Free Web NovelChapter 40: Chapter 40: Slay Our Way Out, the Newbie Protection Period Ends
The others took turns sleeping, switching every two hours or so. Finally, Faye Yardley was forced to rest. She thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but the moment she leaned against the wall, she was out like a light.
Gavin Donovan also sat down beside her, leaning against the wall to rest with his eyes closed. freёweɓnovel.com
It was only then that Caleb Colby said, "So she gets tired after all."
"What kind of thing is that to say? Yardley is human, just like you and me. Her potential is just a teensy bit bigger, that’s all," Finn Ford replied with a smile.
It had to be said, they had chosen their position well. The glass wall wasn’t actually that easy for the zombies to smash from the outside.
Besides, zombies also conserved their energy, so they mostly chose to enter through the existing openings.
This gave the five of them some time to catch their breath.
Zachary Pierce stood guard at the door, in no mood for jokes. The entrance was almost blocked by zombie corpses, but the zombies outside kept lunging toward them anyway.
As he kept killing, he too felt the same urge as Faye Yardley—the impulse to wipe out all the zombies in one go.
However, he was someone who had seen blood back in the peaceful times, so his mental fortitude was much stronger than Faye Yardley’s.
BANG, BANG, BANG!
The rhythmic sound of something slamming against the glass wall clearly reached everyone’s ears.
Apparently, it wasn’t just them who were getting frustrated with the killing; the zombies, unable to finish them off, weren’t faring much better.
What they couldn’t see was that the outermost ring of zombies below had stopped following their leader’s orders and had begun to wander off elsewhere.
When Faye Yardley woke up, the sky outside was already completely dark.
Her first words upon waking were, "Have I been sleeping for a long time?"
Gavin Donovan replied, "No, just a little over two and a half hours."
"Then how come there’s not a sliver of light outside? Does it get dark a little too quickly in this Dungeon?"
"Maybe the flow of time is different from the outside world?" freёwebnoѵel.com
Faye Yardley took some cooked lobster and crab meat from her inventory, grabbed a portion, and started eating.
Finn Ford reminded her, "No need to rush. The number of zombies is already decreasing."
"Okay."
She agreed verbally but didn’t slow her eating.
Actually, having the entrance blocked by zombie corpses was more inconvenient for the person guarding it, but they couldn’t retreat.
"Do zombies get a buff at night? I’ve read a lot of novels where zombies get stronger at night than during the day," Faye Yardley asked after swallowing a mouthful of crab meat.
"No."
"That’s good news."
"But their vision doesn’t seem to be affected by the dark."
Faye Yardley: ...
’My bad, I spoke too soon.’
’What would happen if the door gets completely blocked by zombies?’
There was a smaller room inside this office, but it had no other exit.
So, Faye Yardley felt the best option was to fight their way out now!
Besides, no matter how sturdy the glass wall was, it couldn’t withstand the zombies’ constant pounding.
Just as she had that thought, with a loud CRASH, the glass wall shattered, crumbling into countless small, round beads that rolled across the floor.
Gavin Donovan immediately raised his spear and charged at the zombies leaping in through the shattered wall.
Zachary Pierce, who was guarding the door, was naturally aware of the situation. He backed up a little, making it easier for the zombies outside the door to crawl in.
A biting evening wind poured in through the broken wall.
But it was just as Finn Ford had said; the number of zombies surrounding them had indeed decreased.
So, inside that small office, they all began to fight the zombies, all while making sure they didn’t get blown out of the building by the wind mid-fight.
After dealing with the zombies that had climbed in from the outer wall, Faye Yardley said, "I have a rope. Once I’ve tied it, let’s climb down. It’s not so dark outside that we can’t see a thing. We’ll find another place to hide."
"Since the number of zombies is decreasing, shouldn’t it be better to stay in this building?" Caleb Colby offered a different opinion.
Faye Yardley hummed, clearly agreeing with his point. But her intuition told her that staying here would lead to danger, so she insisted, "My gut is telling me that if we stay here too long, we’ll face a danger more terrifying than zombies."
"Get the rope. We’re leaving." Zachary Pierce chose to trust her intuition.
She took a coil of rope from her backpack, found an opportunity to tie it to a steel pole, and tested its sturdiness. Gavin Donovan grabbed the rope and said, "I’ll go first. You guys follow when you get a chance."
With that, he gripped the rope and leaped out.
One by one, they seized their chances and went down the rope one after another.
Zachary Pierce was the last to go. He wasn’t in a hurry, waiting until he calculated that everyone else had landed before he approached the rope against the wind.
With one hand gripping the rope and the other holding his Treasure Sword, two zombies lunged at him simultaneously. As he was killing one, the other’s sharp claws swiped directly at his face. He jerked his head to the side to avoid a fatal blow, but the claws still left a deep, bloody gash running from his left cheek, past the corner of his eye, and up to his forehead.
The scent of fresh blood sent the remaining zombie into a frenzy. In its overexcitement, it lunged past the steel pole, and Zachary Pierce, who was descending the rope, promptly disemboweled it and sliced it in two, its halves plummeting downwards.
More zombies mindlessly charged, leaping down after Zachary Pierce.
The four who had descended earlier weren’t idle; they were already engaged in a fierce battle with the zombies that remained below.
In truth, they only had to descend two floors, so it was very quick.
The blood dripping from Zachary Pierce’s wound sent the nearby zombies into a frenzy.
After taking down a zombie, Faye Yardley instantly took out a Hemostatic Pill. The moment Zachary Pierce landed, she told him, "Take this Hemostatic Pill first, so you don’t attract more of them. After this, all of you follow me. Don’t get separated."
After saying that and handing him the pill, she charged off to the west.
Faye Yardley’s intuition was truly uncanny. Under her lead, they broke through the zombie encirclement despite the darkness, until they were only occasionally encountering a few scattered zombies.
Finally, she found a low, collapsed building, and they squeezed through a gap to get inside.
Inside was an intact space, roughly the size of a single room.
"You’re the best at finding spots like this," Caleb Colby praised Faye Yardley, slumping to the ground.
But they had only rested for a moment when they heard a rumbling sound, and then they all felt the ground shake.
Finn Ford poked his head out to look in the direction of the sound. Even in the faint light of the darkness, the silhouette of a collapsing skyscraper was all too clear.
"That must have been the building we were just in," Finn Ford said, pulling his head back. "That collapse probably crushed a lot of zombies, too."
Caleb Colby turned his head toward Faye Yardley’s direction. Even though she was just a dark shadow, he couldn’t help but give her a thumbs-up. "Yardley, from now on, you’re my god!"
Sensing no danger, Faye Yardley had already tilted her head against the wall and fallen asleep.
"You all rest first. At dawn, we’ll hunt any stragglers or small groups of zombies. The next two days are going to be busy," Zachary Pierce said softly, standing guard at the gap.
After a good night’s sleep, the five of them emerged one after another as the sky began to lighten, and the zombie hunt began.
...
While the five-person squad was still killing zombies throughout the Dungeon, the world outside had reached the end of the novice protection period!
[Dear players, the novice protection period has ended. The Maritime Survival mode will now officially begin.]
