May Peace Grace Us

Chapter 47: Mutants

The rain continued on for three days before it finally stopped. The outside was wet and the whole pavement road was slippery from the inside of the houses. Everyone waited for the sky to be fully clear before they got out.

“Although we have everything inside the house, it's so damn stuffy in there,” Jerome said as he stretched his limbs under the sun’s rays. The moment the rain had shown signs of stopping, he had been fretting to get out and move around like a horse running free.

“Get used to it. When the winter comes, it will be a much longer stay at home for us all.” Aila said as she shoveled the man out of her way.

“Winter will be a challenge for us all,” Felix said, as he had some tools for the greenhouse. There are so many things they have to work on now that the rain has dissipated. For one, the biggest greenhouse was in need of many hands to deal with the weeds and other things they were not able to do due to the long duration of nonstop rain.

“Can you spare some time to train everyone for at least an hour? ” Aila asked Felix, who seemed to have fallen in love with farming ever since he was pulled over at one time by Liza, who asked him to help her out.“We need to man up our manpower. The enemies we have are getting stronger and more numerous.”

“I can do that. But for now, let's fix what should be fixed and inspect what the rain has left us.” Felix said, as he had planned to do that after he got to take a look at the little seedlings he had planted a few days earlier. He planned to have the first batch of people be trained at sunrise and the second batch would be at sunset. Telling that they can’t possibly give everyone the same schedule because they need to have people doing some jobs like patrols.

Finding that reasonable, they agreed that this arrangement would start tomorrow. Aila would inform Cindy to disseminate the word later. Then she no longer held back Felix from heading to the greenhouses.

“Jerome, you're coming with me.” Aila said as she saw the guy was slacking and bathing in the sun like some sort of cat. “We have to get to the patrols now.”

“B-but!” Jerome wanted to protest, but he saw Bella, who was also on patrol duty like him. Seeing the tael eyes of the other on him, he flinched and obediently followed the girls as they collected the other members for the patrol.

The patrols were generally composed of four teams with at least 3 people each time they went out. They spread in four directions most of the time. At least one of the hyenas led each of the group. Today has the smallest patrol so far.

As there were so many things needed to be done all at once, most hands were scattered all over to get them all done. So, at the bare minimum, there are three hyenas to do the job and Aila is uncomfortable letting the greenhorns out by themselves. They have yet to truly be in peril since the start of the apocalypse and she is afraid that they will get too arrogant and careless without someone to keep them in check. Due to this, she has to drag her father out to manage things that she cannot cover. The bonus was that he is a supernaturalist, so chances of accidents happening under his watch are basically close to null.

Aila knew that her way of handling her people was too coddled to raise good warriors. But she really can’t help treating them so preciously. It might be due to a guilty conscience or something that lies deep inside her soul. As much as she wants them to grow well, she is pretty aware of her faults and she is actively thinking of delegating the position of head of patrols to someone else. Felix was a good candidate, but the guy had fallen in love with planting, as of late, that Aila couldn’t bear to rip him away from his new-found love.

Temporarily, she has to make do with the situation at hand. If worse comes to worst, she could let Bella take care of this matter. She too has militaristic characteristics that could inspire people to listen to her. But the thing was that she was really too tyrant and may actually brainwash or repel people away from her. There is a reason why the flower on the top is lonely. There are indeed too few creatures that can stand the magnitude of what she has experienced and can descent.

Leading her team of three, Aila leads them to the west side of the community. There were no zombies in sight, other than some mutant plants that are yet to be a threat to them. There are only wet patches of water and mud all over.

But this did not make Aila relax her guard. She commanded her team to be more vigilant and be careful of what they stepped on. This is the favorite landscape of a certain type of zombie that is quite prosperous after the rain has been given an upgrade. And these zombies were the water type and the earth type.

Aila’s decade-long instinct had detected one of these zombies underneath their feet and shouted dodge at everyone. Without much thinking, her team unilaterally followed her words and narrowly escaped an underground attack by their foe.

“The hell is this!” One of Aila’s teammates said. “This one is way uglier than those we killed the last time.”

As he said, the zombie that emerged from the ground had greatly changed in appearance. Instead of the dead look that a dead person has, it was noticeably darker in skin tone. Its nails are now like claws, mouth deformed and now similar to those of a land predator. It was increasingly no longer similar to the humans that used to hunt them.

“A newly evolved earth zombie,” Aila answered as she dashed at the zombie before it would sink once again on the ground. She aimed for its legs before she retreated to a safer distance. “Get ready for its next attack. This one is quite stronger than anticipated.”

The zombie was angry at being attacked. It slammed its hand on the ground as spikes of earth appeared on the ground. This prompts them to be unable to attack the zombie in close combat at all.

“Hit the head!!” Aila shouted at one of her team members who was given a gun. But alas, the guy was too scared to be able to do as she asked. He even has a hard time dodging the zombie’s attacks as Aila could see his legs have long turned to jelly.

With no choice, Aila went to his side and took him away from danger. After she was done with saving the guy, she then confiscated the gun and accurately shot the zombie that was already chest deep in the soil. As the bullet made contact with the zombie’s head, the earth spikes stopped and the zombie moved no more.

“Is this what you once boosted to be on the top of the food chain?” Aila raged as she looked down at this particular guy. He was one of those who had once attempted to have authority over her base. His courage is gone and he is shaken at the new version of their enemies emerging.

“I-I…” He wanted to form words, but he really did not have any to utter. He now knew how foolish they were to think they could rule over a territory when something like this could make him unable to stand and move.

“This is just an earth zombie.” Aila said as she dragged the guy to the now unmoving corpse of the earth zombie. She took her dagger out and slammed its head with it. “Other than those we used to clear, this is one of the most common enemies we have. Sooner or later, more powerful versions of them will appear alongside varieties we have yet to encounter.”

Aila dug into the zombie’s head until she found the shiny crystal beneath. It was in a beautiful shade of amber. She took out her bottle of water and washed it.

“The you of this time will not last long.” Aila said as she examined the now clean crystal in her hand. Hinting at the people behind the attempted coup, she continued “The same goes for the rest of you.”

The guy did not make any rebuttal and could only stay silent. He just gripped the gun. Aila returned to him in silence. No doubt this has enlightened them that force is not enough to be on top, if they do not last long to enjoy it.

Aila did not forget to address the other people in her team. Although they did a good job of adapting, they are still lacking in their responses. He was clearly in a good position to attack the zombie the first time they dodged, but he did not take the chance and let the zombie display its ability and almost wiped them out.

The other members of her team were embarrassed at being scolded, but they accepted her lectures without any resistance. They saw that without Aila they would really not live when that zombie suddenly appeared. They just take it that they were lucky enough to be taught directly by someone rather than to blindly go his way and may die in the process.

“Let’s continue patrolling.” Aila said as she walked a few steps ahead of her men. “Remember what I just said. Power alone will not let us live long in this era we are in. So better not die on this patrol.”

The men did not say anything else, but they were visibly more proper in the eyes of Aila. They no longer have that detached look at their reality and are now taking the seriousness of their situation. That one wrong move and everything will forever be gone for them.

As they continued their walk, they encountered a few zombies. Two more earth zombies, one water, and for some reason they also encountered some number of wind zombies. Wind zombies were supposedly rare in the early period, but Aila guessed maybe it was the location they are in was the reason they encountered them.

The location of the community was relatively flat save for the mountains behind their base. Before they reached this area, it was a relatively flat plain where the wind was quite free to breeze by. This is something not easy to find in the concrete jungle the city was, so it is reasonable that wind zombies are rarely found in the city until the later period, while they thrive in areas like where they are.

“Will these zombies grow some wings at some point?” Asked by Billy—one of the conspirators back then. “This is like those structures found on fossils in the museum.”

Billy was referring to the broader back of the wind zombie they defeated. There is a small bump on it like a small hunchback. There are little pores like those of a chicken’s skin after their feathers are plucked into them.

“They wouldn’t.” Aila said as she shook the image out of her mind. Rotten corpse flying like some horror game monster? Nope, that is not staying in her system. Even if zombies are now a fact at this moment, she did not put such a setting in her book. Even if she was a veteran writer, she was not that confident to control the story if she added that.

“But this is really similar to those niche articles I read before.” Billy sighed but did not say more. Following Aila’s practice, though he had no idea why Aila had to do this, he removed the crystal from the zombie’s head. This time they got another emerald crystal in their hands.

“What is the use of this?” Asked Henry, the other member of her team who cleaned the crystal with water.

“Something for later.” Aila did not say much about its use, as it really has no effect on anyone using these for now. To use this as it is now is dangerous, she has to do some cleansing before she introduces it to their little community.

The two were already accustomed to Aila’s habit of not answering them directly. They might have some ideas of what its use is, but considering that their current team leader does not leak anything, they just did not dare assume anything. They only have one life, they do not want to lose it by one mistake and carelessness.

There was then a sound of an alarm ringing in their area. Aila looked at her wrist and saw that their time for patrol had come to an end. She turned it off and announced their return to the camp.

They did not go back to the route they used to go to their current location. They instead head northward to go into the northern entrance. Aila has designed them for all the teams to use a clockwise system in their positions. This is to eliminate the places a patrolling team cannot cover. In a huge area, it is impossible for them not to miss anything while they are on the job. Having someone else to see and inspect your place is the best way to see if you did a good job.

At least this is what the hyenas always do. Even when they were little kids they used this kind of method to keep a watch on each other. To be honest, they are just being lazy in implementing this way, but somehow everyone somehow liked this arrangement too. So this has taken root and they all do this now.