novelraw Chapter 61 61: Could you lend me your daggers
Chapter 61 61: Could you lend me your daggers
Leon raised a hand and, without hesitation, pointed straight at Calista, who still had her face buried in her friend's arms.
"Even a crybaby like her found the guts to stand up," he said loudly, never lowering his finger. Then his gaze lifted, sliding over the faces packed into the crowd. "And you?"
He turned slowly toward the men who, just a few days ago, had held sobbing women and whispered into their ears that everything would be fine, that they'd protect them, that they didn't need to be afraid.
"You really call yourselves men?" he tossed out coldly. "You can't even take one step forward."
His eyes moved over the students, the teachers, the handful of older people, unhurried, deliberate, like he wanted every single person to feel the weight of that moment. There wasn't a trace of sympathy in him. Only naked contempt.
Calista's friend - Sylphia - jerked her head up at the word "crybaby," her eyes lighting with anger. She hugged Calista even tighter, as if fear had vanished in an instant and all that remained was fury, aimed straight at Leon.
The men he'd targeted flushed almost immediately, so red it looked like blood had rushed to their heads. But none of them lifted their eyes. None stepped out. Not a single word.
Marek snorted, twisting his mouth into a crooked smile, and there was nothing amused about it. It was pure disdain.
The two students who'd stepped forward earlier straightened almost on instinct, as if it had only just hit them that they were standing on the right side of the line. Even the boy with glasses, still hunched, fingers nervously laced together, looked braver in that moment than every other man in the hall.
Leon didn't waste any more time on them. In his head, it was done. They would regret the chance they'd just let slip, and when they did, there wouldn't be any taking it back.
He turned toward Natalia.
"We're leaving," he said shortly. "To look for food."
Adam nodded without a word. Natalia nodded too, then shifted her gaze to Marek and Patrycja.
"You two stay here and guard the shelter," she ordered calmly.
They both nodded at the same time.
"I'm going to wake Roland," Natalia added, looking back to Leon. "Then we can head out."
Leon answered with a brief nod.
A moment later, he faced the five standing in front of him and studied them carefully, one by one, like he meant to memorize their faces.
"You're coming with me," he said slowly. "You don't have to carry anything, but you'd better get your heads ready for what's coming."
They all nodded quickly. Calista pulled back a little from Sylphia, still trembling, but she nodded too, solemnly, making it clear she understood.
Leon didn't say anything else. He simply turned and headed for the exit, and the five who'd chosen to take that step followed after him, leaving behind a crowd that still couldn't move.
***
They moved slowly, there was no other way, not when they were responsible for more than twenty people who, just days ago, had been curled up inside a gymnasium and afraid to go near the windows. Now they were walking through the empty campus streets with faces tight from fear and focus, placing their feet exactly where they'd been told, not drifting even a meter, and not asking pointless questions.
Leon glanced sideways at several faces he hadn't seen before, fifteen new people Patrycja had told him about before they left. The ones who didn't have the courage to fight, but were done sitting around. Their hands shook at the thought of zombies, yet they were ready to carry crates, backpacks, bags, to work, to help, to do anything, as long as they weren't dead weight.
That was enough for Leon to look at them differently. In this world, it wasn't about courage in the romantic sense anymore. It was about usefulness, and the willingness to change. If someone could understand that, they deserved a full meal.
The ones who refused to fight and refused to work stayed behind in the shelter with rations cut to the bare minimum, not as punishment, but as consequence. The world had changed, and the old rules, where everyone got everything just for existing, simply didn't work anymore. You couldn't force a transformation overnight. It had to be slow. Systematic. Step by step.
And this was only the first of many decisions still to come.
Natalia led from the front, posture straight, movements sure. The moment a shifting shadow appeared ahead, the air thickened with cold, ice blades forming almost reflexively and slamming into zombie skulls before they could make a sound. To the students walking in the middle, it looked like magic in its purest form, something utterly detached from the reality they'd lived in not so long ago.
Roland covered the right side, leaning on his cane with a careless ease. Every few moments he simply vanished from sight, and the zombies trying to approach from that direction dropped dead, as if something invisible had snapped their necks. When he reappeared beside the group a second later, the students stared at him with their mouths open, trying to understand how an old man could move faster than their eyes could track. Roland didn't even look at them. He just yawned long and wide, leaned harder on his cane, and shot Natalia a reproachful glance.
"You really had to wake me up," he muttered. "That was my best nap in a week."
Natalia didn't answer, eyes fixed on the road ahead.
The rear belonged to Adam and Elena. Adam kept his bow drawn almost constantly, and every time something rustled behind them, or a corpse lurched out from a side street, an arrow hissed through the air and buried itself in a zombie's skull with a dry, unpleasant crack. Elena walked right beside him, alert, hugging the cat to her chest. Every so often it lifted its head and flicked its ears, like it sensed threats faster than any human could.
Leon protected the left flank, and unlike the others he moved in near-total silence. Another zombie crawled out from beneath a collapsed section of building, dragging its legs and clawing at the air in a mindless reflex. Leon watched it for a moment, then murmured, more to himself than anyone else.
"They really are slow."
After so many Agility boosts, zombies moved in his eyes like turtles wading through thick mud, predictable, late, stripped of any real threat. But Leon knew perfectly well that what was trivial to him was a waking nightmare for the people walking in the middle of the formation.
Even though bodies kept dropping around them and the evolvers moved with calm, methodical confidence, the loudest sounds in the group were still the humans, muffled cries, broken breaths, quiet whimpers of panic, the nervous panting of people who'd spent the last few days relatively safe behind locked gym doors, never forced to look at any of this up close… until now, when reality dragged them back in with no mercy.
Leon slowed and raised a hand, signaling the group to stop. Then he turned to the five who'd stepped out earlier. His gaze lingered briefly on Calista and her friend, then swept over the other three.
"Who wants to go first?" he asked calmly, his deep voice holding no pressure, no mockery…just dry practicality. "I'll hunt one down for you. Cut what needs cutting. Immobilize it. All you have to do is land the finishing blow and collect the benefits. Easy and pleasant."
He paused, watching their faces, the shaking hands, the tension in their shoulders, that unconscious half-step backward they didn't even realize they were taking.
"Don't disappoint me," he added after a moment, quieter but colder. "Chances like this don't come often."
The five huddled closer together almost instinctively, like being near one another might make it easier. They all took that symbolic step forward, facing the first zombie swaying a few meters away, yet fear still clung to them. Sticky. Paralyzing. Settling in their throats and stomachs.
Seconds stretched into something that felt like minutes.
No one spoke.
Leon felt his jaw tighten, the corner of his mouth twitching with irritation, because this was exactly what he'd expected. He was about to say something when, almost imperceptibly, one hand lifted into the air.
"L-let me…" a thin, trembling voice said. "L-let me do it… first."
Leon blinked and looked more closely. When he realized who it was, his eyebrows lifted slightly.
It was Calista.
She stood there small, almost swallowed by an oversized jacket, shoulders wound tight to the limit. Tears ran down her cheeks, she tried to ignore them, but they kept coming. Her fingers were clamped around her makeshift weapon so hard her knuckles had gone white. She breathed fast and shallow, her whole body shaking, yet she didn't lower her hand. She didn't look away. She didn't try to hide behind anyone else.
Leon stared at her for a moment, genuinely surprised. Of everyone in front of him, it was her, the same girl who'd been crying in her friend's arms, the one he'd bluntly called a crybaby, who'd found the courage to speak first. Fragile posture, fear rolling off her in waves… and yet the decision she'd just made couldn't be brushed aside.
He watched her in silence, then the corner of his mouth rose by a fraction as he saw her step out.
"Calista, right?" he said evenly, not raising his voice.
She nodded, hand still raised, then took a few unsteady steps toward him, stopping only when she was truly close.
She drew a deep breath, one, then another, like she had to force air into her lungs. She wiped her sleeve across her cheeks, though fresh tears immediately welled up again, and finally lifted her eyes to him.
"Mister Leon…" she began in a shaking voice, then cut herself off, like she was gathering the last scraps of courage. "Can I… can I ask you something?"
"Oh?" Leon murmured, narrowing his eyes slightly as he tilted his head, curiosity flickering through him. "Go on. What is it?"
Calista glanced back toward the zombie swaying a few meters away, dragging one foot over the asphalt, making wet, throaty sounds, then looked at Leon again. The fear was obvious. But underneath it was something else. Something harder.
"If… if it wouldn't be a problem," she said slowly, weighing every word, "could you lend me your daggers… and let me kill that zombie with my own hands? No help at all."