Haven Town, Southwest.
It"s been more than 20 minutes since they left Haven Manor.
Nathan had his night/thermal-vision goggles on and was smoking while leisurely walking the street.
With each pa.s.sing moment, the people behind him were growing more and more restless. Some were even irritated, especially R.R.
R.R. stopped walking.
"This is bulls.h.i.t!"
Except for Nathan, everyone stopped walking was as well and stared at R.R.
"While we are wasting our time walking around here, the other teams are already close or at the Training Facility by now, fighting the zombies and getting rid of them before the zombie virus spreads and causes even more damage!"
Everyone then looked at Nathan who just continued walking as if he was out for a leisure walk and heard nothing.
"I"m heading straight to the South Gate. Who"s with me?"
"Captain Nathan," said Chet.
Nathan didn"t reply and just continued walking.
Chet thought deeply.
If they continued wasting time, the zombies that they were supposed to stop from their end would cause damage. And if Rose finds out about this and survives this ordeal, they will surely be punished. There will be no doubt about that.
In fact, he was present when Rose killed Raphael and some of the people who sided with him.
"I agree with Captain R.R.," said Chet.
Many people nodded.
"Let"s go," said R.R.
They left.
Right now, only Kaija was left following Nathan.
She didn"t say anything and just silently followed.
After a few minutes more, Nathan and Kaija stopped in front of a small store.
He kicked the gla.s.s front door, destroying it.
Kclak!
Before entering, he surveyed the surroundings to see if there were any suspicious movements or heat signatures that his goggles could detect.
He waited for a minute.
Seeing that the coast was clear, he stepped inside and went to the counter to find cigarettes. The pack he had on him now was out.
Kaija stepped inside as well.
After getting two packs of cigarettes, he turned around to see who was left following him.
He saw Kaija alone.
"So Germaine left, huh. Well, it can"t be helped."
Nathan went to the beverage section.
There, he saw some bottles of bottled tea, causing him to scoff as he remembered a certain person in his life in the past who loves tea so much.
"What do you want?" he asked her in Muwinian language.
"Captain?" Kaija was confused.
"What drink do you want?" He continued asking her in Muwinian.
"Um… No thank you. I"m good." She replied to him in Muwinian.
Right after she said that, she immediately regretted it. She recalled the scene from this afternoon.
Nathan grabbed an energy drink before going back to the counter and sat on top of it.
He opened one of the cigarette packs he took and pulled one out and lit it.
"Want one?" He offered her a cigarette and was still speaking in Muwinian.
Kaija didn"t want to reject him a second time so she took one cigarette.
She held the cigarette like she was holding a wand and didn"t ask for a lighter.
Looking at how Kaija was holding the cigarette, Nathan said, "Throw that away."
He was no longer speaking in Muwinian, but the language of Womania, Regisian.
Kaija immediately threw the cigarette away.
They didn"t speak after that and there was a long awkward silence between them.
After Nathan finished smoking, he immediately drank the energy drink and went out.
Kaija followed.
When Nathan was outside, he stopped and looked at the night sky.
"It"s time…"
He didn"t look at Kaija and said, "Go back inside or whatever."
He disappeared.
Nathan was currently invisible and heading towards the South Gate.
Earlier, while he was "leisurely" walking around with teams 5 to 7, he wasn"t just ignoring them, he was also thinking about the pros and cons of the situation and how he should deal with it which is why he proposed to take a detour instead of heading straight to the South Gate right away.
As for his concerns...
One - Could he kill the 3m-tall skinless zombies alone without relying on non-System items?
He already killed an N1 before. Aside from the fact that their stats were higher sot they were harder to kill, they"re basically only Level 11 which will only give him 0.1953125% exp each as a Level 19.
Now, with the Second Phase, all zombies have evolved into 3m-tall skinless zombies so he had to reevaluate a few things.
For starters, he doesn"t believe Rose was the suicidal type. The fact she proposed to fight the 3m-tall zombies and even led the charge means that she"s confident of killing them which is why he decided to appear at the a.s.sembly to show that their agreement still stands.
However, if Rose and her group can"t even protect themselves from the zombies, then there is no point of him honoring his agreement with her. She should forget about the idea of conquering the West side of Cram city and release Amir immediately.
He wasn"t even interested in conquering Cram city and wasn"t some white knight who would do things for other people that he isn"t even close with.
And even with the potential loots, he can just forcefully take it from the looter anyway.
Two - Facing a mob of 3m-tall zombies.
Rose said that there are about 50 of them. Whether that"s true or not, it"s hard to say.
But the thing Nathan was concerned about was in case his team encounters a mob of them, it will no doubt be chaotic. Aside from trying to evade those high-stat 3m-tall skinless zombies, he would also need to evade friendly fire or anyone that has any plans of stabbing him in the back.
He thought about using his teammates as bait, but that would require too much effort and planning so he dropped the idea. It"s not like he could just ask or force them to act as bait and they would happily comply. Not everyone is a pathological savior like Derek.
He would rather have the zombies spread out around town and take his time killing them by himself.
"If this town gets overrun by zombies… Rose, don"t let me catch you…" Nathan"s lips curled up into a smile and his eyes flickered with a cold glint.
He finally arrived at the South Gate.
There were torn up corpses lying on the ground.
These corpses were from the normal guards that were patrolling the area before the Second Phase began.
Their heads were either crushed or separated.
"Preventing the zombie infection to spread, huh. Smart."
As far as he knows, it takes exactly an hour before a human bitten by a zombie turns into a zombie.
He continued walking and until he found two decapitated 3m-tall skinless zombie corpses.
One looked like an N1 zombie because of its average body size, while the other was skinnier.
Nathan approached the corpse of the skinny 3m-tall skinless zombie and knelt down in one knee.
"I"ve never seen this type before. Could this be the S1 zombie that specializes in speed and strength that Twitch told me about?"
Tata! Tata!
"Ahhhh!!!"
"KILL IT! QUICK! KILL IT!"
"SHOOT! SHOOT! SHOOT!"
The sound of gunshots and voices of people could be heard from afar.
Nathan immediately got up and looked towards the direction where it came from.
"Heh~ Looks like someone is having one h.e.l.l of a party there."
As he was about head to the location to where the gunshots and screams were coming from, he noticed a two-handed axe a couple of feet away lying on the floor. The steel handle was about 3ft long with a pointy edge about 4 inches long on the eye and its blade was about a feet long.
He went over to the weapon and picked it up with one hand. The System told him that it was a [Grade D] Two-handed Large Axe and its durability was 7/12.
"I thought it would something special. But at least it"s not as heavy as I thought it would be. Having 32 STR really pays off."
He had his [Grade D] Sword on his back. However, after his experience in fighting Derek for the second time and the fact that he will be facing 3m-tall skinless zombies from now on, he decided that he needed a weapon that packs more punch in case he encounters those D1 types.
Sure, he has grenades, 4 of them (he left the 5th one back at his room because his Police Vest can only carry 4 pieces), but they"re consumable items and are hard to find, making them not really dependable.
"This looks good for cutting down those 3m-tall zombies. But unlike my sword and daggers, I don"t have a holster for it - if there"s even such a thing."
Nathan looked back at the two 3m-tall skinless zombie corpses and approached them.
He raised the [Grade D] Large Axe with one hand and slashed down, chopping off the thigh of the N1 zombie corpse.
Whoosh!
The N1 zombie was already dead, so he didn"t lose his invisibility. However, the [Grade D] Large Axe didn"t turn invisible because he was already invisible when he grabbed it.
"Hmm…"
This time, he took out his [Grade D] Sword from his back and chop off the other thigh of the N1 zombie.
Whoosh!
"Hmm… Chopping the flesh and bone with this [Grade D] Large Axe felt easier compared to the [Grade D] Sword. Perhaps it"s because of the weight? However, I don"t know how to fight using it. It feels so foreign to me..."
He felt conflicted.
"Sigh… What the h.e.l.l. As if I even knew how to use a sword when the zombie apocalypse began. Just like the sword, I"ll eventually get used to using this axe after a few days."
He took off the strap that had his sword sheath so that he can return the [Grade D] Sword to the sheath and wore the strap once again.
He picked up the [Grade D] Large Axe before deactivating [Coward"s Way] and activating it once again.
"This will be my main weapon tonight. Now let"s go check out that party."
Author"s thoughts:
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