Chapter 61 Broken Wall

‘Now it should go a little bit faster,’ Mathew thought as he glanced over at the girl.

Yet, his eyes inevitably gravitated towards her partner, who was currently more busy with throwing hateful glares at Mathew than he was with picking up the stones.

“If you don’t like it, feel free to leave,” Mathew kindly informed his junior before turning his eyes back to more important tasks.

Namely, defending the two from the approaching group of zombies.

Just like it was the case with the matter in the wide universe, there were pockets dense with zombies to the point they would walk into each other.

For the last few moments, the backline of Mathew’s group could rest a little. Not because the world suddenly turned kind, but because they just happened to be in one of the emptier pockets for a moment.

Yet, the eye of the storm would soon pass, putting them right back into a messy crowd of zombies.

“There is no end to them,” Mathew muttered as he swung his ax.

This time, it wasn’t some student of the school that he could recognize. It wasn’t the staff either. And that got Mathew thinking.

‘How could he be within the school?’ the young man asked himself.

His clothes didn’t indicate any reason why such an adult could be on the campus grounds.

And he couldn’t stray into it either, given a massive wall that surrounded the entire school!

‘Unless…’ Mathew thought, clenching his teeth as he decapitated a few more zombies. ‘No, it’s better not to think about it,’ he decided, focusing himself back on the indiscriminate slaughter of the zombies.

Yet, now that Mathew observed this peculiarity, he couldn’t help but realize that something was seriously wrong.

‘I don’t remember when I saw a zombie that looked like a student,’ he thought, cutting them down, seemingly not worried about that fact at all.

And then…

“Mat!” Daria shouted over from the staircase they used to reach the ground floor before. “You’ve gotta see this,” she shouted with a grim look on her face.

‘I really don’t want to be a prophet here,’ Mathew thought as his face darkened even further.

He then raised his hands to his face and rubbed his cheeks, ignoring how he painted blood all over his face by doing so.

‘No can do,’ he thought, closing his eyes only to follow his instinct alone and swing his ax twice to the sides.

The sound of the falling heads proved that this wasn’t much of a feat for him.

“I’m on my way,” Mathew finally replied after taking a moment to prepare himself. “Nadia!” he then shouted over.

‘For as long as they work, we can’t leave them alone,’ Mathew thought, looking over at the couple.

“On my way!” the girl shouted back without even a moment of hesitation.

She dropped the corpse she was dragging to use as a building material for a barricade. She then bent her knees and leaped towards Mathew, cutting all the zombies that mindlessly stood in her path.

“I just need to keep them safe, right?” Nadia asked as she already jumped into action, smashing the head of the zombie approaching the couple from the other side.

“Correct,” Mathew replied, nodding his head. “Good job,” he added before looking away and rushing in the direction of the stairs.

“Come, quickly,” Daria hurried the young man out before rushing up the stairs and leading the way.

But they didn’t stop at the first or the second floor.

No.

Daria leads him all the way to the second-most top floor of the building.

‘I guess she couldn’t bring me any higher because the stairs are not here,’ Mathew thought, trying to assess the situation as he followed after the girl.

“Look, here,” the girl finally revealed her plans, pointing her hand at the window.

‘She isn’t trying to throw me out or anything, is she?’ Mathew thought, only to shake his head and approach the window.

Thanks to their earlier culling, only a few zombies could be found on the upper floors of this wing of the campus. Sure, some managed to slip in while they were fighting on the ground floor, but their numbers were way too small to be any concern.

“What is this?” Mathew asked, approaching the window.

And then he saw it, the confirmation of what he fearfully concluded when seeing those strange zombies from before.

The wall that surrounded the school’s compound… was broken.

“It’s not as bad as I feared,” Mathew commented while grasping tightly the edge of the window’s shelf.

The opening most likely appeared when a huge chunk of the southern wing of the school came crushing down on it.

And there it was, a proper, concrete bridge that crushed the wall underneath and caused it to partially collapse.

The rift wasn’t that big, only about five meters wide. And for now, the number of zombies pouring in was definitely smaller than what Mathew’s group could handle.

And then, Mathew raised his eyes a little.

The rest of the city stood in flames.

Up until now, he didn’t realize how far the situation would deteriorate and how quickly it would happen.

The situation at the breach was manageable for just a single reason.

The zombies in the city were far more occupied with the survivors out there. That’s why only a handful of zombies ended up gravitating toward the school.

But it was only a matter of time before it would change. Once the zombies would clean up the system-less survivors in the city, their attention would obviously turn towards the pocket of surviving humans within the school.

“We need to seal it,” Mathew muttered before raising his eyes and turning his head towards Daria. “And the sooner we start, the better,” he added before looking up. “I wonder if anyone up there is still alive,” Mathew whispered to himself.

A stray, weird thought appeared in the young man’s head.

He mentioned other survivors because he wished for manpower to complete this next project. And as they were near where Mathew’s journey started, he couldn’t help but think of all the students he hoped to save before.

“Wait for a second,” Mathew suddenly stopped, raising his eyes towards the broken floor of the topmost floor they could reach. He then looked at the gaping hole where the school’s main staircase used to be.

“Why did Nadia leave the topmost floor?” Mathew posed the question that appeared in his mind.

‘Was she looking to help me out? Or maybe she decided that she needs to do something? Or maybe?’

For a moment, the young man continued to stare as far as his eyes would allow…

And then, he turned back.

‘It’s easier to ask than to risk climbing there,’ he thought before grabbing Daria’s hand and leading her back down the stairs.

“Aren’t you going to check that floor?” Daria asked, hurrying behind.

“There is no point,” Mathew replied, shaking his head. “If anyone is left out there, they are people who have no will to change things,” he added.

Everyone in the school’s compound could hear the sounds of the monsters’ rampage. Everyone could feel the trembling said rampage would cause throughout the building.

Yet, save for Nadia’s small group, no one appeared to help them fight.

‘It can mean there are no other survivors or it can mean they didn’t bother to show up to help,’ Mathew thought, putting the topic of the top floor aside for now.

“We still need to bring that floor under our control… But for now, it can wait.”

Mathew used the time he took to run down the stairs to think.

‘What should I do now?’ he thought. ‘If we ignore the collapsed wall, the situation will only get worse. But it’s not like we can just walk outside and repair it while fighting.’

Mathew finally landed on the last step and scanned the situation on the ground floor.

Leila was nearly finished with her makeshift barricades. Two of them already redirected the flow of the zombies to the remaining ones.

It was only a matter of minutes before all the easy paths inside the school would be blocked off.

“Leila, leave one path!” Mathew shouted over. “We will need to sortie!”

“We what?” Leila raised her head, signs of boredom appearing on her face.

“We will need to repair the wall outside!” Mathew shouted the explanation before turning his eyes towards the other part of the group.

“Nadia, we will need you with us,” Mathew ordered.

“But what about them?” Nadia asked, pointing with her chin at the hard-working couple.

“Daria will lead them to the upper floors,” Mathew finally reached the girl’s side, allowing him to switch from shouting to a normal speech. “We already cleaned them out. And those few zombies that could straggle there…” Mathew cut his words short before grabbing a random mental rod from the floor and passing it to his junior.

“You will need to take care of them,” Mathew announced in a grim tone. Then, his face relaxed a bit. “You will hide in a classroom facing the place we will be at. If you get overwhelmed, make the girl shout for help.”

Mathew had no plans of leaving the two on their own. But right now, leaving them alone was the only choice he had.

‘Outside, they would be too much of a hindrance,’ Mathew thought before turning his eyes back to Daria.

“Once you hide them away, join us at the southern wall!” Mathew ordered in a dead-pan voice before looking in the direction of the collapsed wing.

He then took a single, deep breath before closing his eyes.

He opened them only when the last bit of air left his lungs, forcefully relaxing his body.

And then, he stepped forward, ready to follow through with his plans with action.