“And with that…” Mathew muttered in a rhythmic voice while swinging his ax down on the zombie’s head. “We are done!” he shouted, turning his head to the back.

“All done here as well!” Daria reported a moment later. “Should we do as usual?”

Mathew raised his leg and placed it on the nearby zombie, keeping its corpse in place as he pulled on the ax’s handle. The blade came out of the zombie’s skull with a mix of sloppy and scratchy sounds.

That sound alone would be enough to send an amateur puking. Yet, even though the apocalypse started relatively recently, Mathew and his group have long gotten used to this level of stimulus.

“No, this time, I want you to try to visit the trader,” Mathew shook his head. “Leila, you are still up for gathering the stones,” the young man quickly added.

Mathew then made a motion as if he wanted to kneel, only to keep his knee just above the surface of the floor. He then grabbed an edge of the clothes of some corpse before tearing a chunk of the cloth away.

“On it!” Leila replied, raising her bloody machete to her forehead in some sort of a weird salute. She then quickly turned her attention back to the zombies.

Despite appearing as the shy and silent one of the two when Mathew first met those girls, Leila now proved to mind her situation a lot less than Daria did.

‘And that’s why it’s Daria who should check whether wives can use merchants as well,’ Mathew thought, watching how the girl quickly rushed past him and then up the stairs, jumping two or three steps with each leap she made.

‘They are coming,’ Mathew thought, alerted by his senses.

Ever since he started fighting with the zombies, he could feel his strength growing. Be it the speed of his movements, the strength of his strikes, or the overall awareness of the situation, they all skyrocketed.

Mathew initially picked the top of the school for that very reason. By keeping it clean from the zombies and gradually pushing to the lower floors, he could soon secure the entire school’s compound for his group.

‘And all of this could work pretty well if not for those damned monsters!’ Mathew thought, clenching his teeth. At the same time, his hands moved the piece of cloth over the ax’s blade, cleaning the filth of the zombie’s blood from the dark metal.

“By the way,” Leila called out right as Mathew threw the bloodied piece of cloth away.

“What’s up?” Mathew asked while sending a glance over the stairs above.

Daria should only need a moment to reach the floor where they summoned a merchant. Yet, even though a while has already passed, she has yet to make her way back.

‘Anyway,’ Mathew thought, turning his eyes towards the down-leading part of the staircase. And then, as if following a clock, zombies emerged.

“What’s up?” Mathew shouted, raising his ax on his shoulder as he took a step down the stairs.

“Why aren’t we using the cores that we gather?” Leila asked, not bothered by the incoming wave of zombies at all.

After cleaning four floors already, those zombies were no longer an opponent worthy of her worry.

“So you noticed,” Mathew commented, slashing an approaching zombie in half. The task of cleaving through the flesh and bones of the undead turned easy ever since his brawn reached over thirty points.

Yet, instead of following the stairs towards the bottom floor, Mathew simply stood guard at the edge of the stairs.

“But I’m not really sure if I should reveal the answer,” Mathew added after a moment, using his improved senses to scan the nearby area for zombies.

‘There are a few more on the other end of the stairs,’ Mathew thought.

There was no magic in his ability. It was simple awareness combined with his improved senses and the sixth sense that he developed over all the fighting.

“Is there really any need for those secrets?” Leila shouted over, the changes in her voice indicating that she was moving towards the other end of the floor.

“We don’t know who’s listening, after all,” Mathew replied while burying the butt of his blade into the side of another zombie’s head.

‘And if you can’t understand such a simple hint…’ Mathew thought, rolling his eyes with annoyance.

It was already taxing enough to take care of the choke point leading towards the floor they had just cleared out. Speaking nonsense with that weird girl felt like just a waste of time and energy.

“I’m back!” Daria shouted, only a moment later than the sounds she made while running down the stairs. “And sorry, but it doesn’t seem like I can use the shop,” she added as soon as she landed on the last set of stairs, grabbing the railing to keep herself up while she fought to catch her breath.

“I see…” Mathew replied, taking a step back up the stairs.

Right now, there wasn’t a single zombie within their line of vision. As such, they finally reached the point when they could take a short rest.

“Are you going to spend all those cores now?” Leila asked, moving back from the far end of the floor, her hands occupied by a pile of bloodied cores.

Mathew raised his eyes at the girl and stared at Leila’s face with an intense look behind his own eyes.

“What?” Leila asked, shrugging lightly. “Do I have something on my face?” she asked, quickly moving her head around, and she attempted to check her own state up.

“It’s nothing,” Mathew lowered his eyes and shook his head. He then took a knee again, taking a cloth from a zombie’s corpse to make a makeshift pouch again. “Hide the cores like usual; I will use the one from the top floor,” Mathew instructed before turning his eyes towards the other girl. “I will be leaving the stairs to you for a while.”

Their relationship didn’t start on the best foot. From her strangely open approach toward intimacy to her fierce character, later on, Daria didn’t leave a good impression on Mathew. Yet, as the time went by and as the two of them fought the zombies off together, the young man couldn’t help but feel a bit of sympathy towards this straightforward girl.

‘To think that the secret to her character would be that simple,’ Mathew thought, his lips forming a small smile.

The young man then secured his ax between his shirt and the neck of his hoodie before climbing the stairs.

‘I know it’s only a guess, but isn’t it strange?’ Mathew thought to himself, analyzing the reason why he didn’t want to talk about cores with Leila.

‘We cleared out four floors in total, but the monsters didn’t react any stronger than before,’ Mathew thought, recalling the events of the recent past.

‘And the only instances when I could feel their aura growing stronger was after…’ Mathew thought, only to shake his head and focus on climbing the stairs.

Despite all the growth that he experienced, the simple structure of stairs was still his nemesis.

“I guess there is only one way to find it out,” Mathew muttered before taking a deep breath and pushing up towards the merchant.

And towards the possible cause of the evolved monsters appearing a lot sooner in this line of time.