Cutting the Weeds

Slaughtering the crowd of normal zombies became easier after everyone's level up. Their next destination was the Lecture Hall Main building, about fifty meters away.

Despite the fact that they lost a member, the team moved forward without any difficulty. They changed their formation a little bit by putting Miles and William both at front so that their number would be balanced on both sides.

It didn't take long before they arrived at the ground floor of the building. It was one of the biggest buildings of the university where all the lectures and classes happen. A hallway was in the middle, dividing the rooms on both sides of the building.

The team used the entrance in the middle to get inside the building. They were welcomed by the blood stained walls and broken things scattered around the rooms and hallways.

Grrghh..

Zombies moved slowly around the barren place and their low growls and steps were the only things that could be heard.

Miles whistled and attracted the attention of the zombies.

Their raid of the building began.

'Damn! It hurts.'

He gritted his teeth as he killed another zombie. With his injured body, he won't be able to use the Heavy Strike skill for the meantime.

'I just hope that we won't fight enraged zombies today.'

And obviously, that was everybody wanted at the end of the day. It's true that the drops were good but as much as possible, they didn't want to fight those zombies until they were strong enough to deal with them easily.

"Clear!" The ground floor was littered with zombie corpses. No survivors, no supplies, just zombies.

"We're right on time. Let's move to the next floor." Dante said.

They used the stairs to get to the second floor and there, they also found the mess they witnessed on the ground floor and also to learn that there's also nothing there.

They were slowly getting disappointed but they could only move forward.

Floor after floor, the same results came out.

In front of the door of the fifth floor, Miles and William halted their steps. The door was covered in blood as well as the area around it.

When Miles checked the door, it was blocked from the other side.

From their experience, it seems like there were survivors in the remaining floors.

They tried to knock on the door but no one answered.

"Should we just kick it open?" Dante asked.

"I'll do it." William said and the others stepped back.

Bam!

The door opened and the shelf blocking it fell onto the floor.

They walked inside and saw that the entrance was blocked with many shelves and tables.

"Seems like there are many survivors here." Miles muttered.

Thankfully, the door was not damaged that much so they could actually block it again.

After moving the shelves in front of them, the hallway was revealed. The surrounding was clean and there were no blood stains or mess around the place.

The rooms were also closed from what they could see.

"Is anybody here?" William spoke with a little loud voice.

They walked slowly and after a minute, a man came out from one of the rooms.

His skin was a little pale and it was obvious that he lost some weight.

In his right hand was a wooden table leg.

Looking at the team with a frown, he spoke. "Who are you people?"

"Hi! I'm William and this is my team." he introduced briefly.

"Ben." the man replied while still checking the group out.

"Then, Ben, are you alone here or are there others?" William asked.

Ben narrowed his eyes and answered. "Wait here." before he left and knocked on one of the doors.

Miles was looking at him with suspicion as he looked at the numbers above Ben's head.

[ 30 ]

He turned around and scanned the place.

'It seems like they remained here and never left with how the shelves and tables were arranged there. There were no dead zombies on the floors below too.'

There was a bad feeling rising in him.

'So how did his level become that high?' he asked himself and whatever answer he came up with, it's alway bad.

"William." Miles whispered. "Something is wrong here."

William was confused and raised his brows. "What is it?"

Miles shook his head and said. "I'm not sure yet but we should be very careful."

"Alright." William nodded and passed the message to the team. "Let's be careful and alert."

The door being knocked opened and another man went out.

At that moment, Miles frowned even more.

[ 55 ]

'That man is the same level as William?'

He became more alert and held his fireman axe even tighter.

Ben and the man whispered something to each other before they walked towards Miles' team.

"Do you have supplies? Food?" The man didn't even introduce himself and immediately asked for their supplies.

The team frowned when they heard how arrogant his tone was.

"We have and…"

"Take it all out." The man cut William's words.

"Well…"

The man crossed his arms. "Huh? What? Aren't you here to help us? Go take out your supplies."

Julia narrowed her eyes and handled her knives tightly.

She and the others didn't like what they heard.

"Your tone is bad and I don't like it." Dante stepped forward.

Although William was the leader of the team, Dante was the oldest one among them and he wouldn't stay in the corner while the young ones and him were being treated not nicely.

The man raised his brows and asked Dante. "Who are you?"

"Dante. You?"

"..Karl. Are you their leader?" He asked.

Dante shook his head. "This is William, the leader of our team."

Karl let out a sneer. "You let this kid lead you around?" he then looked at the arms of Dante and scoffed. "Seems like you already suffered under the 'great' leadership of this brat."

"Brat?" William creased his brows. He didn't like any of the words coming out from this man's mouth.

'Here we go." Miles sighed. He knew that he would encounter someone like Karl in front of him. A prideful and arrogant man in the age of the apocalypse.

Dante locked eyes with him and said. "I advise you not to talk to him like that. He's our leader for a reason."

"Yeah, yeah." Karl cleaned his ears and continued. "Your supplies. Take it out."

He was not showing any respect to Dante or his group at all and it was ticking the others to the extreme.

'He's being confident because he thinks has a higher level than us.' Miles thought.

Dante just sighed. "You know what? We won't give you anything and just leave. We didn't come here with a good intention and polite attitude just to be disrespected and looked down on. Come on, guys."

With that, he turned around.

The others followed but Michelle and Lilia hesitated a little because they still haven't confirmed whether there were more survivors or not.

"Who said you can leave?!" Karl shouted at the departing group.

Dante halted his steps and said while slowly turning around.

Swoosh.

He saw the figure of Karl rushing towards him with his fist in an attack position.

"Damned bastard." Dante held his axe and was prepared to defend.

Swoosh.

A silhouette passed him and blocked Karl's fist.

Then, a gust of wind blew as the two fists clashed.

"Miles?" Dante was confused.

"Leave him to me." Miles coldly said.

Dante and Karl were not on the same level and it could only be a gap of three stat points but a slight difference in strength could affect the whole fight. He also didn't want to let Dante fight Karl because he already sustained a loss from the previous fight.

'Damn!'

He immediately regretted stepping in as the pain reminded him that his body was still injured.

Miles could only grit his teeth to prevent himself from vomiting blood.

Karl stepped back five steps and asked. "Kid, you're strong."

Right then, men came out from the rooms one by one and even from the upper floors surrounding Miles and his team from all directions.

William and the others stood closer together and held their weapons.

Miles frowned as he looked at numbers in front of him.

[ 20 ]

[ 30 ]

[ 25 ]

…

There were about twenty five men in total.

'Most of the people here are over level 1. I really don't like where this is going.'

He looked at the team and some of them were trembling, especially the ladies. After all, they were likely to fight and possibly kill normal living humans.

"I'll take you supplies and…" Karl looked at the girls. "...your women."

The other men laughed at his words, whistling at the sight of Michelle, Julia, Helen and Lilia.

"What's our plan, Miles?" William whispered.

"Julia." Miles called Julia in a low voice.

"What?"

"Can I ask you to check around this floor and the other floors quickly?" Miles said seriously while locking eyes with Karl.

"Check for what?" Julia asked.

"...For the reasons why I should not kill them." Miles was cold with his words and it carried a huge pressure on them.

Julia was silent for a moment and nodded. "Alright."

"Be careful and escape if needed," he reminded her.

Julia then slowly disappeared from everyone's sight.

Karl was surprised and shouted. "Where did she go?!"

"Don't worry. She'll be back in a moment." Miles said.

"Damn you! Kill them and take everything they have." Karl shouted as he charged forward with the others.

Pwish.

"Argh!"

He suddenly halted his steps and held his cheeks.

Something hot and fast hit him.

It happened again and the shout of the men was heard, making their side stop their charge.

Everyone looked at Miles, who was standing there with his arms stretched forward and his hands in a gun posture. The tip of his finger was emitting a little smoke that vanished the next two seconds.

"Those who want to die can move." Miles' voice was not loud but the silence made it sound like thunder.

'I don't want to use this now but it can't be helped.'

For the meantime, he didn't want to show his Flame Bullet skill to other people, afraid of confusing them to why he had it despite being a warrior.

And it was the exact thing happening in his team's minds.

'Isn't Miles a warrior? Why does he have a magic skill for mages?'

'Does warriors have that skill, too?'

'Amazing! He should have been a mage all this time and was only hiding it!'

There were many questions running in everyone's minds.

The situation stalled for a minute.

Julia returned at that minute mark behind Miles.

Her expression was cold and she was gnashing her teeth.

"They deserve to die." her words transferred to Miles and he just spoke to everyone.

"I'll take this side. You take that side." he pointed in his front.

With a kick on the floor, he rushed towards Karl and fifteen of his men.

"He's coming! Kill them!"

The men also rushed towards Miles.

He began decreasing their number by opening with Flame Bullet.

Pwish!

Ten consecutive shots were fired killing ten of his opponents.

This made the charging side slow down their steps.

"What are you doing?! He's just one man! Surround and kill him!" Karl was already starting to sweat cold and his back was drenched in an instant.

'Who is this kid? Is he higher level than me? Than us?'

'No,no. I'm already level 11. You're saying that he is even higher than that?'

Karl was beginning to panic as he saw the situation.

Miles fought the remaining ones in close quarters. Using the Flame Bullet in this distance and sudden instance could hurt his allies if he fired in the wrong direction.

A man came close to Miles and swung his bat towards his head.

He dodged it by ducking his body a little and when the attack passed, he swung his axe in return.

Swish.

The blade passed through the neck of the man with a woosh.

Thud.

The head fell.

Drip..

The blood dripped.

'I want the crops to grow healthy so I need to cut the weeds early.'

He gripped his axe tightly and swung it for the second time.