Blood's Trail
Using the shirt Lucas had given her, Lucy wiped the blood from her feet. After calming herself, she walked to the bed in the room and sat down, closing her eyes with a sigh. Her previous experience practicing on the dead man's corpse had made handling the killing of the woman somewhat easier.
Opening her eyes again, Lucy tried to regain her composure and suppress any trembling. She looked over at Lucas, who was currently squatting down and reaching into the woman's pocket. Another sigh escaped her as she fought off her nervousness.
"Lucas, did you find it?" She asked, observing Lucas's lack of fear in the presence of the wide-eyed, decapitated head on the floor.
In response to her question, Lucas turned his gaze back to her while extracting his hand from the woman's pocket. "Yes," he replied, standing up and walking toward her, pocketing the small pouch.
"Are you okay?" Lucas inquired, seemingly concerned about her mental state.
"I think so, just experiencing some difficulty in breathing and an increased heartbeat."
"We can stay here for a while, then. I want both of us to be in our best state when dealing with zombies. They might come here soon."
"Okay," Lucy replied, gripping the bloodstained handle of her katana tightly. Taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm her racing heart, she gazed at the head of the middle-aged woman on the floor. The sight was accompanied by the plethora of blood drops near the woman's body, with more blood continuing to trickle from her headless corpse, resembling morning dew.
"Lucas, do you believe in ghosts?" Lucy asked, her curiosity piqued by the unsettling scene of the headless body.
"Ghosts? I don't know. It's an unanswerable question, really. Quite complicated," Lucas responded.
"Hmm... I suppose so," Lucy mumbled softly, attempting to clear her mind of the image of the woman's decapitated head.
"Lucas, how are you not shocked by killing a human?" Lucy questioned further.
"Me? I don't know. I'd never witnessed a bone protruding from a human or a real human death before this. It just sort of happened; you know? After days of killing reanimated corpses trying to harm me, a few days of that already desensitized me to kill them. You can think of them as zombies, but instead of moving dead bodies, it's moving living bodies, since we and zombies were part of the same species before the apocalypse."
Their conversation unfolded in hushed tones, matching the slow rhythm of the woman's blood dripping from her headless form.
"Maybe it's because I used to catch and kill fish for sustenance, or perhaps it's just the survival instinct that makes it okay as long as I stay alive. I'm not entirely sure," Lucas concluded.
"You used to be a fisherman?" Lucy asked, her voice tinged with surprise and confusion at the unexpected revelation.
"Did I not mention it before? Hmm, perhaps I hadn't. I used to be a fisherman, catching and killing fish daily to sell for money. Sometimes, during the dry season, when the water levels receded, I worked as a construction worker," Lucas explained in hushed tones.
"Oh... That's probably why you didn't hesitate as much as I did," Lucy responded, her voice similarly subdued.
"Yeah... I suppose," Lucas agreed, his gaze shifting to the surroundings as he contemplated his actions. A hint of guilt crept into his thoughts as he looked at the decapitated head on the floor and the reflection of the room in the pool of blood.
He let out a soft sigh, shaking his head internally. 'No, Lucy is getting better. This approach is working. We're just striving to survive longer. Prioritizing ourselves and ensuring our own safety isn't wrong.'
While he reassured himself, he placed his right hand over his left chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
"Lucas, I think it's here," Lucy suddenly interrupted his internal dialogue, not noticing the conflicted expression on Lucas's face as she turned her attention to the sound of a falling chair.
Reacting to Lucy's alert, Lucas shifted his focus and gripped the handle of his jian sword tightly. Moving cautiously, he walked to the side of the door, though the squelching of his footsteps on the sticky blood wasn't too loud.
Peering around the door, he spotted a few zombies in the living room that hadn't detected them yet.
"Lucy, I'm going to combine my hurricane spiral and fire blaze. When they're consumed by the flames, we'll make a run for it and deal with the remaining zombies outside, okay?"
"Mm," Lucy murmured in agreement, nodding slightly.
"1... 2... 3," Lucas counted silently before bursting out of the room, charging toward the zombies and shouting, "Hurricane spiral!" A swirling vortex of wind erupted from his ring, hurtling towards the approaching zombies drawn by the noise.
"Lucy, go!" He directed as the hurricane spiral enveloped the zombies in the room.
"Fire blaze!" Lucas called out, his voice punctuating the command as he dashed out of the building. He didn't concern himself with whether the house would catch fire due to the combined effects of the fire blaze and the hurricane spiral inside.
As he raced out of the building, Lucas drew his sword from its scabbard and leaped at the nearest zombie. His blade cut through the rotten neck, severing the head and propelling him toward the next target.
---
[Level 1 Zombie Killed, Awarding 50 Exp!]
[Received 5 Coins!]
---
"Fire shield!" Lucas shouted, propelling himself into a cluster of zombies. He swung his sword with precision, cutting through multiple undead forms and swiftly eliminating the survivors in his vicinity before his fire shield dissipated.
'Why are there so many zombies here?' he wondered, his sword cleaving through another approaching undead. He acknowledged that both his and the woman's screams had been loud, but the sheer number of zombies that appeared seemed disproportionate to the noise they had made. Such a gathering wasn't typical, given the current environment.
---
[Level 2 Zombie Killed, Awarding 100 Exp!]
[Level 2 Zombie Killed, Awarding 100 Exp!]
[Level 1 Zombie Killed, Awarding 50 Exp!]
[Level 1 Zombie Killed, Awarding 50 Exp!]
[Level 1 Zombie Killed, Awarding 50 Exp!]
[Level 1 Zombie Killed, Awarding 50 Exp!]
[Received 40 Coins!]
---
'It appears the zombies inside the house have burned to death,' Lucas noted, making the most of the remaining moments of his fire shield. As the shield's duration neared its end, he activated another fire shield, determined to dispatch the remaining zombies with precision, ensuring no surprises like the earlier encounter with the level 2 zombie.
---
[Level 2 Zombie Killed, Awarding 100 Exp!]
[Level 1 Zombie Killed, Awarding 50 Exp!]
[Level 1 Zombie Killed, Awarding 50 Exp!]
[Level 2 Zombie Killed, Awarding 100 Exp!]
[Level 1 Zombie Killed, Awarding 50 Exp!]
[Level 1 Zombie Killed, Awarding 50 Exp!]
[Level 2 Zombie Killed, Awarding 100 Exp!]
[Level 2 Zombie Killed, Awarding 100 Exp!]
[Level 1 Zombie Killed, Awarding 50 Exp!]
[Level 1 Zombie Killed, Awarding 50 Exp!]
[Received 70 Coins!]
---
Swinging his sword in a controlled frenzy, Lucas observed Lucy struggling to manage the overwhelming number of zombies. As his fire shield reached its limit once more, he hurried to her aid.
"Fire shield!" he cast, enveloping Lucy within its protective sphere.
"Are you okay?" he asked, concern evident in his voice.
"Yes, I'm fine, just a little exhausted. You go ahead; I've frozen them," she replied, pointing toward the six frozen zombies attempting to break free.
Lucas nodded, understanding the difficulty of her situation. Facing potential level 3, zombies demanded careful timing when employing her freezing ability, especially when confronting multiple at once.
"Alright," Lucas acknowledged, drawing his dagger. He methodically shattered the ice, encasing the zombies' bodies before using his jian sword to sever their heads.
Moving with purpose, he dispatched one zombie after another. In his periphery, he noticed Lucy's innovative approach. She directed her icicle ability to penetrate the zombies' foreheads, targeting their brains and neutralizing them.
'Smart move,' Lucas thought, impressed by her adaptability. While the icicle ability's freezing effect wasn't guaranteed, damaging the brain was a reliable method to disable the zombies.
"Swoosh!" The sound of his sword's passage was echoed by Lucy's efforts as they efficiently decapitated the frozen zombies.
"Lucy, this seems unusual," he commented, his voice a mix of concern and curiosity.
"I agree. My notification indicated I killed two more level 3 zombies just now," Lucy replied.
"Really? It's astounding. We might even be facing a level 4 zombie here. It's only been a week since the outbreak. How many humans have this zombie managed to claim?" Lucas mused, pulling Lucy closer to him by her arm.