TWD - Zomboid - Chapter 278: The Cordyceps-Immune One (Patreon)

She would rather end her own life than ever fall under someone else’s control again.

Luke pointed at the chair.

“Sit down, kid. I don’t eat people.”

Ellie’s shoulders twitched.

Cannibals said they didn’t eat people too.

“Sit down,” Luke repeated.

This time, there was an unmistakable pressure in his voice.

Ellie hesitated for a moment before finally sitting down. She perched on the very edge of the chair, her thigh muscles tense, ready to spring up and fight back at any moment.

“I only have a few questions,” Luke said, getting straight to the point. “Where did you come from?”

Ellie answered quickly.

“Out west...” she said vaguely. “A long way from here. We practically crossed half of North America. We heard the radio broadcast and fled all the way here.”

“Fled?”

Luke raised an eyebrow. “From who? Walkers or people?”

“Both.”

“There were raiders along the way, stealing from people, and some... bad people. Joel and I spent most of the trip avoiding everyone. We only ran into some other survivors heading this way when we got close to the outpost.”

“Is Joel your father?”

“Yeah.”

Not her uncle or guardian?

“How did the two of you survive?” Luke continued. “One adult traveling with a kid across half a continent crawling with walkers and raiders. That couldn’t have been easy.”

“How many walkers have you killed? And how many... people?”

Ellie stiffened slightly.

“Walkers... a lot.”

“As for people...” Ellie looked up, carefully putting on an innocent expression. “We’ve never killed anyone. Most of the time, we just scared them off. Joel says if you can avoid fighting, you should. In a world already full of death, killing people doesn’t mean anything.”

Tsk, tsk.

She was pretty good at making things up.

Out of all the survivors who had come through here, these two were probably among the ones who had killed the most people.

Especially Joel. Other survivors might have to go through an entire character arc of hesitation, suffering, and finally toughening up.

Joel just picked up a gun and got to work.

Luke listened quietly.

If this were a video game, this conversation would probably be a standard dialogue choice.

Pick the right answer: Trust +1.

Pick the wrong one, expose yourself, and you were headed straight down the bad-ending route.

And Ellie had clearly chosen to hide the truth.

She hadn’t mentioned that she was immune, nor had she said how many people she had killed.

Trying to pass herself off as an ordinary girl?

[Ellie]

[Immune (Cordyceps)] [Trauma (Severe)] [Vigilance] [Disguise]...

“No, no.”

Luke spoke calmly.

Ellie froze.

“You’re lying.” Luke looked at her. “Kid, you’re not just some little wild animal who’s hurt people before. You’ve killed people too, haven’t you?”

“A killer at such a young age.”

Ellie’s breath caught.

This man seemed able to see straight through her.

How had he figured it out?

Psychology?

Ellie had faced all kinds of enemies. Raiders, cannibals, Fireflies pursuers, even David.

But this calm, unsettling man made her feel more threatened than any of them ever had.

There was nothing tangible about the pressure he gave off, yet it was almost suffocating.

“Who... who are you?”

The question slipped out before Ellie could stop herself.

She could tell this guy was no ordinary person. He looked young, but he had to be someone high up in the hierarchy.

Probably the kind of person responsible for interrogations.

“Me?” Luke leaned forward slightly.

Ellie instinctively leaned back, putting more distance between them.

“I’m the leader of this Ark,” Luke said.

“You should have seen the scale of the Commonwealth on your way here. We’re basically a small town, with a population approaching ten thousand.”

“As the person in charge here, I’m nothing like the enemies you’ve dealt with before.”

“Raiders, cannibals, small-time thugs... two shots and you can put them to sleep. Bullets, however, might not work on me.”

“I know you’re lying, but I don’t really care...”

Ellie froze.

“Even the Fireflies you’ve been worrying about this whole time, right?” Luke said, watching the shock spread across her face.

“They may seem powerful to you, but compared to the Commonwealth, they’re nothing more than an anthill beneath a rolling boulder.”

The moment he said “Fireflies,” Ellie’s expression changed dramatically.

She shot to her feet and took half a step back, her entire body tensing as if she had suddenly found herself facing a deadly enemy.

He knew about the Fireflies?

How could he know about the Fireflies?

“H-How do you know about them?” Ellie asked in disbelief.

Were the Fireflies really that influential? Enough for their reach to extend all the way to the Commonwealth, thousands of miles away?

Luke didn’t answer.

He pulled a radio from his waist and switched to a channel.

“Ada.”

...

Somewhere in the Commonwealth, inside a private residence.

Steam filled the bathroom.

Ada was soaking in a tub of warm water, her pale skin faintly visible beneath the surface. A shower cap covered her hair, though a few strands had been dampened by the steam and now clung to her smooth forehead.

The female agent was enjoying some private time.

She rested comfortably against the side of the tub, a radio held in her long, slender fingers.

“Hmm?” she answered lazily. “Want to continue what we left unfinished? I’m taking a bath. If you get here fast enough, you might even catch a beauty stepping out of the tub.”

“Then could you stay in there a little longer for me?” Luke replied as if Ellie weren’t even there.

“Look something up for me. Is there a father and daughter with a bounty on the black market? Or a man and a girl, at least.”

“The man’s name is Joel. The girl is Ellie.”

Ada raised her free hand from the water, droplets sliding from her slender fingers as she leisurely admired her nails.

“Oh? Actual business for once?” She thought for a moment. “Joel and Ellie... I’ve heard those names before. Some organization out west has been aggressively offering a bounty for them lately.”

“And the price is high. High enough that even I took a second look when I saw it. But the valuable one isn’t the man. It’s the girl.”

Ada was as reliable as ever.

“Supposedly, the girl is immune to some kind of fungus. Even if she’s bitten, she won’t mutate. Wesker specifically asked for her at one point, but the mission was later canceled for unknown reasons.”

...

Ellie couldn’t hold back anymore.

She knew nothing about this place, yet these people already knew exactly who she and Joel were.

For all she knew, that radio broadcast could have been a trap meant specifically for her.

She had gotten Joel caught up in it.

Ellie’s expression instantly hardened with resolve.

She lunged toward the desk and snatched up the ballpoint pen.

Then, using all her strength, she drove it straight at Luke.

Against an ordinary person, Ellie might actually have succeeded.

Luke didn’t dodge.

He didn’t even bother looking at the pen.

Just as the tip was about to pierce his throat, his hand blurred into motion. The movement looked almost casual, yet he caught the ballpoint pen with perfect precision.

Between two fingers.

Two fingers were all he needed.

Ellie’s eyes widened as far as they could go.

She had put every ounce of strength she had into that thrust, yet the tip of the pen merely trembled between Luke’s fingers.

No matter how hard she pushed, she couldn’t move it forward even an inch.

Tsk, tsk.

The kid was surprisingly strong.