Bab 10: Working smart

One day, that katana must have been one of the most treasured possessions of its owner. Now that mysterious person disappeared and most probably died, leaving the katana to gather dust for six whole years. Until this day, when people came to put it to actual use for the first time since it was forged.

Ellin walked up to take it from the wall and shook the dust from its sheath. Then, with a slight difficulty, he pulled the blade out and carefully examined it. "Hm… It's in a better state than I was afraid it would be. The rust is minimal, it only needs to be sharpened. Eve, you are really a bringer of luck! This is really a situation when you find what you wanted as soon as you stop looking!"

At the same time, Eve was drawn to a collection of mecha figurines. She knew all their designs intimately—they came from 'Steel Warriors', one of her favourite childhood shows. It was once a great inspiration for her to study robotics and programming, and seeing them now, Eve's heart filled with nostalgia. She didn't even turn her head, instead carefully blowing away dust from the figurines.

"Eve?" Ellin turned towards her. When he saw what she was doing, his face became helpless. "Nevermind. Do you like this kind of stuff too?"

"Only if there are robots." Eve still didn't turn towards him. Finally, she used her sleeve to clear the figurines better, ignoring how dusty it became, and only then found in herself to step away. "It's good that we found this sword. I can feel that the zombie that attacked us earlier is still around."

"What?" Ellin gasped. "For how long it followed us? Why didn't you tell anything?"

"Ever since we fought. I didn't tell you, because it kept its distance. I am sure it won't approach us soon; it needs to gather more information first."

"You know, Eve, I still don't understand how its brains work… Please, o wise one, can you explain it for dummies?" Ellin put his hands together in a pleading manner, but his grin showed he was joking.

Eve threw an unimpressed glance at him. Normally, she wouldn't bother, but she felt like she owed Ellin after all he did for her. She scratched her chin. "Think of it this way: when I released my aura, the zombie was stupefied because it didn't fit my previous strength. It snapped out of it when I attacked it, and now it follows us because it's curious. But it won't attack until it becomes sure that it has a chance to win. I don't know when that might be."

"O-oh. So that's how it is! I get it now." Ellin nodded. Then he nodded again for emphasis. "What if… it attacks while we are asleep?"

Eve shrugged. "You just would need to keep watch then."

"Wait, what do you mean me? Are you going to sleep twelve hours again? Why do you sleep so long all the time?" Ellin's face became pitiful. "I need to sleep too! Don't you know that sleeping for too long is also detrimental to health?"

In response, Eve looked at him cooly and raised a pointing finger. Her face was absolutely serious. "Because when you sleep, you rest. But when I sleep, I improve! I'd sleep for twenty-four hours, if I didn't need to do other things too. Consider this my real superpower."

That shut Ellin up, if only for a minute. "I wish I could have it too…"

This night, the acid zombie didn't attack. When Eve woke up, she found Ellin sitting with dark bags under his eyes. The room they were staying in was filled with a faint smell of tobacco smoke. It made Eve's nose itch.

"Good morning, Ellin. I thought you gave your last cigarettes away," she said, sitting up and waving her hand around to clear the air.

"Good morning!" Ellin's greeting was full of energy and positivity, despite his haggard looks. "I still had a bit of pipe tobacco with me, I rolled some myself. Was keeping it just for a nervous occasion like that one!."

After a quick breakfast, Ellin pushed the cleaned from dust katana into Eve's hands. "I had sharpened it while you were asleep, so now I'm going to show you how to use it. Don't worry, after some practice chopping zombies' head off, I'm sure you will be as good as I am! It's not like I am a pro, after all." He chuckled. "A total self-learner."

Eve unsheathed the blade of katana. Now, thanks to Ellin's efforts, it was clean and gleamed slightly in the sunlight. Then she looked at the sword at Ellin's belt. Contrary to her katana, it was a straight two-edged sword, though the length of the two weapons was about the same. Then Eve raised her eyes at Ellin. "I doubt that there are many people who are different. Show me how to do it."

For the training, they went outside. Eve used her aura to scare the zombies from around, including the acid one. After that, Ellin started his training with explanations about the right way to chop off heads and limbs without making a blade stuck between bones and how to use a sword to block zombies' attacks. Eve listened carefully, remembering everything from the first repeat. Finally, Ellin unsheathed his sword and started to show stances and movements.

He set his legs apart and raised a tip of his sword to the chest-level. "From this position you can both attack and defend. If you swing like that," Ellin performed a sharp horizontal strike together with a step forward, "you can reach a zombie before it even gets close and chop its head off!"

Eve nodded and copied his stance. Then, in a perfect replica of Ellin's earlier movements, she slashed through the air with a swoosh. "Got it."

Ellin stared at her, dumbfounded. "I think my eyes are deceiving me. Did you just perfectly copy the stance and a strike from the first try, Eve? Was it an accident? Can you, please, repeat this again?"

With a sigh threatening to leave her lips, Eve repeated the strike. Again, it was a perfectly executed copy of how Ellin did it. Then Eve looked at Ellin with narrowed eyes. "I can do this a couple more times if you have turned blind. Now stop wasting time and show me everything else. The faster you do, the faster we can get to our main task."

Ellin rubbed his eyes with a free hand and grinned. "I was just blinded by your awesomeness for a moment! Is this your superpower too? How many superpowers do you have?"

The sigh that was looking for its way out finally left Eve's lips. "It's called working smart, Ellin. Understood?"

He wouldn't get a proper explanation, anyway. In truth, her today's performance was the cumulative result of the nights she had spent reading and fixing her core's code, especially the last night. That night she focused all her attention on the single part of it—one that was responsible for movements. It already had potential to improve from practice and observation. Eve spent six years moving only with its help, so she could guess that she had it much move developed than any other human.

It didn't matter when this code was buried in the back of her mind, but Eve fixed that. Now it was actively guiding her movements whenever she willed it to. No less importantly, Eve improved its self-learning capability, allowing her directly copy movement patterns into her core's memory. She now could learn literally any strike after being shown only once. It didn't gave her actual combat experience, but neither did training.

"How is that working smart? This is working genius! Ge-ni-us!" Ellin flailed his hands, but despite his disbelieving tone, he was grinning from ear to ear. "You are impossible, Eve. But in a good way, good way!"

Eve scoffed. Many other people would've been blooming under all the praise, but she didn't feel that her work warranted so much of it. "Stop wasting time. Get on with it."

"Yes, yes!" Ellin nodded and set into another stance. It was akin to the previous one, but his sword was raised above his head. "Now this is a position for going all in attack. Leaves you wide open, but bigger swing lets you attack faster."

For several more hours Ellin taught Eve everything he could, while she copied all his movements like a mirror image. Soon enough, Ellin was out of things to show. After that, Eve tested her new skills by decapitating a couple of slow level zero zombies and the two of them went to look for unlooted drugstores, supplies to refill what they used and a bike for Ellin. A half of a day of scavenging didn't bring them a lot of loot, but slowly, their half-empty backpacks started to fill out.

It was already evening when a high-pitched cry echoed through the streets. Eve, Ellin, and the small crowd of zombies that slowly trailed after them, all turned their heads towards its source in unison.

"It comes out somewhere from there!" Ellin pointed towards a big storage building. "Someone needs our help!"

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KIRIM HADIAH

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