May Peace Grace Us

Chapter 40: Caught up

It took a while for the rest of the hyenas to catch up, but they finally got together on the fourth day, after Aila and her family had set up their camp for the night. Apparently, they agreed to meet up together after they were a few miles away from the city boundaries. They met some disturbing things that have delayed them greatly on the road.

“You’re such a cute baby!” Liza cooed as she tried to get the child into her arms. Her enthusiasm was instead met with resistance from the child and had almost made him cry.

“I suggest no cuddling with him for now.” Aila said as she coaxed the child back to a good mood. “He is still very wary of strangers. Mind you, dad is on the strangers list too. Up until now, he couldn't hold the child with him crying.”

“How did you end up with this child?” Harry said, as he minded the distance so as to not startle the child. “Is this another thing you forgot to tell us?”

“Well, I told her not to inform you all for a surprise.” Judith said as she took the child from Aila’s embrace. “He was found in a station we temporarily stopped in for a gas refill. There were no living people there and we couldn't bear to let him be. So I decided to adopt him. Though in the Justine family practice, he cannot take my husband’s last name and inherit any of his legacy.”

“If I remember it right, this was the reason you always stopped yourself from adopting a sibling for Aila back then.” Bella said as she stepped out of the RV after she refreshed herself. All of the newly arrived hyenas were so dirty that they fought with each other about who would have the first rights to use the two bathrooms from the two available RVs. Thankfully, a truce was made and they established a clear order of who would have the priorities first and what order the people could use the bathroom.

“You are very eager if you take us with you to the orphanage to volunteer,” Bella said, as he pointed to Liza that it was already her turn to the bathroom. " surprisingly, Aila is quite good with children and a sibling would have let Aila be more interactive if you took one of the children that you were fond of back then auntie."

“I had plans, but the Justine family is strict with people joining their lines for good reasons.” Judith looked sad as she said this. “I don’t want the child to resent us when the time comes. Questions as to why he has no share or why he is not entitled to things Aila has, we don’t want that to appear at all. No matter how much we might try to be fair to the children, we really cannot help but look biased due to the rules.”

“With that being the case, why choose this child now?” Bella asked if she took a look at the child with a cool eye. “Regardless of how the world will be, it does not eliminate the rules the Justine has for their descendants.”

“I thought of a solution to it.” Judith said, not daring to meet the eyes of anyone. “The Justine family has a special practice of adopting children to their loyal servants. The said children will be sent to a servant to raise and they will be paid for this extra labor. The child will then have a name under that servant’s last name and is subsequently assimilated to the family through the passage of time. As it was the family who had really adopted him in everything except the formal papers, they often had better treatment and were given almost everything that they needed until they became adults. I was originally a child like this, destined to be a person under the banner of the Justine family. My life plan was to become a doctor who would serve the family. But somehow, Stephen liked me enough to marry me and has greatly influenced my future to take the financial subjects in order to be able to take care of the massive generation of wealth that the Justine family has.”

“Would that mean this is Aila’s child groom?” Jerome voiced out, there was something in his voice that was quite off to hear about.

“What groom?” Alexa asked him to motion Harry to the bathroom.

“Well—”Jerome wanted to elaborate, but Aila covered his mouth and dragged him out to get beaten.

“Don’t mind him.” Aila said with cold eyes. She then looked at her mother with a polite face before she said, “Excuse us for a while.”

No one dared to say a word and saw how Aila tormented Jerome behind the smaller RV. They could only hear the intermittent sounds of pain of the boy once in a while.

When Aila was done had it was as if she did not just beat someone off-screen. She returned to the cluster and began talking about their next set of actions, effectively stirring the topic away from what Jerome had carelessly pointed out. It has been five days since the outbreak, the road they had to trek is now a lot more dangerous than it was three days ago.

Bella told them of their experiences when they were on the road. There were more zombies wandering outside the city, probably people who were having fun on the outskirts before the outbreak started. Almost like the woman Aila and her family had met before they left the boundaries, the hyenas have seen some of the infected being the victims of bites from other infected. However, unlike those that Aila had seen, these infected are now full-fledge zombies who are more or less walking undead who salvitate human flesh.

They are still manageable to fight head on, but troublesome as the ones on the stops were actually more numerous than estimated. After all, they were forced to take a road that was favored by many people, so it was inevitable that they would have to face various tourists as well as local zombies on their way.

“...we are quite thankful that we have awakened abilities that you once told us.” Felix sighs as he says that. “If we only relied on what we could use as a weapon, we might have to spend more days on the road.”

“How many have already awakened their ability?” Aila asked as she recalled that some of them have a long period before the ability will manifest.

“Out of the seven of us, not including Liza and Travis who have reported their abilities in the GC, three of us have awakened our abilities.” Eugene said as he manifested a ball of metal in his fingertips. “I can manipulate and produce metal out of thin air. Though I prefer to manipulate metals than produce one. It's so damn energy-consuming as well as time-consuming to make one out of nothing.”

Nodding at Eugene, Aila is not surprised the other does not like the latter. It is indeed hard to maintain energy for metal supernaturalists. The biggest reason was always the fact that when they are without any spare metal to manipulate, they always have to resort to producing them out of nothing.

Producing metal requires strong mental abilities, large amounts of energy, as well as great body strength to support the consumption of their abilities. And what the metal supernaturalists have to consume is simply not proportional to what they make. It will take too much from them to let them create a suitable weapon using their ability to produce their own metals. Whilst if they use the available metals, it would be easier and more convenient for them.

The aftermath of them making metals is just too heavy in comparison to the other abilities out there. Overdrafting is more common in them and also has a high mortality rate first due to the excess fatigue that accumulates in them as they produce metal to save themselves or, for whatever reason, they had to resort to this.

But the greatest thing about the metals they themselves will produce is that they are simply too powerful in comparison to the ones that are already existing.

The metals they produce are very strong, especially if the one who made them is a high-level supernaturalist. Some of these metals were hard, like diamonds, and some were more durable than the most durable metal there is, depending on their level. It might be possible that they will come to make a whole new kind of metal should they get above a certain level. If only the production was not too burdensome and dangerous for the metal supernaturalist, perhaps supernaturalists would have more powerful weapons to fight against their enemies.

“I prepared some metals for you to use here, but I’m afraid it will not be enough for you to use.” Aila said as she asked her mother to materialize the steel bars she had asked her mother to store. “I prepared more in the villa, but you have to make do with this for now.”

Eugene manipulated the metal and turned to the side to practice his ability. Travis gave the summary of those who had awakened their ability during their escape. Alexa has awakened her Ice ability while Albert awakens his Water. A good thing as it will solve the need for clean water for everyone.

“...we have guns courtesy of your father, Aila. Although we have some supernaturalists with us, the towns we have to pass by in this area are hard to deal with.” Bella said as she estimated the number of zombies in those areas at the moment. The outskirts of the next city they will be passing by have some decent numbers for them to get used to the gore that comes with killing the undead, but too many of them will surely let them face despair.

Not to mention, before they reach the area where Aila’s villa was situated, there is another second-class city on the way. For sure, the population there is dense enough to make look like drenched chickens again.