Easy Leveling?

While the group of more than 25 people, not counting Grant and the kids, moved towards the exit of the camp, Grant hung back to talk to Richard and Robin about their plans for the day.

"Since you guys have been out and scouting more recently than I have, do you know of any spots around here that have an abundance of monsters?"

Richard thought about it for a second before he answered Grants question.

"Well if you're looking for easy monsters to herd and disable, zombies would probably be your best bet around these parts. They are everywhere if you go further into the University campus. Considering the University was home to nearly 250,000 students before The Path's emergence, they are everywhere. We found large groups every few hours while we were out scouting. And since they don't provide us with much experience anymore, we just ignored them so they are still there."

Grant just nodded his head in understanding, it seemed that would be the obvious answer, but he wasn't sure so he just wanted to double check and make sure. It was possible that someone had already gone through and cleared out a lot of the zombies so he didn't want to waste his time if that had been the case.

"Alright, since that's the case, I'll leave it to you two to lead us to the best place to level these people."

With that said, Grant turned around to face the group that was following behind him. Some of them had apprehensive looks on their faces still but they still forced themselves to follow along, so Grant wanted to keep them informed of what was to come so that they could prepare themselves mentally.

"Alright Ladies and Gents, we are going to head deeper into the University campus. I have been told their are large groups of zombies scattered around the area and they will be the perfect target to get you some easy levels.

I will disable the zombies legs so they can not move much. I will not waste the time to disable their arms as well, but if you are too stupid to avoid their flailing arms, then you are already a lost cause.

Once you have reached level 2, you are to immediately move to the back of the group and use your Random Rolls. Until you have received a weapon of your own, I will lend you my old weapon. It will make killing the zombies swift and easy. All you need to do is decapitate them or stab them through the brain. Any questions?"

In response, Grant got a half hearted cheer from everyone. He could tell that their anxiety was building, but he didn't have the time to be their emotional babysitter so he just turned around and started walking in the direction of a few densely packed buildings.

Once they had reached a fair distance away from the camp, a lone zombie wandered out of a building close by. Grant immediately ran over to it and cut its legs out right from beneath it in one casual swing.

Watching Grant decimate the zombie like it was some annoying pest, a few of the weaker willed people immediately turned and vomited the entirety of the contents of their stomach.

Seeing their reaction, Grant just shook his head and lamented the fact that these were the people he would have to spend the entire day with, forcing to overcome their fears. Unfortunately for them, it was too late to back out now. Either they tried to return to the camp on their own, or they sacked up and participated in the training.

Grant pulled Wet Noodle out of his pack and held it up in front of everyone. He eyed them all with a steelie graze to show how serious things were about to get.

"Who wants to go first?"

After a few moments of silence, Ethan stepped forward to take the sword.

Grant knew that although Ethan had professed himself a changed man, who would grasp fate with his own hands, he had been raised as a pacifist and this was a monumental step for him.

With hands shaking and looking like he was about to cry, Ethan took the sword from Grant's hand and pulled it from its scabbard. For a few seconds, Ethan just stared at the blade that he was now holding in front of him, eventually Grant gave him a pat on the shoulder to snap him out of his daze.

After giving Grant a grateful glance, Ethan took a deep breathe and approached the zombie who had been trying to crawl towards them this entire time.

When he was just outside arms length from the zombie, Ethan raise the sword up and swung down at the zombies neck. Unfortunately for Ethan, he missed spectacularly because he had closed his eyes before he began his attack.

"Ethan, buddy, you can't fight monsters with your eyes closed, you know? You're not Fujitora..."

As hard as the group behind Grant tried, they couldn't stop themselves from snickering and then laughing at Ethan's expense. Ethan, being the light hearted fellow he was, ended up laughing along with them. Eventually everyone stopped laughing but it was noticeable how much lighter the mood had become.

After gathering his resolve once again, Ethan attacked the zombie for a second time. Unlike the first time though, he didn't go for some exaggerated swing, he just performed a stabbing motion at the zombies head and brain from outside it's arms reach.

This time, the attack found its target, and the zombie quickly stopped moving. Ethan looked a little sick, but Grant walked over and gave him another pat on the back before telling him to go to the back of the group and use the time to gather himself and his thoughts.

Grant didn't dawdle now that the zombie had been killed and the group immediately began to move once again.

As they progressed further and further into the campus, Grant would use one sword strike on each zombie they found, to remove its mobility before calling on the next volunteer.

Eventually, the braver folks had all volunteered and that left only the more cowardice ones. At first no one wanted to step up, but Grant used Terrorize for a split second to induce the fear of him in this people, which quickly overtook their fear of the zombies, so they reluctantly received the sword and killed the zombie.

The most ridiculous part of the entire thing, was that the last person to go had actually been bitten. It was a lady, whose name was apparently Karen. She had taken the sword and readied herself to kill the zombie before she paused to complain to Grant that the zombie wasn't the kind she wanted to kill and she wanted it to be switched out for a different one.

While everyone was standing there dazed at the ridiculousness of her complaints, the lady had ended up backing into the zombie and got bitten by it.

She immediately started freaking out and blaming everyone else about how it was their fault she had been bitten and she would tell the leaders that they had been the reason she had died.

By the time she had turned into a zombie, everyone was so sick and tired of hearing her talk, that they didn't even care anymore that she had been bitten, and everyone volunteered to be the one to dispatch her when the time came.

After dealing with the Karen, everyone had been officially leveled and rolled their items. The assortment of weapons now being held by everyone was a sight too see. It was like a real life visualization of the weapons from across history.

The one weapon though that caught everyone off guard, was Ethan's. He was holding a cross, but it wasn't like ones you would see in church. One side of the cross had been ground down to a sharpened edge and the base of the cross was wrapped like a handle.

No one, not even Ethan, knew what to think of it, but they decided not to put too much thought into it and moved on.

As the day progressed, they ended up killing a few thousand zombies and everyone leveled up to at least level 10.

Eventually Grant had them break off into small teams to lure a few zombies to the side and fight them on their own so the leveling speed had progressed exponentially.

If they ever ran into any situations that they couldn't handle, then either Grant, Richard, or Robin was quick to appear and rectify it.

The group only stopped once to eat lunch and had been grinding through zombies the rest of the time. Eventually everyone was starting to get tired so they decided to call it a day and head back to the camp.

Before the group could even make it halfway to the camp though, Grant's voice rang out, startling everyone since he hardly talked.

"You all need to run, right now."