Chapter 20: Take the fight to the monster instead

"Mat!" Naida shouted, kneeling right at the edge.

But with most of the floors collapsing, she couldn't reach him even if she would dare to make the jump.

It was simply outside of the human ability to cover the distance that now separated the two of them.

"You don't know when the zombies will breakthrough!" Mathew shouted, still worried about the secondary staircases.

'Even with the stairs blown up, if the floors didn't collapse there, the zombies could still warm the floor,' he thought, gritting his teeth in rage caused by powerlessness.

"I will find a way back up, but be ready to escape to the roof at any time, now!" Mathew shouted before decisively turning on his heel.

Keeping eye contact with the girl for any longer would likely force the young man to change his mind. After all, if he dared to climb the outer wall of the building, he could still make it back...

'No way,' Mathew gritted his teeth as he moved away, directing his steps to one of the secondary staircases. Still, it wasn't an easy task.

First, Mat approached one of the classrooms located near the structural waypoint of the school.

The entire building was built on the plan of a cross of equally-sized parts. The world's directions aligned with each of the compounds and gave the name to each of the buildings.

The main staircase of the entire building was located in the dead middle of the cross, a designated square area for people to move up and down the building.

Yet, at the end of each compound, there was a set of two secondary staircases.

'Yeah, there is no way,' Mathew thought after checking most of the level and then returning to the edge where the floor collapsed. 'This building is busted,' he thought, looking down the gap only to see the zombies slowly roaming through the rubble.

And since the east side of the campus was no longer possible to traverse, Mathew had no other choice but to reach one of the other wings!

"I guess I have no other choice but to scale the wall," Mathew muttered after taking stock of the situation.

His best bet was to enter the classroom located nearest the devastated staircase. From there, he would stay by the wall and then move to the outside. From there on, he would have to somehow get to the opposite compound, hoping the floor would be in a better state there.

'There is one upside to the floors collapsing,' Mathew thought when he continued to scour the floor. 'Even if only for a moment, zombies aren't there,' Mathew took notice as he bent down near the edge and looked as far as he could towards the insides of the other compounds.

Sadly, the last part that still had the floor was way too far from the main staircase to let Mathew get any intel on the state of the other compounds.

"I guess I have no other choice but to bet," the young man muttered, looking to his right and left only to release a deep sigh.

Maybe this choice didn't matter. But there was also a chance that one of the floors allowed easy access to the upper floor, while the other was filled with zombies and impossible to traverse.

"Well, nothing good will come from just standing around," Mathew decided, shaking his head before relaxing the muscles of his neck and allowing the air resistance to stop the movement of his head.

The last time it swung a little before hanging still ended up to the right. And the classroom to the left became Mathew's choice.

Not because the swing of his head had any meaning. It would work the same as if he threw a coin up; Mathew simply had no coin anywhere on himself.

And the only reason why he picked left, the opposite to what his head guided him to, was to demonstrate his defiance towards fate!

"Let's see what I have to deal with," Mathew muttered as he made his way towards the doors of the class.

It had the usual setup, with one door leading directly to the class for all of the students while the other door first led to a small shed for the teacher and only then to the front of the class.

And it just so happened that the convenient class entrance was on the no-floor side of the building, forcing Mathew to carve his way out with the use of his ax and sword.

The main doors to the shed gave up after just a few cuts that isolated its hinges from the rest of the door's panel. Yet, contrary to Mathew's expectations, the door connecting the shed to the class was of better quality.

"Damn," Mathew muttered after tiring himself out a bit, only to see just a few shallow cuts on the frame of the wall.

While it was clearly not reinforced with steel, the kind of plastic and wood used to craft those inner doors somehow turned out to be pretty resistant against simple slashing attacks.

Yet, there was a limit to just how durable those doors could be. And given how Mathew approached them from the inner side, he simply changed his target to the hinges instead.

"Finally," Mathew muttered when the metal bolts finally gave up, putting considerably lesser fight than the door itself.

With this last barrier now out of his way, Mathew stepped into the class, only to notice how most of its floor was gone.

"This isn't going to be easy," the young man admitted out loud, only to secure the ax by putting its handle down behind the collar of his shirt while attaching the blade to his belt.

'The teachers would surely freak out if they were to see me like that,' Mathew thought, a mischievous smile appearing on his lips as he approached and then opened the window up.

Just like he expected, the main structure of the building still stood. But in regards to wall-climbing, there was only a small gutter slightly above the windows...

And no footing whatsoever.

"Nadia would surely freak out if she were to see me," Mathew whispered to himself, putting the image of the girl before his eyes.

The look behind his pupils steeled up, filling with determination.

He already sacrificed his life once to save her. And he wasn't going to do that again. Because this kind of end was pretty sad.

What Mathew wanted to achieve was a peaceful life that he could enjoy with Nadia instead!

And for that end, he had no other choice but to stand on the edge of the building and eye the small, metal pipe that ran along the wall.

"God, I hope it's properly secured in place," Mathew whispered while swallowing a gulp of saliva.

He was on the second-highest level of the school right now, putting him well above fifteen meters above the ground.

The fall from such heigh would surely be unpleasant, although it would likely give Mat pretty short torture before his injuries would claim the young man's life and end his suffering.

But that didn't matter.

The screaming of the monster indicated its presence somewhere amidst the lower floors. And with a monster roaming the school's building, the rooftop would never be safe.

That's why, instead of waiting for it to threaten the survivors, Mathew was determined to bring the fight to the monster instead, dealing with it outside of the worried eyes of his girl.

Or rather, outside of anyone's eyes, as Mathew's actions effectively limited the number of systems that the students of the school could receive.

In other words, while this was the same world that Mathew experienced before his sacrifice, some things have drastically changed.

And the approach to the system was one of those things.

"Well, I guess it's time for me to go," Mathew whispered, encouraging himself. And then, with his eyes locked on the half-pipe running along the wall, Mathew jumped.