"..."
HK416 opened her mouth, then swallowed the words she was about to say. What Daniel said wasn't actually wrong.
"With zombies, even a scratch means game over. Gabriel and I have to be extremely careful when dealing with them, and it's still tough. Letting girls who've never lifted a finger kill zombies just isn't realistic."
"If they want to live, the only option is to rely on a man with their bodies."
"Gabriel and I can protect them along the way for a while, but when it comes to the last portion of food, I'll definitely keep it for Gabriel. If those women dare to fight over it, I won't hesitate to hurt them."
"So if you can't accept that, there's no way to survive. I'm nothing more than a hypocrite."
Daniel smiled helplessly.
"I don't think so. A hypocrite is someone who demands that others protect those women, like a self-righteous saint. You did everything within your ability to protect others. I think that's true kindness. It's just that before being kind, you're first and foremost a good older sister."
"Haha, you're giving me too much credit, Brother Lux… I'm really not that kind of a person."
A fleeting darkness crossed Daniel's face.
"After that, I talked it over with Gabriel and scolded her. She understood. Sigh, that guy may have had terrible character, but if he were still around, maybe we wouldn't have lost anyone."
Daniel said regretfully.
"What's past is past. To be honest, I'm not a fan of forcing women to do that kind of thing either."
Lux said calmly.
"Brother Lux, people like you are really rare now. You don't bully girls and even share food with us. Two days ago we ran into a group who stole the bus and all the food we'd gathered while we were asleep. Otherwise, we wouldn't have gone hungry for two days and had to run out of the city on foot."
Daniel said angrily.
"I also ran into people trying to steal my car when I left the city. They even attacked me."
"Whoa, then how did you deal with them?"
Daniel asked curiously.
"Of course I killed them all. Anyone who attacks my 416 gets wiped out."
Lux replied with a smile.
HK416 smiled happily and poked Lux's cheek with her finger.
"Hmph. When we run into those thieves, I'm going to teach them a good lesson too."
Daniel clenched the Nepalese Kukri tightly.
"By the way, what do you think of Rick's group?"
Lux asked casually. Daniel seemed pretty straightforward, making her easy to read. Otherwise, she wouldn't have voluntarily mentioned her sister's earlier conflict with other survivors.
And since there might be heavy weapons in the militia armory, he would need manpower to operate them.
If Rick's people were decent, Lux planned to move together with them.
"They're pretty good. Uncle Rick is a real man. Anyone he can save, he'll risk his life to save. In the beginning, all the food we ate came from his convenience store, and he never held back. Gabriel and I didn't have any money, and he still gave us food directly."
"The others in the group are okay too. Everyone just wants to survive, and no one's done anything unforgivable. There are occasional arguments, but in the end, Uncle Rick always manages to mediate things."
"What about that Bullhead off-road vehicle over there?"
Lux stepped on the brakes and asked.
"Great vehicle! But there are several zombies over there. What should we do? Rush over and hack them down?"
Daniel asked.
"No need. Lianne's with you. Daniel, go down with her so zombies don't suddenly get close."
Daniel opened the door without hesitation and cleaved the head of a nearby zombie with one strike. Lianne also got out, drew her bow, and with a sharp whoosh, a zombie near the Bullhead off-road vehicle collapsed to the ground.
Lianne took another deep breath, pulled an arrow from her quiver, and nocked it again.
"This… this is way too easy."
Hanging onto the back of the pickup, Rick and the other two stared in shock as zombies fell one after another in the distance.
After confirming that the area around the off-road vehicle was clear, Lianne and Daniel climbed back into the pickup.
"Wow, Sister Lianne, you're amazing. You can hit their heads from so far away."
"Hehe, just some practice."
Lianne replied modestly.
"Wow, that's definitely not something you get from casual practice. Even with a pistol, I can only get precise headshots at around thirty meters."
"Alright, you can chat later. For now, get down and start this vehicle."
Lux parked the pickup in front of the off-road vehicle and reminded them.
"Oh, okay, right away."
Daniel jumped out energetically, pulled out a glass cutter from her pocket, and started cutting the driver-side window. Lianne got out as well to retrieve the carbon arrows embedded in the zombies' heads.
After less than five minutes of fiddling inside the cab, Daniel successfully started the off-road vehicle.
"Troy, you drive the first vehicle. You still remember the way back, right?"
Lux rolled down the pickup window and asked calmly. If they formed a convoy and ran into a horde, the lead vehicle would be in the most dangerous position. One mistake from the vehicles behind could trap him, so his plan was to have someone drive each recovered vehicle back.
"I remember. No problem at all."
Troy answered immediately.
"Then drive it back."
Daniel quickly returned to the pickup. Troy jumped down and got into the Bullhead, skillfully turned it around, and drove back the way they came.
Lux led the remaining people to continue searching for more vehicles.
Later, while Daniel was hotwiring another car, Lux learned the technique from her. The last vehicle was started by Lux himself.
Then the group drove the two vehicles back toward the outskirts.
"Hehe, Brother Lux, are you planning to expand the team?"
After getting out of the car, Lianne asked with a smile.
"Yeah. There are a lot of good things in the militia armory. If we can get some heavy weapons, it'd be good to have people to use them."
"In the future, I'm considering establishing a settlement to mine resources for me. I'll trade food for it, and those settlements will also need some defensive strength."
Lux nodded.
"After building a settlement, are you planning to stay there, Brother Lux?"
Lianne asked somewhat in surprise.
"Yeah. Since you've already concluded that only by constantly evolving can one survive in this world,"
"then at least before these zombies evolve to a level we can't kill, we should be actively hunting down those evolved zombies."
Lux said with a smile. To him, mutated zombies were not just a threat, but walking piles of massive resource points.