A few seconds earlier.
Andy engaged the two mutations at the same time. He was quite scared to be honest, but he still preferred fighting against these two over fighting the big one. The big one just gave him a weird feeling, not to mention that it just looked very imposing.
The first mutation that reached him was the female one while the male one was still a few steps behind. When the mutation tried to grab him with its wide-open arms, he threw a quick jab at its face and proceeded to retreat a few steps before its arms could close around him. Then once it had closed its arms, having only grabbed air, he immediately took a step forward and threw another jab at its face.
Neither of these punches had dealt any real damage to the mutation, but that had not been his goal anyways. Those two jabs had just been a setup to meet the conditions of his innate skill 'Combo Strike'. It was the one and only skill he had received after choosing the class 'Boxer', and it allowed him to build up a stronger punch by hitting the enemy multiple times in a row without being hit himself.
And now after the two light jabs the minimum requirement for the skill had been fulfilled. Since he was very close to it, the mutation decided to directly bite him instead of trying to grab him again.
This was exactly what Andy had anticipated. Once the mutation leaned forward to bite him, he punched its face with all the force he had built up from the previous two jabs. A small amount of green energy appeared around his fist to protect it from being damaged by the punch. Then his punch landed right on the mutation's nose and Andy could feel its nose breaking and saw its skull cave in a bit before the mutation was sent flying backwards by the great force of his punch.
Sadly, Andy had no time to celebrate his victory as the second mutation had arrived and taken the first one's place. This mutation moved a bit slower than the previous one, so Andy allowed himself to relax a bit. Just like before he carefully dodged its attacks and managed to land two jabs on its body. He was already sure of his own victory when he heard Alexia scream:
"Andy, jump now!"
Her voice carried a strong enough sense of danger and authority that Andy reacted without thinking and jumped into the air. Then just a moment later he saw the female abomination which had surprisingly survived his punch bite the air where his feet had stood just a moment earlier.
Sadly, he was not out of danger yet, the male mutation managed to tackle him while he was still in the air. He was now falling towards the ground with the male mutation holding him in a vise-like embrace. His brain was working at full speed trying to get the situation under control.
Instinctively, he threw a desperate punch toward the mutation's face because he knew that his built-up power would vanish the moment he took serious damage, so he had to use it before he hit the ground.
The punch had horrible form and there would usually be little force behind it, but together with the built-up force from the previous punches it could still deal a great amount of damage.
Andy had not had any time to aim his punch carefully and instead just punched in the general direction of the mutation's head and miraculously he managed to hit the mutation's temple with his knuckles. The mutation's body immediately went limp, but Andy still hit the ground with the entire weight of the mutation landing on top of him.
The air was pressed out of his lungs, and he thought that he would pass out for a second. Then the sight of the female mutation crawling towards him managed to clear his mind again. He struggled with all his might to free himself from the male mutation's corpse, but he soon realized that he would not be able to free himself in time.
The fear of death crawled into his mind, and he struggled even more desperately straining his muscles to their breaking point. But it was no use, the mutation's jaws were already so close that he could see pieces of flesh stuck between its teeth.
Then he saw a flash of metal and the mutation's head was smashed apart by Alexia's hammer. Andy took a short breath and then his eyes rolled back, and he fell unconscious.
After looking at him for a few seconds Alexia squatted down beside Andy's unconscious body and slapped his face a few times. Doing so was a bit cruel, but Alexia just could not allow Andy to stay unconscious in their current situation and slapping Andy was something she had wanted to anyways, so she managed to kill two birds with one stone.
After the third slap Andy opened his eyes and Alexia had to reluctantly stop slapping him. Seeing the face of a beautiful woman hovering over him Andy was confused about what happened for a second, then his memories from the past hours rushed back into his mind and he started to panic until he noticed the bodies of the two dead mutations lying beside him and the satisfied smile on Alexia's face.
"Why are you smiling like that?"
Alexia's grin grew even wider and answered:
"No reason."
"Alright that makes sense… not. But anyways thank you for saving me beautiful."
The smile on Alexia's face froze and she deeply regretted not slapping Andy a few more times before he came back to his senses.
"Since you seem to be doing great let's continue searching."
Andy looked a bit unwilling but still lifted himself off the ground and started following Alexia towards the next train cart.
"How did you manage to warn me in such a timely manner while fighting a mutation yourself? Or was your opponent already dead by the time you warned me?"
"No, the mutation I was fighting was still alive when I warned you since it was different from the others. It had some intelligence, and the usual strategies no longer worked on it. I was confused why it was so different from the others until I killed it, and the screen announced that I had killed a level 1 mutation. All the other mutations I fought until now had been level 0 meaning that this one probably reached level 1 by killing another survivor.
That is another reason why we should hurry up and rescue any remaining survivors."
A shiver ran down Andy's back when he thought about the poor soul who had been killed and probably eaten by the mutation.
"You still didn't answer my question about how you managed to warn me like that."
"Ah, that was because of the mark I left on you. Just a moment before the mutation attacked you, I felt a great sense of danger coming from the ground beside me, but since there was nothing there, I made the connection that I was probably not feeling the danger I was in but the danger you were in. Thus, I told you to jump since that would give you the best chance of avoiding the danger on the ground."
Andy thought for a moment and then looked at Alexia for a few seconds as if he was considering if he should rather keep his thought to himself. In the end he sighed.
"That's a very selfless ability, being able to sense the danger for others but not the danger you yourself are in. It will not help you at all if you need to protect yourself."
Alexia gave him a small smile and answered:
"I quite like this ability since I would rather put myself in danger than watch others, I care about, be put in danger."
After that they silently continued walking.
They found nothing in the third and fourth train cart, but when they started walking towards the fifth train cart, they suddenly heard an explosion. After looking at each other for a second they came to a silent agreement and started to sprint towards the noise.
Once they circled around the train cart, they could see a young man who looked to be around 9 years old. He was rolling around on the ground entangled with a mutation that was missing and arm and parts of its face.
Seeing this Alexia speed up even more and left Andy behind. A few steps later she arrived before the young man and disabled the mutations remaining arm with a precise strike to its shoulder. The young man pushed the mutation away from himself and hurriedly crawled a few meters away before standing up. During that time Alexia had already finished off the mutation with another precise strike to the back of its head.
She could now take a better look at the young man. He was rather slim and not very tall at about 1,65 meters. He had short dark brown hair and green eyes. Overall, he looked as average as one could look on mars. The only thing that made him stand out a bit was that he was wearing glasses and had a few freckles on his face.
The guy was looking at hear as if she was some kind of goddess that had just descended to mars to save him. Alexia was a bit concerned that the guy would really drop to the ground and start worshipping her.
'Why did I end up with a bunch of weirdos?'
Before she could continue cursing her bad luck Andy arrived and addressed the new guy.
"What your name little one?"
The new guy did not seem to like being called 'little one' but still answered.
"My name is Jason. May I know your name?" He asked while looking at Alexia with shining eyes and completely ignoring Andy's existence.
Alexia tried her hardest to not let her displeasure show on her face.
"I am Alexia nice to meet you, Jason."
"And I am Andy. Little one, do you already have a class?"
"Yes, I already have a class. The name of my class is 'Fire Mage' and I already acquired the 'Basic Fire Magic' skill."
He continued to look at Alexia with wide puppy eyes and even an idiot would be able to tell, that he wanted to be praised for his achievement.
Alexia skillfully ignored him and continued their search for survivors after delegating the explaining part to Andy.
After finding no more survivors in the remaining two train carts and easily killing a few mutations they encountered on the way, they decided to return to their camp and meet up with the others.
On the way they took a small break at the bord bistro and looted as much food and water as they could carry.
_______________
Back at their temporary camp.
When Alexia and her group arrived back at their camp the sun was already starting to set, and Lily had fallen asleep after being calmed down by Sarah.
Meanwhile, Ezren, who looked a bit healthier by now had used his skill to create a splint for Sarah's broken leg and he would also create two crutches for her once he regained enough mana.
After a bit of experimentation Sarah had managed to simulate the effect of a painkiller-medicine she knew by using her skill and a bit of her mana. She applied this effect to herself and was now able to move around fairly well as long as someone supported her.
After everyone was introduced to one another they started to discuss what they wanted to do next. Alexia, who everyone had silently accepted as the leader of their group was the first to share her opinion.
"It should be pretty obvious that we stay here for the night since I am sure that all if us are exhausted. Then tomorrow morning we should start traveling as early as possible.
I will travel westwards and try to reach the barrier separating district 19, where we are, from district 18. But I will not force anyone to follow me."
An uncomfortable silence settled in the train cart as the different people looked at Alexia with emotions ranging from indifference to horror. Finally, Andy broke the silence by asking:
"Why do you want to go westwards toward district 18? I know that we can neither travel south nor north since district 19 borders the wild regions to the south and a lost region to the north, but why not east? We are already really close to the barrier separating us from district 20 and once we enter district 20, we will have easy access to the more central districts.
The journey towards district 18 on the other hand will take weeks and there will be almost no settlements until we get close to the barrier."
Alexia was not shaken by his arguments at all.
"I know all that, but I don't really care. My family and friends live in district 18, and I will not abandon them just because they might be dead by now. Besides, shouldn't it be the same for most of you? This train departed from the barrier station of district 18 after all.
Don't your families also live in district 18? Will you just abandon then because they 'might be dead already'?"
A gloomy silence settled in the train cart once more. Alexia was right, all of them lived near the 18/19 barrier and had taken this train to do something in the more developed district 20.
Being reminded of their families and friends, most of them started to feel depressed since it was unlikely that all their loved ones were still alive, but Alexia had also ignited a spark of hope in their heart. A hope, that they would be able to reunite with their loved ones if they reached district 18.
They all had similar reactions to Alexia's speech with the exception of Ezren who until now had looked rather gloomy and disinterested.
Ezren, who had not reacted strongly to anything since he returned from his fight, was now trembling and shaking. Soon everyone noticed his abnormal reaction.
"Ezren are you alright?" asked Alexia, but Ezren did not answer.
His eyes were unfocused and had once again lost all their color. He was feverishly mumbling to himself too quiet for anyone else to hear:
"Family… friends… loved ones. Why… why can't I remember?"