Mathew looked down at the bloody face of their opponent.


    ‘Wasn’t this too easy?’ he thought, clenching his fingers over the handle of his ax.


    It didn’t sit well with Mathew how easily his group managed to solve the problem.


    ‘After all the nning and worrying… is that all there is to this guy?’ He thought. Mathew then slowly swung his ax forward, only to use the dull front of the de to lift the guy’s face.


    Then, Mathew’s eyes widened.


    ‘Didn’t he offer his left eye?’ he thought while putting a furious expression on his face.


    “Still, it’s not me who lost the most because of him,” Mathew said before shaking his head.


    ‘How should I tell them?’ the thoughts of the young man went into disarray. And it was all because of the fact that the face he just lifted had both of its eyes right where they should be.


    ‘If he offered his vision, it would make some sense. But since he offered his eye, it should be gone by now!’ Mathew gritted his teeth. ‘He fucking bamboozled me!’


    Mathew then turned around and closed his eyes as he lowered his neck. Yet, even with his eyes closed, he didn’t hear Norbert giving out a report.


    ‘If I call his trick out loud, he will lose the surprise advantage, but so will we,’ Mathew thought, only to clench his jaws.


    He then swung his body around while allowing his ax to get dragged by the motion.


    And in a single swoop, Mathew’s ax cut right through the doll’s neck, sending its head flying towards the far end of the ssroom.


    “Huh?” All three girls of Mathew’s group jumped when he suddenly decapitated their enemy.


    “Why did you kill him?” Nadia asked, turning her eyes towards the back of Mathew’s head.


    “I wanted to kill him too!” Le protested while bringing both of her hands to her head while staring at how the doll’s body fell to the ground.


    “…” Mathew didn’t bother to utter a single word of response. Instead, he raised his vignce to its limits, hoping to notice anything that would give away the position of the holder of his former system.


    “What are you…” Nadia muttered silently. Yet, when Mathew turned around while scanning his surroundings, the girl’s eyes twitched a little.


    Nadia then lowered herself to her knees. She knew Mathew long enough to recognize what the look of vignce on his face meant.


    “What the hell are you guys doing?” Le asked, allowing her emotions to get the better of her. “Isn’t it over already? Let’s get this merchant secured and establish the fortress alre…”


    “BEHIND YOU!” Daria shouted.


    Both Mathew and Nadia spun on their feet, swinging their weapons to the back.


    Ting!


    A sound of metal hitting metal filled the room, only for Le’s machete to fly, rolling through the room and embedding itself into the wall.


    “Stand your ground!” the enemy finally revealed himself, appearing behind Le’s back while holding a sharpened metal stick to her throat.


    ‘Wait, isn’t he…’ Mathew thought, shocked to finally recognize the face of their enemy.


    ‘I guess I robbed him of his opportunity,’ the young man thought, turning himself towards the danger.


    “Le!” Daria shouted, taking a step towards the duo…


    “Make another step, I fucking dare you!” the guy shouted, pressing the sharpened stick of his into Le’s throat so hard it actually prated through the skin.


    “Stephen, was it?” Mathew suddenly said, resting the de of his ax against his shoulder.


    Despite how tense the situation was supposed to be, there was no sign of hesitation or worry in his eyes. Contrary to him, the guy holding Le hostage couldn’t be called calm at all.


    His hands were trembling. His one remaining eye was oozing blood, just like his nose.


    “The fuck do you want!” Stephen shouted, drilling his stick even deeper into Le’s throat. At the same time, his hand moved down.


    It was likely just a slip, an attempt to ensure he had a firm grasp over her. Yet, in the process of doing so, his fingers fell down on Le’s breast… and dug in.


    “That’s it,” Le sighed. She then tensed up, only to suddenly drop herself to the ground as if she wanted to get away from the stick.


    Not expecting the resistance toe from the hostage herself, Stephen was caught off guard.


    Right as she neared the ground, Le brought her hands up and pressed them against Stephens’s arms, keeping him as close as she would hold her lover. And then, she bent herself forward, throwing Stephen over her arm before mming him right against the floor!


    “HAAAA…” Stephen made a noise when the air escaped from his lungs.


    “This fucking mosquito stung me!” Leined and raised her hand to her neck, massaging the part of her skin where the bastard dared to injure her.


    ‘At least she doesn’t seem to be bothered by it,’ Mathew thought before taking a step forward. He then grabbed his ax near its de before striking with the bottom of its handle right into Stephan’s spine.


    “Was it worth it, you little fucker?” he asked, kneeling before the guy’s face. “You could have a nice life under my protection, yet you choose violence instead,” Mathew muttered, pping Stephen’s back with the handle of his weapon every other word.


    “Fuck you!” Stephen proved his eloquence by responding with nothing more but amon curse.


    “I guess there is no point in talking to him at all,” Mathew said and shook his head before standing up.


    “What are we going to do with him?” Nadia asked as she moved over Stephen’s body before mming her foot on his spine.


    ‘Isn’t she going to break it?’ Mathew thought, worried about doing more than necessary. And while inflicting pain over someone who dared to stand against them was perfectly fine in this new, changing world, breaking one’s spine was a whole different matter.


    “For now, knock him unconscious,” Mathew ordered. “We still need to look for Carol,” Mathew ordered before moving towards the locker where Norbert’s body was stoved away.


    He then opened the doors, and just like one could expect, Norbert’s lifeless body fell out of the shelf.


    “Is he still alive?” Le asked from across the ssroom, too busy kicking at Stephen on the floor to bother checking the lockers out with Mat.


    “No idea,” Mathew replied before bringing Norbert’s flesh down on the floor and checking for his vitals.


    His heart was still beating. His chest, albeit slowly, continued to move up and down.


    ‘So he didn’t die,’ Mathew thought before finally moving his eyes towards the policeman’s head.


    The shot cleaved out a part of the man’s skull but didn’t seem to prate his head at all.


    “This sure looks bad but likely isn’t lethal,” Mathew muttered once he cleaned the wound out and got a clean look at it.


    The young man then tore a part of his dress out before closing his eyes.


    “You here?” He asked the only person in the vincity that needed Mathew to close his eyes to talk.


    “Yeah,” Norbert replied despite failing to do so when Mathew first realized Stephen’s trick. “From the looks of things, I just got stunned when the shock hit my brain. Wrap it up with some bandage and leave me be; that should be enough,” the policeman instructed.


    “Will do,” Mathew nodded his head before opening his eyes up and focusing on treating the man’s wound.


    “He is out!” Nadia shouted once their one-sided beating of Stephen finally rendered him unconscious. “What are you going to do with him now?” she then asked.


    “For now, bind him,” Mathew ordered. He then finished his Norbert-rted task before standing up and approaching the lifeless body of their enemy. “Given how he dared to stand up to us, I don’t feel like letting him die without tormenting him a little first,” he then added, only for his eyes to move up to the small wound on Le’s neck.


    Mathew’s hate towards this specific person was actually deeper than he allowed others to know. Outside of Stephen’s faults in this world, he also earned quite a lot of hate from all the system-less people in the school that survived the apocalypse in Mathew’s original life.


    After all, he was the one responsible for breaking the outer wall of the school just to flex his newfound ability! And as a result of breaking that wall, once all the system users departed from thepound, new zombies continued to pour inside.


    ‘In a sense, he is the one directly responsible for my death back then,’ Mathew thought, fighting off the desire to kill Stephen.


    “For now, we need to find Carol,” Mathew said. ‘If we want to ensure Norbert’s and, by extension, Daniel’s cooperation, that is.’