“So?” Peter asked, his lips forming a lascivious smile. “Did you bang her?”

Mathew didn’t move.

His body was fully frozen in the memory that he saw.

Mathew looked down at his very own self, sitting silently in his own place in the class.

His desk was surrounded from all sides by the perverted trio. They were the menace of all the girls in the school. And for some weird reason, they decided to pick Mathew as the one to share their infamy.

‘Why am I seeing this?’ Mathew asked himself, trying to look around.

But he couldn’t. His vision was stuck in a position and an angle that made the center of his back right in the middle of what he could see.

‘Is this the side effect of the miracle?’ Mathew thought, trying to rationalize the situation.

And then he spotted it. The one thing that had no right to appear in the vision he saw.

A system’s clock.

This time, it consisted of three parts, each of which counted down to some sort of event.

The first one was about to run off, with a single minute left. The second one still had an entire hour, while the last one had two hours left.

‘Judging from the time,’ Mathew thought, looking at the clock hanging above the class’ blackboard. ‘The second one is counting to the start of the apocalypse,’ he thought.

What was the first and the last one counting towards, though? Mathew had no clue.

“Come on, guys,” Mathew’s body moved in the exact same way that he did a bit over two weeks ago. “You know it’s not like that. We have known each other since forever,” he attempted to defend himself. “That’s all there is to it, I promise!”

‘Oh, how pathetic I was,’ Mathew thought, watching his past plight.

The numbers on the first of the clocks continued to tick down.

“You know, I heard about a few, pretty effective ways to get a girl to the bed,” Franc, the other of the group, whispered in a conspirational tone.

“That’s perfect!” Peter once again took the prim of the bullying. “But if we share it with you…”

The first of the clocks only had ten seconds left.

‘Wait, if I recall the events correctly,’ Mathew thought, watching how the number continued to tick down with each passing second.

“You will have to share her with us too,” Peter finished his unholy idea before licking his lips.

“This is a great chance for you!” Adam, the third of the group, smiled viciously. “With our help, you will be finally able to cast your V-card!” he announced loudly, instantly bringing some stares from the nearby students.

‘This fucker,’ Mathew thought, tightening his spiritual hands.

Three seconds left.

“So, how will it be?” Peter asked again. “Do you want to take her at the same time with us, or would you rather wait your turn?”

Three things happened at once.

The clock reached the end of its time.

The doors to the class slammed open.

Mathew’s vision blurred before changing from a third to a first-person view.

‘Huh?” Mathew looked down at his hands.

They lacked all the scars that he earned on the first day of the apocalypse. There was no innate exhaustion embedded deeply into his flesh and bones.

He was just as fresh as he was before the apocalypse.

‘I have a body of a weakling,’ Mathew thought.

“Decide, you little dipshit!” Adam shouted out loud, annoyed by the lack of reaction from the preferred toy of the group.

“Get away from him, you filth,” Naida spoke out from her position by the doors.

“Scram before I will make you,” Mathew spoke out, calmly raising his face and looking at Peter’s face.

‘I only need to waste him for the others to run,’ he thought, clenching his hand into a fist.

“You fucking…” Peter squeezed through his teeth when his eyes wandered off, right at Nadia’s nearby figure.

The black belt that she loosely kept on her shoulder reminded him of the reason why they never moved beyond words in their bullying.

“You better be grateful to your boyfriend!” Peter sneered, refusing the pleasure of insulting Mathew one last time. “If not for your papa, you would long be just a stain on the…”

Peter didn’t finish his words.

Mathew swung his shoulders sideways, burying his fist deep into his obnoxious’ classmate’s stomach.

“You can insult me all you want,” Mathew said in a cold voice, allowing the lifeless Peter to hang over his shoulder. “But include Naida in it, and I will pluck your balls out,” he added before shaking his shoulder and throwing the man down on the floor.

“Mat!” Nadia shouted in a sudden panic when Mathew engaged his bully. “Are you okay?” she rushed forward only to grab Mat’s arm and look at his face, all worried.

“Everything’s okay,” Mathew replied, unable to stop a smile from forming on his lips.

‘Whether it’s just a nice dream or not, I don’t care,’ he thought, reaching with his hand and placing it on top of the girl’s head.

Nadia froze in place, unsure how to react.

‘Right,’ Mathew suddenly reflected on himself. ‘We weren’t like that by this time,’ he thought, eager to pull his hand away…

But he didn’t do it right away. Unable to resist his desire, he rustled the girl’s hair before gracing her with a kind smile.

“Huh?” Nadia finally managed to utter a small shout of shock through her lips. Her eyes opened wide, displaying the beautiful, jade-like green of her pupils.

“How about we ditch the class?” Mathew suddenly brought up a proposition.

His eyes involuntarily moved towards the upper right corner of his vision.

‘This can’t be a system,’ he thought, desperately trying to figure out what was going on. ‘We only received them after defeating the first zombie, and they didn’t even appear in this world yet…’ he thought, trying to rationalize the situation.

“Yeah,” Mathew refocused his eyes and looked right at Nadia’s face. Her long, golden streaks coated her face as if some kind of jewelry.

Mathew couldn’t stop a gentle smile from forming on his lips.

“Tell me,” Mathew muttered before raising his voice a little. “Would you mind going on a small date with me right now?” he asked.

‘There is only one thing that’s supposed to happen in an hour,’ he thought under the facade that he put on his face. ‘And if my guess is correct, then I don’t have any time to waste!’

Unaware of Mathew’s thoughts, Nadia nearly jumped on the spot.

She was a good student with good attendance and history with the teachers. Being one of the school’s athletic champions, she could get away with a lot but rarely used that privilege.

But when she heard Mathew’s invitation, her eyes lit up with a shock mixed with excitement.

“Sure thing!” she chirped. Her lips formed a slightly weird smile as if she couldn’t handle all the emotions that erupted in her soul.

‘And whatever this situation is,’ Mathew thought, bringing his hand back and grabbing Nadia’s fingers, ‘I will protect you. No matter what.’