Edward ended up using the entire night just to battle the zombie, it might seem unbelievable for a person to fight a zombie for an entire night but that was really Edward's case and the reason was that he had never fought a zombie before so despite his increase in strength and speed which exceeded normal humans, his attacks were clumsy and his aiming were always missing the vital spots of the zombie.
The zombie on the other hand did not feel pain nor have any fear of pain so it did not give Edward the chance to reposition after making a clumsy strike which resulted in a lot of struggling scenes where Edward almost got bitten numerous times, he repeatedly had to bit on his tongue despite the nerve wrecking pain just to keep his mind from going blank and him body from freezing again.
It also took this long because Fablo finally decided to not move no matter what after seeing that Edward was finally able to resist the zombie without freezing; but of course, he still kept a close distance so that he could quickly help out in case things went south but thankfully it did not throughout the entire night and Edward was finally able to kill the zombie just before dawn.
Edward stared at the motionless body of the zombie after he finally managed to kill it, his legs gave out in disbelief as he knelt beside the zombie while staring at his hands. Edward was finding it difficult to believe that he had actually killed a zombie with his own effort but looking at the motionless zombie that barely had a complete corpse left because although all of his missed attacks had been counted as "missed" they had not entirely "missed" and had landed on other parts of the zombie's body but that was not the main point now. The point was that steel that was sticking out of the zombie's chest, Edward had directly stabbed his steel through its virus box after so much struggle and the thrill, tension, pain, and fear he had felt during the fight were proof that he was not hallucinating but had actually killed a zombie.
"I…I really did it" Edward muttered to himself, feeling extremely emotional that his eyes were turning cloudy with tears. How long had he been like this? How many times had he watched people who could have been saved die because he was too scared to face these mindless cannibals? Edward had honestly lost count.
Fablo arrived beside him at some point that Edward did not notice as he was immersed in the new feeling after gaining his first zombie kill.
"Good job kid," Fablo said with a slight smile on his face.
Edward looked up at him and did not know what to reply with, he did not even know how to feel. He was still having suspicious thoughts about this man after how he reacted to Lucas's death but the same person had abandoned his sleep and night rest, and come out to brace the night cold just to watch him get over his fear of zombies.
So how did Edward feel about this man right now? He really did not know but he would trust him a little from now on, yeah, just a little trust.
The two of them returned to the base shortly after and got back into the building before the first ray of sunlight pierced through the clouds of the ruined planet.
Some of the people had already woken up by the time they returned and gave the two surprised and suspicious stares then they saw them but neither Fablo nor Edward paid them any attention and went straight to the down floor to wash up and get ready for their morning ration.
Lia only stared at the two for a while before looking away, she did not raise yesterday's issue and pretended like nothing happened. The two also were not aware that someone had sneaked up on them last night.
And so it was for the next five days that Fablo declared for them to rest, he would take Edward along with him as they searched the area for any zombies that might have wandered close enough to be a threat. After all, the area had already been cleared previously by Fablo and the others so the two sometimes did not even manage to find a single zombie for an entire day, and on the note that they found one, Fablo would have Edward fight it on his own; they never for once encountered two zombies so it was not exaggerated to say that Edward fought every zombie that they came across. This went on for five days and on the fifth day, the two had successfully cleared up to the landmark that Fablo had set up way back as their safe zone.
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Today, they planned to go look for more supplies before returning to clear their way toward the military base.
Edward was once again forced to follow them by Fablo though he was not as reluctant as he was the other day and even anticipated it but the same could not be said for the others who stared at Fablo with dissatisfied gazes, wondering why he still wanted to take Edward along with them despite what had happened the last time.
Fablo did not pay them any attention and made everyone move out, he knew that they would slowly start losing the trust and respect that they had for him as the leader but he believed that Edward's performance would clear their doubts so he had to be a tyrant for now…just for a bit.
A total of seven of them went out to look for supplies including Edward himself, each one of them carrying an empty backpack where they would keep whatever that they would find.
Their target was the store where they had met Edward, reasons were that all the other stores before it had either been raided till there was nothing left or zombies had already stayed in them. Edward was about to ask why they would pick that particular store despite the scene that was found at the back but held his words when Fablo explained first, he found it reasonable.
He would have found it crazy if not for Fablo's reasons because Edward was still traumatized by that huge zombie that had attacked him back then and would rather stay far away from that place as much as possible.
He might be able to fight against normal zombies now but he did not dare to intentionally go meet an abnormal one, especially one with an unreasonable size.
The seven of them moved out after some preparations, Lia did not follow them and stayed behind as she watched them disappear into the lonely streets of this ruined planet.
They followed the route that Fablo and the others had already planned out beforehand, the reason for doing this despite the fact that he and Edward had cleared the area during the past four days was to see if any changes had happened to the route or a zombie had wandered here since they had left this place unchecked during their clearing.
Indeed, they found two zombies on their way that immediately launched at them after sighting them but were easily dealt with by the seven of them.
They reached the store a few hours later as they had to engage in fights with a few more groups of zombies. Thankfully, their numbers were not much and the group easily dealt with all of them before arriving at the store; unlike last time when they had run into a large group of zombies that had chased them all the way here.
They still did not relax even after successfully getting into the store, they had to pass the back where the sight of the huge zombie and fight scene first welcomed them, the front door was blocked by them and the zombies did not manage to force it open for some reason before leaving; probably because they found a new target.
None of the group dared to relax, Edward included as they could all still remember the horror from back then like it was just yesterday; although Edward's horror experience was different from theirs since he had taken a front seat at the event.
They found the body of the zombie exactly where it was on the day that they had first seen it, the body was already starting to rot and a foul stench filled the entire room. Everyone held their breaths after taking in a mouthful of the disgusting air, their faces twisted with an incredibly ugly expressions as they all quickly rushed past.
The stench was even worse in Edward's case that he almost directly passed out but his eyes suddenly fell on the face of the zombie while he was running past it. To be more precise, his eyes swept across its empty eye sockets and something bulged in his mind like he was about to remember something but nothing came. Edward did not dwell on the feeling even for a second and quickly ran after Fablo and the rest.
The group entered the part of the store where provisions were located and found out that a few more shelves had been swept clean, looking like other survivors had come here during the past few days. Not giving it another thought, the group hurriedly filled their bags before fleeing from the store and returning to their base, they luckily did not encounter any more zombies on the way which in a way…strange.
"We will return to clearing towards the military base tomorrow, get enough rest," Fablo said to everyone even though all that they had been doing for the past days was resting.