until Bella approached that it finally awakened its desire for flesh and struggled to lunge at her.
Bella remained unafraid; the zombie was restrained by a seatbelt, but more importantly, Elijah stood beside her, giving her a sense of security.
Suppressing her discomfort, she thrust the Tang sword in her hand into the zombie's gaping mouth.
"Splat!"
The blade effortlessly pierced through its body.
"Huh?"
Was it really that easy?
Bella was surprised; she had expected it to be more difficult. She unconsciously compared it with her past experiences, forgetting that after awakening her abilities and persevering in physical training these days, she was no longer the weak woman she used to be.
Unfortunately, even with its skull pierced, the zombie didn't die; it continued to groan and try to lunge at her.
"The vital point of a zombie is its brain. Stabbing its mouth works, but you need to sever the brainstem in one go!"
"I understand," Bella replied. This was common knowledge she already knew without Elijah telling her.
Actually, she had intended to stab its eye earlier, but it was her first time and she got a bit queasy, resulting in a misplaced thrust.
Bella pulled the Tang sword out of the zombie's mouth and aimed again, this time targeting its eye with precision.
The blade went in decisively, mixing black blood with brain matter as it flowed from the eye socket. The zombie immediately ceased struggling, lying still.
"Nicely done!" Elijah praised her.
"Next up is Olivia!"
"Oh!" Olivia responded nervously, her hand trembling as she held a Damascus sword.
Although she aspired to be an archer, as the saying goes, a bowman who can't handle close combat isn't a good warrior.
Therefore, Charlotte had also equipped her with a Damascus sword for defense in close quarters.
With Bella leading the way, Olivia, although nervous, did quite well and successfully killed a zombie inside a car.
Next up were Katherine and Grace, who were feeling rather relaxed.
Elijah decided not to let them kill the restrained zombies and instead focused on training Bella and Olivia's courage.
It was at this moment that three trucks turned from a nearby intersection.
Seeing Elijah and the others, the three trucks immediately stopped by the roadside.
Daisy, Fiona, and Lily jumped down from the trucks, followed by two strangers, a man and a woman.
"Elijah, what are you doing here?"
Daisy was somewhat surprised!
"We're training Bella and Olivia to kill zombies! And these two are..."
Elijah glanced at the two people behind them.
"Oh, Elijah, don't you remember him?"
Daisy pointed to the man among the two strangers.
"He looks familiar!"
"Boss, I'm the guy who asked for your help a few days ago on the way to the mall..."
The man looked eagerly at Elijah, hoping he would remember.
"Oh, right, the gaming guy?"
Elijah recalled that when he and Daisy first went to the mall, clearing zombies on the road, there was a gamer who wanted to join them.
Because Elijah had few contractees at the time, he promised that if he could collect five corpse cores, he could join them.
"Yeah, that's me, Boss. My name is Vincent, and this is Zoey from my neighborhood!"
The gaming guy, no, now he should be called Vincent, introduced himself.
"You've collected enough corpse cores?"
"I have, I have! I've gathered 15, so Boss, can me and Zoey join you guys?"
Even though Fiona had already agreed, Vincent had sharp eyes and knew Elijah was the leader of this group.
"You killed them all yourself?"
Elijah was somewhat surprised; when Vincent asked for their help, he had seemed timid and shaky. He hadn't expected that in just a few days, Vincent had killed more than seventy zombies.
"I did! It was a bit awkward at first, but once I got used to it, it's not much different from playing games!"
Vincent chuckled.
"You've been lucky not to encounter mutant zombies!"
"Uh... there are mutant zombies too? But with you in charge, Boss, it's not surprising that there are mutated zombies. It makes sense!"
Vincent clenched one fist and pounded it into his other palm.