Becoming a Monster

Chapter 69 Making A Decision

He took one last look back before making his way to an area he was sure there would be something to kill. He just hoped it wasnʼt similar to the monster he just saw.

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”Wait! You said he was eating something from their hearts? Are you sure?”

In the cafeteria, Markʼs group was discussing with Ishii and his group about Noah.

”We all saw it, he seemed to be quite interested in them too, he had a stupid smile after he was done. Iʼm sure those things benefited him in some way…Iʼm just not sure if we can do the same…The freak was eating the zombies hearts like snacks!” Alice began to recount what she saw as well and began to grow emotional when discussing Noahʼs new habit.

”….Why donʼt any of you seem surprised? Di- Itʼs not the first time is it??” She noticed their odd behavior and came to her own conclusion. There was no way Noah just started to have that strange craving just after meeting them, of course these people saw him do it before.

ʼI knew it! That guy is crazy.ʼ

On the other hand, the people who heard this new bit of information and didnʼt witness what happened during the scene at the gym were all confused.

ʼEating zombies? What the hell?ʼ How is he not a zombie yet??ʼ

”You havenʼt seen it, but when we were back in the gym, we fought some kind of zombie boss! And he was crazy enough to eat it while it was still alive!”

”I still get shivers just thinking about it…Iʼm glad heʼs gone.”

Everyone soon began to tell their different experiences with Noah, it was a huge eye opener for Ishii and his group. Just hearing about the showdown between Noah and the Zombie King in detail amazed them. This was also the first that Neal and Regina were hearing of Noahʼs deeds as well.

A cold sweat went down their backs. If they had known he became that crazy then they wouldnʼt have messed with him, at least not personally. The guy clearly lost more than just his mind.

”So what should we do now? Are we leaving?”

Ishii didnʼt want to continue bad mouthing the person he admired. It didnʼt help that every time they bad-mouthed Noah, an intense glare came from the corner of the room. He tried to change the discussion to the main point of why they were here.

”Why should we leave? We have food and it seems most of the zombies were taking care of, right? It should be easy to wait it out here before help arrives, why waste our lives? Neal was the first to answer. He very much enjoyed the leadership he had so far, even though the world was dangerous in every sense of the word now, he wanted to enjoy this new role as much as possible.

He also wanted to build a better rapport with everyone so even when they shelter under the governmentʼs wings everyone would still treat him as their leader.

A lot of people seemed to be in agreement with Neal but then there were others who found what he said to be stupid.

”I donʼt think thatʼs the right call.” Ishii spoke, raising a few glares from Neal and Regina respectively.

”Well you are the one who came to us, it doesnʼt really seem right for you to try to come here and tell us what to do.”

”Look, I came here because Noah said there were people here that could help us. If you donʼt want to come then thatʼs your choice, I wonʼt force any of you. Iʼm just saying that staying here isnʼt as safe as we think it is. That voice clearly warned us of something potentially happening.

Even if we manage to lay low here, we will always have to depend on others to save us because we will be left behind. We need to be getting stronger too, these zombies are already out pacing us, I donʼt want to imagine how hard itʼll be to live if they grew stronger and we stayed this weak.”

Ishii then began to sit up, noticing his actions, the people who followed him and considered him a better leader also rose. Unsurprisingly Ailetta and Baileyʼs group stood with him.

Jasmine sat rooted in her seat, she peaked towards Ailetta and Bailey, she wanted to stand with them too. Originally she was the first to be against leaving, it was her suggestion to Mark from the beginning to use the cafeteria as a base. However she realized first hand how dangerous the world really is and how fast you can lose everything if you donʼt have the strength to defend it.

Even leading a group required strength, she felt indecisive commanding and risking someoneʼs life when she wouldnʼt be able to protect them.

She then looked towards Mark while deep in thought. From her view, it seemed that Mark wanted to leave too, but for some reason he wasnʼt getting up.

ʼIs it because of them?ʼ She looked back over to Ailetta and Bailey. She began to think that Mark just didnʼt want to follow along in their footsteps, she couldnʼt go on like this.

”? Jas?”

”Mark, we are going to! How can you consider yourself a hero if you hide here like a coward? Werenʼt you going to show me that you were gonna be stronger than ʼhimʼ?”

”!” Markʼs body shook hearing his older sister. He looked down towards the ground deep in thought.

ʼThatʼs right! If I stay here then how much can I fight to level up? Fuck!ʼ He bolted from his seat, scaring the people near him.

”Iʼm not a coward! No one was leaving so there wasnʼt any point of me getting up right now. Donʼt forget, it was my idea to fight the zombies in the first place!” He talked loudly to try to convince everyone of his words, it didnʼt work on his sister, but she didnʼt have to say anything, she just smiled inside.

”?”

”You guys are really leaving? Youʼre the ones who experienced the worst of it and youʼre gonna go out there still? Isnʼt that stupid? Neal tried to talk some sense into them. He was ok with losing Ishiiʼs group since the people that followed Ishii would be harder to convert over, but he didnʼt want his future prize to leave too. Jasmine turned towards him with an indifferent expression.

”Itʼs because we experienced these things that we know we canʼt stay here. Hopefully you wonʼt have to experience it yourself. Ishii was it? Are we going now or do you need to do something?”

It wasnʼt confusing that Ishii was surprised, he didnʼt expect so many people to follow them. He felt more relieved that he decided to follow Noahʼs advice and thanked him internally.

”Yes we should go now before it gets too late. No one knows if the zombies are capable of traveling in the dark, but Iʼm certain the animals wonʼt have an issue. Iʼd rather make as much distance as we can before he needs to find shelter.”

”Wa-Wait, wait dammit!” Neal called out to everyone leaving, he didnʼt want this. He would only be left with the cowards and just a few people who were prepared to fight. Wouldnʼt that mean they would be in danger if even just one creature like the one they mentioned before comes?

”Everyone weʼre going too! There should be bags upstairs, we should grab food and water before going. We might not find anything out there so its better to be safe..” He began to walk towards the group like he didnʼt just argue against them.

”Ne-Neal? Werenʼt we staying here?” Regina asked in astonishment. She felt more safe being in closed doors. She wasnʼt a fighter at all.

”I changed my mind. Itʼs better if we stick together, thereʼs strength in numbers and we can all keep each other safe.” He almost broke character by saying this much. He didnʼt care about anyone, but himself. He wanted to follow them to keep himself safe.

It took them all a while to grab things from the store on the second floor. Ishii looked around looking for the mysterious shop keeper he heard so much about, but he was already gone.

After minutes went by, the group of a little over a hundred made their way out the building and began to make their way to the front gate.

The walk through the university was too quiet and that alone kept them on their toes.

They had finally made it pass the library without any noteworthy events happening. With that they were gradually starting to relax. However when they made it to the corpse of rats and zombie corpses on the side of the building is when they had to go on guard.

”You guys didnʼt say anything about these things being here.”

”Well thatʼs because they werenʼt here before, obviously they were attracted to the dead bodies.” Alicia coldly responded to the voice that tried to blame them.

Ahead of them were a swarm of insects and not just any particular insects, but ants. From different spots in the vicinity, there were small and big mounds coming up from the ground, most likely from the ants digging through the ground.

People like Ailetta wondered why they never saw ants before when they saw other insects because they were so common . The ants now grew just as much as the other insects, most of them reached to the height of everyoneʼs knees while there were a few overly large black soldier ants that were as big as Arachne. With the way the sun shone, their shells seemed to hold a shiny luster.

The size of the ants seemed to give the group of students a sense of alarm. What put them even more on edge was how easily the ants were lifting the corpses and carrying them into the holes and then another ant would emerge from the hole to replace it.

”What should we do? Do we fight them?”

”How many ants do you think there are? There could be thousands of them!”

”No…” The voices stopped and saw Jasmine kneeling over the ground. They wouldʼve assumed something was wrong with her if it wasnʼt for the small dryad sitting on her shoulder.

”There are a lot of them, but there seems to only be about a hundred of them if that. From my guess, I would say that growing under the ground killed most of them, but itʼs only a guess.” She stood up and brushed her hair out of her face before facing everyone.

If it was anyone else, she wouldʼve been made with scruitnity after making such claims when no one there could verify it, but they were raptured by her mature beauty. Her ears, resembling cosplay, added a nice touch to her attractiveness.

”Jas, are you sure? If thatʼs the case then we should fight! Iʼd rather fight these things th-”

”Crap theyʼre coming!”

While the group were going through the fight of their lives, Noah had almost made his way to his first destination. It took him longer than he expected because he met some zombies on the way.

The zombies were made quick work out of just by Arachne and Fenrir alone. What took most of his time was obtaining all of their cores. Noah just couldnʼt help himself, even when he saw a dead corpse, he opened their chest to obtain his treasure.

However because of the constant stops, nightfall was gradually coming and he was beginning to feel the strain of the mental fatigue accumulating. For someone who spent most of their life reading, this day has been so exciting for him that he began to feel drained physically even when his body wasnʼt tired.

”I shouldnʼt go on like this…Iʼm in too much of a hurry for strength, but time waits for no one…Wait! Itʼs not like I still canʼt receive experience while resting.”

Noah was once on his way to the rear parking lot in the womenʼs area, but playing it safe, he began to backtrack towards their dorms. He could clean up whatever was there, and at the same time he could implement his broken privilege as a monster tamer, especially when he now had a creature that didnʼt need to rest.

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A/N: Everyone thank you for your support so far! Donʼt think I havenʼt noticed everyoneʼs commentsm, even the ants was something I forgot about until someone mentioned it. I take everyoneʼs words into consideration, especially your suggestions and criticism so keep them coming.

Also I wonʼt be describing their fight in the next chapter but let me know if you would like to read about it. I can add it the next two chapters so let me know soon.