Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

The formation that Mathew and his group maintained so far broke out the second they went to fight.

It wasn't a mistake caused by their eagerness to fight the zombies or desire to rush to help some strangers. It was all a part of the plan.

The sun was still high up in the sky and raising. It wasn't even an hour since they departed and only slightly more than an hour since the sun rose above the horizon. As such, Daria's amazing nightly powers… were greatly diminished.

For this reason alone, while Leila, Nadia, and Mathew himself rushed out to clean all the zombies that could pose any danger to them while in the parking lot, Daria remained by Norbert's side.

The few zombies that Mathew and his wives would intentionally let through would end up either killed straight away with Daria's precise strikes or maimed for Norbert to finish.

'He will never level up at this rate,' Mathew thought, cutting down yet another zombie while glancing back toward the tail of the new formation of the group. 'We will need to figure out a way for him to level up.'

While not a main objective, allowing Norbert to gain some battle prowess for himself was one of the side targets that Mathew hoped to achieve with the expedition.

'If he could evolve his ability so that he could move both in person and as his ghost at the same time…' the young man allowed himself a short moment of deliberation, quickly cut short when a group of four zombies all rushed to attack him at the same time.

First, he blocked a sweeping strike from the nearest one, slapping the zombie's arm away with the body of his blade. He then stepped forward, twisting his wrist to push the zombie's arm up.

And then, with one decisive strike, Mathew cut down at the zombie's skull, cleaving it open with a single, lousy strike.

"Need some help?" Nadia asked jokingly as he kicked away the properly dead corpse she just dealt with and looked to Mathew's side.

"Nah," Mathew shook his head, quickly sending two cuts to his left and right, cutting down two heads out of two different necks. "I'm good," he added, thrusting his saber right into the eye socket of the last of the zombies.

'Dang,' Mathew cursed under his nose once he pulled his saber back. 'I really should've bought some new weapons,' he thought upon inspecting yet another chipped-off part of his saber.

There was the point of increasing the weapon's worth and lethality by killing zombies and monsters with it. It was something actually confirmed by his system and merchants alike.

Yet, there had to be a level of overuse beyond which the value of the weapon would continue to degrade instead of raising.

Bit by bit, the group cut through all the resistance that the zombies offered, making their way toward the main gate of the small shopping mall.

Even for the small city standards, it was a tiny one. It only consisted of a single floor and a small underground warehousing area. The insides were limited to just one big grocery retailer and a bunch of smaller service and specialized shops lined along the one main alley of the mall on its opposite side.

"Norbert!" Mathew called out right as he reached the massive glass doors to the mall and took a quick peek inside. "Where the hell are they?" he asked, unable to spot a single clue himself.

The smaller shops had their storefronts all broken apart, offering no resistance to the bunch of zombies roaming inside. That only left the general store which occupied roughly seventy percent of the entirety of the mall and the warehousing area.

'I hope they weren't dumb enough to hole themselves up underground,' Mathew thought.

"They made a small fortress in the hardware part of the general store," Norbert shouted over before he and Daria finally caught up to the rest at the doors. "They moved several aisles and stacked some of the bigger equipment to block off a chunk of the store at the back," Norbert elaborated before closing his eyes for a second and then pointing his hand in the direction of the survivors.

"I guess we don't need to hurry then," Mathew muttered once he took proper stock of the situation.

"Wait, what?" Norbert flared up instantly. "We rushed all the way here… only to wait?" he asked, clearly demanding an answer to the sudden change of plans.

"Oh, come on!" Mathew protested loudly, rolling his eyes as he swung his head and rested his eyes on Norbert's face. "Use that brain of yours a little!" he demanded in a rude manner. "What do you think would happen if we barged in on them before they start fighting?!"

Not a single of Mathew's wives bothered to answer such a simple question. On the other hand, Norbert took a few seconds to think before his face tensed up and relaxed a short moment later.

"Fine, I get it," he admitted grudgingly while averting his eyes. "Couldn't you just explain it from the get-go?"

The police officer pouted and looked away while crossing his arms on his chest. He then walked two steps away and rested his back on one of the few parts of the mall's entrance that somehow avoided destruction.

He didn't bother to speak a word to diffuse the tension he introduced to the group, opting to just close his eyes and monitor the situation of the survivors.

Nadia gave the officer a slightly annoyed look. Yet, rather than pursuing the topic and worsening everyone's mood even further, she turned to her man instead.

"Hey, Matty," she called out. "Don't you find those zombies… slightly weird?" she asked.

"Yeah," Mathew nodded his head as he answered in an exhausted voice. "They are too damn easy to kill, even for the basic type."

Mathew's group of survivors faced all sorts of zombies up until this point. Starting with the basic ones on the first and second day, through evolved ones from the moment ventured out to retake the school all the way to twice evolved zombies they had to defeat to secure the media building.

It wouldn't be an over-exaggeration to say that Mathew and his wives were long used to fighting zombies far stronger than the average, unevolved ones. Yet, even then, the ones that loitered around the mall's parking lot…

They were still below the level of the ones Mathew had to face on the apocalypse's first day!

"They feel somewhat similar to those non-elite ones we faced when fighting the commander," Leila pointed out her own point of view. "They are too… unresponsive."

Just like she said, there was no common feeling of threat from the zombies loitering around. Even now, those who were lucky enough to avoid the culling… didn't seem to be interested in Mathew's group at all, content with just roaming around the generally empty space.

"It feels like…" Mathew pursed his lips as more and more evidence appeared to support the guess he earlier dismissed due to lack of any solid basis. "I wonder if they are not zombies that a commander of that horde we ignored… simply left here to linger."

Mathew's words rang in everyone's ears.

After all, if this kind of scenario were to prove to be on point, they would all be in for a tough fight pretty damn soon, something they all wished to avoid unless absolutely necessary.

"Guys," Norbert spoke out, his voice returning to its usual tone. His face tensed up as he stepped away from the mall's entrance.

"They've started to take apart their last layer of barricades."