"Time to move on," Luke commented, and the group followed. "Do you think we'll even be able to clean the first hallway in time?" asked Gab. "I doubt it. But we can still try our best," Evie replied, and Luke nodded in agreement.
"Let's take a little break our bodies need to digest after all," Luke muttered.
Thirty minutes later, the group resumed. Meanwhile, the group of three looked like regular people again, if you ignore that one of them was wearing an armor made of bones. "This constant gaining weight and losing it won't do our bodies and skin any good in the long run," Gab commented while pointing to stretch marks on his body. "Yeah, you're right. I think it's going to get a lot worse, with flaps of skin hanging off our bodies," Luke replied.
"Well, never mind now. We can talk about beauty some other time," Evie interjected with a smile while squeezing Gab's hand lightly. Gab began to notice how his reaction speed had improved quite a bit and that he was also about another 10% faster than he was this morning.
With crossbows loaded, they now moved on. It continued to drip from the cave ceilings, but the group only followed the screams of the mutants. Once there, they saw a group of 10 humans against 40 mutants slowly being overwhelmed. Gab and Evie fired while Luke ran in with his bone armor like a rugby player in hopes of stopping the mutants' momentum.
It seemed to work since it did not take long for half of the mutants to run behind him at once. But instead of Luke moving further away from the group, he ran towards the rest of his group members.
"Luke no," Gab cursed loudly while he and Evie fired their third rounds. Meanwhile, Gab was also hitting the heads of mutants, at least when they were standing still.
Evie just smiled after seeing Gab's reaction and grabbed her sword and shield. Gab followed her and ran towards the hatch.
The goal was to separate the mutants' attention from Luke. They wanted to achieve this by running to the left and right sides of Luke to force the mutants to split further. Of course, it's a stupid idea at least for Gab, the weakest member of the group. But this is the only way to give Luke and the remaining survivors of the human group the chance to survive.
In the meantime, the group members had decorated the edges of their signs with blades during their breaks. Useful if one had to hit something with a shield.
Gab, who ran from the right side, swung his shield regularly against the head of some mutants. This only caused more chaos as the mutants simply overran the falling ones and had to dodge to the right or left. Evie, on the other hand, took a more aggressive approach. She swung her sword by 180 degrees regularly, severing the heads of several mutants, with each swung she took.
Luke, on the other hand, stopped abruptly. This action resulted in him getting surrounded by the mutants, who only reached for him. Evie screamed: all of a sudden, "Luke, what are you doing," while getting more and more aggressive with her slashes in hopes of getting Luke out of there.
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Gab helped Evie and struck more aggressively with his ax at the mutants while at the same time dodging them when they reached for him.
However, less than a moment later, sharp bones were seen shooting out of Luke's body, piercing all the mutants in his vicinity. Gab and Evie, on the other hand, only saw a white three with dead mutants hanging from their branches.
"He's fine, thank goodness," Gab muttered before he resumed striking at the mutants. Due to the actions of the group member, there were only eight mutants left harassing them.
Evie was like a Valkyrie on the battlefield, slashing her sword in a literal 360-degree turn. Gab, who was distracted by this for a moment, could only say, "She's a dangerous girl," before turning his attention to the rest of the mutants.
After the group was done with their mutants, they laid down to absorb them. "I'm almost jealous of your abilities. You're so strong while I don't even really notice my abilities," Gab commented dejectedly as the blood from all the dead flowed in his direction.
"Well, even if you didn't notice, you've definitely gotten faster. Of course, you see that we are so strong, but you forget that Evie and I have months of experience here compared to you. Remember you are quite good for a newbie with only a few days of experience. If you get to our levels you will be also better at using your improved agility by a lot," Luke commented.
The rest of the humans were able to deal with the mutants on their side. They fought in a much more disciplined manner and in groups of three. Gab, who was only watching these groups of humans from afar, thought that as long as the humans were using such tactics, it was only a matter of time before they took over the first floor.
Less than ten minutes later, the other group of people had finished with their mutants, and two child soldiers ran in their direction dressed in armor to inquire about the group of three.
"Thank you for coming to our aid. Without you, we would have suffered great losses today. If you need anything, please let us know," one of them said.
Gab looked tiredly at the group and asked, "Do you need the dead mutants? If no, we would like to claim them for ourselves." The two soldiers looked at each other briefly before the other replied, "Of course you can claim them. We prefer it if guys can get rid of them since then the rest of the mutants will have trouble finding us." "Good, that pleases us," Luke replied, and the group stood up.
The group of three slowly moved to the rest of the people, and it looked like there used to be 20 of them.
Most of the survivors had only minor wounds if any. One saw how each of them wore good armor with the same crest on the right chest. Furthermore, a banner hung on a pole next to a big tent. Gab noticed how the behavior of Evie and Luke suddenly changed, and they knelt down to a young girl of their age who was cleaning her sword on a chair.
"Why are you kneeling? You are not one of my men," the woman's voice answered coldly. "We belong to the same kingdom, so it is our duty to pay our respects to the ruling family," Luke replied.
"I am pleased that you have not forgotten your roots even in such a place. But I am not the person you think I am, but I should still thank you for your help. I remain in your debt even if you only want the dead mutants," the girl stated as she stared at each of the three for a moment. Gab felt a cold shiver down his spine as he stared briefly at her golden eyes. "You've got balls to look someone from the royal family directly in the eyes," she commented coldly. Evie immediately pulled Gab's head down, and Gab's head hit the ground. "He's sorry," Luke answered sternly. "I forgive such actions. I am not a princess of this tower," she remarked dryly.