Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

"Perimeter secured!" Nadia shouted, barely managing to hold back her smirk.

Even if they turned into efficient zombie hunters in the span of just a little bit more than three days... They weren't any sort of military. And yet, ever since Mathew started to use this kind of language, Nadia didn't really mind humoring him and following his example.

"Everyone, good luck!" Mathew then shouted. He then swung his saber, casting the blood off its blade before putting the weapon back into its sheathe.

Securing the area was only the first step of the plan. It was good that they managed to achieve it so quickly, but it wasn't a real reason to celebrate yet.

"May your harvest be bountiful!" Leila shouted back while giggling, only to move to the back of the half-circle of the cars, ready to intercept any and all zombies that would pass either through the barricade of cars from the front or through Daria and the two hunters to the back.

"Let's get to work, then," Mathew nodded his head before hurrying it up towards the outermost car on the left. "You take the right!" he then shouted towards Nadia only to start kicking away the corpses that lay near the vehicle.

'There is hardly anything on the outside,' he thought after pushing aside most of the obstacles only to see nothing more but bloodied asphalt of the road. 'Let's try the vehicles then,' Mathew decided, raising his eyes towards the thick steel of the bricky car right beside.

Mathew first moved towards the front of the car, grabbing at the handle of the passenger doors only to wrestle with it for a second.

'Nothing,' he soon realized, 'it's locked.'

Mathew released a long sigh. He then used his sleeve to wipe the blood off the car's window before glancing inside.

And just like one could sadly expect, it wasn't empty. On the other hand, it was stuffed full of rotting mess and two zombies that caused it.

'They were trying to hide in the car from the zombies without realizing they got someone infected inside as well,' Mathew thought, gritting his teeth.

Not a single death caused by the zombies was nice. But being stuck with them in the narrow space of the front of the car was one of the worst fates he could imagine. And judging how there wasn't a single piece of human he could recognize within the mess beyond the two zombies who now pressed themselves against the glass...

"Well then, I can at least grant them revenge and think about burial later on," he muttered, taking a step back before raising his saber.

Mathew then closed his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath before driving his weapon down, slashing not at the door as a whole, but right at the place where it connected to the door's frame.

The locking bolts were likely to be too thick even for Mathew to slash with a single cut. Yet, the same couldn't be said about the part of the doors that they were attached to.

GRRRIT!

The unpleasant, high-pitched sound of metal cutting metal filled the area. And before Mathew could even raise his saber again, the zombies pushed the now cut doors open, falling right towards Mathew's feet.

And two cuts later, Mathew could allow himself the leisure of raising the neck of his shirt to his nose, doing his best not to puke right away from the wave of intense odor that came from within the car.

"Disgusting," he muttered. Yet, rather than walking away due to this unpleasant inconvenience, Mathew pushed his saber inside, moving it through the rotting mess of half-digested meat and bones in search of something that could strike his fancy.

Ting.

Mathew's saber bounced off something buried deep into the rotting mess.

'It feels like something metallic,' he thought, moving around his saber in an attempt to pull whatever he found out of the pool of the rotting mess. Yet, even after several attempts, whatever that item was, it still eluded Mathew's attempts at salvaging it.

'This won't work,' he thought. And while he could simply use his hands to try to free it out, the prospect of obtaining a gun wasn't enticing enough for Mathew to bury his hand in such a mess.

'Maybe Carol could help,' he then thought, taking a step back and looking at how the backline of their formation was holding on.

The only other male in the group was doing... more or less as Mathew expected him to. Leila didn't seem to be doing much at all, obediently sticking to her task of only maintaining the security of the perimeter Mathew and Nadia needed to scavenge the area in peace.

If there was anyone who was the star of the show, it was Daria. From the single glance that Mathew spared her, she could singlehandedly stop all the zombies from approaching them through the open space between the back of the car barricade and the school's barrier. And judging from how she intentionally ignored some of the zombies that she could easily take out, she not only kept everyone safe but also made sure both Carol and her opponent would have enough zombies to hunt.

"Daria!" Mathew called out, causing the shadowy form of the girl to stop in her track nearly instantaneously. "I need Carol for a while!"

"On it!" the girl replied in a strange, low voice, clearly affected by her transformation.

And just like Mathew expected, the number of zombies that managed to pass by Daria instantly decreased to only two or three in each wave that approached. And it was a number that the hunter behind her could easily tackle all on his own as well.

"Carol!"

"I'm here!" the girl shouted, sliding on the bloodied road when she rushed back to Mathew's side.

"I need you to flush it clean," he ordered, pointing his saber at the insides of the car.

"Ugh, disgusting!" the girl protested right away, only to then shake her head and turn her face towards her quasi-husband. "I can do it, but unless you want all that filth spilling to the safe zone, I will need you to open the other door as well," she pointed out, proving that she could not only maintain a level head in the heat of the ongoing fight but was also someone doing more than just following stupid orders.

"Leila," Mathew called out, turning his head over his shoulder. "Will you be able to handle it if zombies start leaking through the cars?"

"It's not like I'm busy anyway," Leila replied with a confident smug on her face. Yet, when faced with Mathew scolding glance, she quickly nodded her head. "Yeah, it shouldn't be that hard."

"Okay then," Mathew nodded his head back to the girl. "Just be aware of this potential danger," he added only to take two steps of wind-up before jumping over the front of the car, slashing at the few zombies that were stuck behind it.

With the school attracting all of them, hardly any zombies were left on the other side of the car barricade, making Mathew's job far easier than he initially expected.

And then, with a single slash of his saber, he cut the lock on the doors to the driver's seat before pulling it open and taking two steps to the back.

"Flush it all out!"