Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

"That\'s the only reason why you would possibly be so eager to ignore the lives of others over a silly bet like this," Mathew replied with the same, cold voice.

\'I know I don\'t make much sense, but right now I don\'t have the time to play around with her,\' he thought, stopping his eyes from rolling around.

"How about my wish to ensure no one would dare to challenge my authority in the hunters\' squad?" Carol then pushed back, raising one of her eyebrows while giving Mathew an annoyed look.

"If you need a bet for something like this, then I have some bad news for you," Mathew said, bouncing the ball back. "Authority doesn\'t come from a bet or two. It comes from power," he stated, turning around on the spot, ready to leave. "And between this expedition and the last, if you can\'t prove your power, you don\'t deserve such authority in the first place."

In theory, potentially antagonizing one of his wives, one that proved to have an extremely useful set of skills at that, was a poor idea. Carol was far stronger than any of the mortal hunters and could achieve far more.

Yet, between letting her do whatever she want or influence the decisions Mathew already made and giving her a piece of mind, the young man didn\'t need to think hard to figure out which was better.

\'I said enough,\' Mathew thought, turning on his feet and leaving for the assembly point, leaving Carol to think over what he told her. And to his pleasant surprise, the girl didn\'t dawdle for long. Instead, she turned around on the spot and started walking back towards her spot within Beatrice\'s expedition plan.

\'I need to hurry now,\' Mathew thought, hastening his steps as he moved to the southernmost part of the school\'s fence. There, he climbed up the fence, staying literally an inch away from where the zombies outside could reach before striking against the barrier.

And then, he waited.

\'Is she taking all the stragglers into account?\' Mathew thought after several minutes have passed. \'Or maybe something...\'

Before he could even finish his bored line of thought, a distant, loud noise reached his ears.

BANG!

A sound that he only knew from games up until this point. Yet, combined with the flash of light that came from all the way on the other side of the school, he couldn\'t be mistaken.

It was a stun grenade going off. Or in other words, a signal for the operation to begin.

"Let\'s see how will it all work," Mathew muttered to himself while ignoring the zombies nearby and closing his eyes. Then, he climbed up a little bit higher on the fence to where no zombie could reach.

And then, with his eyes still closed, he pushed his right hand out of the school\'s barrier.

\'Barrier of light,\' he thought, wishing for a huge flare of light to appear roughly in the middle of the street outside of the school\'s bounds.

And before Mathew could even properly focus, he could sense another explosion of light through his closed eyelids. This time, however, the light wasn\'t present in an instant but turned into something that persisted in the world.

"Woah," Mathew released a small moan of awe as soon as he opened his eyes.

Rather than a flare, his creation turned into a massive pillar of light, as wide as he himself could be with his arms spread out and nearly twice as high as the nearby line of buildings.

\'Wait, that\'s no good,\' Mathew quickly regained his wits, manipulating the spell and decreasing its height. Only when it reached roughly one hundred and fifty percent of the nearby buildings\' height was he satisfied, allowing himself to jump down the fence.

\'Now, the main question,\' Mathew thought, taking a deep breath... and then taking a single step to the back.

Yet, the barrier stood as it was, without any shimmer to its light at all.

So, encouraged by his success so far, Mathew took another step to the back. And then another.

And then, lights and sounds started to assault his senses when non-combat survivors started to unleash their stun grenades all over the school\'s perimeter.

\'Damn, that\'s quite annoying,\' Mathew complained inwardly while moving back and keeping his eyes on the pillar of light of his own making. Yet, no matter how far he retreated, the spell didn\'t show any signs of disappearing, filling Mathew\'s soul with relief and renewed confidence.

\'Now then,\' Mathew thought, turning around and rushing across the school\'s perimeter to get to the deployment point.

The young man passed by several groups of non-combatants busy counting down the time between their scheduled tosses of stun grenades.

\'Just how many of them did we recover, I wonder,\' Mathew thought, rushing past everyone all the way to the assembly area where all the hunters and wives of his awaited his arrival.

"The flare is up!" Mathew announced, digging his feet into the ground to kill his momentum.

"Norbert, you are up," Beatrice said as soon as Mathew finished his report.

"The remaining survivors are in the third and fourth car from the right and the one in the very middle," Norbert said while stepping forward and showcasing a simple drawing made on a broken piece of a school desk. "There are some useful items in the cars to the sides of the middle one, so if we will have the time, you should look for them too."

"Okay guys, any questions?" Beatrice then asked, looking over everyone\'s faces.

Yet, no one raised their hand or voice.

This expedition was as simple as it could get. And Norbert already provided them with all the information they needed.

"Well then, we don\'t have much time," Beatrice then said, patting her hands against her hips before nodding her head forward. "Let\'s finish this as quickly as we can!"