Chapter 35: Another Group (2)

Although Luke’s words didn’t have much meaning behind them. At least for himself, they shocked the whole group. He seemed like a pretty laid-back kid, so why would he have such thoughts about someone who seemed so worried about him?

“Let’s keep going… or maybe not,” Luke said once he saw a new type of mutated zombies approaching in the distance.

Walking in four legs and in very creepily mana, Luke saw zombies quickly approaching from their west side. It was so weird that even Luke couldn’t help but look disgusted at the zombie… still, that thing was faster than the Corrupt Crows.

Without wasting time, he fired two knives at the monster but then quickly jumped and then landed at top of an upside-down car with a fearsome speed.

“I warned you… this enemy was bound to show up,” Rina said.

It was a zombie focused on speed, and that made Luke wonder if he would see others that were strength-based as well… Nevertheless, Amanda and Celia tried to hit the creature. Still, even their projectiles didn’t land because the monster ran to the side.

“It is keeping its distance… while waiting for an opening,” Luke said as he watched other zombies approaching in the distance. “Focus on the others, and I will deal with this one.”

That kind of challenge was exactly what Luke was looking for, so he jumped from the pickup and approached the monster. The zombie was fairly intelligent since it was keeping its distance, but Luke knew that it would take the bait if he approached it alone, and that happened.

When the zombie realized that Luke was closer to itself than from the others, the creature dashed at him even faster than before. Luke swung his sword to cut the monster in two, but the creature lowered its stance and then jumped backward at the last moment. It was really smart… getting closer to Luke won’t be that easy, but killing it won’t be a cinch as well.

“I guess it is worth a try…” Luke thought.

When the monster approached again, Luke didn’t swing his sword. He used Spark Sphere when he saw the creepy limbs of the monster get close. The beast also realized something was off and tried to retreat at the last moment, but one of its legs still got hit and was paralyzed. Luke used that chance to dash forward, but even with one fewer leg, the monster ran away… not for long, though. Luke ran out of patience and used Stinger on the head of the zombie. However, the creature blocked the attack by using one of its limbs. Luke prepared another attack, but the effect of his magic had disappeared, and the monster used its three not hurt legs to escape again.

“This thing is only good for running…” Luke furrowed his eyebrows. “Shalia, can you freeze one of its legs?”

“Only if you get close enough,” Shalia replied. “And only for a moment as well.”

“It is fine. Just make sure to make the monster lose all of its balance,” Luke said

Luke approached in a single moment after using Stinger, and then Shalia froze the remaining leg of the right side of the monster. The zombie lost its balance, but it still tried to run away. However, Luke used Sting yet again and, this time, split the monster in two. Even though the head of the creature was on the side of the body, the zombie had close to no defensive abilities…

You obtained 10 experience points.

You obtained 10 gold coins.

“You were saying something about fast enemies…” Luke said.

“Oh, please… you asked for Shalia’s help, don’t make it sound like it was easy,” Rina said.

Putting that aside, Luke didn’t have time to celebrate since he already could see more zombies coming from the West. Still, he returned to the others to make sure he wouldn’t miss any of the mutants. He did the right thing since he saw some fire zombies approaching from the north. Unfortunately, Amanda and Celia killed them with their Ice Arrows.

“I wanted to fight them…” Luke said.

“There are plenty of others around… why are you making a fuss out of this?” Amanda frowned.

“Because they give more experience, and I want to keep being the strongest of the group,” Luke replied.

“… again, it amazes me how come you can say that kind of thing so easily,” Amanda said. “Just say that you want the strength to reunite with your parents as soon as possible.”

“This girl sure likes to nag all the time,” Shalia said while showing a displeased expression.

“I think Luke has some blame in this situation, though,” Rina said.

The number of ordinary zombies was quite high, and since they were starting to give more experience, Luke decided to try that. Fight them up close like a beast without worrying about getting scratched and bitten.

“Let’s see… that motion should be enough,” Luke smiled while he imagined how he should fight the large group of enemies.

The whole group frowned when they saw Luke dashing toward the largest group of zombies approaching. That one had forty zombies, and whenever they saw a group like that earlier, they retreated since they couldn’t dim out their numbers before they could get too close. And yet, Luke had lost his mind to the point of charging toward them by himself.

When Luke got close enough to attack, he held his sword with both hands and then swung it downward in a vertical motion from his right to his left side. Instead of stopping the motion when he destroyed the head of one zombie and split the torso of two others, he used it to move upward, and then he swung vertically again, but this time from the left to the right side. Once again, he killed a zombie and damaged enough others to make them fall. His sword was big enough to destroy ordinary zombies like that. After repeating that motion a few times, Luke killed ten zombies and knocked down around thirty, and now they could only move their heads, and one arm, and some couldn’t even do that.