Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

"It's safe," Mathew shouted roughly half a minute after dropping down on the other side of the fence himself.

The thirty seconds that he kept the girls in dark, Mathew spent looking around and scanning for any zombie presence.

"We are coming over!" Nadia shouted before her hands appeared on the railing.

"Heavy... hop!" Leila shouted joyfully when she jumped over the fence, easily landing right by Mathew's side.

"Stop showing off," Mathew killed the girl's enthusiasm. "We all know that you are agile, but save your movies for when you need them," he added, taking a conservative stance on how they should proceed.

"Come on," Leila ran around a little only to end up standing in front of Mathew. She then leaned forward, as if wanting to show her cleavage, only to stare up at Mathew's eyes with a huge pout all over her own face.

"Buzzkill," Leila muttered, right when the two other girls jumped down. She then backed off and regained her posture. "Where are we going first?" she then asked, turning her head to look at Mat's face while crossing her arms behind her back.

"I want to check the radio station," Mathew informed. "This seems like the most promising building out in this general direction," he added.

"What's so special about it?" Nadia asked, her eyes running over every last detail of their surrounding. She was already armed with her machete, ready to take action at any moment.

'At least there is someone with common sense,' Mathew held back his sigh as he conveyed his gratitude to the girl through his eyes. The young man then shook his head and looked ahead.

"It's a post-commie building. For how sloppy those prefab buildings can be when it comes to details, they are practically bunkers in general," Mathew explained.

"Aren't they susceptible to the damage?" Daria asked, jumping in on a topic. "They replaced most of them by now, so I'm surprised to hear that there is one, right near the city's center," she added. "And speaking of the replacements, wouldn't a megablock be a better option?"

"Over a hundred floors high, practically an autonomous unit with production areas, food supply, and complex logistic chain keeping the place running," Mathew summed up, pretending to be in awe of the girl's idea.

He then lowered his eyes and shook his head.

"First off, we don't have the means to keep the supply of the megablock. Even assuming that there is anything left in the shops inside, we are only talking about their warehouses," Mathew shook his head. "There will be no magical deliveries of stuff from the outside."

"But isn't it sturdy?" Daria didn't want to give up on the idea, for some reason. "I mean, any material that can hold the weight of a hundred floors would be practically impossible to destroy, wouldn't it?"

"Sure, that's a valid point," Mathew admitted easily, taking the girl by a surprise. "But right now, we lack the means to take over one," he then added as he turned around and started to move down the road.

"I don't understand!" Daria protested.

'Why is she getting so passionate about this matter?' Mathew thought. He moved barely a few steps when he froze in place and turned around to look at the girl.

"Why are you so interested in the megablock?" Mathew asked outright instead of keeping some sort of shadowy game going.

Daria blushed and lowered her eyes to the ground. She then cupped her hands together, only to end up hiding them behind her back a bit later.

"It's... My family lives in the megablock nearby," Daria revealed, averting her eyes to the side.

"So that's the thing," Mathew muttered.

He had long gotten used to the idea of his family being long gone. It was a shocking truth that he had no other choice but to accept in his previous life.

'But is it really the same of us right now?' Mathew asked himself.

He then raised his head to the sky as a flurry of ideas moved through his head.

"First off, we need to keep growing," Mathew suddenly announced while putting on a solemn tone. "Only if we are growing faster than the zombies and evolved monsters in the area can we believe to be somewhat safe," he explained the very first founding idea behind what he just decided on.

"Secondly, we will aim to bring everyone to the fortress. But while in the process of doing so, we will try to progress on this point as well," Mathew stated before taking a look at the faces of his girls.

"What do you mean by that?" Nadia asked, her face all serious as she stopped and looked Mathew directly in the eyes.

"Just like we ourselves can't stop growing, we have to keep improving the fortress as well," Mathew revealed his point of concern. "I have no proof or even any stable reasoning, but I believe we need to establish two more fortresses to upgrade all three of them into something better," Mathew elaborated a bit more over his idea.

"To level the fortress up," Daria said as she nodded her head. Yet, instead of simply nodding to everything Mathew said, she then looked at him sharply. "And whose family should we now prioritize, then?"

The silence covered the entire group. From the troubled looks that appeared on everyone's faces, one could guess what they were all thinking about.

For every last one of them, their family should come first. But now, unless they were willing to fully split out, they had to decide.

"I think..." Nadia opened her mouth.

"Let's go find Mathew's family first," Leila suddenly proposed, only for both of the girls and Mathew to look at her.

"There is no point," Mathew quickly shook his head and raised his hands. "My parents are out of the city so there is no way I can help them," he explained only to end up bitting down on his lips. "But my cousin..." Mathew's expression suddenly turned sour.

"What is that another girl?" Leila jumped up, ready to pounce on Mathew despite being the one who assumed everything that could be possibly taken wrong from Mathew's recent words.

"No," the young man replied while shaking his head. He then rolled his eyes. "It's a boy. Or rather, a young man, a year below me," Mathew explained before a look of concern appeared in his eyes.

"He is everything that I always strived to be," Mathew admitted as the look behind his eyes softened. He then raised them and looked at the girls. "And that means, he will easily be able to figure a way out of the apocalypse himself," Mathew revealed with a big smile appearing on his lips.

"Then, who should we go to look for first?" Nadia asked as a small, knowing smile appeared on her lips.

Being the old friend of Mathews, she obviously met his cousin before.

"First, we go to the radio station," Mathew announced. "And once we clear it out, we are going to look for the family that should be the closest to us," Mathew then decided.

"That would be Daria's family, then," Leila said with a sad look behind her eyes. "My family..." she took a deep breath before raising her eyes and looking into Mathew's eyes.

"My family lives on the other end of the city."