Chapter 134 - They Are Leaving?

“Look at them go,” Mathew muttered under his nose as he observed his teammates rushing into the fight.

Yet, even when all of them moved outside of the gate, the zombie units remained in place. Only when Nadia, who held up the front of the group, crossed over half of the distance that initially separated the army from the walls, did the first row of the zombie ranks move forward.

‘Huh?’ Mathew shrugged when his initial observation proved to be wrong. ‘Not an entire front but just the central unit?’ he thought, watching with curiosity how the two units to the sides only moved several steps ahead before coming to a complete halt.

“I found all of them,” Norbert reported just a few moments after receiving Mathew’s orders.

“So quick?” Mathew asked, opening his eyes wide as he looked at the face of the younger of the two policemen in his group. “Is it really that easy? Are you sure those are not the decoys?” he showered the policeman with questions before he could even point the targets out.

“In my view, they are like a damned explosion of light when compared to a sea of burning candles,” Norbert explained as his face relaxed, a sign that he was now fully back in his body. Norbert then turned his head around, clearly attempting to combine what he saw in his ghost form and what he could see with his physical eyes.

“There, there and the biggest one is over there,” he said, pointing his hand to three different spots.

‘It’s almost like a mathematic formula,’ Mathew thought upon marking the points in his mind.

There was no possible way for a single person to kill all three of the evolved monsters consecutively. While reaching one of the commanding zombies was possible if not easy, moving over to the second one would already require one to pass through nearly the entirety of the zombie’s ranks.

“So the one all the way to the back is the main leader, huh?” Mathew spoke, more to himself than to Norbert.

“That makes sense,” the young police officer replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “The times when the commanders of the entire army were at its front turned obsolete the moment people figured out how to communicate over distance,” he pointed out only to then squint his eyes. “And that makes me curious,” he said as he grasped at the top-most part of the compound’s wall. “Just how the hell are they communicating?”

“No, that’s not the most important question,” Mathew said as he shook his head sideways. “The real question is, why didn’t they attack the wall in the first place?”

Mathew looked down at the ongoing fight. Thanks to his elevated position he could see a huge circle of emptiness forming around Nadia as either the zombies themselves or their commanders realized that she was simply too strong.

‘This is really weird,’ Mathew thought, watching how Nadia moved around to slaughter all the zombies that were too slow to escape from her machete. ‘I used to play games when one could pit a single elite character against entire units of cannon fodder… But seeing it with my own two eyes?’

Mathew shook his head. He then brought his hand up and slapped both of his cheeks at the same time to help himself sober up.

Yet, as he raised his eyes to look further into the battlefield, Mathew’s face tensed up.

“Daria!” he shouted over the wall.

The girl who, up to this point, simply followed after Daniel and collected all the cores that she could, raised her head.

“Bring them back, now!”

Mathew moved his eyes up to scan the entire battlefield the moment his order left his mouth. He didn’t need to escort Daria with his own eyes to know she wouldn’t hesitate to fulfill his orders.

‘This isn’t good,’ Mathew thought once he could see the movements of the enemy again.

The second line of the zombie ranks opened up to the sides, allowing the incomplete formation that stood in the third line to press forward. Yet, rather than making any excellent maneuvers, the incomplete formation of zombies simply merged with the back of the front central formation.

‘Are they trying to tire us out?’ Mathew thought, trying to make any sense of what he could see. ‘I don’t fucking understand!’ he screamed out in his mind only to see Daria freely move between the zombies before finally reaching the girls further up.

After a moment of confusion and nearly avoided friendly fire, all three of the girls were hastily retreating back towards the gate.

“Daniel!” Mathew shouted, getting the attention of the policeman who focused all of himself on finishing the zombie heads that the girls threw toward him.

“Yeah?”

“Stop your task and join the rest, we might need to pull back,” Mathew shouted over before moving his eyes back up to get the entire battlefield within the range of his vision.

The young man didn’t understand the motives behind the enemy movement. Yet, he didn’t need to.

‘I know they wanted to go for the war of attrition,’ Mathew thought when he recalled the moment two zombie units merged. ‘So the best thing I can do is deny them the opportunity to do so!’

When all four of the deployed members of Mathew’s group reached the wall and concentrated by the entrance, Mathew could finally breathe out a sigh of relief.

Whatever the zombies were planning now didn’t matter, as the situation reversed right back to what it was before the battle began.

“What should we do?!” Daniel shouted over, looking up at Mathew’s face.

In the end, the wall wasn’t all that high. And when combining the wall’s size and then adding Mathew’s own height, there were less than five meters of distance between the two men.

“You don’t need to shout that loud!” Mathew shouted himself. ‘No, that’s not it,’ he thought, shaking his head to get rid of any and all relaxation that could poison his focus.

Yet, no matter how wary Mathew was, the zombies refused to do anything meaningful. After reforming their ranks and a moment of frantic movement all over their lines, all the zombies stood in the exact same order as before, except for the incomplete unit from the third line that was now gone, merged with the central unit at the front.

‘That makes the loss count between a hundred and two hundred,” Mathew muttered. “A ten percent of their total number at most,” he added, speaking to himself once again.

“How about attacking again?” Norbert suggested only to raise his hand and point at the left-most unit on the front row of the zombie’s rank. “I can see one of the commanders right there.”

‘It’s a bait,’ Mathew realized without all that much thought. ‘The moment I send anyone to get that commander, the center and the right will push together at the gate, clogging it up and stopping the expedition from returning.’

Mathew gnashed his teeth to the point his jaws started to hurt. And when taking the improvements to his vitality into account, that proved to be quite a drastic feat.

“Where is the main commander?” Mathew then asked.

“Third group to the right, second line,” Norbert reported without even a hint of hesitation. “I’m not sure if you can see that far, but he’s right in the middle of the seventh row.”

‘I can’t see him at all,’ Mathew thought. He could easily see across the two hundred meters that separated him from the second line of the zombies. The one reason why he still couldn’t see the monster Norbert pointed out though, was just how dense the ranks of the zombies were.

‘I can’t see the forest because the trees are obstructing my view, huh?’ Mathew thought, recalling a joke one of his cousins used to tell him back when the young man used to visit his grandparents at their farm.

‘But if I can’t really see from my elevated position, then there is no fucking way those commanders see anything at all!’ Mathew realized.

“Norbert,” the young man turned his head to the police officer by his side. “Where is the other commander?” he then asked.

“One to the left and the one I just mentioned,” Norbert replied in a slightly confused manner before shaking his head and then bringing his hand to the right. “The second of the weaker commanders is right there.”

Mathew took a short moment to digest the news.

‘I guess there isn’t much choice left, huh?’ he thought, taking a deep breath to calm himself down.

And then, he jumped down from the wall. Yet, he turned his head to the back and looked at Norbert before heading for the gate. “If you see anything of huge concern, alert the others,” he commanded before running away and then squeezing through the small gap between the wings of the compound’s gate.

“Mathew?” Nadia was the first one to notice the young man even though her arcane stat was on the lower spectrum. “Something happened?”

“Change of plans,” Mathew said shortly. “Nadia, can you see the fucker in the fourth row on the left?” Mathew asked.

“Yeah,” the girl replied with confusion all over her face.

“Good, he is your target now,” Mathew explained before turning his head towards Daniel. “Same thing but on the right,” he explained before turning his eyes towards Leila. “I need you to be on the ready to support whoever will struggle to retreat,” he ordered before turning his eyes to the last member of the party outside the walls.

“The same as before,” Daria said with a small smile on her lips.

“That’s right,” Mathew nodded his head. “But it’s not exactly what I want either,” he added with a shake of his head. “You are the last line of our defense. If either of us won’t be able to retreat even with Leila’s help, it will be your job to pull them out,” Mathew explained before reaching out to Daria…

Only to grab several cores that she kept in her rolled-up shirt.

“But what is the plan?” Daniel protested when he saw Mathew turning around and looking at the zombies in a self-explanatory way.

“We need to break their commanding structure,” Mathew explained. “I will rush right to the middle and attempt to distract them,” he explained while making sure not to point out his directions in any way or form different from words.

There was no reason to give the zombies any clues about his plan, after all, especially when he had no clue what the level of their intelligence was.

“I will move directly towards the strongest of the zombies and the one I believe holds this entire army in check,” Mathew explained before glancing behind his back.

So far, the zombies didn’t react to his sudden appearance. They didn’t decide to bank on the opportunity of the gate being open either, leisurely staying their ground instead.

“You can’t!” Nadia protested as terror appeared on her face. “Even you…”

“Shush, dear,” Mathew silenced his loved one. “I’m only a bait, not a suicide warrior,” he added with a smile to mellow down his rude interruption.

“Remember guys, our aim is to take down the lesser commanders, not to disperse this entire army,” Mathew explained as he turned himself frontally towards the enemy. “And with that said…” he started.

Only for all of the zombies to suddenly froze.

It’s not like they moved a lot before. Sure, they all stood in place awaiting the command to attack… But the leaders of this army could discipline their troops only to a certain degree. As such, while the zombies, as a whole, remained motionless, one could easily notice small movements wherever they looked.

That is all the way until now.

Because right as Mathew was about to give his order to attack and execute his makeshift plan, the zombies fully froze…

Only to turn around and start their slow march to the north-west, in the nearly direct opposite of the direction that would lead them towards the gate!