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*** Daniel’s Pov***

“Head straight ahead, all the way to the staircase at the end of the corridor,” Norbert gave his direction, always ready to provide assistance.

“You told me this already,” Daniel opened up his eyes and spoke. “There is no need to keep repeating those directions every minute or so.”

The older of the officers rolled his eyes as he followed the same directions he heard Norbert repeat for the n-th time.

‘I never thought about it before, but we really need to find a way for Norbert to contribute.’

There was nothing worse than leaving a war veteran to do nothing while in a time of obvious conflict. People that went through the hell of the war and grew used to it often found it extremely challenging to return back to the relative peace of society.

‘And this applies to the both of us,’ Daniel thought, squeezing his fists a little.

The only reason why he applied to the police and to the position of a negotiator at that, was because he missed the trill. And with no bullet aimed to come his way in his normal life, he found solace in using his trill-driven character in service of those who couldn’t defend themselves.

‘On the other hand, Norbert…’ Daniel thought, gritting his teeth.

The two of them went to the police together. Yet, only Daniel did it by his own choice. Contrary to him, Norbert simply followed in his steps, unwilling to part with the commander of the unit he served.

‘Back before the world went to shit, this job was good enough for him,’ Daniel thought as he reached the stairs and started to climb them only to then close his eyes.

“All the way to the top floor. Once you see a big hall with double doors, that’s where you want to go,” Norbert informed his colleague right away.

‘But right now, it’s only a matter of time before he will break.’

Daniel took a deep breath before focusing on scaling the stairs. For how simple of a task it would be to someone young and full of energy, moving three levels up turned into a considerable challenge for Daniel.

In the end, instead of going for his objective as soon as he reached the top floor of the building, Daniel had to take his time to regain his breath and ward off his exhaustion.

‘And I’m not going to hold out for much longer, won’t I?’ he asked himself, unable to voice his concerns over the likeliness that Norbert would hear him.

And for how worried about his subordinate Daniel already was, he had no plans of making Norbert worry about him as well.

“Okay then,” Daniel finally spoke out after giving himself enough time to regain his strength. “How are we going to tackle it?” he then asked out loud before taking a step back, resting his back against the wall and then sliding down as he sat on the floor.

Doing so not only made him a smaller target that was harder both to notice and then to shoot at, but it also allowed the aging man to preserve a tiny bit more of his strength.

“I can distract the despot,” Norbert reported. “She appears to be quite conscious of the idea that we have a sniper trained on her position,” he explained.

“She really fell for something so stupid?” Daniel asked, opening his eyes wide in surprise. “There are no buildings within the exposure of that hall windows that allow for a clean shot!”

Daniel exclaimed before waiting for a second to hear his colleague’s response/

“Ah, my bad,” Daniel added after a moment of silence, closing his eyes back.

“Senile old man,” Norbert called Daniel some names before refocusing back on the topic. “But you are right. There is no physical way for a sniper to get her,” he admitted. And then, even though Daniel couldn’t see it, he could somehow tell Norbert shrugged his shoulders. “Well, it doesn’t matter what’s real, the one thing that matters for us is what that bitch believes is real.”

“That’s true,” Daniel muttered only for a wicked smile to appear on his lips. “But this also gives me a certain idea. So while keeping up with that sniper’s ruse, go and announce my arrival,” he requested only to open his eyes and stand up.

Daniel intentionally didn’t wait to hear Norbert’s input. It wasn’t that he didn’t value the opinion of his subbordinate. The time they spent in a warzone was more than enough to prove the validity of Norbert’s observations even before he received the system that further enhanced this ability of his.

Daniel refused to listen to Norbert’s pleas because he himself was aware of just how silly and out-of-the-box his makeshift plan was.

“I’m ready,” Daniel whispered once he stood by the heavy, double doors. And only then did he bother to close his eyes.

“You shall enter in three… two… one…”

Bam!

Daniel didn’t bother to press the handle of the doors and then push them open.

The second Norbert started his countdown, Daniel started to hum a relatively slow tune out of the few he could perfectly remember. His body then twitched whenever Norbert uttered a number. And right when the countdown reached its conclusion, Daniel raised his leg and kicked the doors open.

“Well, well, well,” Daniel said, stepping inside the hall as if he owned the blace.

He intentionally ignored the restless ball of fat that held a semi-automatic shotgun on her lap, opting to stroll inside the room instead. “What do we have here?” he asked as he looked around.

Only then did Daniel bother to pay the woman in the chair any mind.

“Who are you?” the fatso asked, openly placing her hands on her weapon. “Where are the others?”

“It was deemed that I’m more than enough to judge this place,” Daniel replied offhandedly, acting as if he couldn’t care about the situation any less.

He could see the people too tired to do anything above raising their heads to take a look at him. He could see males and females alike hiding their teary faces with their hands and refusing to let their eyes meet with his.

‘This is bad,’ Daniel thought, desperately holding back the fire that sparked in his soul.

There were no obvious giveaways of anything tragic happening in this room. Yet, the years he spent working as a negotiator, allowed Daniel to notice details that would elude others.

‘They are all heavily traumatized,’ Daniel thought, forcefully keeping his hands relaxed. ‘Others are starving,’ he thought before gritting his teeth and turning his eyes back to the fat woman in the middle of the room.

“Judge?” the fatso asked, now pushing her hands into the position on her weapon. The shotgun still laid down on her lap, yet she could raise and then aim it within a single breath.

“You didn’t know?” Daniel pretended to be shocked only to then shake his head. “Don’t worry, then, I know how bad this word sounds like but that’s how my superiors refer to the process,” the aging man stated only to then shrug his shoulders.

“Long story short, the apocalypse is over. The army intervened and most of the zombies are already gone. Now it’s time for a cleanup,” Daniel elaborated on his fake story before putting a small smile on his lips. “And my job is to judge whether your means of preserving the safety of both others and you yourself were justified.”

“That’s quite a lot of power to put in the hands of a single person,” the woman pointed out while squinting her eyes.

“Isn’t it?” Daniel admitted the woman’s words without any hesitation before letting out a hearty giggle. “The thing is, the casualty toll of this disaster puts the value of competent people quite high,” he explained only for his smile to turn wicked. “As such, the military is willing to forgive quite a lot as long as the net sum of what happened is positive.”

“And how do you judge this place?” the woman persisted, not letting go of her weapon even for a second. “What about those bastards putting us all at risk by provoking the zombies downstairs?”

‘So she knows about them,’ Daniel thought, the corner of his eye twitching a tiny little bit.

“They might not be conscripted, but hey, we are long past the point where we could rely on enlisted folk alone,” Daniel stated and shook his shoulder. “Whether they are conscripted or not, doesn’t matter. They are just one of the groups under the orders of the major general responsible for this province.”

“I see that you are avoiding the first question,” the woman pointed out, squinting her eyes while tensing up her hands.

‘She’s just a single jerk of her arm away from shooting my brains off,’ Daniel thought, judging all the details of the situation while starting to hum a pretty energetic song in his mind.

“That’s because I can’t answer it yet,” Daniel said as he turned around and walked towards one of the chairs lying down on their side on the floor. “It all depends on whether that group of mine will get the bait to safety,” Daniel mixed in some truth in his story to make it easier to believe.

He then reached out for the chair. And with one beat of the music in his brain striking, he threw it up rather than simply fixing it on the floor.

“So you are incorporating them into your forces?” the woman asked, clearly ignoring the chair that already reached its peak height only to come falling down directly on Daniel’s head. There was even a small smirk on her lips.

“That’s ri…”

Daniel didn’t finish his word. Instead, he waited for both the musical bit in his head and the position of the chair to align, before kicking it right towards the woman.

Daniel bent his legs, lowering himself above the floor as much as he could without overstraining his joints.

Yet, no explosive sound of a shotgun discharging reached his ears. Instead, the chair that Daniel used as a cover for his approach simply crashed into the woman.

‘Now,’ Daniel thought, leaping forward, his fist ready to knock the weapon off the woman’s hand even if at the cost of her entire arm.

Yet, Daniel never finished his strike. He held his hand back when he realized that the woman kept her weapon on her lap at all times. And even though getting struck with a chair caused a bruise on her head to start bleeding, she actually continued to smile!

“I’m glad that I stayed here for so long,” the woman smiled as she whispered. Her eyes filled with some sort of passionate feeling, one that managed to keep Daniel frozen on the spot, unable to move a single muscle. “Well then, I guess I learned enough,” the woman said, only for the strange aura of her body to dissipate, along with the force that held Daniel in place.