Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

"What the hell?" Mathew muttered, taken aback by the sight that revealed itself to his eyes as soon as he took down the barrier of light.

Normally, whenever he or anyone else would go out to the streets, it would only take a few moments before the entire street would fill up with zombies.

Even after a huge fight with hundreds of zombies slain, it would only take a single day for their ranks to regrow. And yet...

And yet right now, on the entire street, there were less than a hundred zombies!

'I thought it was impossible for us to have a single mission outside without encountering a horde or evolved zombies, but right now...' Mathew couldn't help but freeze in his place.

And in the time that took him to regain the clarity of his thoughts, Leila leisurely moved forward before casually taking down half of all the zombies on the streets.

"At this rate, we should be able to..." Mathew muttered to himself as his eyes moved over to the three cars in the middle of the blockade.

'Well, let's risk it for the biscuit,' he thought, turning around while still standing at the top of the fence.

"To all the hunters!" he shouted, taking a moment for all the people concerned to look towards him. "There are only a few zombies out in the open. We are going back to claim the goodies!"

Mathew, once again, decided to lead by example, instantly scaling the fence to its outer side before dropping down to the street. Then, he rushed to Leila's side, taking two zombies on his way to the girl just by punching and kicking.

"I need to borrow your saber," he said as soon as he reached Leila's side. "Can you hold on for a minute with just your machete alone?"

"Not a problem," the girl shrugged her shoulders. Her face showcased that rather than being excited by the fight... she was actually turning bored.

'Well, with our current level, this number of zombies is nothing,' Mathew thought, glancing over at less than fifty undead that remained animate.

Before long, the hunting squad and the rest of Mathew's wives got to the other side of the fence.

Without the advantage of numbers, even mortals could easily take down these few zombies all on their own. And with Nadia's, Daria's, Leila's, and Carol's help, this task turned from a dangerous one to a walk in the park.

And while the hunters were busy racking up cores for their daily quotas, Mathew rushed with Nadia to the cars Norbert pointed out, quickly opening them up and extracting the loot directly to the street.

'Firearms, ammo boxes, communication equipment,' he thought while manhandling all of those and stacking them over in a single pile. 'That's quite a nice haul for a single car,' he thought, before moving over to the other van.

And in just a few moments, the pile grew over twice in size.

"What's the situation?" Mathew asked as soon as he jumped out of the car. He then raised his eyes to take a look himself.

"All the zombies are down," Nadia reported while standing on top of one of the cars and acting as a lookout. "I think we should bring out some survivors to carry all this loot," she then added, dropping down from the car and patting Mathew on his shoulder. "It should be safe enough."

"Yeah," Mathew replied absentmindedly.

The lack of zombies on the streets meant a lot. And the more he thought about it, the greater the implication of their lack of presence turned out to be.

'Could it be that we could finally start venturing out?' he thought, gritting his teeth before passing over his saber to the girl only to kneel down and start grabbing as much of the valuable equipment as he could.

"Well, we will think about it once we moved all the loot," Mathew then muttered to himself, dropping the idea of analyzing the entire situation all on his own.

"Think about what?" Nadia asked, leaning her head over her shoulder while she gave Mathew a slightly annoyed look. "It's been a while since you last did this but you are starting to keep things to yourself again," she then pointed out.

"Ah, you are right," Mathew admitted while putting a wry smile on his face. "I was thinking about the possibility of venturing out," he then revealed only to raise up and look in a random direction.

A dreamy look then appeared in his eyes.

"This time, far further. To ensure we can claim as much of an area for whatever comes after fortress as we can," he added in a slightly lower voice.

"How do we stand with cores?" Nadia then asked.

"It should be just enough for the third fortress," Mathew replied as he picked up the pace and started to leisurely walk towards the planks thrown over the school's fence.

"Hey, guys!" Mathew then shouted, turning his attention away from Nadia to the squad of hunters currently busy just patrolling the area.

In the short time, it took Mathew to uncover all the loot from the cars Norbert mentioned, those guys already cleared all the zombies that remained out in the open.

"Yes, sir!" Frank grew seemingly from under the ground, saluting Mathew as he stretched himself up.

"Go and grab all the other stuff we left by the cars," Mathew ordered. "If you notice something strange or a horde appears, drop it and run."

"Right away, sir!" Frank saluted again. He then turned around in the direction of the blockade before pulling out the one hunter that accompanied him to help him up with the task.

In a mere moment later, Mathew dropped his entire haul on the safe side of the fence, all to Beatrice's astonishment.

"Is that how it always goes?" she asked, squinting her eyes as she kept looking out at the street.

As she was stuck in the back of her van for three days, she lacked the necessary experience to realize just how different the current situation was from the normal state of things.

"Not at all. I never expected that we would actually clean most of the zombies in the area so quickly," Mathew fixed the woman's misunderstanding. "With all those bangs and flashes, we likely drew out most of the zombies that could notice those," he added before biting his lips. Then, he turned around and faced the woman properly.

"Speak," Beatrice said, recognizing the look on Mathew's face with just a single glance.

"I need you to come out with a plan for a further expedition," Mathew then revealed his wishes. "As strange as it might sound, running out of zombies to kill is the worst that could happen to us," he revealed.

With no zombies, there would be no more cores. And with only the cores that they had right now and those that they could gather from all the zombies killed today, they would likely still be way off from meeting the quota necessary for the structure that would make itself available once they would establish the third fortress.

Mathew then released the dam of the information, showering Beatrice with all the crucial bits she needed to understand his stance on the topic.

"I see," Beatrice muttered a moment later. Then, her eyes flashed a bit. "I think..." she hesitated for but a second. "I think we need to try to establish contact with other groups of survivors," she then revealed her own take on the situation.

"To save them?" Mathew asked, raising his eyebrow while stopping himself from rolling his eyes. 'I know saving others is what policemen do... but can't she see how the world had changed?' he inwardly complained.

"No," Beatrice replied, taking Mathew by a surprise. "It's to save ourselves."