“Are you sure?” Mathew asked, raising his head and taking a look at Leila’s face. “You could grow a lot stronger by finishing it,” he added.
“Isn’t that the point?” Leila replied while turning her head to the side while a surprise appeared behind her widened eyes. “Don’t you need to level up urgently?”
‘I didn’t expect her to care about me so much,’ Mathew thought. ‘Or maybe she doesn’t mind because she doesn’t have the gamer’s mindset? Or maybe it’s all a cold calculation?’
Several ways of explaining Leila’s actions appeared in Mathew’s mind. The young man kept his eyes on the girl’s face as he analyzed the options his mind came up with…
Only to shake his head and then forget about it.
“Thanks, then,” Mathew said, opting to just go with the flow instead of overthinking every last thing that he would encounter.
He then accepted the ax that the girl passed to him. Mathew’s body seemingly reinforced when he grasped the weapon’s handle as if the weapon itself could raise his personal statistics.
“I’m feeling much better now,” Mathew muttered while looking down on the blade of his weapon.
He then jumped away a bit as the head of the evolved zombie’s leader rolled as it attempted to bite at Mathew’s ankle.
‘Well then,’ the young man thought to himself, forcibly severing this line of thinking focused on the weapon. ‘I just decided not to overthink things,’ he thought, raising his weapon above his head like some sort of an executioner. ‘So let’s just go with the flow!’
Plask.
Mathew’s hands turned to be weaker than the young man himself assessed them to be. And because of this sickness-caused weakness, he failed to control his weapon properly, smashing the head below his legs with the side of the ax.
[Host can now donate a level!]
[Host can now donate a level!]
[Host can now donate a level!]
A set of messages appeared before Mathew’s eyes, blending in nicely with the morning sight of the bloodied street.
They were clearly a foreign element in the picture… Yet, for some reason, they felt perfectly in place.
‘Wait, a second, three entire levels?’ Mathew thought, stunned by the results. And as he looked toward his system, his consciousness wavered.
And it wasn’t because of Mathew’s sickness this time.
He looked at his system… And in the true fashion of every gamer struggling to complete a stage, Mathew dumped all the statistic points right away.
[Mathew Karian]
[Level – 2/2]
[Vitality – 36] [Vitality – 50]
[Brawn – 42] [Brawn – 50]
[Agility – 42] [Agility – 50]
[Mind – 5] [Mind – 7]
[Arcane – 25]
[Total – 150] [Total – 182]
[Accumulated Levels – 15/15] [Accumulated Levels – 15/18]
[Avaible points: 32] [Avaible points: 0]
“Haaaaa…..” a long sigh escaped from Mathew’s mouth when his raised vitality finally allowed him to completely conquer the side-effects of all the injuries he received so far.
“Did it help?” Leila asked, her eyes dropping a little while she attempted to hide her nervousness by looking away.
“It helped a lot,” Mathew replied with a smile. “Thank you,” he then added, properly bowing his head to the girl. “It helped even more than I expected,” Mathew added before shaking his head and standing up.
‘Okay, now that my OCD is placated, I can actually start thinking about what statistics to develop next,’ Mathew thought… Only to roll his eyes and follow the accord he agreed on several moments earlier.
“For now, let’s gather as many cores as we can before retreating,” Mathew ordered while walking toward the nearest zombie.
This time, he didn’t even need to put any strength behind the swing of his weapon.
The ax itself felt like it had an anorexia struggle for some weeks, effectively losing half its weight.
‘I guess it’s me getting stronger, not this item getting lighter,’ Mathew thought, swinging his ax to the other side and casually pushing his blade through the entire width of another zombie’s chest.
“Do we need some quota that we need to fill?” Nadia asked as she crouched by the heads that she provided Mathew with before. She then plunged her hand into the broken skulls of the zombie’s heads without any hesitation only to pull it out while holding a small core between her slim and bloodied fingers.
“Not really,” Mathew shook his head while he continued to clear all the zombies that could potentially endanger the girls behind him. “Or actually, let’s do it later,” he added as his face darkened.
‘I might have committed a massive blunder just now,’ Mathew thought, turning his head to confirm the girls moved their attention back to the dangers around.
And the moment Mathew saw both Nadia and Leila rising back to their feet, he leaped forward.
“I’m going to help Daria!” he shouted only to plunge right back into the crowd of zombies ahead.
Crush. Slash. Smack. Kick.
It took Mathew only a moment to end up stuck in the middle of the crowd of zombies. He theoretically made exactly the same mistake as before, reaching a state where there wasn’t enough space for him to move around freely enough to bring forth the full power of his weapon.
‘So easy.’
Not a single scratch added to Mathew’s injuries this time. Even though he could still vaguely feel the weakness of his sickness when coupled with the newfound strength of his improved statistics…
Mathew turned out to be too fast for most of the attacks to reach him. Whenever a zombie would attempt to grab him to nullify his agility, Mathew’s strength would easily allow the young man to escape from the clutches of immobility.
Mathew wasn’t used to his new prowess, though, making him stumble here and there, giving the ever-increasing mass of zombies some windows to actually attack him.
Yet, this wasn’t enough either.
The vitality that Mathew brought to fifty points made his skin so tough, the sharp edges of broken nails, teeth, or even bones of the zombies could no longer pierce through it!
‘This feels simply wrong,’ Mathew thought as he continued to slaughter zombies left and right, all in an attempt to cut himself a path to where Daria was.
“Oh, hello there,” Daria said when Mathew suddenly emerged right before her.
“General Kenobi,” Mathew replied on an instinct alone. He then shook his head, realizing just how weird that callback was in this situation.
Yet, seeing the scene playing out before his eyes, Mathew couldn’t utter a single word that would then turn into a part of a proper sentence.
Because Daria wasn’t fighting the zombies. Or rather, she was killing them, while not a single zombie bothered to react to her attacks in any way or form!
“What the hell…” Mathew muttered while his eyes widened.
The zombies around all rushed to attack him, yet his improved body now didn’t need to bother with them at all.
‘But they are attacking me,’ Mathew thought while casually killing the zombies that got close enough to assault his nostrils with the disgustingly sweet aroma of decaying flesh. He then pushed several zombies that blocked his vision away, only to reconfirm what he saw before.
Not a single zombie bothered to attack Daria. It was as if she was invisible to them.
‘Or maybe it’s because they are treating her as one of their own?’ Mathew attempted to guess, grasping the handle of his ax even stronger than before.
“Are you still Daria?” Mathew suddenly asked, too unsettled by the last option he thought about not to confirm it.
‘I’ve zombies that evolved into powerful monsters. We defeated a zombie that evolved into a leader today. I doubt that’s all this world of apocalypse has in store, so there is a chance this is not Daria at all!’
“What do you mean?” Daria or an impostor acting like her asked. “Who else could I be?” she asked, only for the look behind her eyes to sharpen as she aimed her Macheete at Mathew. “Who are you?!”
Mathew released a deep breath and swung his ax to cut through the nearest zombie that dared to interrupt this tense moment.
“It seems that we both had the same idea,” Mathew pointed out. “But just to be sure,” Mathew added only for a small smile to appear on his lips. “What hairstyle are you rocking down there?”
Daria at first turned her head to the side, confusion taking over her eyes. She then blushed as she realized what Mathew’s content was all about. The girl then shook her head before looking Mathew directly in the eyes.
“As you saw it closer than anyone else, excluding what grew down there yesterday, I shave my pussy clean.”
Mathew slowly nodded his head before raising his eyes at the girl.
“So it’s really you,” Mathew finally breathed a sigh of relief while kicking away a zombie that attempted to crawl up to his legs. “Would you mind explaining how come the zombies are not attacking you at all, then?”