For the first ti in a long while, the heavy pressure that had been weighing on her shoulders seed to lighten.
That night, the atmosphere around the dinner table was unusually lively.
Ivy ate happily, the corners of her lips lifting again and again as she spoke with the others.
However, while she was enjoying herself, soone far away was feeling the exact opposite.
Isla. Her patience had been stretched to its absolute limit.
For a long ti, she had been sending out wave after wave of zombies, hoping they could gather information about Ivy’s base.
Every new group had been dispatched with the expectation that at least one of them would return with useful intelligence.
But to her growing fury, the zombies had achieved nothing.
They didn’t just fail. They ruined everything.
Every single zombie she sent had died before bringing back any information.
Her fingers dug into the armrest of her chair as anger boiled inside her chest. "Useless..."
Her voice ca out as a cold whisper.
The situation had reached a point where she no longer had the patience to continue with small, careful probes.
Instead, Isla decided to take a much bigger gamble.
Her crimson eyes narrowed dangerously as a new idea ford in her mind. "Enough testing."
She slowly stood up, her voice carrying a chilling calm. "Gather all the zombies."
Her lips curled into a thin smile."We will attack Ivy’s base directly."
She began calculating the numbers in her mind. "So what if the protective barrier can stop one zombie?"
Her smile widened slightly. "It surely can’t withstand ten thousand..."
Her voice dropped even lower. "Or a million."
The air around her seed to grow colder. "Even ten million zombies should be enough to crush it."
With that decision made, she imdiately began gathering her forces.
Hordes of zombies from countless directions were summoned and slowly began moving toward a single destination.
anwhile, the next day inside the base, Ivy made an internal announcent.
She revealed the existence of the antidote to the internal staff.
Even though she already knew the antidote was safe, she still wanted additional testing before releasing it on a larger scale.
For that purpose, she thought about the office workers within the base.
Many of them had family mbers wandering outside the safe zone.
So of those loved ones had died. Others... had turned into zombies.
These workers possessed wealth, skills, and intelligence, yet their lives still carried a painful emptiness.
They had everything... Except their loved ones.
Ivy intended to change that. She explained her plan clearly.
"If your family mbers have turned into zombies and are still alive outside, we will attempt to restore them using the antidote."
She also carefully described the possible risks and dangers involved.
Even so, the room was filled with excitent.
So people were so overwheld that they almost started cheering.
Among them were many individuals who had already located their loved ones.
This had beco possible because of a decision Ivy made earlier. Just a few months before, she had issued a very unusual order:
No zombie should be hunted or killed unnecessarily. Instead, zombies were to be captured alive whenever possible.
Through that system, many zombies had been identified and matched with records of missing individuals.
Several people within the base had discovered that their own family mbers were among those captured zombies.
Each of those zombies was kept in a separate reinforced cell.
This arrangent allowed family mbers to occasionally visit them safely.
Now that the antidote existed, they finally had hope.
All they needed to do was administer the antidote to their zombified loved ones.
The thought alone filled everyone with excitent.
Among the crowd, one particular woman looked especially emotional. Greta.
Her eyes sparkled with anticipation.
Just a month earlier, she had hired an investigator to search for her older brother, Mika, who had already turned into a zombie.
During that search, she encountered a zombie who resembled Mika greatly.
At first she wasn’t certain.
But sothing about the zombie’s behavior felt strangely familiar.
Whenever Greta stood outside the base within the safety zone, that zombie would appear in the distance.
He never approached her. He never growled. He never tried to attack.
Instead, he simply stood there quietly, watching her from afar.
As if she was sothing extrely precious.
Greta slowly began to suspect that it might truly be her brother.
The biggest clue ca from sothing strange the zombie carried.
A rotten stead bun. It was old and moldy, yet the zombie never let go of it.
At first Greta didn’t understand. Then one mory suddenly surfaced in her mind.
Before Mika had left the house for the last ti... She had given him a stead bun.
Realizing that possibility made her heart race wildly. ’It really might be him...’
The thought excited her so much that she almost ran toward him that very mont.
But she forced herself to stay calm. Instead, she began bringing at from the base and leaving it outside for the zombie.
The first ti she did this, the zombie stared at the food cautiously.
Then he glanced toward Greta again and again as if checking whether she would suddenly run away.
Greta almost laughed at the sight.
Her voice carried warmth as she spoke softly. "I know it’s you, brother."
She gently pushed the at closer toward him. "Go ahead and eat. I won’t hurt you."
The zombie suddenly froze.
He stood there motionless for several long minutes. Almost as if his brain was slowly processing the information.
Four full minutes passed in complete silence. Finally, he began to move.
Slowly, he stepped forward and grabbed the at. Then he started eating it hungrily.
The sight was unpleasant, his movents rough and ssy, his mouth tearing the at apart in a grotesque way.
But Greta’s eyes filled with tears.
Because she noticed sothing important. The zombie was using his left hand to eat. Her brother had always done the sa.
Now she was almost ninety percent certain. This zombie... Was Mika.
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