Chapter 22: Chapter 22: Trapped
Liora was busy cursing when her thoughts got interrupted by a guttural growl nearby.
"Garh....gggarhhh..."
Her head snapped up. The zombies were already starting to enter the store. Their shuffling forms moved closer, their groans echoing through the aisles. The group was now completely trapped in the supermarket, which had only one exit—the entrance, now blocked by the horde.
"We cannot fight so many zombies," Liang Zihan muttered, his wide eyes darting nervously from one zombie to another.
"Yeah! Even if we decide to fight, we cannot take down the Level 2 zombie," Chen Wei agreed with a nod.
"Then what is the plan? Are we trapped here?" Zhou Yinuo asked. Her frail body trembled with fear.
Liora gripped Zhou Yinuo's hand to comfort her. Zhou Yinuo gave a weak smile, but her fear was still evident in her trembling lips and darting gaze.
"Can't we fight them both?" Liora asked, glancing between the horde and the Level 2 zombie. She didn't understand why the others were so scared. In her mind, splitting the task seemed reasonable: one could fight the Level 2 zombie while the others handled the Level 1 zombies.
Her suggestion was met with horrified expressions.
"No, it cannot be like this," Chen Wei said, shaking his head firmly. He could already guess what was going on in Liora's mind.
"A Level 2 zombie is equal to a hundred Level 1 zombies. Just imagine how powerful it is," Liang Zihan said, his voice filled with distress.
"And only a power awakener can defeat a Level 2 zombie," he added. "They are in a league of their own compared to non-awakeners."
"To top it off, an awakener must be at least one level higher than the zombie to defeat it easily. If they're both at the same level, there's a hundred percent chance the zombie will win," he said with a complicated expression.
"Why?" Liora asked in confusion. "If both are at the same level, why can't they defeat the zombies?"
"You don't understand," Liang Zihan replied. "Zombies take more time to level up compared to humans. But when they do, their strength far surpasses ours at the same level."
Liora took some time to absorb this information. She knew the zombies were hard to deal with, but she never imagined they were this hard. A hundred-level 1 zombies were equal to one Level 2 zombie. The thought alone was enough to make Liora's mind stop working.
If the higher-level zombie was equal to 100 times its immediate lower-level zombie, then doing the math, just how powerful would the 10th or 20th level zombies be? Liora felt a chill down her back just by imagining it.
"Damn! Why did she even know math? It would have been better if she couldn't calculate and just remained in delusion. Now thinking about zombies millions of times more powerful than Level 1 zombies had made her sleepless."
How could she live without fear when she knew a zombie millions of times more powerful was living in the same space as her? And who knows when it would suddenly decide to give them a scare?
"You don't have to fear, Host. I don't think a Level 20 zombie has awakened at all. After all, it has only been one year since the apocalypse."
"You should have said it earlier. I almost got paranoid after thinking so much." Liora blew out a calm breath as she felt the tension leave her shoulders.
"It has not awakened, but that doesn't mean it never will." The system's arrogant voice rang again and poured cold water on Liora's emotions once again.
Liora: "..."
"They are coming closer," Zhou Yinuo said in a trembling voice.
Liora snapped from her thoughts and looked at the horde of zombies as it moved even closer towards them.
"Chen Wei, do you think we will be able to get out of this without fighting zombies?" Liora asked him as her eyes narrowed at the entrance of the supermarket. Not a little bit of space was left for a single person to bypass the zombies, just how crowded they were.
Liora's gut wrenched from inside as she looked carefully at the disheveled state of the zombies.
There were dozens of them, staggering aimlessly, their deformed forms shambling around the perimeter of the building. Some were in torn, weathered clothing; others were nothing more than skeletal remains barely held together by rotting flesh.
Their eyes—milky white and empty—scanned the area, mouths half-open, searching for any sign of life. They were drawn to the scent of the living like moths to a flame, mindlessly roaming in search of their next meal.
"No." One word from Chen Wei was enough for Liora to understand. He was right; there was no way they could fight their way through that horde. The supermarket was entirely surrounded.
If they tried to break through, they'd be swarmed in an instant. They had no choice but to wait—and pray the zombies didn't find their hiding place.
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"We need to move carefully," Chen Wei whispered, his voice steady despite the danger. "Stay low, stay quiet. If we don't make a sound, maybe they'll leave. We can't risk getting caught."
He glanced at the others, and without a word, they nodded in agreement, silently acknowledging the seriousness of the situation. They crouched low behind the stacks of crates and boxes, trying to make themselves as small and invisible as possible.
Minutes stretched into what felt like hours. Every shuffle of feet outside and every low groan, made their hearts race faster.
Liora watched carefully as her senses honed to every sound. If they moved too soon, they would attract attention. But they couldn't wait forever. The situation was growing worse with every passing moment.
They had to find a way out of this. How could they hide like this? And she could guess the zombies were not leaving soon. They had already smelled human flesh. And It was just racks blocking them, or they would have swarmed them in minutes.
And that Level 2 zombie was too far from them to sense their presence. It must have probably followed its instinct and come here to find its prey. But still, it had not developed the intelligence to locate its prey if they didn't make any sound at all.
After so much speculation and thinking, the situation was still the same. They were stuck in a cramped place and could no longer move at free will. And everyone was still tired from the day of work and had not eaten anything aside from a single stale piece of bread in the morning.
Liora felt that soon her stomach would start growling if she did not eat a proper meal. But looking at their current situation, a decent meal seemed to be a far-fetched dream.
"Growl..."