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“I see…” Mathew whispered under his nose.

He had his eyes opened wide and looked at some distant point deep within the shadows.

The process of transfering the knowledge was painful yet extremely fulfilling. At the price of temporary torture, Mathew could, at last, get some answers.

‘And it comes at a dirt-cheap price as well,’ Mathew thought.

A small smug smile appeared on his lips, only to be replaced by a sudden moment of doubt.

‘Isn’t this exactly what the creators want me to do?’ Mathew faced the thought.

After everything he learned about the apocalypse, Mathew could no longer deny the idea of a purpose behind it. There was an intent that shaped the events at hand.

And right now, this intent created an opportunity too great for the young man to resist.

‘But if I start splurging on knowledge right now, won’t I progress the apocalypse too far?’ Mathew thought. He then gritted his teeth and tightened his fists. ‘And let’s not forget that I need to erect several fortresses like this one.’

The young man focused on pushing small objectives one by one. Rather than facing a massive challenge all at once, Mathew opted to divide and conquer.

But the heavy weight of the true task at hand continued to loom on Mathew’s shoulders.

“Anyway,” the young man said, shaking his head to cast away all his doubts. “How much does skill seed cost?” Mathew asked, raising his eyes towards the spot where Merchant’s presence was thickest.

“Fifty cores,” the voice replied as usual. Yet, Mathew heard a distant echo of… satisfaction?

“Well, I’m all spent now,” Mathew commented as he shrugged his shoulders. He then took a closer look at the map displayed within the merchant’s domain.

“Are those…” Mathew muttered, taking a closer look at the map.

Normal zombies were displayed with a horde of tiny, red dots. But now, there were dots of crimson mixed into the fray.

‘There are even grey ones,’ Mathew noted with surprise once he looked into a distant corner of his area.

He didn’t even need to zoom in to check on those. The feeling those dots of crimson and grey gave the young man was enough to tell what those represented.

“Evolved ones,” Mathew muttered only to end up gritting his teeth.

‘We fought with three? Four evolved ones?’ the young man thought, only to shake his head and take another look at the map. ‘There is like eleven of them here,’ he counted.

Seven of those dots were scattered all over the place. But four of them with the lone grey dot were all centered around the compound’s main entrance.

‘Aren’t we about to get hit?’ Mathew thought, tightening his hands into fists. The look behind his eyes tensed up.

Mathew zoomed out and away from the outskirts before centering back on the compound itself. And then he noticed several novelties.

‘Isn’t this Norbert’s ghost?’ Mathew thought, taking a closer look at one of the green dots. Then, his eyebrows moved up his forehead.

‘Huh?’ Mathew couldn’t even make a sound when the vision on the map started to get buggy. It started to twist and turn as if a signal was lost… Only to stabilize after a few moments and show a sequence of events on the map.

The dot that Mathew recognized as Norbert’s ghost moved between one of the blue dots and another green one.

‘Judging by the locations…’ Mathew thought, his body tensing up.

There were only so few people of interest left within the compound. And only one of them was left to roam freely.

‘So that’s how it is,’ Mathew thought, his eyelids lowering as his lips quivered. He took a deep breath only to slowly release it and leave a tiny smile on his mouth.

“Well then,” Mathew muttered, taking his eyes from the map and turning them back towards the pedestals.

And there stood the columns, awaiting the donation of the cores. And just like before, the image depicting the content of one of the pedestals was blank.

‘I wonder how much revealing it would cost?’ Mathew thought before shaking his head. “I’m broke now, let me out,” he asked.

The shadowy realm collapsed within seconds.

‘Isn’t it happening faster and faster?’ Mathew thought as another suspicion appeared in his mind.

“I want to join the fight too,” Daniel said the moment Mathew’s consciousness returned from the merchant’s subspace.

‘Wait, didn’t he say the first part of that before I entered the shop?’ Mathew took notice, squinting his eyes as another suspicion arose in his eyes.

He then shook his head to give himself a moment to clear his thoughts.

“Fine,” Mathew said in a neutral voice, too preoccupied with his plans to spare Daniel a second thought. “We might actually need your…”

A figure crawled out of the shaft only to fall on the floor.

Thump.

A dull noise rose up along with a small cloud of dust. The floor right by the shaft’s entrance was where everyone carried out the dirt from the old and abandoned shaft, after all.

“Guys, you’ve gotta see this,” Norbert squeaked before coughing out the dirt from his mouth.

The younger of the policemen rose up to all fours… Only to balance right at the limits of stability. It was clear that he was far from a healthy state.

“I know,” Mathew said as he moved away from the wall and grabbed his ax. “We need to get going, now,” he announced.

“How bad is it?” Daniel asked, realizing the urgency of the situation just from the tone of the two. His face relaxed as if a heavy burden was lifted from his shoulders.

“Pretty bad,” Mathew admitted without hesitation. “Three evolved ones and something even stronger,” he recounted what he saw on the map. “And a horde of normal zombies to boot,” the young man added as he fixed his own attire. He then moved over to Norbert before picking his head up and pointing it towards the merchant.

“Can you see the strange light floating around the merchant?” Mathew asked with a polite tone while manhandling Norbert to keep his eyes on the target.

“…I…I s-see,” Norbert squeaked the response while struggling to maintain his consciousness. His heavy injury coupled with a tough way up and then Mat’s manhandling left him on the verge of his durability.

“Great,” Mathew said only to put a wide smile on his face. “Then go and grab it,” he added before grabbing Norbert by his clothes and throwing him at the merchant.