After a few dozen minutes of driving, Ada walked towards the window to the driver seat and knocked on it with her knuckle.
"Stop right here, Patrick."
"Hm? Are you sure? We're still an hour from the Cadel." He parked the bus and looked towards her. She nodded before everyone down to the front of the bus.
Step Step Step
Everyone made their way outside of the bus before turning towards Ada. She twisted and stretched every part of her body. A warm feeling appeared in her body as she felt the blood being pumped around her body.
She turned towards the others and rested her hands on her hips.
"Alright, everyone! Let's split up into teams of three!"
"..." x 5
The others gave her varying looks of confusion. Their current location was in some random part of the city. The asphalt roads were cracked, and the concrete pavements were littered with broken glass and rubble.
The buildings around the place weren't particularly in any good condition like the ones around the Cadel. All the windows were shattered as if they were destroyed to allow something to escape.
The bricks of the building were scratched and webbed with cracks. A couple of infected humans could be seen stumbling around the road. Some even have to crawl due to some sort of injury to their legs.
A particular one had its legs crushed under a traditional black lamp post. The pole of the lamp seemed to have been bent before snapping and tilting over and crushing the poor, infected legs.
Everette looked at her with his signature raised brow. He couldn't understand what made her think to do this. Ada noticed this look and gave an amused smile.
"Don't give me that look, Everette."
She then turned her head towards Amelia, who was now wide awake after taking a nap on the bus. Ada held out her hand and pointed it to their beloved healer.
"Amelia, could you please hand Alice one of your knives?"
"H-Huh? O-Oh sure...?"
She unsheathed the knife hanging by her belt and passed it towards Alice, who gazed at it with a curious glint. She carefully positioned her hand to prevent any cuts and softly grabbed the knife.
She inspected the knife's quality and sharpness before furrowing her brows at Ada, "May I ask why I need this?"
Ada stayed silent before pointing to an infected person who was stuck under the lamp. "Go kill it."
"...Pardon...?"
Alice's hands began to shake a little bit. 'K-Kill?' She thought fearfully. Alice stared at the blank eyes of the infected and watched it groan and flap around under the crushing weight of the lamp.
Although she killed the moss that gave her her powers, it was just some moss, not like the thing that somewhat resembled a human, even if it looked horrifying.
Its organs squelched with every movement. The pool of blood around it had already dried up and gave the ground a reddish hue to it. The nails on its hands looked decrepit and broken. Its desperate crawling must've worn down its shape and splinter it.
Ada repeated her words again with no changes to it, "Go kill it." She smiled, tilted her head, and added more to her sentence, "I'm sure you don't want to feel useless, right?"
Alice's body shook. Ada increased the pressure, "All those people that came back wounded to your infirmary. You couldn't even do much other than pray for their well-being and continue to try and heal them."
Alice began to shiver before wrapping her arms around her body. She began to feel a sense of coldness in Ada's voice. Alice remembered the countless men and women who fell victim to their wounds because she wasn't able to utilise her ability efficiently enough.
The cold feeling she felt when each of her patients died before her eyes was like being drenched in ice-cold water and being left without any sort of way to heat up.
Ada leaned in closer to Alice's face and whispered into her ear, "Don't you want to feel like you can do more than you already could?"
Alice gripped her arm out of frustration. Patrick held Ada's shoulder and pulled her back. His eyes flashed in annoyance towards the girl before voicing out his opinions, "Don't you think that's enough, kid? She's on the verge of crying—" Just before finishing that sentence, he noticed Ada's cold and expressionless face.
Her beady eyes stared into his. His began began to be covered in sweat. His other hand fidgeted uncontrollably before hiding inside his pocket.
She scrutinised his face before smirking. That smirk was then immediately wiped off her face a few seconds later. "Enough? Not even close..." She snorted and shrugged off his hand. She walked towards the paralysed infected before resting her shoe on its head.
Ada then began increasing the pressure under her shoe. The infected groaned and wriggled desperately as it felt the cold feeling of death gripping its life. It tried to swing its arm at her leg before having it immediately stomped and crushed.
The bones in its arm cracked and snapped. Its bone popped out of its muscles and exposed itself to the outside. Although it couldn't feel the pain, it disliked the feeling of having control over its body being reduced.
"Listen up, everyone!" She turned around to everyone with a commanding glint in her eyes. "We're about to face enemies far more powerful than we have ever fought before."
She spread out her arms to indicate the strength of the enemy's strength.
"If you think our current strength is enough to take them on, then we might as well hand ourselves over and prostrate before them like some dogs!"
She brought down her arms before forming fists with her hands. She pumped one of them in the air with a serious expression.
"If you were there when Raven was able to seriously injure that beetle with a single strike, then you must know how powerful even one of them is. And if we assume they're all just as strong, then we can't be getting lazy with our training!"
"We have one week to get strong enough for the fight ahead."
She then pointed at Alice, "Currently, you're the weakest Alice. Harsh, I know, but it is the truth, and this is reality."
She walked up towards Alice and patted her shoulder, "I know you're scared. And so is everyone here."
She then pointed towards everyone with the same hand before looking back at her, "But if you want to be of use and help everyone here, then you need to step up your game."
Alice gave a nervous nod.
Ada smiled softly. She reached down and held the hand that Alice was using to hold the knife before gently pulling her towards the infected. They both knelt down and slowly pointed the knife at it.
Alice met the eyes of the infected. Maggots could be seen crawling around its face, seemingly feeding on the energy residing in it. She wanted to back out.
Ada noticed this and gently patted her hand before gesturing towards the infected. "Do not be afraid. Trust in us, and if you can't, trust in the one above." Alice widened her eyes before biting the bottom of her lips.
She tightly gripped the handle of the knife and got rid of any sort of hesitation she had before. She quickly pulled back the knife before stabbing it into the vulnerable infected's skull.
"HAAAA—!"