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10% Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse / Chapter 41: Mathew's doubts

Chapter 41: Mathew's doubts

"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."

"Sure thing," Daria replied with a small smile.

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.


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
MotivatedSloth MotivatedSloth

First chapter for today, two more to go!

I might be a few minutes late with the second one, it all depends on how quickly I can write. So well, how about you push through and offer some stones to make my life even more miserable than it is now? Damn, with the ideas I have in store for this story, I should just forget about the thing called life and just become a writing machine for a year or so...

Chapter 42: Bugged purchase?

"Right, I should check my level first," Mathew muttered to himself the second he reached the floor he was heading towards.

He didn't bother to check his progress while they were cleaning the rooms at all. Sure, while it meant he couldn't really donate his levels as they came, Mathew opted to strictly focus on fighting instead.

But now, with only the ground floor and the confrontation with the monster left...

There couldn't be a better time to check his progress.

[Mathew Karian]

[Level - 1/1]

[Vitality - 32]

[Brawn - 38]

[Agility - 30]

[Mind - 5]

[Arcane - 5]

[Total - 110]

[Accumulated Levels - 2/11]

Mathew stared into his reflection that he procured on a random piece of glass he found on the floor. This was the one advantage of having the school in such a devastated state.

'I grew quite a lot, didn't I?' Mathew thought, taking in the news while trying to keep his calm. 'I didn't think it would grow THAT much, though.'

The disparity between Mathew's expectations and reality was, for once, net-positive.

"Well, it doesn't matter," Mathew uttered, turning his eyes away from the reflective surface of the piece of glass he found.

And there it was. The being covered in a black hood looked human only when looked at from the back or sides.

Mathew took a look at the merchant, only to stand up and move towards one of the classrooms instead.

In order to make a purchase, he needed cores. And since they didn't want to carry the cores all over the place just to weight themselves down, they were hidden in the classroom Mathew was moving towards.

"There you are," he muttered a moment later when he finally moved enough rubble away to uncover a small cave within the pile with a bag full of cores.

"There should be about a hundred or two hundred cores in there," Mathew thought as he grabbed the bag and moved out of the room.

Back in the corridor, Mathew took a moment to stand down, immersing himself in the peaceful atmosphere present in the place.

He closed his eyes and stood by the window, allowing the gentle wind sneaking in through many cracks and gaps in the building's outer wall to caress his face.

'If not for all the corpses around, this moment could be pretty tranquil,' Mathew thought, taking a deep breath.

He then opened his eyes, and with a refreshed resolve, Mathew approached the merchant.

There was nothing out of the ordinary in the way in which Mathew summoned the shop.

Just like before, he grasped at the shadow of the merchant's face, only for the domain of shadows to splurge around him and then pull the young man inside. And just like that, he returned to the familiar place with seven different shelves and the sacrifice altar in the middle.

"I wish to buy knowledge!" Mathew shouted, not even giving the shelves a single look.

"State your desired question."

For some reason, the system no longer held any emotions. It was as if Mathew's earlier episode with the merchant never happened.

'Maybe it's not happy by allowing its emotions to play a role?' Mathew thought, only to bite down on his lips a moment later. 'Look at me, already assuming the merchant is a conscious being, isn't it funny?'

Despite forming his thoughts in the way he did, Mathew was as far from laughing out loud as he could humanly be.

The prospect of the merchants actually being conscious and thus holding some sort of agenda...

'While it wouldn't be surprising, it would only confirm my guess,' Mathew thought, his face darkening a little to match the tone of what was going through his head.

"Do spending cores in merchants' shops affect the progress of the apocalypse?" Mathew asked the one question that he had continued to think about over a while already.

Yet, he received no answer.

"Unable to set a price for the question," the mechanical voice of the merchant quickly put down Mathew's hopes.

'Does that mean I'm wrong?' the young man thought.

The only logical reason for the merchant being unable to give him a price... Was that either the question was outside of the scope of the merchant's current level... Or if the answer itself had no value whatsoever.

'Judging from Murphy's law, it's likely the former,' Mathew thought, looking around the shelves that hold the merchant's wares. 'And I guess I really have no other choice but to test it manually,' he thought before raising his hand towards a random piece of a scroll.

"How much for this scroll?" Mathew asked, raising his eyes towards the densest part of the shadowy fog that made up the whole realm.

"A hundred and fifty cores," the merchant replied with its usual voice.

'Perfect,' Mathew thought, raising the bloodied bag with cores and throwing them all up.

A moment and an explosion of brightness later... Nothing happened.

"Huh?" Mathew shrugged only to raise his eyes up.

Around twenty cores still hung in the air, ready for him to pluck them back... But the lack of change, lack of information appearing... The sudden lack of responsiveness from the system worried Mathew.

"Where is the scroll?" Mathew asked out loud, hoping that the merchant wouldn't try to scam him just like that.

"You didn't buy any knowledge," the merchant replied, a hint of amusement present in its voice. Yet, when it appeared once again, its vibe turned spiteful. "What you purchased is an ability."


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
MotivatedSloth MotivatedSloth

2nd daily chapter for today, one bonus chapter left. Even though I'm writing it right away, I might be a little later than the reset. Sorry in advance :D

Also, keep the voting up, boys and galls., Top 7 for a bonus chapter for tomorrow, top6 for two bonus chaps!

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