139 Enemies Within 1

Just as the group finalized what to do with Toby, the bushes on the tree line rattled.

Everyone raised their guards and held bonespears as they waited in bated breathes. Edward, though low in energy, was ready to cast a barrier in case it was an enemy.

A hand followed by a foot came out of the bush and presented a ragged Adrian to everyone.

\"What happened here?\" Adrian said as he stared at the numerous bodies on the grassy ground. He looked around and saw that Jun hasn't come back. \"Where's Jun?\"

\"You didn't see him? He followed after you and hasn't come back.\" replied Edward.

Adrian frowned and turned back to the woods. \"I'll be right back.\"

Sheila acted normally when she heard Adrian's voice and only took a peak when he went back to the forest. Afterwards, she continued applying first aid onto Bartolome.

\"Sometimes, he's a bit...\" Edward was trying to say that Adrian was insensitive or doesn't care enough but was cut-off by Sheila.

\"Leave him be. Everyone's in danger. We need to regroup as soon as possible.\"

Edward sighed and could only accept that everyone has their own ways to express themselves.

He could've have atleast ask if we're okay...

Edward asked Nik's squad to scout and patrol the area. He took charge of guarding Toby and tied his arms into his legs. He had no choice since everyone can use dimensional storages freely. If he ever slack or got careless, the man could escape which could potentially bring everyone further trouble.

\"Why did you this?\" said Edward. He stared at the man's eyes through the mask. He took the mask off since he felt it was more appropriate to talk if he could see the other's face.

Seeing that the man unresponsive, Edward fell in a dilemma. He has no experience with interogating people and his social circle only consists of his college buddies.

Just as Edward was feeling doubtful whether he could get the man talking, Toby spoke words that shocked all of them.

\"The government is coming.\" he said. As if not contented with the shock he gave everyone, Toby added more spice to the pot. \"The army is coming.\"

Toby felt joy seeing everyone's shocked expressions.

\"That hoodlum would be arrested soon enough and all of his accomplices would be imprisonned. I suggest that all of you switch sides now, so you can get a lighter sentence.\"

Edward frowned and said, \"Why would he be imprisonned? Why would we? We helped people! We provided a safe haven for everyone in this dying times and your saying that we're going to be imprisonned?\"

\"Why are you even listening to him?\" said Sheila. \"You're not gullible enough to believe his words, right?\"

\"Yeah, right. Don't believe me. Do you remember that Henry? That pompous brat. The mayor's son. He got in contact with his uncle which is the reason why the army is coming here with a few government officials. I don't know their ranks but I'm sure they're coming. You better choose sides now. You're boss is a murderer! He killed the mayor, so he could rise in power! He enslaves prisoners, so he could have a private army for himself! The law will punish him and the governm—\"

Toby fell forward unconscious before he finished speaking. Behind him was Nik, who stood stoicly while staring at Toby's falling back.

Everyone was a witness as to what happened.

Nik struck Toby on his neck causing the man to fall unconscious.

\"Are you a secret agent? How did you do that?\" said Edward slightly impressed.

\"No... I'm not. I just saw it from movies.\" Nik replied.

Sheila said curiously. \"By the way, what does he mean by that? Did Jun really kill the mayor? And what about that slave-thingy?\"

Nik didn't know how to answer the bombardment of questions. He knew about the enslavemnt since he was one of the people enslave, but he had no knowledge about the mayor being killed by Jun.

Just as he was about to answer her question, the bush rustled once again and spat out Adrian. On his back, he was carrying a heavily wounded Jun.

Right after closing in to the group, Adrian casually said, \"I killed the mayor.\"

***

The hardest thing to do after everything that happened was the aftermath that the actual fighting left behind. Those dead people who were infected or bitten once, started to reanimate. Making everyone clench their teeth as they killed their friends once again. Killing all the reanimated people was a physical burden and a mental torture since they were close buddies after days and weeks of risking their lives together.

Jun honestly answered any question that Sheila and Edward hurled at him. While Adrian on the other hand was subjected to an scrutinized interrogation by Sheila. She wants Adrian to spill every secret he has on his body while keeping an angelic smile on her face. Anyone could see that she was pissed since her partner was hiding things from her.

Edward remains neutral and had no comments about the mayor's death.

Nik's squad members were a bit disturb about the fact of Adrian's cold-hearted killing, but tried to accept that the world is slowly changing and killing important figures might become a norm.

Edward asked what happened to Jun, so he narrated the following events of how he fought those marksmen on the woods. People call his strategy as guerilla warfare but Jun doesn't even know of the word. Maybe he knew, but the term he used when he recounted the story was 'hide and seek'.

The forest was an advantageous terrain to Jun since he could see where his enemies are. Those floating question marks was a nice hack since he could kill the enemy without being seen. This is also the reason why there were almost no gunfires ensuing on the forest.

Also, since Jun was able to reach close quarter combat, most of his injuries came from dodging and rolling around the forest grounds. With the addition of melee squabbles regarding life and death. Since their lives were on the line, the enemies fought harder but still got over powered by Jun.

\"Well, thanks to that, we got some military weapons on our hands now. We looted some ammunition boxes too. If we use them sparingly and only when needed, it should last us a long time.\" Jun said while circulating energy all over his body.

Jun looked around and pondered what to do with the remaining pure bodies. Pure bodies that didn't turn to carriers or has hovering dimensional boxes above their bodies.

\"Each of you should absorb one body. Just loot it normally. You can ask questions if you want, but ask those questions later. We need to go back to the town first.\"

\"So it was true? The government's coming? What about the army?\" said Edward.

The rest of the group started looting the bodies but kept their ears peeled for Jun's answer.

Jun waited until everyone finished absorbing their allies legacy. \"I don't know about the government but our shooters were uniformed military personnel. They were armed with military grade equipment and were obviously trained. I don't have any idea why they're doing this, but we'll have to be prepared.\"

\"Is this how you stronger? By killing people?\" said Nik.

Jun didn't feel any malicious intent with his question, and decided to explain himself. \"Marianne once got abducted by my old pals. I had to kill them. I absorbed their bodies and that made me stronger than everyone else. I didn't like it but I had to do it.\"

Everyone became solemn afterwards. Various thoughts lingered on everyone's mind on how this could affect their daily lives.

\"We're going to do a quick check with the camp site, then portal back to town.\"

Jun watched everyone recover their energies while chatting. His mind then wandered to the different types of deaths in this world. Currently, he knew three kinds of deaths. The first one that turns you to a carrier after dying, a carrier that has most of your strength when you were alive. The first type of death requires the body to atleast be bitten once to have the 'infected' debuff. The second one is when a person dies on battle, which is directly related to the third one out-of-combot death.

People who died while fighting or in a state of battle would have an intact corpse. The body would stay there on the spot as long as nobody moves it. Then comes in the third one, which is almost the same, except that the person's dimensional storage is hovering outside its body and could be looted of everything inside.

There are similarities between the second and third death; the body remains after death and could be absorbed to increase stats. While the only difference between the two is that the third death releases the person's dimensional storage, allowing everyone access to the dimensional storage.

After a quarter of an hour, every body recover. Bartolome was able to stand but still needs support to walk. He was supported by Nik and the group moved towards the camp site.

Inside his office, Evo read the contents of an email he received from Jun. The contents simply told him to be careful and create backup escape plans.