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"Ah," Beatrice twitched, "Sorry, my bad," she quickly apologized. "Old habits die hard I guess," she then added with a small smile.

"I don\'t really mind. As long as you have a good plan, I\'m all up to hear it," he said.

They were supposed to discuss the strategy back in the shaft... but the trouble of bringing Beatrice up when she still had yet to recover her hand took away all of everyone\'s attention. As such, rather than talking about their plans in the confines of the shaft, they ended up out in the open with other survivors all around.

\'But that shouldn\'t be a problem,\' Mathew thought, casting a quick glance across the open area of the top floor. \'It\'s not like I ever wanted to be the one calling the shots,\' he thought before focusing on the woman\'s face.

"Here is what I think we should do, then," Beatrice said while turning her head all around in search of something. Soon, her eyes caught on a small pile of rubble that the survivors have yet to clear.

Contrary to what could be found on the lower floors, the rubble on the top floor was limited to just bricks and broken pieces of concrete that the explosions from day one shoot upwards. Everything else obviously ended up following gravity and either falling all the way to the bottom of the building or crashing into some of the floors on the way down.

"First off, am I right to assume that zombies are dumb?" Beatrice asked while raising her eyes to the rest of the group at the top of the school survivors\' pecking order.

"They follow simple stimuli and don\'t really organize themselves," Mathew replied while nodding his head. "Keep in mind, though, this only applies to simple zombies. A single evolved one can turn a horde into an army," he added.

"For real?" Beatrice opened her eyes wide, taken aback by the revelation.

"It\'s something we went through already, in that old media building four blocks away," Nadia filled in the details. "Thankfully, once we took care of the leader, the rest of the zombies turned back to how they usually act."

"That\'s quite troubling," Beatrice muttered, standing up from the pile of rubble with two bricks in one hand and several smaller pebbles in the other.

"There is no need to think about it too much," Mathew quickly added before the woman could get the wrong impression of the situation. "So far, the evolved monsters and zombies are quite rare. And most of the ones we encountered so far evolved in the direction of personal strength instead," he pointed out.

There was a massive difference between an organizer type and a battle type. While the latter one was definitely harder to take down on one\'s own, it was the organizer type that was the bigger pain in the ass.

After all, the battle-type evolved monsters or zombies were simply stronger than their unevolved counterparts. On the other hand, the organizers either evolved or somehow managed to retain their intelligence, making them that much harder opponents.

\'Just looking at how humans took over the entire planet is sufficient proof how wit is more important than brawn,\' Mathew thought, rolling his eyes. \'If it was all about strength, we would be elephant\'s pets instead of it being the other way around.\'

"Is it safe to assume we won\'t encounter them?" Beatrice then asked, clearly hesitating over whether to reveal her plan or not while unsure about the detail she wasn\'t aware of before.

"Yeah," Mathew nodded his head, "I will be able to tell if there will be any evolved ones nearby before we start," he then added while taking a quick look at the merchant just nearby.

With its map functionality, no evolved monster could hide from Mathew\'s eyes!

"Then, the last question." Beatrice shook her head and raised her eyes to Mathew\'s face. "Are you really fine with me planning the action?"

There was no hesitation, doubt, or anxiety in the woman\'s eyes. She was simply curious. That, or she wished to ensure there would be no insidious opposition to her plans once they would be set in motion.

"We bruteforced things before because that was the only way," Mathew admitted. "With only a few of us, we could rely on the overwhelming strength of our levels to somehow push through. But ever since we started to include others..."

Mathew took a moment to look around the area.

Even though no survivor dared to just stand in place and openly listen in on the conversation... There was no doubt that all of the ones who happened to be close were eagerly using every opportunity to remain within the range of Mathew\'s and Beatrice\'s voices.

"If you can contribute to everyone\'s safety and decrease our casualties even by the tiniest number," Mathew said only to then shake his shoulders. "Then I don\'t see why we should refuse your help. I was deciding on everything so far not because that was my wish but because that\'s what the situation called for."

As the only one who had an extensive experience with the apocalypse, Mathew held a massive advantage over everyone else.

Yet, only four days into the second run of the disaster, the situation drastically changed. The zombies were evolving at a rate far faster than they did in Mathew\'s first life and his group has long surpassed anything he managed to achieve in his previous attempt.

In other words, all the advantages that Mathew had over others stemming from his prior knowledge of the apocalypse... were now gone.

"Is that an invitation to help with your decisions... later on as well?" Beatrice raised one of her eyebrows, genuinely taken aback by Mathew\'s hidden suggestion.

"Why not?" Mathew replied with a question of his own. "If you can take even a part of the decision-making burden off my shoulders, why would I refuse such an offer?"

There was an obvious difference between offering this kind of privilege to someone random and to Beatrice herself.

Yet, her job, Norbert\'s adoration for her, her actions so far... Everything that Mathew could tell about the woman made her more than trustworthy.

At least, when it came to doing things in a way that would benefit the survivors in the long term. And that alone was enough for the young man to make his decision.

"Okay then," Beatrice sighed before kneeling down on the ground and starting to place her makeshift prompts on the floor. "This is the school," she placed the first brick," and this is the car blockade with the survivors."

The two bricks formed the basis of the plan that Beatrice hatched in her mind.

"We will need some sort of distractions here, here, and here." The woman scattered several pebbles all around the school, notably ignoring the area around their target.

"We found some grenades while scavenging the first two cars," Nadia reported, recalling the details of one of the reports she received before they even returned to the school\'s building.

"We didn\'t bring any frags, so they are either smoke or flash ones," Beatrice muttered in response. Then, a small smile crept up on her lips. "That\'s even better. But in both cases, we will need something that will keep attracting the zombies away from our target," she added, looking back down at the makeshift plan of the area.

Mathew twitched. Then, his eyes ran to the side for a moment. And lastly, he turned his eyes back and raised his hand.

"I think I will be able to help with that."