"All the hunters, we need you back on the ground!" Leila ran around the school shouting.
She wasn't the only one. All of Mathew's girls were tasked with the same job, that is with alerting everyone of the coming operation.
This time, however, it wasn't only hunters that would be involved. Even the survivors tasked with cleaning the school grounds ended up employed, all for the sake of decreasing the burden of the hunters whose task would be the hardest.
And soon enough, before the sun even reached the topmost point on its journey through the sky for the day, all the survivors gathered at the bottom floor of the school.
"Remember guys!" Mathew called out, using the position of authority he established within the group to convey the plan. "We are going to do everything as silently as possible. But if the alarm goes off..." he said, turning his eyes towards the group of hunters gathered to the side of everyone else.
Then, a wide, warped smile appeared on his lips.
"If the alarm goes off, we are not going to hold back and will have to force our way through the task."
To say that the group of hunters under Carol's management turned into a unit of experienced warriors after just a single mission... would be a gross overestimation.
A single battle was way too little for them to gain enough fighting experience for Mathew to rest his confidence with them.
Yet...
There was no denying that they were no longer the scared survivors that they were when they were first recruited into the group.
And the uniform smiles that appeared on their lips after Mathew's announcement were the biggest proof of that.
"With that said, stop wasting my time and gather up on your positions!" Mathew ended up the briefing with a quick hastening message before getting down the pile of rubble he stood upon and running to his own tasks as well.
Contrary to nearly everyone else, he didn't move closer to the school's fence, though. Instead, he rushed to find the one person that could help him with the task he picked for himself.
"Hey, man!" Mathew called out as soon as he noticed the familiar face. "Wait up!"
Mathew's junior and the supervisor of the worker survivors turned around. At first, he simply wanted to see what the commotion was about.
Yet, as soon as he noticed Mathew's eyes, the young man stopped in his tracks, turned around, and ran to intercept Mathew.
"How can I help?" he asked with no unnecessary pleasantries.
"I need you to calculate something for me," Mathew replied right away.
He knew what his task would be. After all, he was the one who suggested it in the first place. But to know how exactly to execute it...
"Shoot." Mathew's junior didn't waste even a second.
'Just a single day of being in power and he already changed so much,' Mathew thought, raising his eyebrows. The change to his junior was surprising... but as great of a surprise it was, it was a welcomed one.
"I'm going to produce a pillar of light at the southern street by the fence," Mathew revealed. "I need to know how high it needs to be to be visible for two to three blocks out."
"That's..." the junior gasped for air, looking at Mathew with a flabbergasted look on his face. "Isn't that just a simple Pythagorean application?" he then suggested with his eyes wide open.
"It might be," Mathew nodded his head.
He needed to know how high the barrier of light he was going to erect should be. It had to be high enough to be visible in all of the nearby areas yet not as high as to not draw too much attention.
"Give me ten minutes," Mathew's junior then replied. It was clear, from the look on his face, that he could argue about the simplicity of the task. Yet, at the same time, he knew better than to question Mathew's decision to leave this task to him.
"Sure thing," Mathew said with a nod of his head before turning around and walking a few steps away.
'Now then,' he thought, closing his eyes and focusing all of his attention on the second part of his task.
'I didn't use my abilities all that much in the past. Now, it's time to change it,' he thought, gathering all of his willpower before directing it at a random set of doors before him.
For a moment, nothing happened. Yet, before Mathew could fully gather all of his attention, something detached from his mind...
Only for the doors to end up ripped out of their frame and pushed inwards into the classroom only to them smash into the glass of the window and end up falling outside!
"Damn!" Mathew uttered an exasperated gasp, baffled by the immense power of the skill he largely ignored up to this point.
A quick look into his system then proved the skill didn't even take enough mana for the change to be reflected on his status window.
'Let's try this again,' Mathew decided, turning his focus towards the wall by the hole left after the ripped-off door.
For the next few moments, Mathew played around with his 'Mind's flesh', ripping the structure of the building with ease at nearly no cost to his mind.
"I'm done," his junior then reported. "The flare needs to be roughly half-time higher than the first row of buildings past the street," he said, pointing at the residential complex right by the school's southern side.
"Just keep in mind, I eyeballed everything so I can't say how accurate this result is," he pointed out while raising his hand with his forefinger extended.
"That will do," Mathew said, smiling in response. "Thanks," he added only to turn around right away, heading to the assembly point by the northeast corner of the school area.
The gathering point, even though Mathew was only a few minutes later than everyone else, changed by quite a bit. And it wasn't only a matter of all the survivors of the school gathering there.
The main differences were how most of the area was now fully cleared out while the other was a simple elevated platform constructed out of the rubble.
Beatrice stood right on the platform without even a single piece of weapon to herself.
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'A commander through and through,' Mathew thought as he approached the stand.
"I'm ready," he reported.
Beatrice spared Mathew only a single look before turning her eyes back to the crowd in front of her and below the stage.
"We confirmed seven more people to be still alive," she then muttered in a low voice. And, without turning her face, she added, "Good luck. You are up as soon as you hear the bang."
"Sure thing," Mathew said, nodding his head and turning around, ready to leave for his designated spot on the other side of the school.
"Wait!" a sudden call stopped Mathew in his tracks. And he didn't even need to turn around to confirm who did it belong to. "What about my bet?!" Carol screamed out her question, dissatisfied with how long everything went without this topic getting its proper solution.
"Are you for real...?" Mathew opened his eyes wide, taken aback by the girl's insistence.
It was true that the recovery of Beatrice and then the plan to save the others pushed the topic of her bet onto the second plan. It was true that it's been a while since anyone last mentioned it.
"Don't worry, I didn't forget about it," Mathew said only to then release a deep sigh. "But let's talk about it once this operation is over," he then insisted only to turn his head around and throw Carol an annoyed look.
"Or are you that itchy for a dick it should take priority over saving seven people?"