"Who are you people anyway?" the aggressive man with the hoe asked Lyle. Lyle took a moment to scan him and noticed that he was actually rather well built despite being roughly fifty-years-old judging by his facial features.
He was wearing knee-length cameo shorts, a blood-stained white tee and a pair of crocs. Not exactly battle attire, but Lyle couldn't fault the man for that.
"Me?" Lyle said before he walked up to the edge of the roof and watched Daz slaughter the Zombies and Orcs with little struggle.
He was getting hit occasionally with the Orcs' crude weapons and by the Zombies' limbs, but he was still looking healthy enough.
"I'm Lyle. You could consider me my Lords' Advisor. I'm just a normal man, nothing special about me, really. My Lord though, he's different," Lyle said with his worship of Daz plain to see.
"Him?" the croc-wearing man said as he walked over to Lyle and stood next to him. "Sure, he's strong, but he doesn't seem that special. If what you said was true, can't we all be like him?" the aged man asked with a calmer tone.
Apparently, seeing Daz kill so many of the attacking monsters had cooled him down a bit, emotionally.
"Did you not hear me earlier?" Lyle asked in a peaceful manner. He apparently wasn't angry at the man in any way, even though he was disregarding Daz's ability somewhat. "My Lord had killed two hundred Zombies by himself with no enhancements. He is special... please don't compare regular people such as ourselves with him," Lyle said.
"'My Lord' this 'My Lord' that. Why do you keep calling him that?" the man asked with some annoyance in his tone.
"I agree, I'm a bit curious about that too, why do you call him that?" Heather, the redheaded woman, asked after turning to face Lyle.
"Because he is deserving of respect," Lyle said with a content smile. "But I suppose the correct answer would be because he actually is a Lord," Lyle finished.
"What do you mean?" Heather questioned. Lyle then took some time to explain a few things about Daz, however, he took care to not reveal too much just in case Daz didn't decide to bring them back to his base. While he was doing this, Daz was still working hard to kill the horde of monsters that was now roughly half of its original size.
'There's so many of them... did the system think this was a suitable test for me because I might not have enough energy to finish killing them? That must be it since they're not particularly tough... there's just so fucking many of them!' Daz noted in his mind as he used the skill Shovel Smash to cave in the skull of an Orc, sending its body hurtling through the horde, killing at least seven other monsters.
About thirty minutes later, there were maybe six-hundred monsters left, one-hundred Orcs and five-hundred Zombies. Daz looked dreadful. He was covered in red blood and guts and his right arm was hanging lifelessly. 'I might have been a bit rash saying I could handle all of these fuckers on my own...' he thought with a bit of a chuckle.
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He then coughed out a mouthful of blood and quickly took out one of his last remaining gems and ate it. 'System, can you please tell me how much lifeforce and jewelled core energy I have left?' Daz requested before he raised his left hand and swung his shovel down, killed two zombies that were about to bite down on his lifeless right arm.
Confirmed. Lifeforce is at 407/3000. Jewelled Core Energy is at 12/50
'Mmm, I was overconfident. Just because they are weak singularly, doesn't mean I can beat so many of them by myself... it certainly doesn't help that these Orcs are ten times stronger than the zombies... wait. If I do the maths, there was, what, three-thousand five-hundred Zombie and one-thousand five-hundred Orcs? If I count each Orc as ten Zombies... fucking hell... that's like eighteen-thousand Zombies! I'm in way over my head!' Daz frantically thought before he launched his shovel towards a group of Zombies, killing several of them before he used his skill, Throw and Retrieve, to make his shovel fly back into his hand.
"Lyle! Come down here and help me! You too, Heather!" Daz roared towards the stores' roof.
'I'm not risking my life any more than I already have,' he thought before he charged at a group of maybe ten Orcs and swung his shovel around in a circle with his body, cutting six of them in half. However, the other four managed to dodge in time.
Back at the store, Lyle was running behind Heather as she raced through the aisles of the DIY store to the entrance. There were also six survivors following after them, the croc-wearing man included. "How does he know my name?!" Heather shouted at Lyle as they approached the barricade that they had previously put up at the entrance of the store to block the monsters.
It looked nearly broken and Lyle was surprised that it was even still intact. 'Perhaps a few of them have skills to reinforce structures? That would be rather useful back at the Lords' base,' Lyle thought.
"He knows everything. I wouldn't be surprised if my Lord knew your entire life story," Lyle answered Heather's question as he helped the survivors tear apart the barricade.
"How? Is it a 'Skill'?" she further asked as she pried a plank of wood free from the doors.
"I don't know, but it's more than likely. Lord Daz is very secretive about himself. In fact, back at the base, no one knows anything about him except his first name and what he's done since the Apocalypse started. He's quite mysterious," Lyle answered with a smile.
It was at that point that the last part of the barricade was removed so the eight of them rushed out of the store and ran directly towards Daz.
Daz, after killing an Orc and twelve Zombies with a Shovel Smash, saw Lyle, Heather and the six other survivors running towards him.
'Six, huh? That's more than I expected. Quite brave, eh? Maybe I can use them at the base later...' he thought before he rushed into another group of monsters. Despite his useless right arm and his low lifeforce and jewelled core energy, he was still feeling capable enough to kill plenty more monsters.
With the help of Lyle precisely throwing bits of debris and rocks, he managed to kill a few of the weaker Zombies, but the main help came from Heather and the six other survivors.
They used blunt and sharp tools from the store to mow down the Orcs and Zombies that were otherwise preoccupied with Daz's onslaught.
Naturally, it didn't take too long for the last of the monsters to be killed, and when Daz took his shovel out of the last Orc's head, he collapsed onto the floor and began breathing heavily out of exhaustion.
As Lyle was rushing to his side to give him his blood and transfer lifeforce to him, a blue screen flashed before his, Daz's and the survivor's eyes, surprising them all.