"Having a family…" Valeria began slowly. "That must be very nice."
Leon glanced at her from the corner of his eye. For a moment he hesitated, like he wasn't sure the question even made sense in her case, but in the end, he asked normally, without overthinking it.
"And you?" he said. "Do you have… or did you have a family?"
Valeria slowed her pace just a fraction, enough for Leon to notice, though her expression stayed calm.
"It's a bit more complicated," she answered after a moment. "But you could say yes. I had a mother and a father."
She paused, completely natural, like she was stating something obvious.
"They died a few hundred years ago."
Leon stopped mid-step.
"…A few hundred?" he repeated, staring at her in disbelief.
For a second he genuinely tried to fit it inside his head, do the math, imagine the scale of time, and then, before he could bite his tongue, it slipped out automatically.
"So you're… you're really old."
A single second of silence.
Valeria stopped and looked at him with exaggerated, theatrical outrage, brows furrowing, chin lifting.
"Excuse you," she said in a sweet, mock-offended tone. "I'm doing excellent for my age."
Then she leaned slightly toward him, and a familiar, wicked glint appeared in her eyes.
"Besides," she added, "someone here was literally drooling a while ago at the sight of this 'few-hundred-year-old grandma.'"
Leon's cheeks instantly went hot.
"Hey, no, !" he started, waving his hands at her, visibly flustered. "Forget that. Better yet, erase it. Delete it from your memory. Immediately."
Valeria laughed softly, mischievous, clearly enjoying his reaction.
"Impossible," she said without hesitation. "I've already memorized every detail of your very adorable face from that moment."
She kept laughing for another beat, completely unbothered, while Leon just let out a long, suffering groan.
"Ugh…"
And right then his gaze shifted forward.
Up the street, a dozen or so meters away, two zombies stood there, slowly turning their heads toward them, like reality had decided their conversation had gone on long enough.
Leon sighed heavily, adjusted his grip on the sword, and shot Valeria a quick look.
"Alright. Topic's over," he muttered. "We've got company."
Valeria only nodded, no comment, and drifted a few steps to the side, just far enough not to interfere but not so far that she left his line of sight. She was clearly more interested in watching than intervening, and her gaze immediately locked onto the shadow on the asphalt as Leon raised his hand.
The zombies shambled toward them, slow and unhurried, that familiar dragging gait that used to unsettle him. Now it was just a cue.
Leon extended his hand toward the first one, focusing the same way as before, no fancy tricks, imagining the shadow as something heavy, dense, something that could lift and tighten.
Darkness answered almost at once.
A chain shot out of the shadow, wrapped around the zombie's arm, and Leon added a second without slowing, binding it in a blink. Then he rushed in and took its head off with one clean motion, not even thinking about it, because with his current stats and speed, it was simply… easy.
[Essence Record – Kill Confirmed]
[Target: Normal Zombie (LVL 6)]
Valeria watched closely, but her attention wasn't on the zombie or the sword. It was on the darkness itself, how it responded to his will, how quickly it formed, how naturally it snapped back into place afterward, as if she was trying to understand something beyond the outcome.
Leon didn't even pause, already turning toward the second one, when something scraped wrong in his brain.
That zombie was… different.
Up close he noticed the massive arms, the unnaturally built muscle, shoulders like a wardrobe, nearly two meters tall, someone who, before the change, had to be a bodybuilder or at least lived in a gym. From farther away he'd missed it.
He reached out and pulled the shadow again, forming a chain exactly like before, confident it would be enough.
And then he saw something he absolutely did not expect.
The zombie simply swung the arm the chain was wrapped around.
The darkness went taut for a fraction of a second, then shattered, as if it had been ripped apart by brute physical force. The black links scattered and sank back into the asphalt.
Leon froze for half a beat.
"…What?" slipped out of him.
Irritated at being restrained, the zombie roared louder and lunged at Leon with shocking speed. Leon reacted on instinct, slipping to the side at the last possible moment.
The fist slammed into the asphalt where Leon had been standing.
The ground caved.
The pavement cracked with a heavy crunch, leaving a clear crater like someone had struck it with a jackhammer. Leon sprang farther back, his heart jumping into his throat, eyes stretched wide enough to hurt.
"What the fuck…" he spat, retreating another step. "Since when are zombies this strong?"
Valeria spoke calmly, without raising her voice, like she was commenting on something obvious instead of the fact he'd almost been turned into paste.
"Humans aren't the only ones who can gain levels and grow stronger," she said, never taking her eyes off the zombie.
Leon flicked her a quick look, but he didn't have time to answer. The monster came again, heavy, long strides that made the asphalt tremble under its feet. Leon backed off and dodged again, feeling the air from the swing skim his face by centimeters.
"Every being in this world," Valeria added, a touch louder now, "has the right to evolve. And become stronger."
The zombie roared and swung again, wide this time, like it meant to wipe Leon off the street entirely. Leon threw himself aside, rolled across the asphalt, and came up gasping, still alive. When he looked at it, he understood this wasn't luck or "a stronger specimen."
"That one," Valeria said, measuring it with her eyes, "is at least three times your level."
"Great," Leon shot back, dodging again as the zombie's fist crashed into the ground and split the road with fresh fractures. "Really great."
But there was no pure panic in his voice, just tension, sharpened into focus. Because once he caught the rhythm of the thing's attacks, something important clicked into place.
It was powerful. Absurdly strong.
But it was clumsy.
Which meant he was faster.
"Alright…" he muttered through his teeth, stepping back again, pulling air into burning lungs. "You're stronger. I get it."
He dodged again, almost dancing, heart hammering, but something else rising under the adrenaline: the awareness that as long as he could keep up, as long as he stayed just a little faster, as long as he didn't get hit…
This fight wasn't over.
Still retreating through a chain of dodges, Leon began scanning his surroundings, not panicked, but with that cool, practical look of someone searching for an answer in the terrain instead of in raw strength. It was becoming painfully clear that in a direct clash, this zombie would grind him into the street.
The road was wrecked like everything else in the city, sunken patches of asphalt, cracked curbs, abandoned cars scattered everywhere. Two of them stood close together, their tires nearly touching, beside a warped, uneven patch of old pavement that looked like one bad step could throw anyone off balance.
Leon flicked his eyes to it. Then back to the zombie.
The monster roared and charged again, feet pounding hard enough to make the ground shiver.
"Come on…" Leon muttered under his breath, backing in the exact direction he wanted, baiting it with wide dodges, deliberately leaving himself just within reach for a heartbeat, forcing the brute to commit to the run. He knew the faster and sloppier it moved, the more likely it was to make a mistake.
The moment he gained a sliver of breathing room, Leon dropped his hand toward the ground, focusing not on the zombie but on the shadow cast by the cars and the sagging asphalt between them.
He pictured something simple. Low. Barely raised from the surface. No chains, no theatrics, just a thin strip of darkness, like the shadow itself lifted slightly and laid down exactly where it needed to be.
Darkness answered almost instantly.
It thickened, rose just a little, forming a black, unnaturally matte edge stretched beside the two tires, ankle height. Just enough to break someone's rhythm if they weren't watching their footing.
Leon stepped back one more time and stopped, locked in. His heart was pounding, but his hands were strangely steady as he watched the zombie thunder closer.
It ran straight into the spot Leon had chosen.
And the next second its foot caught on the extended shadow, something that would've meant nothing to a normal body, but for that much muscle and momentum, it was enough.
The zombie lost balance.
Its bulk pitched forward, arms flinging out in a too-late attempt to recover, and then it crashed onto the sunken asphalt with a heavy, echoing slam, shoulder and chest hitting hard enough to bounce sound between the buildings.
"There…" Leon whispered, adrenaline spiking. "That's my chance."
The shadow dissolved at once, sinking back into the ground like it had never been there.
Leon didn't hesitate.
He sprinted at the fallen zombie, gripping the sword with both hands, knowing that if he faltered now, if he let it stand up, he might not get another opening.