Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

"Why are you so down?" Daria asked once Mathew pulled himself out of his shocked state. "Didn't we get quite a lot of cores?" she then asked, spreading her arms and pointing at all the zombie's heads littering the floor.

Some of them still moved. Without a trauma directly to the brain, they wouldn't cease to exist. Yet, thanks to the vitality of everyone in Mathew's group, any accidental bites hardly posed any risk.

'At most, those would amount to an annoyance,' Mathew thought before dropping the bottom of his ax and smashing the skull of the nearest mobile head.

"We certainly did." Mathew heaved a deep sigh. He then rested his hands on his hips before turning around and looking at the locked doors. "But I don't understand why they didn't attack," he revealed without much hesitation.

"Those zombies at the back?" Daria asked before glancing over in the same direction. "Maybe the area is too narrow?" she guessed while raising her hand and then scratching the side of her head.

"Those red-eyed zombies are influenced by that evolved one from before," Nadia joined in, giving her own perspective on the topic. "Maybe that evolved one doesn't want to fight us in this narrow space?" she then suggested while pointing her right at the messy entryway.

"That surely could be a point," Mathew muttered, lowering his eyes and then rising his thumb to his mouth only to bite on its fingernail. "And we still need to kill a few hundred to get the stones we need," he then added.

'Well, there is no point in wasting time,' Mathew thought, shaking his head and all the bothersome thoughts along with it. 'We should summon the first merchant,' he decided, instantly moving in to grab the cores his group gathered before the second attack.

"This place should be as good as any," Mathew muttered as he counted a hundred cores before throwing them up and ahead.

The cores lit up, responding to Mathew's inner wish. And in the usual flash of light, they all disintegrated.

As the bright flash of light slowly dimmed, there was a figure standing right where Mathew's cores ceased to be a moment earlier.

"Okay guys, what do we need?" Mathew asked, turning himself back to the rest of his team.

"A better weapon would be nice," Nadia chimed in to Mathew's tune with ease. She then raised her machete and took a critical look at the state of the blade. "This one is good and all, but if we are going against those red-eyed ones, shouldn't we power up a little?" the girl then suggested, turning her eyes and staring intensely at Mathew's face.

"Fine," the young man smiled. "I never expected to be able to spoil you by getting you a new weapon," he giggled, hiding his mouth behind his fist. "Any other requests?" Mathew then asked, turning his eyes to the rest of the girls.

"Some meds, just in case?" Daria suggested, leaning her head to the side. "I mean, it's better to have some contingency in case of heavy injuries," she then explained her line of thought. "The school might not be that far, but it's still a considerable distance in a critical situation."

"Okay," Mathew nodded his head. "How about you?" he then turned his eyes to Leila.

Only for the girl to shake her head sideways.

"No clue," she said as she shrugged her shoulders. "Sure, a new weapon would be nice, but I don't really know what else I can ask for," she explained her own perspective.

"Right, that's kinda true," Mathew nodded his head. He then checked the weight of the makeshift pouch with all the remaining cores.

"In total, we should have a bit over a thousand by now," Nadia quickly pointed out after throwing a glance throughout the room.

It was only a rough guess, as no one could perfectly count all the heads with cores still inside.

"Well then, wish me luck," Mathew waved his hand before stepping forth and grabbing at the merchant's swirling darkness hidden underneath its hood.

'It's the usual,' he thought when the shadows surged past him, enveloping the young man within reach of the merchant's subspace.

"Welcome to the outpost merchant," a metallic voice filled the shadowy realm Mathew found himself in.

'So there is something new,' Mathew thought, raising his eyebrow in reaction to the welcome message.

Yet, when his eyes moved down at the actual content of the subspace, the welcoming voice instantly evaporated from his head.

"That's an improvement for sure," Mathew muttered to himself as he approached a set of five different pillars.

They consisted of a decorative foot of a pillar, rooting the entire construction in place. An elegant, perfectly sculpted column grew out of the foot, swirling like some sort of vines only to support the pedestal itself.

The elevated platform wasn't just this, a platform to display an object. Because outside of a small ring that was fitted right at the topmost part of the column, the platform itself appeared more like a marble tablet rather than just an element of furniture.

Mathew moved forward and reached out.

He couldn't really tell what prompted him to do it, what sort of intent invaded his brain. Yet, following this intent, his hand grabbed the edge of the circle right below the platform only to turn it clockwise.

The ring turned for thirty degrees when Mathew felt a small click with his fingers.

And the hologram displaying a simple knife suddenly turned into a hologram displaying a machete.

'So that's how it is,' Mathew thought, taking a step back and looking at all five pillars.

With the exception of the one the young man just tested, there was a pillar with a hologram of a sandwich, one with a bandage, one with an ancient-looking scroll, and then the last one displayed just a simple note.

"Food, medicinal supplies, skills, and information?" Mathew muttered under his nose, assigning categories to each of the pillars. "And weapons," he added under his nose as his eyes moved back to the first pillar he tested.

Mathew then moved right back to the weapons pillar before starting to move the ring further and further.

The first object was the knife that Mathew saw. Next came the exact replica of the weapons the girls were using. And after that, came Mathew's own fireman's ax.

'I guess all of those are just the basic kinds of the weapons,' Mathew thought, recalling the one piece of knowledge he gained just yesterday, yet one that felt like it was ages since he learned about it. 'And that means, the weapons we have are way better than those.'

With the amount of zombie blood that each of their weapons shed, they turned sharper, more resilient, and easier to handle. It was as if the word itself was rewarding them for taking the zombies head-on.

Mathew scrolled the wheel even further... And the fourth weapon came up.

This time, it was a katana. A weapon that Mathew saw countless times in the manga and anime he watched in the past.

Weapon cherished by all the otakus across the words. One that was hailed as the peak of craftsmanship.

"Are you for real?" Mathew muttered, his eyes opening wide. "Is this a joke?" he then added, only to shake his head and scroll even further.

'There is no denying that katana is a good weapon, especially a well-crafted one,' Mathew thought, disappointed by how cringe and stereotypical the system turned out to be. 'But it's by no means a weapon worth the name created around it.'

Mathew heaved a deep sigh before pushing the ring just a little bit more.

And the weapon that came out made Mathew's eyes sparkle.

"That's what I'm talking about!" the young man exclaimed, almost jumping out in exaltation.

The weapon that the pillar now projected, was a saber.

Contrary to the katanas of the previous slot, sabers didn't require the same level of craftsmanship to be made. And by digging deeper into the topic, one could find out just how simplistic the reason behind this fact was.

The sabers didn't require all that much skill from the blacksmith, simply because they didn't need to compensate for the extremely poor quality of the material they had at hand.

'All the techniques that now are nothing more but a tradition came to be because Japan proper steel,' Mathew thought, raising his hand to the projection of the saber above the pillar. 'Contrary to those, Sabres came as the peak type of slashing weapons, ones that remained in honorary use even all the way to the modern-day!'

Mathew's lips turned into a perfect curve, his face no longer capable of keeping up with the young man's excitement.

"How much for this weapon?" Mathew asked, raising his eyes towards the area thickest with the black, smokey shadows of the realm.

"Two hundred and fifty cores," the merchant replied in its usual, metallic voice.

"I want one," Mathew announced even before the merchant's voice could fade away.

The beauty of a saber came from three things. It had the shape that made it easiest to slash with it. Due to its shape and the material it was made from, it was extremely resilient. And lastly, the crude design that Mathew already counted twice to be advantageous, forced its users to employ quite a lot of strength to compensate for the simplicity of the weapon.

Mathew reached out even before the stones that flew up from his head could fully vanish in a bright explosion of light. And before his eyes could get over the flash, Mathew's fingers curled around the firm, the dry handle of the weapon as he pulled it out from the stand.

"That's what I thought," Mathew muttered to himself the moment he firmly grasped his new weapon and performed a simple swing.

It just felt... right in his hand. As if the blood of the warriors and insurgents from the ages gone gave out its last cry in Mathew's veins.

The soul of the saber resonated deeply with Mathew's soul. And after his experiences in the apocalypse so far, he knew better than to ignore those innate feelings of his.

"That begs the question, though," Mathew muttered under his nose, resting his new blade by his side. "How much could you give me for my ax?"

Mathew couldn't see the merchant and thus be unable to gauge its emotions. Yet, for yet another time, the young man could somehow swear that the merchant, whom Mathew couldn't see, smirked.

"Five thousand, twenty-seven cores."

Mathew's jaw muscles failed their job, making his lower jaw fall down, forcing his mouth open as if he was preparing for a debut in "Biggus Dickus Returns".

And then, Mathew's lips formed a big, cheerful smile.

"Sold!"