Apocalypse: I'm Bound to a Mobile Lottery Shop

Chapter 29: Chapter 29: Master...

The squad leader was worried about the Vanguard Squad, but he couldn’t leave Lily Hart here alone, either. He paced around in anxiety.

Frost Shaw walked up to Lily Hart and held out his hands. The tips of his ears, turning red, were barely visible in the darkness. "Piggyback or a bridal carry?" he asked. "You choose."

Lily Hart looked up at his outstretched hands and said decisively, "Piggyback!"

She straightened up, walked around behind him, and gave him a heads-up. "Get ready." With that, she leaped onto his back.

Frost Shaw caught her in perfect sync, securing his hands under her thighs. Her body pressed against his, radiating the heat and breathlessness from her recent exertion.

Lily Hart got situated, patted his shoulder twice, and said, "Let’s go."

’At that moment, Frost Shaw felt like a beast of burden carrying his master. A master who was now cracking the whip, telling him it was time to get a move on.’

The thought stunned Frost Shaw. ’And yet, for some strange reason, I wish Lily Hart would actually take a whip to me. Yell at me, curse at me... The fiercer, the better. Just the thought of it is kind of thrilling...’

"Are we going or not?" Lily Hart patted his shoulder again. ’Why is he spacing out? I really don’t get how a person can be this cold.’

He felt like a block of ice. For her own comfort, Lily Hart straightened her torso, leaning away from him slightly.

Frost Shaw snapped back to reality, the tips of his ears now beet red. With her draped over him, her warm breath occasionally ghosted across his neck, making the spot feel ticklish.

He tilted his head, glanced at the squad leader, and mimicking her impatient tone, said, "We’re going." With that, he suddenly accelerated, sprinting in the direction they had agreed upon.

Lily Hart’s torso flew backward from the inertia. She scrambled to grab his collar, throwing her arms around his neck to steady herself.

She reached up and gave his shoulder a sharp pinch, saying angrily, "Frost Shaw, are you trying to give me a heart attack?!"

Frost Shaw didn’t say a word, but he couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from turning up in a smile.

Without Lily Hart, their "little burden," the two men’s speed increased dramatically, and they quickly reached the location of the green dot on the map.

As they got close, Frost Shaw stopped and set Lily Hart down.

She shook her head, planting one hand on her hip and the other on his arm for support. "You... BLEGH—" The speed had made her so dizzy she nearly threw up the boxed meal she’d eaten earlier.

Frost Shaw stood perfectly still, letting her use him as a post. He had momentarily forgotten that she was just an ordinary person...

The squad leader, who had fallen slightly behind, arrived just then. He anxiously scanned the area. "Where are Captain King and the others?"

Lily Hart, feeling a bit better, pointed in one direction. The three of them crept forward quietly.

Not far ahead stood a single-story building overgrown with weeds. Creeping vines choked the outer walls, leaving no surface exposed.

When the wind blew, the leaves all swayed in one direction, rising and falling like a green ocean.

The trio moved along the wall, instinctively quieting their footsteps and holding their breath.

Soon, Lily Hart heard the sounds of a fight coming from behind the building. She pressed her hands against the wall and carefully peeked her head around the corner to see.

She saw three zombies. They were swift and tall, and were even dressed in neat shirts and pants. At first glance, they were indistinguishable from humans.

But their scarlet eyes, long, sharp fingernails, and thinning hair gave them away.

Only five members of the Vanguard Squad still had the strength to fight. The other four were badly wounded.

They were all clinging to life, leaning or lying in a corner, hating themselves for their helplessness. All they could do was follow their comrades’ battle with their eyes.

Frost Shaw paid no mind to tactics. With a single glance, he assessed the Ranks of the three zombies.

Two were Fifth Rank, and one was Sixth Rank. The Sixth Rank was likely the leader of the seven zombies and the strongest of them.

He stepped out directly. Lily Hart reached for him but was too slow. The squad leader, frantic with worry, followed close behind.

How could he bear to hide and watch when he could see his comrades being overrun by zombies with his own eyes?

"Damn..." Lily Hart’s eyes widened at the sight. The single word escaped her lips unconsciously.

With every step Frost Shaw took, a patch of ice formed under his feet, gradually creating a frozen path.

Then, Frost Shaw gently raised a hand, and an icicle as thick as a grown man’s thigh materialized beside him.

Immediately after, countless more icicles appeared with a WHOOSH, hovering around him. They bobbed up and down gently, as if alive.

She was too far away to hear what Frost Shaw said, but she could vaguely see his lips move.

The next second, the swarm of icicles launched forward, hurtling toward the Sixth Rank zombie at incredible speed.

The Sixth Rank zombie caught a glimpse of the icicles from the corner of its eye. It tried to flee, but Zachary Ward and another squad member blocked its escape.

The two humans and one zombie were locked in a deadly struggle. Zachary Ward knew that he could not, under any circumstances, let this Sixth Rank zombie get away.

’They’re too vengeful. If we let it escape, it will bring overwhelming retaliation down on us in the future.’

The icicles arrived in an instant, homing in on the Sixth Rank zombie as if they had eyes of their own.

They looked like brittle chunks of ice, radiating a frosty mist, but they were sharper and more lethal than any blade.

As the last icicle pierced the Sixth Rank zombie’s body, it let out a heaven-shaking roar. The icicle shattered within it, the fragments falling to the ground.

Its roar summoned the other two Fifth Rank zombies, and the squad leader and his three teammates couldn’t hold them back.

Frost Shaw turned and closed his eyes for a moment. The instant he opened them again, the two Fifth Rank zombies were frozen solid, turned into ice sculptures.

Seizing the opportunity, Zachary Ward and the other squad member intensified their assault, attacking the Sixth Rank zombie with all their might and successfully severing both of its arms.

In less than five seconds, the Fifth Rank zombies shattered the ice encasing them and let out another furious roar.

Lily Hart covered her ears. Just as she was about to complain about all the screaming, she suddenly remembered something and looked down at her Light Brain.

On the bottom right corner of the screen, where there had only been three green dots, hundreds of red dots were now moving toward their position.

’These shameless zombies! Calling for backup just because they can’t win. They’re such goddamn shameless bastards!’

Lily Hart didn’t care anymore. She stepped out from behind the wall and shouted at the top of her lungs, "Finish it quick! The bastards called for reinforcements!"

After yelling, she quickly ducked back behind the wall. ’It just feels safer with a wall in front of me.’

Several of the fighters heard her voice and looked around, but they couldn’t see her. Only Frost Shaw remained focused on the battle.

A massive block of ice suddenly materialized, hovering above the three zombies’ heads like a thick wall, blotting out the sky.

While the zombies were distracted, searching for the source of the voice, the block of ice fell, crashing down upon them.

Lily Hart peeked her head out again just in time to witness the scene. She could clearly see the zombies being smashed into pulp, gore splattering everywhere.

’So brutal.’

Throughout the entire fight, Frost Shaw had stood in the same spot. His movements had been minimal—a raised hand, a brief closing of his eyes—and his clothes remained spotless.

He exhaled, and with a slight twitch of his fingers, the three massive blocks of ice vanished. The perceptive squad leader immediately went to search for the Crystal Cores.

After digging them out, he trotted over eagerly and presented them to Frost Shaw, who accepted them as his due and put them away in his spatial storage.

This was an unwritten rule of the apocalypse: whoever kills the zombie gets the Crystal Core, unless a different arrangement had been made beforehand.