Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

"Let's all just calm down for a moment," the middle-aged leader of the locals slowly raised his hands. "I'm not going to give my people a sign, you are not going to pull the trigger of the gun in your hand," he proposed. "Do we have a deal?"

'Dealing with this man can only lead to a disaster,' Mathew thought, doing his absolute utmost to keep up the smirking facade. 'But for now…'

Mathew heaved a deep sigh, loosening his facade and allowing a slight sense of displeasure to appear on his face.

"How could we calm down when you are currently trying to rob us?" Mathew asked, leaning his head over his shoulder. "Even after all the pains and hardships, we went through to save you from the horde, even after openly claiming the cores of the zombies we took down ourselves…"

As Mathew continued his lecture, more and more guns continued to raise from the floor only to point their muzzles toward the leader of the locals.

"We never intended to steal any of those cores, we were just gathering them all for you," the middle-aged man said. "And now that we cleared this unfortunate misunderstanding…" he looked meaningfully at the floating guns.

"There is no need for you to bother so much for our sake," Mathew countered. "There never was," he added, openly squinting his eyes.

Then…

He dropped most of the floating guns, only leaving one for each member of his group while stashing away an additional one for when Daria would return.

"What am I supposed to do then?" the man asked. "Stop collecting them? Bring them all back to the no man's land?"

"Since you already bothered, it would be a waste to spit on your efforts," Mathew smiled amicably. "Those that you collected, bring them to this room. Those that have yet to be collected," Mathew smiled a little, "leave them as they are."

"You are not trying to…" the man attempted to say something, only to end up biting himself in the tongue. "No, I'm sorry but when can I expect you to get all those cores? We need to clear the corpses to avoid the spread of disease."

'What a smartass,' Mathew thought, rolling his eyes a little. 'But well, if I were to be in his shoes, I wouldn't want to give away even the tiniest bit of information to the other party,' he thought.

"All the cores will be gone before tomorrow," Mathew said, finally allowing all the spare guns to fall down to the ground. He even went the extra mile of pushing their safeties back on. "And since our little misunderstanding is now resolved, I hope it won't be a problem if we stay here until tomorrow."

'I can't let you go unchecked, after all,' Mathew thought while drilling his eyes into the man. 'Not after what I saw in my previous life.'

"That's…" the man hesitated for a moment. He then took a deep breath before hanging his head low in a fake sign of defeat. "That's fine with me. Now that the world went to shit, survivors like us should all strive to help each other."

For the first time since the encounter started, the tension in the air started to lessen.

"Don't forget to get your weapons back," Mathew said as soon as he noticed the longing stares of the people he robbed of their weapons. "We are not some kind of thieves to take something so vital away from…" he made a short pause, "our fellow survivors," he said with a perfectly fake smile while flaunting the pistol he took for himself exposed on his hip.

"Thanks," the leader of the other party said. "With that said, I hope we can avoid any further… misunderstandings," he added, finally feeling at liberty to lower his hands.

"Oh, that only depends on you," Mathew replied with a wide smile while taking a step back himself. "We know, see and hear everything, so unless we become aware of something disturbing…" Mathew leaned his head over his shoulder. "Unless something unsavory like that were to happen, there would be no reason for us to act up."

Mathew turned around, finally dropping his skill and allowing his mind's flesh to dissipate. In theory, it was still too early to take it easy, given how there was no telling if the other party wouldn't make use of this opportunity to shoot them in the back.

Yet, even though Mathew hardly exerted any force through his skill, maintaining so many different hands at once was extremely taxing on his mind, even if it didn't really affect the small amount of mana he recovered.

"I'm glad we reached some sort of an understanding," the man said, acting as if Mathew didn't turn around nor implied he considered the discussion to be over. "But before you go, I have two questions I wish you could answer."

'What is your purpose and is there anything else you want from me?' Mathew thought, recalling the exact formula he heard the man use when he encountered other system users, with arguably far more powerful battle systems, back in the school during Mathew's original timeline.

"What is your purpose here? We are but a small group of survivors, barely able to support ourselves, so whatever you desire to achieve here…" he asked, only to instantly get on the defensive and attempt to downplay the ability of his group.

"We just happened to be passing by," Mathew replied. "Or rather, we came here after noticing the presence of the horde while we were passing by and then learning from Peter about your group," Mathew replied, wary not to make any demands or show any expectations. "Oh, and on that note, where is Peter?" he then asked.

And for the first time, the smile disappeared from Mathew's lips. Instead, his expression turned wrathful.

To his side, Mathew's wives detected the slight change in Mathew's aura, instantly rallying up and tensing their bodies, ready to jump into a fight at a moment's notice.

"Peter?" the leader of the locals attempted to play dumb. "I'm sorry, with how many people there are in the group there is no way for me to know who exactly you have on mind."

"The man that came here along with the rest of my group," Mathew said, openly turning his head and casting a quick glance at Norbert's face.

'And now he should believe the four of us make up our entire group,' he then thought, satisfied with the small seed of false information he sowed in the other party's mind.

Mathew then turned around and looked right into the other party's face.

"He already pledged his allegiance to my own party, so it would be a pity if I were to learn…" Mathew suddenly cut his sentence short. He then smiled gently before walking forward a few steps and leaning over the local's leader's ear.

"It would be a pity if I were to learn he lost all his limbs and got turned into a zombie. Wouldn't it be a pity, Marcus?" he whispered right to the man's ear, only to then back off with a small smile, enjoying the mix of shock and terror that appeared on Marcus' face.