Chapter 10: A Problem

12:56 AM

After 3 hours has passed since the army started the attack, the mafia eventually suppressed by the army as they have advanced equipments and weapons to deal with them.

Some mafia members even tried to reach out Antonio to give them some order to attack, retreat or surrender the base, but they didn't receive any commands at the end as Antonio had been already dead in his fight with Reynold, thus many failed to get an opportunity to surrender nor escape the predicament.

"X-16 area is cleared."

"Y-9 area is cleared."

"All the remaining hostiles in the area is cleared."

The soldiers reported the status of their area as they clean up the whole shopping district looking for survivors, rations and hostiles that escape the fight.

On top of the wall made out of sandbags there's a middle aged man standing on top of it that overlooking the whole area.

"Congratulations Lieutenant General Philips Luidivig! You always amaze me with your achievement. 3 missing soldiers, 38 injured soldiers and 16 brave soldiers that sacrifice themselves, but you didn't complete one of the missions that we give you above all the resource you have, well, atleast you have the merit of saving a hundred of lives in this place."

A young man approached him with soldiers behind him while sarcastically said to the stern middle aged man.

"Major General Clinton. Reynold had already escaped when we checked the basement earlier as for Antonio we didn't find him, but we did see a trace of a fight on his room while there's no body or discoveries as of yet."

Philips ignored his sarcastic remark while he hand out a paper and explained.

"That's unfortunate indeed I'll say it to dad then. General, I'll look around the area for a while if you don't mind, maybe there's some rats escapes earlier."

Clinton said in contempt while planning to stroll around the area with his soldiers that emitting a dangerous aura.

'A good for nothing bastard that abuse his power and authority.' Philips thought while looking at him.

While Clinton was walking around the shopping district, the soldiers that cleaning up the area that he walks past always secretly giving him a scornful look.

"Isn't that General Clinton?"

"Yeah. I heard some nasty rumors about him from another platoon soldier that he is secretly using the army for his needs and desires while ignoring the military code of conduct and didn't get punished above all that."

"No doubt about that chief. I also heard that because of his Father as the Minister of Defense and his grandfather as the General they give him big privileges this and that, while other soldiers that has a higher position than him even need to show some respect if you ain't doing it, trouble will follow your a*s."

*Mutter* *Mutter*

The soldiers are whispering and silently discussing about Clinton as he was strolling around the street.

"Any progress on what I asked?" Clinton inquired while looking around the destroyed buildings on the street.

"Sir, we already arranged what you ask for. Do you want to see it now or maybe later?" one of the soldier that following him respectfully said while they were walking.

"Okay. Take us later, after we stroll around for a bit to avoid suspicions."

"Yes sir."

Later, the soldier takes them to a desolate building absent of soldiers that patrolling and people that walking around.

When they enter the building, there's a few soldiers of his that are guarding on one of the rooms.

"Sir, what you asked for is inside the room. We only got 16 this time around." a soldier that was guarding said as he opened the door.

Inside, he saw 12 young woman around 20 years old and 4 women around 30s.

"That's a decent spoils considering that this place is ravaged by those 'heroes'. Anyways, send them to the red light district in the newly built base." Clinton nodded in satisfaction.

"Yes Sir. Also, why don't you give a try to play around a little bit as we all know you've been busy this last few days." the soldier said with flattering tone.

"Haha! Now that you mention it. I didn't touch any woman recently, just send the best one upstairs." he said while licking his lips while walking upstairs.

When the soldier saw Clinton went upstairs, he pointed and picked a beautiful young girl that was hiding in the corner, if Ziv was here he will immediately recognize that young girl, Claire.

"You there! You better please our Boss if not we're going to throw you and feed you to zombies."

"This guy here will lead you to the room." he said while instructing a soldier to lead the way.

"O-Okay!" Claire meekly nodded, then she walks upstairs.

...

Two days later after the incident in the shopping district, both Reynold and Ziv travel across many streets and roads towards the outskirts of the city in the direction of Fernia City a small city near the coast.

While Ziv reluctantly agreed with the decision of going with him towards Fernia City he was forced to comply as he didn't have anywhere to go.

"Anyways, why are you limping around when I first met you the other day?" Reynold asked.

"Well, I was with someone that day who I help escape from that place when she just suddenly abandoned me for some unknown reason, because of that she left me hanging on the thread of life and death when she does that." Ziv explained.

"Oh.. That's sh*tty." Reynold felt pity at his misfortune.

"Let's not talk about it. What about you? What are you doing around this area, you aren't local, right?" Ziv change the topic from further divulege of this story.

"How'd you know?" Reynold looked at him with shocked expression.

"You have blonde hair, blue eyes and sounds like Hestish accent and you're still confused, how did I know?" Ziv looked at him while describing his unique feature than others.

(Hestian = Britain, Hestish = British)

"You think I'm dumb!?" Ziv added.

"Hehe~! You got me there!" Reynold smiled sheeplishly.

"Well, I only just stole a national intelligence from the Hestian research facility, then I accidentally run off around this area." Reynold think for a moment before replying.

"Why though?" Ziv asked in confusion.

"Nothing special just for fun!" Reynold smiled before answering.

This is when Ziv realizes that the person beside him is more insane than those people from before.

"Are you from army?" Ziv asked another question.

"Technically, Yes. How about you, what do you do for a living?" Reynold asked him back.

"I'm graduating this year as an artist, but you know the apocalypse, said 'Hello'." Ziv said jokingly.

"Is that also why you can easily adjust at this environment?" Reynold asked curiously.

"Maybe.. Yeah.. I mean the characteristics of an artist help me and you can also attribute that I killed someone when I was a kid." Ziv hesitated for a while as he wasn't sure himself.

"Okay.." Reynold got surprised as he secretly distances himself a little bit.

As they both talked about a lot of things they understand and know each other as they are travelling towards the Fernia City while encountering some zombies and people along the way.

They were finally about to arrive near the border of the city where there's a bridge that connecting the Griffeth City and Fernia City.

While in front them, they saw a huge amount of zombies that was densely stacked together slowly making their way through their direction as they walking the wide bridge.

"W-What the hell is this!?" Ziv mouth turned agape.

"When I last saw this place, there's only a few zombies around here." Reynold mutter while looking at the zombies.

"Hey! What is that?" Ziv said while pointing at a zombie that was slightly muscular and bulky than the Tier 0 Zombie.

"That's a Tier 1 Zombie a stronger version of Tier 0 and there's a lot of them. I can handle atleast 2 or 3 of them. But that's atleast 10 here!" he exclaimed indignantly.

"That's a Tier 1? They're evolving really quickly." Ziv exclaimed while seeing many Tier 1 on the road.

"Let's look around to see what is happening in this area." Ziv suggested as he saw that they can't walk passed here.

"Okay." Reynold replied.

They picked a tall apartment that overlooked the bridge and went inside to observe the zombies at a distance from the roof.

Inside the apartment, as they were about to go upstairs they saw a few crude barricades at the staircase and corridors.

"There's a human activity around here. What do you think we should do?" Reynold asked while Ziv is hesitating if they will continue going upstairs.

"Hmm.. I don't know. We don't have bad intentions and we just want to see the commotion from above, but this is going to be complicated if we interact with them." Ziv said in frustration.

While they were travelling they already saw a fair share of the situation of the world as they realize that humans is more dangerous than the zombies.

They were killing and fighting each other just for pleasure, for food, for weapons, and lastly for territory.

Before the apocalypse humans will do anything for their best interest even if they do anything that can harm their own kind just to obtain what they want and it didn't change even when the apocalypse begins instead their way to handle it worsen as the chaos ensued.

"Well, we're both Tier 1 and if we can't overwhelm them with our strength. I will be ashamed to face anyone." Reynold added as he help him remove the barricade.

They remove the barricade on their way as they went upstairs to see the situation below.

1st floor.. 3th floor.. 5th floor..

They just stepped on the 6th floor of the apartment when they heard a loud explosion and intense shaking coming from the direction of the bridge.

*Boooooom!* *Rumble*

The explosion sweep past a huge amount of air as they felt a strong air that touch their skin.

They quickly run to the roof to clearly see the explosion as they went past a few people that living in this apartment.

"Who are you? Why are you doing here?"

"We don't welcome you here!"

The people living here exclaimed in an unfriendly tone as they saw a 2 uninvited guests walking on the roof.

"Wooh! Would you look at that! Someone has literally blown the bridge as we were about to cross it. What a bunch of a*shole." Reynold complained as he exaggeratedly pointing at the explosion.

"But why did they blow it up though?" he added.

"Haa.. Reynold, the question here isn't why they did it, it's who? They have enough explosive just to destroy the bridge, maybe just possibly to stop the zombies from getting on the city or.." Ziv said shaking his head as he saw him complaining.

"They want to narrow the escape route of the people in this city." Reynold concluded from Ziv's clues.

"Exactly! This would be tough as we know some people in this area are capable of blowing the bridge in this scale."

As the people that living here surround them with hostility, they were still leisurely talking and discussing some other things as they ignore them.

"Hey! This is the last warning! State yourself! Who are you!?" a man shouted as he pointed his axe in his hand on the two of them.

The two of them finally realize that there's a people that surround them with weapons they're either old, adult and even a little kid.

"Relax mate! We're here for missionary work to spread the word of god." Reynold shamelessly announces.

"Huh!?" The people in the roof, blank out for a moment before getting enraged as they felt they got tricked.

"You liar! Die!" the man that threaten them swing his axe skillfully as he have the intention to kill both of them.

"We should have avoided them." Ziv sighed helplessly.

Reynold quickly reaches out his hand as he grabbed it to stop the attack.

"How!?" the man exclaimed when his axe didn't budge a little bit.

"I can kill all of you here just for fun. But as I saw you lot just vibin' and chillin' out here I forgive you." Reynold said while passing the axe to the man.

'A bully.' Ziv thought while looking at this scene.

"Anyways, we just went to your roof just to look at the bridge from here. Nothing else." Ziv added when he saw the people on the roof looking at them with panic and filled with fear on their face.

"You're not the dogs from Terrence Gang?" the man asked.

"Terrence Gang!? What kind of ugly name is that?"

"Stop! Tell us more about them." he stopped Reynold as he got intrigued by this group.