“It’s here…” Aleen muttered to himself when he reached the building where the others were hiding.
As Aya said, the place was surrounded by zombies, but the amount was lesser than he thought. Aleen counted around forty zombies in total, all level one.
Aleen could kill this number of zombies with a bit of effort, without suffering any injuries; but it was not the same for the others. Even if they could kill a few of them, the moment they are surrounded will mean that at least one of them will be scratched, and it will be the end.
After all, only the two bodyguards looked like they have some kind of fighting experience and Aya, who was a level two, could perhaps help a bit.
Aleen used the COM to ask Aya how were they doing, and she answered that they went up to the third floor while escaping from the zombies and blocked the stairs.
Aleen nodded and cut the communication after telling her to make sure that the zombies can’t reach where they are hiding.
He then held his sword with both hands and walked towards the building. Like before, he didn’t activate his skill and relied only on his sword skills and enhanced body to kill the zombies that attacked him.
To be honest, Aleen realized that fighting without relying on his skill was a very good idea. In the beginning, he did it to save his skill for when it's necessary; however, he noticed that using his sword skills continuously in real battle quickly improved his mastery of it.
Aleen could feel his sword mastery and fighting ability growing with each zombie he killed. It was a different kind of improvement than increasing his mana or polishing his skill, but it was improvement nonetheless.
Less than one minute later, Aleen reached the entrance to the building.
What greeted him was a gigantic lobby.
Aleen got the feeling that the lobby was a very elegant and fancy place in the past, but now, it was nothing more than a slaughterhouse-like place. Aleen could see the destroyed furniture, torn pieces of clothing, and bloodstains everywhere; besides it, five zombies were wandering around.
Aleen killed them quickly and searched for the stairs. At that moment, the voice of Aya sounded in his head.
‘Aleen! Y-You have to come here quickly! Something attacked us!’
Different from her normal indifferent tone of voice, she sounded desperate and filled with urgency this time. Aleen found it hard to relate the normal Aya to the one speaking with him now.
‘W-We are keeping it busy for now, but we aren’t going to endure for long!’
Aleen tensed immediately and increased the rate of circulation of his mana. ‘Wait for me!’ he shouted in his mind and accelerated.
It only took him five seconds to ascend the stairs until the second floor, but he found more zombies there blocking the path to the stairs to the third floor.
The number of zombies was higher here than in the lobby, probably because they came here after chasing Aya and the others. Aleen could hear the sounds of battle coming from the third floor, so he tried to kill them as fast as possible, but without using his skill.
Aleen deduced that the monster that was attacking them was probably a level two zombie; after all, it’s impossible for a level one to cause the six of them trouble. And Aleen was not 100% confident in killing the level two zombie without using his skill.
Though he probably could fight it until his skill comes out of cooldown, Aleen didn’t want to risk it. After all, he wasn’t sure if the zombie had some kind of dangerous skill.
His sword traced an arc on the air and beheaded two zombies. Aleen didn’t stop and killed another zombie after it.
Aleen used fifteen seconds to kill the twelve zombies on the second floor.
He immediately saw the stairs to the third floor.
A huge cabinet was blocking the entrance to the second floor, but Aleen cut it into two with a swing of Dark Night.
The situation on the third floor entered in his sight then.
Aya was fighting against a huge and fat zombie using her short spear, and for some reason, her cat was fighting too. At the same time, the two bodyguards were doing their best to help her, but at most, they were distracting it a bit, and if not because Aya attracted the zombie’s attention constantly, they would have been killed long ago.
The stubble guy and the college girl were helping the white-collar woman, who was lying on the ground with a big gash on her stomach. They were trying to stop the bleeding hurriedly, but the injury was too big and they didn’t have knowledge about how to treat something like that.
He saw the cat jump towards the monster and use its claws to attack its belly, while Aya stabbed it with her spear; but the zombie’s fat stopped the attacks easily. Then, the zombie tried to hug Aya using its two huge arms.
Aleen didn’t hesitate to activate his skill.
‘Lightning Movement’.
Electricity coursed through his body, and his surroundings slowed down as usual. Aleen adjusted his sword for a thrust and pressed his right foot against the floor.
In the next instant, he was already before the zombie.
His sword, enhanced by Sharp Blade, cut towards the monster’s neck at breakneck speed. The monster was completely unable to react, and the sword was buried on its neck.
But, maybe because the fat absorbed most of the attack, the sword failed to behead it.
Black blood flowed from its neck, and the monster staggered a few steps. Aleen could see something like surprise on its blank eyes.
The monster, however, refused to fall so easily. Looking around, it saw two weak humans and jumped towards the two bodyguards with the intent to use its last breath to take them with him.
Aleen reacted quickly and raised his sword to give it the final blow. However, someone moved before him.
No, it wasn’t someone, it was something.
The silver cat pounced furiously leaving behind a silvery-black trail, and used its claws to finally behead the level two zombie in a smooth movement.
Under Aleen's astonished gaze, the now headless zombie walked another two steps and fell down.
‘What the hell!?’ Aleen thought surprised.
But before he could ask Aya about it, he heard the stubble guy desperate voice coming from behind him.
“Mr. Aleen, Laura is dying!”
Did the cat just steal a kill?
It did...