Chapitre 33: Chapter 33 - Freeing the Town 4
"Up here!" Rynold yelled as he found the stairs that led higher into the building.
Looking around, Rynold slowly realized that the area around them was empty. It was a lot more empty than what Rynold originally thought.
'Maybe some of the people have already left the building to meet up at a neutral location,' Rynold thought. There wasn't any time for them to mess around and check every room right now. They had to keep going to a higher position for their survival.
The group continued to run up the stairs like they were things chasing them. In reality, however, the Mech Knight dutifully guarded the ghouls against entering the building. Luckily, the ghouls don't really chase after humans but attack whatever that was moving aside from ghouls themselves.
Pant... pant...
Rynold and the group finally reached the topmost floor of the building. It was a storeroom for any and all sorts of radio equipment. Since the power was out, they had to make do with what they could see. Fortunately, the emergency lights were turned on but it was still dim.
"Look for stairs that would lead to the roof," Rynold said as he caught his breath.
Going to the radio tower had two goals that they needed to accomplish. Primarily, it was to get both Skye and, more importantly, Jack to a place where they could provide long-range support. The other goal was to get radios for the team to communicate.
As Jack and Skye tried to look around their surroundings, Rynold was doing something else entirely. He was looking for any sort of battery-powered radios.
"Here!" Skye suddenly called out. There was a door that was buried behind some boxes that looked like it wasn't opened in a very long time. There was no reason for the people of a small town to go to a rooftop after all, apart from some maintenance on the radio tower, that is.
Kicking the boxes aside, the group opened the door to the rooftop sky deck. It was relatively barren apart from the radio tower and metal railings that guarded any sort of accidental falls.
The sun was directly on top of them as Jack looked down and did what was most natural for him.
With a smile on his face, he pulled the Poisonous Mana Rifle and went on a frenzy. His adrenaline and bloodlust were going wild as he shot continuously, killing ghouls with every shot.
"Damn," Rynold cursed lightly as he looked at X getting overwhelmed by pure numbers. He had no choice but to dispell the summoning. The ghouls didn't realize what went on and their confusion took over them as if asking where did their target go?
"Hey, Jack," Rynold called out. Jack had lost his rationality as his adrenaline took over and kept on shooting. The mana coming from the rifle was running wild as Jack's emotions bubbled up to the shape of the mana bullet that he was shooting.
"Jack!" Rynold called out once more but to no avail, his face was getting noticeably irritated. "JACK!" Rynold finally loudly yelled to the young soldier that snapped Jack from his stupor.
"Calm down, man!" Jack agitatedly responded. He was surprised that Rynold yelled all so suddenly.
"I should say the same to you. You're wasting Mana shooting down numbers like that. Focus on the objective at hand and play it smart, you idiot," Rynold scolded.
It was an unreasonable request for Jack to save his Mana when it was the only way for them to kill the creatures from their height. They were about five stories above ground but it was clear that Rynold and Jack had different ideas in mind.
Seeing both of the young men's agitated attitude, Skye had no choice but to step in. "Calm down, both of you," she said with a serious tone, "we have things to do, and arguing is not one of them."
Rynold let out a sigh that admitted he may have overstepped but he would never say it. "Check if you can see where Oliver and Shyft are," he said to Jack.
Jack shook his head signaling his defeat. He raised his Poisonous Mana Rifle and looked through the scope that he had attached from his old rifle to this one.
"I see Oliver fighting against something that looks like its hands got flattened out by a steamroller and a bunch of other ghouls. He's," Jack hesitated for a second, "losing — badly."
Rynold laughed at what Jack said, "the guy still doesn't know when to call it quits, huh? What about Shyft?"
Jack stood up and moved to the opposite railing. The distance between Oliver and Shyft was quite far after all.
"He's fighting against something that looks like it has — no, that can't be right..."
"Move!" Rynold pushed Jack to the side and looked at the scope. He saw his uncle fighting against a ghoul that moved fast with what looked like red claws. Rynold didn't know if the claws were from Shyft's blood but he knew that his uncle couldn't fight against something like that.
Rynold cursed, even much worse than before. Skye got used to this considering how much time they've spent together since she had gotten together with Oliver. But Jack had different ideas...
'This guy has the worst vocabulary I've ever seen,' Jack thought as he got himself back up from Rynold's push.
"Sorry for pushing you but, both of you, stay here," Rynold ordered. He didn't have time to dilly-dally and save both of the guys that were in trouble. He had to move, lives are on the line.
Before he left, he went back inside to the room that they came from and hurriedly looked for a radio. A few moments later, he finally found what he was looking for.
A set of handheld radios were set out on the sky deck and Rynold threw one of them to Jack. There wasn't anything that needed to be said. As soon as Rynold threw the radio, he placed the rest into his inventory and jumped off the roof.
'Both of them should be safe up in the roof,' Rynold thought as he was free-falling. He raised his left hand and shot the grapple on the side of the radio building to slow his descent and land on the roof of the nearest house.
He didn't have the time to clear out ghouls as they would only do nothing and slow him down.
Jack resumed shooting as Rynold made his way to where his uncle currently was. Although he wanted to go save both of them, he knew he could only save one of them for now. Oliver was noticeably losing but Rynold had enough faith in him that he would pull out alive. His uncle, on the other hand, was a different story.
Rynold maneuvered his way to the right side of town, shooting his grapple when crossing rooftops that had gaps while his Agility moved him fast enough for him to pass through ghouls unhindered. Along the way, he kept thinking about how to deal with the ghoul that had claws.
From his first impressions, this type of ghoul looked fast, like Oliver fast. Its main form of attack was its speed paired with its sharp claws that look like it could puncture anything. A deadly combo, to say the least.
As he moved past the buildings, his sweat glistened from the sunlight as he kept moving towards his uncle. His determination was stumping above all else. He finally cleared the town and ran up the road. He had to save his uncle no matter what.
Speaking of his uncle...
Shyft was slowly backing up while keeping up a defensive stance. He was losing even if there weren't any apparent wounds that looked deadly. It was one of those moments that his experience came in handy and the attacks from the ghoul managed to avoid Shyft's vital organs, but that didn't mean that he was unscathed.
His body was filled with random cuts and scrapes here and there. Even though his stamina and state of mind were still clear, he knew he had would lose this fight. Shyft currently has no means of fighting back and it looked like the ghouls can fight on forever, as if the concept of being tired held no meaning on the creature.
The ghouls moved, ever so suddenly, their claws swiping at Shyft. On instinct, Shyft ducked and moved to the side; his agility was on par against the creature but one mistake would prove fatal.
Tsk.
Shyft was thinking of options to attack but the only thing apparent was for him to run and recover. He had no chance to win against his opponent at the current state of things.
With every duck and dodge that Shyft did, he slowly inched his way back to where the guard post was. He continuously waited until the creature showed an opening for him to run away but the creature possessed some sort of intelligence that stopped it from making unrecoverable mistakes.
Shyft felt a tinge of helplessness, until he saw a figure from the distance.
"Uncle!"
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone