A success.

"Mark...??! Yesss...I can talk now, I can't talk now..!!" Petro shouted in amazement leaping over Mark.

Mark was happy and sighed as he also welcomed the hug from Petro.

"I thought it was over...," Mark whispered.

"So does this mean it worked...?!" lyon interrupted the two.

His question was ignored as Petro walked over to Bull. "Thank you for coming back for us..." he said bowing down at Bull.

"Actually, you should be thanking him... He was the one that made this a success," Bull said pointing at Nate.

Of course, Bull was happy but the latter was good at hiding his emotion especially when it was a happy moment.

Petro looked at Nate. "I don't know who you are, but still, thank you for saving me," Petro said bowing down at Nate.

Nate only shrugged his shoulder and accepted the thanks and then turned to look at the other zombies.

"How did you do it... I did the same thing as you did yet the results weren't this positive?!" asked Mark.

Everyone was interested in knowing how Nate did it. To them, Nate has done exactly what Mark did.

He wears the headband, and the others just thought he was trying to order the zombies to stop attacking humans when they see one and also to start reasoning more like a human.

Unknown to them, something more than that has happened.

"Honestly, it wasn't easy. What happened in your mind is something I can't really comprehend at this moment," Nate explained.

He decided to tell them what actually happened without hiding any of the details.

After some time of explanation, Nate gave them time to think. Meanwhile, Mark once again got himself busy with writing down what Nate was saying.

"So this virus has a consciousness, and it's this consciousness that is controlling their body...?" Mark asked which Nate answered affirmatively.

"Beating this consciousness might be the only way to make them reason like us, but we must not kill them," Mark read out as he started to think.

"I get it. The virus consciousness is simply our consciousness. if it was to be killed, then you are directly killing us, but beating the virus consciousness will subdue the virus effect, letting our real consciousness out," Mark explained.

His explanation suits it the most. If Nate had killed the virus consciousness, then he would have just ended Petro's life, but beating the virus till it was no longer moving will free the main consciousness.

Nate looked at Petro. "Do you remember anything about the fight?" he asked.

"I can't tell, all I know is losing control of my body, unable to talk and only crave for human flesh," Petro replied.

"Wait... does that mean you were aware of the things happening in your surrounding, but since you were not in control of your body, you couldn't do anything about it??" lyon asked.

Petro replied with a nod. "I even saw when you guys were leaving the base back then," Petro added.

"You must have felt bad back then...," Lyon said understanding the pain of being left behind by those close to you.

"By the way, how long did I spend out?" Nate asked.

"About five minutes or so," Mark answered.

'I see...although I didn't spend so much time in his brain yet the time outside was moving faster than when I eat an actual zombie,' Nate thought.

"Get more of those needles ready, we will be speeding up things here," Nate instructed.

Bull and Mark were surprised to hear this. Are you going to set the others free...?" Bull asked.

"Of course yes...what were we here for?" Nate asked.

Bull was perplexed by Nate's response.

"I thought it was hard for you to fight those viruses since you can't use the system while inside their mind." Bull said.

As much as he was happy of saving his men, it would be worthless if he lose someone trying to save another person and end up not saving the person.

It will be a double loss for him if such were to happen. At least now he was sure his men could be saved, he will be glad to take things slowly now.

"Don't worry, the system did mention anything about what will happen if I were to be killed in the fight..." Nate said to Bull.

Soon, Mark have already prepared more needles and inserted all of them into the zombie's brain.

"You know what, I will be connecting them all at the same time," Nate joked.

With all the zombies having a needle inserted into their skulls, Nate activated the headband before also using the brain access skill.

Meanwhile, as Nate carried on with his actions, the others were waiting for the results.

"He is connected to all of them, doesn't this mean they will be attacking him in numbers...?" Petro asked.

"We...I don't blame you." lyon scoffed at Petro's speech.

Just as they were discussing, something was having to the zombies. One by one, their eyes were opening.

"What is happening to them?" Bull panicked.

"I think these are the ones that have been defeated," Mark guessed.

Looking at the zombies, the number of those their eyes were opening was increasing over time.

Although the zombie's eyes are still open, they were not moving at all.

"I think this is stiff... This happens when a zombie's functionality has gone down to zero which will put them into a hibernation state," Petro explained the reason why the zombies are not moving.

Since Petro have once experienced such a thing, he know well what it was.

Meanwhile, food has never been a problem for Nate and his horde, they have their means of getting meat even without needing to go out hunting.

Because of this, they have never experienced a moment where their functionality goes down.

When a zombie's functionality goes down, their movement will be sluggish and when it goes down to zero, they will stop moving and eventually goes into the hibernation state.

"Flesh isn't a problem at all," Bull summoned out a mountain of flesh meats.

As a titan, he has the largest appetite and because of this, he gets the largest portion of flesh whenever it was shared.

The smell of the flesh attracted quite the attention of the zombies however, they were still unable to move.

"Lyon...help me to feed them," Bull said to Lyon.

The two started to take the flesh close to the zombies as more and more of them started to open their eyes.

Quite unknown to Lyon and Bull, their actions were kind of making things hard for Nate.

---

Nate have just finished beating the last zombie as the system showed him a notification.

[Golden medal has been granted]

'Cool..!' Nate exclaimed with joy.

'Not having my skill is really hindering but I still managed to pass,' Nate praised himself.

'This also made me wonder if such a thing like this can happen outside. It right time I stop replying on the system to activate my skill and learn how to activate them manually,' Nate concluded.

Having his system switched off was something new to him. On multiple occasions his system was offline but because he couldn't use most of his skills without calling for the system, Nate has left helpless.

One of that occasions was on the day it was raining.

This was the second time he have found himself in such a condition. Nate wouldn't let there be a third time.

'By the way, now that am through with this, why am I still in here anyways,' Nate wondered.

He was already through with the fight and there was no virus in sight, Nate was wondering what was happening.

That's when out of nowhere, all the zombies that he have defeated started to appear again.

"What is happening, why are they back..!"