Bang! Bang! Bang!

The hunters didn’t shoot at the rapid pace one would expect from this day and age. They didn’t reach even a single percent of what firearms of the time would be capable of.

But that didn’t really matter.

‘They might just be able to clutch it,’ Mathew thought while slashing down another of the zombies who picked the wrong way to end its false life.

Under Pavel’s leadership, the hunters aimed steadily and didn’t hurry with their shots.

One by one, they took down the charging zombies, always keeping them at a constant distance away from the front of their line.

Still, the pace of their attack was perfect for now, but with every passing second, the zombies managed to gain a single inch of land. A single inch that they would run closer towards the hunters before another gunshot would fall them.

The tactic was clearly effective. But it could only last them for so long.

“Five steps, retreat!” Pavel shouted from the bottom of his lungs, only for the entire line of hunters and newbies to walk backward the few ordered steps.

Just like that, the progress that the zombies made by mindlessly sacrificing at least a hundred of the horde members now was near fully nullified.

‘Once again, a smart choice,’ Mathew thought while lazily dispatching any zombie that was mistaken enough to come charging at him and his wives instead of charging at the hunters. ‘But for every step that they take back, the zombies will have an easier way to surround them!’

Such was the sad reality.

The only reason why the zombies didn’t squash the small squad of hunters was due to the chokepoint that allowed only a few of them at a time to pass. And while retreating appeared like a sound option now, for every step that the hunters took back…

They were giving the zombies one step of space more to spread out and attack with a greater number at the same time.

“Newbies, prepare to fight!” Pavel shouted, right as he received two fully-loaded pistols from someone in the back of his group. “Hunters! Lay them down!”

This time, the tactic changed.

Instead of artificially slowing down their fire rate to let the newbies help with reloading and thus maintain a constant wall of fire, Pavel decided it was the right time to go all in.

‘I understand their desperation… but what made him decide to attack?’ Mathew asked himself.

He kept on observing the situation, ready to intervene if even a single of the hunters or the newbies happen to be in danger. Thankfully, for now, Pavel’s tactic managed to keep all zombies a safe distance away.

Even if the scenario from before were to repeat, when a seemingly fallen zombie was to raise to execute a surprise attack… all the zombies’ corpses were still way too far from the line of the hunters to be able to reach the living and start turning them over to their side.

“Now! Fire!” Pavel shouted, before unleashing a rapid fury of shoots from the gun in his right. This time, he didn’t hold back the speed at which he could headshot the zombies.

Bang, bang, bang!

One by one, the zombies fell. And as the rest of the hunters joined in on the fun, soon, all the progress that the horde made distance-wise was nullified.

But then, the problematic moment came.

The hunters managed to finish off all the zombies that managed to get past the chokepoint… but they did so by exhausting all the shots that they had loaded their guns with. And now, there was nothing but empty space that separated them from the zombies that got to avoid the onslaught.

“NOW! KILL THEM ALL!” Pavel shouted, wisely turning sideways not to be carried away when everyone else went on ahead.

And contrary to what Mathew expected back when the unit was formed… the newbies didn’t shy away from the fight, listening to Pavel’s order instead.

“Kill them all!” one of the hunters joined in on the call as he dropped the gun to the ground and grabbed a metal reinforcement before charging forth.

“Third group, grab the guns and reload them!” Pavel shouted another order before pulling out a small axe that he sourced from god knows where before charging in himself.

Then, the zombies and the humans clashed right at the choke point.

Side by side, men and women slashed, cut, and crushed whatever came at them with the people from the row behind them using all sorts of long poking sticks that they could find to push aside the zombies that got too close for the comfort of the first line.

“Just a little bit longer!” Pavel cried out while dropping his small axe at the nearest zombie, crushing its skull with a single swing.

“Guns ready!” one of the five newbies who stood back shouted before rushing towards the frontline at the chokepoint.

Then, a mere moment of chaos ensued as the hunters retreated, leaving the defense of the chokepoint to the newbies in the second line.

For but a moment, the stability of the front hung by a thin thread. The newbies were too weak and too new to this kind of thing to be able to hold the zombies back for longer than just a few moments.

But those few moments were all that Pavel needed.

“Guns are ready!” one of the hunters shouted.

“Help the first line!” Pavel ordered right away, using his powerful voice to orchestrate the movement of his companions across the narrowness of the chokepoint.

And then, with the second line made up entirely of newbies nearly falling apart under the weight of the zombie’s attack…

The hunters raised their guns above the shoulders of the former second line before unleashing the might of gunpowder upon the undead.

‘Having guns fired so close to their ears…’ Mathew thought, shaking his head while his eyes filled with silent praise. ‘It looks like they all went through the baptism of battle,’ he thought, his lips inevitably turning to smile when he saw the line of the hunters stabilize.

‘Still…’ Mathew squinted his eyes. ‘Now that they recovered the chokepoint, what is he going to do?’ he asked himself, directing his eyes towards Pavel.

Yet, after a mere moment, Mathew had no other choice but to turn his attention elsewhere, as what he could see with the corner of his vision turned strange.

Unable to see properly from his position, Mathew moved a few steps to the side, to a place from where he could actually see past the chokepoint…

Only to realize that save for a few stragglers who had their limbs maimed… the horde was gone!