“Shit,” Mathew only managed to utter a single curse before his mind went into a frenzy.

‘No one told me that centipede would be able to command the zombies, god damn it!’ Mathew protested in his thoughts while pushing the speed of his body to the limit.

“Leave…” Daria jumped in from the side, kneeling a zombie that was about to snatch at Mathew’s leg. “The small fries…” she added, turning around on the spot and sending another zombie off with a kick.

“To us!” Leila joined in, slashing a hand aimed for Mathew’s hair with her machete.

“Thanks!” Mathew momentarily nodded his head, only to shake off the feeling of terror and return to the battle.

Right now, he couldn’t afford to be absent-minded. Right now, he had an entire ground floor full of zombies and monsters to clear. And until that task was finished, Mathew couldn’t rest easy.

“Die!” he shouted, moving towards the next nearest monster.

Now that they were all converging on him, with the exception of the centipede monster that stood back, every moment brought Mathew closer to fighting several evolved ones at once.

And this wasn’t a task he was confident to fulfill.

Mathew slashed with his ax to the left and then to the right, opening up a path between two zombie victims of his attacks.

Now that the battle had progressed, he could no longer just leave everything to the girls.

‘How are they doing?’ Mathew had to cut all the zombies in the proximity before he allowed himself the luxury of taking a glimpse at the girls.

Currently, Daria was taking an attack from an evolved monster head-on while Leila pushed through zombies to join hands with her.

‘Good idea,’ Mathew thought, intentionally slipping on the blood and seemingly falling down, all to avoid a slashing attack of the nearby evolved monster.

‘So this is an agile one,’ Mathew thought, recognizing the building of the monster.

It was the very same kind that the one who snatched two of his friends during their last escape in his previous life.

Whizz!

The sound of the air getting cut by the extremely sharp claws of the monster penetrated deeply into Mathew’s brain, assaulting his soul with a forced realization of what would happen if he ended up struck by this attack.

‘Damn it!’ Mathew screamed internally out, refusing to allow panic and terror to take control of his actions.

Mathew used the momentum of his slides to bend backward, only to spring up a short moment later. Thanks to this clever maneuver, Mathew managed to sneak past the monster’s defenses, only to smash at its chest with a round, wide sweep of an ax.

‘Fuck,’ Mathew thought, bitting down on his lips. ‘It didn’t go through deep enough,’ he complained, only to press the entire weight of his body on the ax’s handle in an attempt at unlodging it from the bones of the monster.

But the weapon didn’t buckle.

‘Huh?’

Left with no other choice, Mathew leaped back, only to watch how the muscles around the wound he inflicted on the monster suddenly squeezed, completely locking his weapon in place.

“SHIT!” Mathew cried out, forced into a bare-fisted battlefield.

Right now, he had no advantages of his own and was pitted against monsters that could turn invulnerable even against his greatest weapon.

‘We are screwed, aren’t we?’ Mathew thought, barely avoiding another slashing attack, this time from a second monster that joined the fray.

If Mathew had any hopes for winning the conflict and clearing the school before, they all vanished on this spot.

He was already hardpressed to stay alive while against a single opponent and with his powerful weapon. And now he had to fight two of the monsters with more to come at any moment… all the while lacking any form of weapon?

‘Wait, what the hell,’ Mathew shook his head, repelling yet another attack of terror on his soul. ‘Who said I don’t have any weapons?’ Mathew asked himself, reaching to the back of his pants and pulling out the same kind of machete that his girls were using.

‘Still,’ Mathew thought, feeling how the spark of hope ignited by the touch of the weapon quickly extinguished under the cold wind of reality.

What was he supposed to do with just a short machete against three monsters?

Mathew gulped his saliva down.

This was the end of the line.

Mathew took a glance to the side, only to see that the two girls were hard-pressed to fight off the advance of a single monster and several zombies.

‘And I am supposed to take care of all of… those?’ Mathew thought, turning his eyes back towards his current enemies.

And then he saw it.

The centipede that kept to the back before now rushed ahead, most likely sensing the desperation oozing out of every fiber of Mathew’s being.

‘If it can command the zombies, it has to be somewhat intelligent,’ Mathew thought, only to suffer through yet another attack of terror.

Watching how three burly monsters, a sea of zombies, and a massive, disgusting centipede all zeroed in on him, Mathew tightened his jaws, ready for the inevitable.

‘And that means…’

If the monster was intelligent, then Mathew could trick it. And in the current situation of the monsters holding an overwhelming advantage, the best bet was to pretend to give in to the attacks of terror that shoot Mathew’s soul.

Left with no other choice, Mathew could only trust his gut. He could only trust his gut telling him the right moment to use it, his guess regarding what else he could do…

And lastly, he had to trust that, albeit working for the apocalypse, merchants couldn’t scam him.

The closest monster reader, swinging its massive arm right towards Mathew’s head.

But while it managed to negate Mathew’s attack earlier and ended up surviving the slash… The monster clearly expected Mathew to back off.

The young man only took a quick glance to the side, putting his eyes at the angle that allowed him to track the movements of the centipede. And right as the monster before him attacked, Mathew took a step forward, driving his fist directly under the folds of the monster’s meat, right against its shiny core.

Mathew didn’t punch it, though. Instead, he pushed his fingers apart only to bring them down on the core and then pull it out with one swift move!

Normal cores extracted from zombies would only reflect light; they wouldn’t shine on their own. Yet, the stone that Mathew carved out of the monster’s chest clearly illuminated its surrounding, even if the power of the light was pretty damn low.

‘Well then,’ Mathew thought, raising his hand with his trophy in it while throwing one last glance towards the monster.

“Donate all my levels to my first wife,” Mathew muttered, counting seconds towards the right moment.

He ignored a massive first rushing towards the side of his head. He ignored a set of three claws reaching out for his knees.

He even ignored the face of terror made up of three different faces in a triangular shape and then surrounded by a circle made out of five sets of jaws filled to the brim with teeth.

And right as the centipede monster brought its anus-like mouth to feast on Mathew’s flesh, the young man brought his hand down.

And just as the young man brought his hand down, a strange force seemingly appeared to assist his move.

The stone crushed underneath the weight of Mathew’s fingers. Its shine quickly seeped outside, only to turn into a sizzle…

‘I hope you will survive,’ Mathew thought, closing his eyes.

The core in his hand disintegrated. And then, a wave of intense, white light covered everything on the ground floor of the school.

******

The thickest part of the forest was usually the safest. The high-growing grasses, lush bushes, and plethora of places to hide were Kaya’s favorite playground.

What she never expected, was for the said playground to turn into her last place to hide in the whole world.

The footsteps of the approaching soldiers could be heard in the distance. Those clumsy humans couldn’t move through the forest without making a massive racket.

It was one of the major upsides to hiding in the ancient forest. Kaya could hear the humans long before they would approach her.

And just like many times over, when the footsteps got too close, Kaya stood up and silently ran deeper into the forest.

Then, her fur-covered ears twitched, only for the girl to come at a complete stop and energetically turn her head around.

“Who are you?!”