Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse



"Zombies!"

A single shout caused the entire procession to come to a stop.

"A group of thirty, a full horde a mile behind them!"

If the first report made everyone freeze in fear, the second called them all to action.

'Oh my,' Mathew thought, stunned by the grace with which everyone, not only hunters themselves but also their recruits, rushed to their tasks.

Some appeared on the frontline, all bearing their guns close to their chests. Others rushed to bring out the supplies and melee weapons, just in case the fighting prolonged or if the front line were to break.

"Shouldn't we thin out that horde in the back first?" Carol approached Mathew from the back and asked while throwing anxious glances toward the recruits.

'Is she showing compassion or trying to minimalize her losses?' Mathew thought, quite curious about what reasons prompted Carol to put forth the suggestion.

'If the horde is a test for those newbies, this will be a perfect test for Carol,' the young man decided.

"No, we will not do that," Mathew said, taking only a single glance at his last real wife before moving his eyes back to the hunters. "They need to learn how to deal with danger that appears to be overwhelming."

And defeating the approaching horde would be an overwhelming challenge.

Not a single of the hunters had a system. They each bore just a simple gun with extremely sparse ammunition for it too.

With that sort of preparation, they could easily take the group of thirty ahead, but the horde that would come after that was a whole different matter.

"I don't think we should put them through a horde right off the bat," Carol tried again.

From the look of worry on her face, she started to take her position as the leader of the hunters quite seriously now that they found themselves in real danger.

"It's not right off the bat, they will have some time to decide what to do next if they pick up the slack and just go through that close group." Mathew countered.

A zombie would take quite a while to walk a mile. Likely even more if it moved as a part of a massive group.

But fighting the zombies off wasn't an easy task, especially for those who hardly did any fighting before. And between those two things, zombies walking and humans fighting, Mathew wasn't so sure which one would conclude first.

"They are coming, prepare!"

One of the hunters took the burden of commanding the entire force. From the look of things, it was one of the unassuming 'volunteers' that Carol forced into their role on a whim.

And strangely enough, despite not having any say when it came to his own fate, Mathew's underclassman found it in himself to resist the flow of events.

Instead of allowing what was happening to dictate his actions, he caught fate by its horns and decided to wrestle for supremacy.

"Fire!" the kid shouted, finally allowing Mathew to find his position.

And just like the spirit in his voice indicated, he was right in front of all the hunters, leading by example with his gun rocking up and down in a slow but steady fashion.

One bullet after the other, the young hunter blasted the heads of the zombies away. In the end, after the short series that emptied out his magazine, he missed only a single zombie's head.

Sadly, the same couldn't be said about other hunters. All in all, the opening salvo was only half accurate, with every other shoot either missing completely or finding a target that sadly wasn't lethal for zombies.

"Those with guns, step back!" the young hunter shouted.

"A sound decision," Mathew muttered a word of praise under his nose. 'Right now, those guns are too valuable to risk losing even one.'

Before they would be able to use the cores farmed on the mission, the few guns that Mathew provided were everything. And with only a third of the entire force carrying a firearm, they were too important of a tool to risk losing it.

"But now the casualties will start mounting," Leila added in a dark voice and with a grave expression.

And surely enough… her judgment was only delayed by a mere moment.

At first, the newbie hunters that ended up with melee weapons gained the advantage. There were sixteen of them, against a group of only six zombies left.

Soon, though, the town's streets turned out to heavily limit the movement of human troops. Unable to move around the enemy, the newbie hunters couldn't effectively push their advantage.

And then, one of the zombies that fell to the hail of bullets started moving again.

'Shit!' Mathew thought, bending his knees as he instantly put himself in the stance to charge forth. Still, he held himself back, unwilling to interfere unless it was absolutely necessary.

'Will they notice it?' Mathew asked himself, counting fractions of the second as they passed… with not a single hunter paying any mind.

"Behind…."

A shout diluted in time when Mathew's entered a strange state of mind. All movements around him appeared to slow right when he lowered his hand to the grip of his saber.

The young hunter, currently busy with the last few motions of changing the magazine, was the one behind the shout.

"…you!" he finished his warning right as his mag clicked in place.

Before the sound of his shout could have a chance to vibrate out of existence, the young hunter already raised his arm halfway to the height he needed to aim at the leftover zombie.

But it was already too late.

Before the young man could shoot and right as Mathew tensed up his muscles and jumped forth, the zombie stumbled forth.

It didn't make a step but slipped on a pool of its own blood, instantly gaining the momentum he wouldn't get otherwise.

This unexpected change threw Mathew's calculation off, giving him less time to approach than he expected.

Refusing to give up and in the middle of his leap, Mathew pulled his saber halfway out, ready to drag it through the zombie's neck…

Only for the latter to fall on the back of one of Kasper's wives and sink its teeth into the tender flesh of her left shoulder.