Chapter 297 Confrontation

"Open the doors," Mathew ordered in a calm, composed voice.

In the short time since he woke up, he managed to regain the clarity of his mind and the greater part of the strength of his body. And yet, he continued to rely on both Nadia's and Norbert's support to move.

As such, only Leila was left to actually open the doors, as Mathew doing it himself would break all the immersion of his small ploy.

Leila moved up and grabbed the handle of the doors. She then moved it around a bit only to turn her head and point a wide, enthusiastic smile at Mathew.

"It's locked," she informed.

"I never thought that would be a problem for you," Mathew replied, replicating the same kind of slightly crazed smile that others could see on Leila's face.

"Good point." Leila smiled. She then turned face-first towards the doors. She initially raised her right leg to kick it open… Only to put her leg back, heave a deep sigh, and lazily swing her saber.

Whatever held the door closed brought forward the miracle of birth and became two. Yet, in the particular case of a lock, the miracle of multiplication by division made it fail its only purpose, allowing the girl to just push the girl open with a single tap.

"WHAT THE…"

The door swung open slowly enough not to alert the people on the other side right away. As such, rather than freaking out at the sight of a locked door randomly opening, one of the guards was unlucky enough to freak out when it suddenly struck him in the side of his shoulder.

"Oh my, hello," Mathew said with a smile as kind as he could produce.

'Just keep on smiling,' he told himself as he dragged his feet on the ground to reinforce the illusion of his weakness.

"I believe we have not met yet so let me do the courtesy and ask first," Mathew leaned his head over his shoulder, tapping his helpers on their shoulders to make them stop in place.

Mathew then took a deep breath and smiled even wider.

"Who the fuck are you and how dare you try to lock me and my people?" Mathew asked in the gentlest voice that he could produce… Only to then put a confused and almost scared look on his face. "Wait, no, that's not it, I'm sorry," he mumbled, pretending to be at a loss for words.

"Please, forgive me, I was too busy fighting zombies I forgot how to fight humans," Mathew added, spreading his fingers hand apart and then shaking his hands.

Then, his face calmed down.

"Right, I remember," he muttered, before putting a smile back on his face and raising his eyes back to the people that were supposed to keep his group locked in place.

"Are you guys courting death?" Mathew asked as if he was inquiring about the predicted weather for the evening.

Their guards were stunned. Not only by Mathew's group somehow opening locked and pretty solid doors but then also by Mathew's stupid performance.

Yet, it didn't matter. Because in the heat of the moment, one of the supposed guards raised his hands… And he held a gun in those hands.

"Don't…"

"Are you really sure you want to use your guns?" Mathew asked before the other party could even shout their threats out. "Against people who decimated a horde of over a thousand zombies in a matter of minutes?" the young man asked, genuinely amused by the other party's reaction.

Sure, raising the gun was likely their self-defense response… But what could a gun do against someone who could pluck zombies' heads off without even touching them?

"It doesn't matter how strong you are," one of the guards stepped up and raised his own pistol, pointing it right at Mathew's forehead. "A bullet in your brain will end you anyway," he properly came up and threatened.

Mathew grinned.

'I should have more than enough mana for that,' he thought.

Mathew invoked his mind's flesh the second the doors swung open. And the reason why he kept on spewing bullshit was simple.

He was simply diverting everyone's attention from the fact that his invisible hands did a little trick on their guns and flipped all their safeties on.

"Stop!" A loud voice suddenly entered the scene, followed by the sound of hurried steps. "Everyone, calm down please!"

A man appeared in the corridor, right within Mathew's view.

'So it's really him, after all,' Mathew thought, slightly gritting his teeth.

"We are all friends here, are we not?" the man said, raising both of his hands in an attempt to de-escalate the situation.

"Yeah," Mathew replied while keeping up his grin. 'Barrier of light,' Mathew thought, creating a massive albeit short outburst of intense light.

'Pull!' he then thought, changing the directive for his mind's flesh and jerking all the guns from the other party, pulling them across the floor towards Leila's feet.

"We are all friends," Mathew added, repeating the man's words as soon as the light dissipated.

Mathew raised his arms, giving up on the ruse of being weakened. He then calmly walked a few paces forward before picking one of the guns up with his real hand.

Following his command, his invisible hands then raised all the other guns before pointing them all in the direction of the man and his underlings.

"Since we are all friends here," Mathew muttered. His invisible hands pulled out the hammers of all the guns that could have this action applied to them.

A drop of sweat fell down his cheek.

All the calculation, focus, and multitasking to make the current situation happen was taking quite a huge toll on Mathew's mind. All the motions were relatively light and didn't require a lot of energy, making the entire thing quite easy on Mathew's low mana reserves, at the cost of increased complexity and focus.

"Since we are all friends here, then we shouldn't talk while you are pointing your guns at us," Mathew stated.

Norbert closed his eyes.

Mathew blinked a few times.

"What the hell are you talking about?!" the leader of the other party visibly freaked out. "You are the only one aiming guns at…"

"Oh, so those three snipers at the roof of the residential building currently steadying their breaths to be ready to pull the triggers are a third party?" Mathew asked, following the exact words that Norbert whispered when he blinked. "It should be fine for me to kill them, right?"