Chapter 58 A way to move forward

“You guys took your sweet time in there,” Leila was quick to scold the couple when the wall of lights came undone.

“Piss off,” Mathew rugged the girl. “We wouldn’t need to hide like that if you didn’t go all rouge. Tell me,” Mathew squinted his eyes. “Who gave you the right to shame my girl the way you tried?”

Mathew didn’t forget the situation that led him to unknowingly cast his spell before. And as great of a time as he had since then, that didn’t excuse Leila’s actions at all.

“What?!” Leila opened up her eyes, her face turning weird as sparks of fury flashed behind her eyes. “Aren’t the two of us your wives as well?!” she cried out, more angered than saddened by Mathew’s approach.

“Only for convenience’s sake,” Mathew replied coldly, paying no heed to the girl’s feelings. “If you dislike the power that it offers, just say a word and I will do my best to free you from its burden,” the young man added, not shying away from threatening the girl.

‘I wonder if it’s actually possible,’ Mathew thought as he gathered himself up from the ground and then helped Nadia up as well.

Even though she had some rest since they did the deed, Mathew could see the girl had some problems with staying upright or walking in general.

‘Well, I guess it’s only to be expected,’ he thought, his expression mellowing down a bit as he gazed at Nadia’s cute profile. ‘She gave me her virginity, back then. I can’t let myself forget it,’ he decided.

“Okay, that will be enough,” Daria said, appearing in the doorway leading to the main corridor of this separate area of the school they were in. “Leila, calm down. Mat is right. You had no right to treat his girl like that,” she scolded her partner only to turn her eyes towards Mathew.

“And you, you better watch your words,” she warned.

“Are you threatening me?” Mathew asked while raising his left eyebrow.

Daria managed to catch him by a surprise. After all, out of the two girls, she appeared to be the more reasonable one.

“Not at all,” Daria shook her head, her face free of fear or intimidation. “But every pair of hands matters now, doesn’t it?” she asked while crossing her arms over her chest. “That’s why I believe you shouldn’t talk about losing one of your soldiers so easily.”

Certainly, Daria’s words made some sense.

With most of the students within the school’s compound turning either into zombies or zombies’ food, there were hardly any people that Mathew could turn into his allies.

And it went without a doubt that having more people to fight off the horde would be beneficial to his cause.

‘Humankind grows by cooperating, after all,’ Mathew thought, bitting down on his lips.

As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Daria’s words were damn true.

“Anyway,” Mathew said, ignoring the chance of forcing Leila to apologize in favor of regaining control over the situation. “Who are those two?” he asked, jerking his head up to point his chin at the couple by the wall of the room.

“That, you need to ask your real wife about,” Daria said before putting a light, cheeky smile on her lips.

“Some random students that dodged the bullet so far,” Nadia finally opened up her mouth.

Contrary to how combative she appeared before, now she turned far meeker, relaxed.

“Is that it?” Mathew asked, throwing a curious gaze at the two.

‘Aren’t those the ones who I saw back then?’ Mathew asked himself, struggling to recollect a specific memory. Yet, rather than wasting his time on such a useless topic.

It didn’t matter if he saw the two of them before or not. What mattered, was that surviving in this apocalypse without a system… It was a nigh-impossible feat.

‘Unless they managed to skip all the fighting so far, they shouldn’t be alive,’ Mathew realized.

And once this notion appeared in his mind, the feeling behind his glance changed.

Because this innocent-looking couple was either just a duo of shameless cowards or at least one of them held a vital secret.

“How did they survive?” Mathew muttered his inner question out. Yet, he didn’t pose it to the people in question, opting to mutter it to himself instead.

“That’s actually a good question,” Nadia echoed in on Mathew’s words, throwing a surprising look at the pair herself as well. “If I do recall, you did fight well back then, didn’t you?” Nadia pointed out, finally treating the duo directly rather than speaking about them in the third person.

“I don’t really know,” Mathew’s junior raised his hands as if to show he carried no weapons in them. “When I saw zombies about to bite Bethy, I just rushed in to save her,” he added only to then gulp down his saliva and lower his eyes, unable to withstand Mathew’s intense stare.

‘Could it be?’ Mathew thought, squinting his eyes as he looked down on the duo.

‘Isn’t that one of the popular juniors?’ he thought, only to shake his head and avert his eyes.

“Whatever,” Mathew uttered a small comment before approaching the side of the autonomous area of the school.

Despite being just a separate area, there were actually some windowed walls to their part of the school, allowing the group to check the situation outside without taking the risk of opening up the doors.

‘Those windows are going to become weak points later on,’ Mathew took notice before looking outside.

Sure, their numbers dropped drastically since the time he first took a step on the ground floor… But that didn’t mean their number became manageable yet!

“For now, we need to get back to work,” Mathew announced as he stared at the zombies outside.

Even if they didn’t seem to notice their presence now, they would inevitably gravitate towards the office area within the school.

And once such a situation was to occur, it would be only a matter of time before the place would get overrun.

A matter of a really short time, that is.

Mathew turned around on his heel and looked at all five others gathered behind him.

“I know this might sound weird, but if we want to survive, we need to kill every last zombie within the walls of the school,” he announced while moving his eyes from face to face.

“Let’s get to it, then,” Nadia clapped her hands together, clearly eager to occupy her thoughts with something that she was pretty good at.

“You two…” Mathew said, turning his eyes towards the duo of stragglers.

‘It’s too early to ask whether the boy has a system or not,’ he thought. Mathew then cleared his throat and raised his eyes again. “I will leave gathering the life cores to you. We need a considerable amount for the next step of the plan to go well,” he added before heading for the door personally.

“Are we ready?” Mathew asked, throwing one last glance behind his back, his hand already resting on the door’s knob.

“We are good to go,” Leila reported. From the look on her face, it was clear that she also had a wish to forget her worries and emotions in a simplistic fight with zombies.

‘To think the two of them could be so similar,’ Mathew thought, a small smirk appearing on his lips as he pushed the doors open. ‘But I better never mention it, otherwise only God could protect my balls from disappearing!’