The time ran out.
The clock struck zero.
Mathew's heart beat faster, only to slow down.
Instead of getting excited, his mind turned completely empty, ready to adapt to any and all possible situation from now on.
The time came...
And went away.
The corridor remained as silent as one could imagine.
In the middle of a massive high school, that is.
"Thank God."
A visible wave of relief washed off Mathew's entire self.
He plummeted down on the ground, only supporting his upper body with his arms.
"Is that all this... was about?" the officer asked.
The man still kept his hand on his gun's holster. But he saw Mathew's reactions.
And they were genuine.
"I guess so," Mathew replied with an uneasy smile. But as much as he wanted, he couldn't relax.
Because while the second clock stopped...
The third one hidden in the corner of Mathew's vision continued to tick.
A wave of uneasiness filled Mathew's eyes.
He then shook his head.
"So, do you want to cuff me now?" he asked, relaxing a bit.
'Thank fucking God,' he thought, all the strength leaving his arms.
"Now that I think about it," the officer hesitated for a moment. "You did say that you only destroyed a cabinet, didn't you?"
'Huh?' Mat couldn't understand what the officer was talking about. He understood the words but not the meaning behind the question.
"Yeah, I only did it to confirm if what I saw in my dream adhered to the reality," Mathew explained before releasing a deep sigh.
The entire situation tired him down to no end.
"I guess... This matter didn't really explode in the media yet. But, since there was no real harm attempted, I could put in a good word..." the man scratched his cheek, clearly unsure of how to proceed.
He was a veteran officer of the prevention group. Not someone educated to deal with adolescents.
But Mathew didn't smile. Instead, his face froze.
'Those sounds...' he thought, listening in to the lowest frequency that he could hear.
His eyes opened up wide.
'Now I remember!' he thought, desperately shifting his attention to the girl beside him.
"Can you hear those low sounds?" he asked, grabbing the girl by her shoulders.
It was a very low, barely noticeable beating. A rhythmic sound that one had to really focus on hearing.
Nadia's face turned still for a moment before her pupils widened as she looked at Mathew's face.
"What are those?" she asked, shocked to her wits.
"What are you talking about, guys?" the officer asked, puzzled by the sudden change.
"You won't be able to hear it," Mathew rushed up, alerting the man in the process.
"Don't worry," Mat added, seeing the nervous reaction of the man. "We don't have the time for that, but you can grab any young student in the school right now," Mathew pointed out as his expression sank.
"To do what?" the officer asked, clearly on edge.
"To ask if they hear a low, rhythmic sound beating at the very edge of their consciousness," Mathew explained before focusing his eyes on the infirmary's door.
The relative silence of before was now nowhere to be seen.
In the short moment when Mat's idea occupied their attention, the infirmary turned into a mess.
"What is going on?" the officer started, moving his eyes on the care room's doors.
"It's starting," Mathew replied, his face turning pale. He involuntarily took a step back, only to move his eyes on the girl behind him.
'No,' he thought, challenged by the reality.
With every second, Mat could recall a new harbinger of what was about to come.
The air in the school tensed up. The beating in his ears got louder.
It was exactly the same symptoms that he had experienced two weeks prior.
"Stay behind me at all times," Mathew ordered, shielding the girl with his own body.
'The first few moments will be the worst,' he thought, glancing over at the officer.
It would rest on the policeman's right call for the desperate plan to succeed. And that was a variable Mathew couldn't allow.
"What's going on?" Nadia muttered silently, grabbing herself by her head.
Mathew's heart exploded.
'For her symptoms to appear so strongly...'
His soul broke apart.
She not only would be forced to witness the apocalypse, but she would also turn into an evolved monster herself!
'What the fuck did change?!' Mathew thought, desperate to find a way to change this unfair fate.
'Wait,' he suddenly thought, as a wild idea appeared in his mind.
The doors to the infirmary started to shake, indicating the scale of the hell inside.
"What the fuck is going on?!" the officer screamed out, pulling out his gun.
"Mathew turned his head to the man.
"This is the best moment to call for the backup," he said calmly, looking the officer directly in the eye.
And the man hesitated.
He was a veteran of a police elite squad and a former military as well. And he could recognize the eyes of someone who went through hell and back.
'How the hell could a kid...' he thought, only to glance over towards the doors. 'Something wrong is really going on,' he thought, tightening his grasp over his handgun.
"Guys, come on in," the officer muttered.
He didn't bother turning the radio on. Which meant that his team outside heard every last word.
'Just like expected,' Mathew smiled, reassured by the development.
And then, just like that, it happened.
The doors burst open. And then a single student walked out of place.
He was grabbing his own arm, but even his entire hand couldn't stop the copious amounts of blood that trickled between his fingers.
'Poor guy,' Mathew thought, unable to do anything for the man.
'With how little I know, stepping inside that room was a suicide,' he thought.
The man that walked out wasn't turned yet. Which meant he was likely the first casualty of the apocalypse.
'Poor guy,' Mathew thought, steeling his resolve. 'But a lucky one too,' he added before glancing over at the officer.
"If you want me to grab my weapons, now it's the time," Mathew announced. Even though he wanted to appear cheeky, he couldn't hide the worry on his face.
"There is no need for you to do anything," the man said when the footsteps reached their ears. He fixed his composure and aimed his gun at the door.
"It will take about ten more seconds before he turns," Mathew said without a care in the world. "You should watch it to make up your mind," he added as he turned his eyes to the girl.
"I will save you, don't worry," he said, his worry exploding when he saw Nadia's cloudy eyes.
'It's not good,' Mat bit down on his lips.
'If I managed to save her the last time by obtaining the miracle system, then what can I do now?' he asked himself.
This was the hurdle that he didn't expect.
When he received his miracle system two weeks ago, Mathew wished to reunite with the girl. But, outside of his last wish, this one cost him the most.
And then, just like one would expect from a miracle, Nadia just happened to appear beside him a moment later.
It was this one desperate wish that gave him enough strength to survive. Even if it was for two more weeks.
'At the current rate, she will turn in about an hour,' Mathew thought, helping the girl down as she could no longer stand.
"What wrong with her?" the officer asked, turning his eyes away from the door for a moment.
The rest of the police squad appeared in the corridor, all heavily armed.
'That's a good sigh,' Mathew thought, smiling gently at sight. Then, he turned his face towards the doors.
'It should start about now,' he thought.
Then the wall crumbled.
Pushed by the force of tens of zombies, the entire section of the wall around the infirmary's doors collapsed. And a single second later, the corridor filled with agile zombies.
The rarest kind of this species. Within the two weeks that Mat survived before, they only appeared right at the beginning.
Outside of their speed, they were no different from normal zombies. And in the time he spent hiding with Nadia away in their makeshift fortress, Mathew formulated a guess.
Mat smiled as he walked towards his weapons.
"Remember, guys," he shouted over, noticing the shock in the eyes of the arriving men.
They heard every last word of his through the officer's active radio. So to a degree, they knew what was likely to be the emergency here.
But anticipating something and experiencing it first hand...
"The more you get, the stronger your system should be," Mat said, hiding his gun in his pocket and pulling out the fire ax. "And if we contain them here, we might be able to secure the entire school!"
"What is this guy talking about?" one of the policemen muttered before moving their eyes on the mass of approaching zombies.
They were agile... but within the zombie meaning of this word.
The officers still had some time to decide on the course of action.
"Stop right there!" the man that I requested before suddenly shouted, pointing his gun at the zombies.
Obviously, not a single one listened. Instead, his voice only attracted their attention, making the entire wave rush right at the man.
"Ting!"
Mathew stood too close to the gun. His hearing in his left ear went off instantly.
"Shoot them down," the officer said, commanding his entire unit.
Mathew looked towards the zombies, preparing himself for the massacre.
And then he saw just what made that officer shoot so fast.
The nurse's corpse walked towards them with half of her ribs area gone.
The officer has seen war. And he knew that people without half of their torse couldn't walk up straight.
It was this one sight that made him shoot.
"Leave some for me!" Mathew shouted, rushing into the fray before the rest of the officers could start shooting.
This was the only way to save Nadia from turning.
'If I could save her back then, that means she likely won't turn before the first hour,' Mathew thought, swinging his ax above his neck as he rushed forward. 'That means I need a system capable of saving her!' he thought.
He never learned any facts about what the systems were. It was something that just... appeared. The idea that those who killed zombies in the first hour would receive a system was... a stretch.
A simple attempt at explaining the unknown by mixing the stories up and finding common points.
There was a chance it was all for naught already, completely pointless.
'But I'm not going to give up,' Mathew thought, reaching the corpse of the nurse.
It used to be a lovely and kind woman, although legendary for her singlehood.
And now, even with a bullet in where her heart should be, she continued to walk towards the humans.
"I'm sorry," Mat muttered, finishing off his swing.
The key to fighting zombies lay in, stopping them from reaching you. As long as a human could remain in their top shape, they could easily fight off entire droves of zombies.
Mathew cut the zombie's head away but didn't bother to stomp it down.
Unable to move around, the zombie was now rendered completely useless.
But it was only the beginning.
Matt looked up towards the wave of former students sleazing out of the hole and rushing all towards him.
"Once we thin them out, make sure to take some down in close quarters!" Mathew shouted, raising his weapon above his head. "It's only a guess, but it might help!"
Mat buried his ax deep into the head of the zombie nearest to him.
'Fuck,' he cursed, desperately pulling at the handle, only to realize it was too late.
His desperate swing aimed at killing the one enemy that threatened him ended up costing Mat his weapon.
"Duck!" the officer shouted, pressing the trigger o his weapon a second later.
There was no sign of hesitation in his movements and actions either. The sight of those half-eaten bodies was enough to turn this calm law enforcer into a merciless veteran.
"Thanks!" I threw in the air, squatting and reaching out for my weapon.
That man's shot gave me just enough time to grab my tool of the massacre.
'There is no end to them,' Mathew thought, raising his eyes at the approaching enemies.
The zombies in the opening wave were surprisingly swift... but still within the scope of what one would expect from a zombie.
There were limits to how fast a half-eaten body could move.
Mat took a glance to update himself on the situation. He then glanced over at Nadia. Following that, a long wrinkle appeared on his forehead.
'Why is she infected?' Mathew asked himself, unable to fully embrace the seriousness of the situation. 'What should I do? Will my system be able to save her?'
A flurry of questions exploded in Mathew's mind.
'No use, there is only one thing I can do right now,' he thought as he raised his eyes on the approaching zombies.
There were two ways of saving Nadia.
'I can either rely on the system or force summon a merchant,' Mat thought, recalling the rules he learned about the apocalypse world in his past life.
'But this isn't going to be easy,' he thought, readying himself for yet another fight.
Mat swung his ax, cleanly cutting the head off the zombie's neck.
'Patric, was he?' Mathew thought, glancing at the bloodied face.
A senior from one year up. A vibrant person in the music circle. And now but a headless zombie left to rot away.
Mathew then swung his ax again and then again. The two weeks of intense and constant combat ingrained themselves into his flesh, allowing Mat to proceed relatively calmly.
'At the current rate,' Mat thought, using the opening in the fight to glance over at the girl.
Nadia's forehead was already turning bright pink, coated with fat drops of her sweat. Her breathing was hard, and her eyes half-closed.
Mat then looked over to the clock in the corner of his vision.
'She won't last until the first wave,' he realized, his fingers tightening into fists on their own.
It meant a simple thing.
It didn't matter whether his system could prevent Nadia from turning anymore. Because she would likely succumb to the virus before Mat would receive his system in the first place.
A wave of powerlessness surged through Mat's veins, freezing his body on the spot.
And then, the fire behind his eyes reignited.
'If I can't use the system, then I will force summon this damned merchant!' he decided on the spot, gripping the handle of his weapon tighter.
Whoever was behind this apocalypse sure thought things through.
By killing zombies, one could extract a life's core from their brains. In the world changed by the apocalypse, those cores turned into the unified value for everything.
Or rather, that's what Mat believed would happen if he lasted any further into the post-apocalyptic world. Yet, there was one thing that he knew for sure.
One could forcefully summon a merchant by gathering a hundred of said cores.
In the world of the apocalypse, those who worked hard would receive bountiful rewards.
By exchanging further cores with the merchant, one could obtain basically anything they could desire, all for a fair price.
'I will need about a hundred and fifty,' Mat thought, focusing his eyes on the nearest group of zombies.
But just as he was about to rush it, a series of shots shook the air in the corridor.
The backup force of the anti-terrorists finally joined the battle.
The battle went on quickly from that point on.
Despite being slightly stronger than the normal zombies, they still didn't pose any real danger to a prepared defense. For now, Mathew's group was safe.
"Ugh!" Mathew moaned from exhaustion when he brough his ax down on the head of the last of the zombies.
With several minutes left on the clock, he still had some time to help Nadia out.
But he could only stand his ground, looking down at all the cores that he managed to gather.
With the swift zombies all defeated, new zombies would only appear during the first wave. The first wave would start once Mat's third clock reached its time.
In other words, with all the zombies gone, no more would appear before after Nadia would turn.
And in Mat's palms, there were only ninety-five stones.
"Is that all of them?" the police officer approached Mat shortly after he finished the job.
"For now, yeah," Mat replied, turning around and ignoring the man.
'There is no way I will waste my time talking with him right now,' Mat thought, falling to his knees by Nadia's side.
He then picked up her delicate fingers, only to feel just how hot she was.
"Are you here?" Mathew asked gently, reaching out and wiping the sweat off the girl's forehead.
Her half-opened eyes appeared to be asleep as if she was no longer aware of her surroundings.
'She is worse than it expected,' Mathew thought, carefully inspecting Nadia's face and eyes.
Without a hundred cores, Mat couldn't summon a merchant. And even if he did, he would have no cores left for the medicine.
"Nadia," Mathew brought his lips closer to the girl's ear, gently pushing her hair out of the way as he whispered. "I need you to hold on for ten more minutes," Mathew said before glancing over at the clock in the corner of his vision.
Only five minutes left before the first wave would truly begin.
"Hey, is that all? Or is something else going to happen?!" the officer from before shouted, forcing Mat out of his daze.
"In five minutes, a small percent of the population will turn into normal zombies," Mat said before turning his eyes back to the girl.
"Nadia, I need you to promise me this," Mathew then whispered right into the girl's ear. "Promise me that you will hold on for ten more minutes," he continued to press the girl.
"How could I refuse," Nadia whispered, using as little air as she could to voice her words. "When you are asking so sweetly?" she muttered, moving her hand around in an attempt to find Mathew's face.
'She is losing her sight already?' Mathew thought, his body tensing up.
The only reason why he tried so hard right now was to keep Nadia safe by his side. But as it turned out, no matter what he would do, it would be all pointless!
Because losing one's sight, was the last symptom before one would turn.
'I don't give a fuck anymore,' Mathew thought, bringing the girl closer in his arms.
"I promise," Nadia muttered, clearly having trouble voicing her thoughts. "I will hold," she added before suddenly sucking on the air as if she was drowning.
Mat couldn't do anything but cuddle Nadia's shaking body in his arms.
The clock reached zero.
The first wave started.
"Man, speak to me!" the police officer attempted to force Mat out of his daze but to no avail.
[System activated]
[Wives Leveling System Awakens]
[Pick Your Wife]
Three windows appeared one by one, right before Mat's eyes.
He then looked around to check on the situation.
No police officer appeared to have any trouble, meaning none of them would turn during the first wave.
And that left Nadia in Mat's arms.
"Nadia, do you hear me?" Mathew probed, once again clearing the girl's forehead from sweat.
He then gulped down his saliva before leaning over the girl's ear, as close as if he wanted to nibble on it.
"Nadia, will you be my wife?" Mathew asked.
There was no time to doubt the System. Faced with the last seconds that he could use, Mathew wouldn't stop before anything.
But Nadia could no longer speak.
Then, her lips moved a little. No voice came from between them, but they clearly formed two different figures!
[Wife accepted] the System announced in its usual, cold voice.
And then, all the windows disappeared from Mat's vision, forcefully returning him to reality.
'
Mat's eyes instantly moved down to the girl in his arms.
Nadia's temperature fell down, signaling that the sudden appearance of the System worked.
'Thank God,' Math thought, feeling the stable rhythm in which the girl started to breathe.
Whatever his System did, it clearly worked.
'But I doubt this will be all,' Mat thought, caressing Nadia's cheek for a while as he dealt with an overwhelming wave of relief.
'She is so fragile,' Mat thought, gently hugging the girl into his chest.
Normally she would be the one to protect him. Yet, right now, she felt like a small, little puppy when confined to Mat's arms.
'Whatever will happen from now on, I need to protect her,' Mat thought to himself, resting his chin on the top of the girl's head. Keeping her enclosed in his grasp like that was the only medicine for his anxiety-torn heart.
"Listen to me, you little fuck!" the officer finally couldn't hold himself back anymore. He shouted so loud that Mathew had no other choice but to raise his head. "What the hell is going to happen next?!"
Now that his attention was back in reality, Mathew noticed the low, guttural sound coming from the staircase to their back.
The zombies were already nearing this place.
'And she didn't turn,' Mathew thought, looking down at the girl in his arms.
She was sleeping, clearly exhausted to no end by the attack of the virus.
"I can't stop yet," Mathew told himself, laying the girl down on the floor. He then raised his eyes on the officer. "Right now, we need to obtain as many life cores as we can," he said, gathering himself up and taking hold of his ax.
"Those stones you collected before?" the negotiator asked, leaning his head to the side while sending a glance towards the zombies approaching from the side.
"That's right," Mathew nodded his head, fixing his hold over his weapon. "For a hundred, we can summon a merchant. But we need a thousand to establish a fortress," he said, taking a step towards the incoming wave.
Now that Nadia was relatively safe, Mathew no longer needed to hold back. Contrary to that, he had to secure his position as soon as possible.
Only by gaining access to a merchant and farming the cores could Mat hope to establish himself in this new, changed world.
'Whatever it will take, I will do,' Mat thought, locking his eyes on the nearest zombie. 'No matter what, I will keep Nadia safe!'
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