TWD - Zomboid - Chapter 269: Luke and Leon's Hunt (Patreon)

"Nine o'clock, edge of the horde. There's a walker with a rotten ass..."

"Bang!"

"...right next to it!"

Before Luke could finish, Leon had already fired, punching a round straight through the walker with the rotten ass.

Luke stared at him speechlessly.

"Sir, next time don't leave such a huge pause in the middle of your sentence!"

Looking rather pleased with himself, Luke finished off the Whisperer.

The man's head exploded instantly, blood spraying everywhere, and his body was devoured within moments.

"Eleven o'clock. That one's moving pretty fast, trying to get behind the dirt mound... Oh? Did he trip? His ass is sticking right out. Perfect!"

"Bang!"

Another shot.

"Two o'clock. Three Whisperers huddled together. What, are they plotting something?"

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Three shots rang out so quickly they nearly merged into one.

Leon wasn't nearly as accurate as Luke.

The buff attached to Luke's handgun skill applied to his other firearms as well, and right now, he simply couldn't miss.

He barely needed to aim anymore. His rate of fire kept climbing.

Wherever he pointed, the bullet landed.

Almost immediately after the gunshots, three "watermelons" burst apart at nearly the exact same moment. It was impossible to tell which had been hit first.

"Damn!" Leon let his finger fall away from the trigger.

He'd thought he could at least steal one of the three targets, but Luke hadn't given him the slightest chance.

Was this guy cheating or what?

How could anyone shoot that accurately?

In just a few minutes, more than twenty Whisperers hidden among the horde had been shot in the head one after another, their bodies completely devoured.

As Herder after Herder died, the horde that had previously maintained some semblance of order visibly descended into chaos.

Without the Whisperers guiding them, the walkers returned to their natural instincts.

They began wandering aimlessly. The star-shaped encirclement gradually broke apart from within until it completely collapsed.

Under the influence of the pheromones, some of the walkers began moving away from the outpost.

"Too bad Crane went to rescue another group of survivors. Otherwise, I'd have had him take a team out and wipe out the rest of these walkers before they scatter and eventually spawn a few more mutants."

The world of walkers had become a massive melting pot. With hordes created by two different viruses, leaving them unchecked for too long would inevitably produce all kinds of troublesome creatures.

Fortunately, nothing as ridiculous as a Hellhound had appeared yet.

"Sir! Why don't you let me handle it?"

Luke turned around.

A captain among the white-armored soldiers was approaching. She removed her helmet, revealing a striking, spirited face.

Luke paused.

"Sasha?"

It really was Sasha, the veteran's girlfriend. Luke remembered that she'd been transferred to an administrative position.

Everyone who had followed him in taking over the Commonwealth had been given a good position. At the very least, their jobs were safer, they had protection, and they never had to worry about food or shelter.

"It's me, Luke."

Sasha grinned, a marksman rifle in her hands.

It was still the same rifle she'd carried back at the farm.

"Haven't you been staying with Abraham?" Luke raised an eyebrow. "How'd you end up as a captain at the outpost? I don't remember seeing your name on the original list."

Sasha tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a faint blush crossing her face. "Abraham and I are planning to have a child. We figured it's time we started getting back to a normal life..."

"So you need medical resources?"

Luke immediately understood. “That’s easy enough. If you need anything, just let me know. Don’t worry about troubling me.”

Sasha shook her head. "We can't do that. The Commonwealth's medical resources are limited. If we cut in line, someone else could lose their chance to receive treatment..."

"We'd rather follow the policy and take on more field assignments. Besides, medical resources aren't the only issue. Raising a child costs money too."

Luke scratched his head. "All right, then. Take some extra people with you and clear out every walker that's wandered off."

"Be careful. Don't get drawn into a prolonged fight. If any Whisperers slipped through, retreat immediately. Your safety comes first."

Sasha led her team away.

Luke muttered, "Is raising a kid really that expensive in the Commonwealth now?"

He remembered that in the original series, the main group had managed to raise children in the middle of the apocalypse, even while constantly being driven from one place to another.

Leon, standing nearby, shook his head.

"Sir, supplies aren't cheap in the apocalypse. Keeping a child alive isn't difficult, but giving them a good education and a real future takes a lot of resources."

"And there's no guarantee they won't develop some medical problem along the way. If they ever need serious treatment, the cost could..."

Leon abruptly stopped talking.

He thought of Sherry.

That child had the G-virus inside her. The Commonwealth's laboratory had developed an antidote. If they could examine Sherry...

The cost and the risks involved would far exceed anything he'd anticipated.

"You're taking this a little too far, Leon. Worrying about every possible problem isn't like you," Luke said.

"Yeah, you're right." Leon nodded.

He needed to find a chance to come clean with Luke.

Hadn't Claire said she was going to talk to him? Why hadn't anything happened yet?

Whenever he asked what she'd done the last time she went to Luke's place, she refused to say a word.

Had she been rejected?

With the Whisperers either retreating or killed on the spot, the horde began to disperse.

The white-armored soldiers formed into squads and systematically started clearing out the remaining walkers.

They had all received professional training and handled walkers with ease. With their overwhelming advantage in both numbers and equipment, ordinary walkers posed virtually no threat.

Even if a mutant appeared, hundreds of guns were waiting for it. They could reduce the thing to a bloody mist.

...

Nick immediately led his family out of the horde while they were still disguised as walkers.

They raised their hands and submitted to inspection by the white-armored soldiers.

"Thank you!" Madison approached Luke, taking a moment to steady herself.

She'd noticed the sniper rifle at Luke's feet and knew this was the young man who had just gotten them out of trouble.

Madison tried to calm herself before speaking. "If you hadn't stepped in, we would've died here today."

"We were just eliminating enemies." Luke waved it off.

"Get a few people over here. Hose them down and check them for injuries while you're at it."

Luke took several steps back.

His sense of smell was extremely sharp, and the people in front of him smelled as though they'd just crawled out of a latrine.

Put together, they smelled even worse than a Volatile nest.

Madison wanted to say something more, but the white-armored soldiers blocked her path. The group had no choice but to undergo inspection first. Those were the outpost's rules.

They had to be checked for any risk of infection.

Fortunately, none of them had been bitten by walkers.

They were incredibly lucky.

After changing into clean clothes, Madison finally had a chance to look around the outpost.

It covered a large area, and every facility was neatly arranged and well organized.

That meant the outpost had been established for quite some time and hadn't suffered any large-scale attacks.

These people clearly had plenty of defensive experience.

"This doesn't look like there's a school here. You don't think we've been tricked, do you?" Alicia asked.

Madison shook her head. "This probably isn't the [Ark]. It's just an outpost. They're smart enough not to broadcast the real location."

"That's exactly what smart people would do."

"And judging by how many people they have stationed at just this outpost, the [Ark] itself is probably even better defended."

"I think our gamble paid off this time."