Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

"There it goes," Mathew muttered when his system somehow read his intentions and applied them to the girl's statistics.

"Huh?" Nadia muttered, only to raise her hands and look down at her palms. "I don't feel any different, though?" she informed, only to turn around and throw a punch against the air. "Or maybe?"

Mathew could only smile.

'I better not tell her she is basically twice as strong statistics-wise as me,' he thought before shaking his head and standing up as well.

"Well then, let's get moving," he ordered before grabbing Nadia's free hand and pulling her along.

"Move to where?" the girl asked with a confused expression on her face. "Ah!" She quickly shook her head. "Sorry, I just had a brainfart," she admitted and made a funny face.

"Not a problem," Mathew replied before forcing himself to move.

Despite Mathew's initial fears, he managed to reach the staircase just fine.

The young man then looked at the stairs, already imagining all the pain of exhaustion returning to his flesh the moment he would raise his leg to conquer the first of the steps.

'Well, there goes nothing,' he thought, gritting his teeth as he moved up... Only to realize that what he had feared did not come.

'Did I receive some sort of super regeneration skill of something?' the young man thought, confused about how quickly he managed to recover from his overwhelming exhaustion. 'Or maybe my body reacts only when I reach my absolute limit?' he thought before shaking his head and ditching all those thoughts.

"Can you slow down a little," Nadia suddenly requested.

"Ah, sorry," Mathew apologized as he came to a complete stop roughly halfway up to the floor with the entrance to the shaft. "I was so surprised I didn't feel as tired as I felt before that I didn't realize I pushed you a bit too much," he explained before lowering his head in yet another bout of apology.

"It's not like that," Nadia said as she shook her head. "I don't want you to push yourself too far," she said, only to then turn her face away. Yet, before Mathew could react in any way, she moved her head back and looked him in the face with a look of determination behind her eyes.

"Actually, Matty, I have an important request for you," Nadia said and lowered her head. She then started to play with her hands as if uncertain if she should voice her wish or not.

"Go on," Mathew took a step back and raised his head only to rustle the girl's hair. "Whatever you wish for, I will do my best to fulfill," he claimed.

"Then, I want you to stay and wait here while I go call for the girls," Nadia raised her eyes and revealed what was going on in her head.

"That's..." Mathew instantly hesitated despite how much he wanted to humor the girl. "That's cheating..." he finally uttered his response while pinning his eyes to the ground.

"I'm aware," Nadia revealed while keeping her determination-filled eyes on her husband's face. "But didn't I just get stronger?" she then pointed out. "You raised my stats yourself. And since that happened, doesn't that mean my limits are now at least a bit bigger than before?" she asked while raising one of her eyebrows and locking her arms over her chest.

"That's the thing, babe," Mathew pressed his lips together. "That strength of yours... I would rather conserve it for the fight that looms over us," he explained his point of view.

"Aren't you stronger than me?" Nadia asked, her left eyebrow moving even further up on her forehead. "Isn't it better if it's you..."

Nadia's words continued to turn weaker and weaker when she noticed the one gesture Mathew did when she claimed him to be stronger.

"I'm not stronger than you," Mathew said, slightly changing the topic. "Going by the statistics alone, you are nearly twice as strong as I am," he revealed what he was aware of ever since he first got the chance to see Nadia's stats.

"Huh?" Nadia shook her head in disbelief. "Didn't you kill more zombies than me?" she asked, confused by the sudden reveal.

"It's a quirk of my system," Mathew said before revealing a helpless smile. "Once again, going by statistics alone, I'm level fourteen," the young man said. "Just a small step away from level fifteen, to be exact," he added before raising his eyes to the girl. "But guess what my real level is."

For a moment, Nadia simply looked at Mathew as if hoping to see through the barrier of his face and then directly into his soul. Soon enough, though, she spread her arms open and then shook them up and down.

"I give up," she said. "A hundred?" she then pushed out a random guess.

"I'm on my second level," Mathew revealed the bitter truth.

For a former gamer like him, levels were the very foundation of one's strength. And as if to spite at his experiences, his own system made him stuck on this low level even when his statistics properly grew!

"But if your system stops you from leveling up, then how come you have a second level instead of being stuck at the first one?" Nadia asked, pointing out something that Mathew didn't really pay much attention to.

"It happened back in the shower rooms..." The young man then revealed, despite not really knowing what to take out from this statement himself.

"Wives system, huh?" Nadia muttered under her nose, clearly onto something.

Yet, instead of revealing what was going through her head, the girl bit her lips before shaking her head and looking Mathew directly in the eyes.

"Either way, we strayed from the topic by a whole damn lot," she pointed out before locking her arms on her chest. "But the question still stands. Can you humor me and wait while I call for our allies?"

For one more moment, Mathew hesitated. The perspective of confronting another system user-made him extremely wary of every tiniest detail that he could control.

But right, it wasn't about winning or losing such a fight. It was about keeping or losing Nadia's trust.

"Fine, I will wait here," Mathew finally gave up, only to take a step back and rest his back against the wall. "Just don't push yourself too hard," he added.

"Sure thing, see you in a moment," Nadia said with a bright smile before turning around on her heel and hurrying up the stairs.

"I really hope I won't come to regret this," Mathew muttered under his nose before closing his eyes.

"I beg you, tell me that you can hear me!"