Chapter 749: Back in Reading Pennsylvania, The Events Occurring During the Supply Collection (1/2)

Day 154 - 1:09 PM - Reading City, Pennsylvania, United States of America

The abandoned city of Reading in southeastern Pennsylvania was currently bustling with activities.

While, without a doubt, most of the activities involved the infected, some of them were people. These people were none other than the survivors living in Mark's base, currently led by Odelina and Huey.

It would be unexpected if the American government witnessed survivors from the Philippines here to scourge for supplies. This place was basically on the other side of the globe. Fortunately or unfortunately, there was no one else to see these survivors except for the infected and the members of Auraboros.

As per Mark's orders, they scoured the city and other nearby areas for supplies and equipment.

Of course, it was not an easy endeavor.

The number of teams they could dispatch was limited, not to mention that they only had a few vehicles to use to transport the supplies they collected.

And before they could even transport the supplies, they needed to fight the infected every time. They took caution as their priority. Nonetheless, not everything would always go according to plan. While they managed to avoid casualties which were fortunate, they still had some people injured. And sadly, one of survivor that volunteered to join the teams lost an arm.

They were also under pressure. Everyone knew that they were preparing for the second wave but none of them knew when it was coming. Thus, they needed to move fast as they could and get ready if it suddenly came.

Despite the few bumps along the road, one could not deny that they were doing better, unlike most survivors in the apocalypse.

Well, that was until the other day.

***

ROAR!

A roar could be heard shaking the eardrums of anyone around. It attracted all the infected in the vicinity to chase after the source of the sound.

Along that very same street where the roar came from, a three-meter tall dog with golden fur ran across the road.

GROOOAR!!

Loud growling, roaring sounds followed the golden-furred dog as hundreds of infected, both mutated and not, chased after it.

There were different kinds of Infected present. Most of them were [Biters] since the slower [Eaters] lagged behind. There were a lot of mutated ones, however. There were large-bodied ones with thick muscles, bashing through the obstacles on the street. There were also thin-bodied infected, running and jumping across walls and roofs.

”Hahaha! Go! Laelaps! Attract more of them! We need to delay them from reaching the foot of the mountain!”

A girl's voice could be heard talking to the dog. A teenage girl was riding on its back.

The girl appeared to be around fourteen, with a very lively demeanor. Despite riding on a giant dog while being chased by the horrendous horde of infected, she still had the time to enjoy things.

”Annica, don't play around too much.” A static-covered voice of a woman could be heard as the radio strapped on the girl's arm sounded. ”If you're too careless and get injured, uncle and auntie will chew me off.”

”Geez, Sis Alana! I know! I'm not a child anymore, alright!” Annica replied on the radio. ”If there is someone you should worry about, it's Sis Karlene and Lil Sis Karla! Those two make more trouble than me!”

”Since you know, then don't make trouble too! Seriously!” Alana complained.

”Okay! Okay!” Annica sighed at Alana's nagging. ”You really sound like my Mom, you know!”

As Annica said that, she told Laelaps to make a right turn at the next corner. They needed to gather and delay as many infected as possible. It was their mission here.

***

Atop the roof of Central Middle School a few blocks away from the foot of Mount Penn, Alana shook her head. Although Annica was doing a good job while being partnered with Laelaps, she loved to horse around. Being around the childish pair of Karlene and Karla did not help in relieving her stress either.

What was the source of their stress, and what was going on with the city?

Just the other day, the infected began acting weird.

***

So far, they had started to identify infected hordes into two categories, [Territorial Hordes] and [Wandering Hordes].

[Wandering Hordes] was self-explanatory. They were nomadic hordes that wander around all over the place. There were also two types of [Wandering Hordes], [Unorganized] and [Organized].

[Unorganized Wandering Hordes], also called [Leaderless Hordes], were groups of infected that gathered just by chance. They might have grouped up by coincidence and traveled together, or the infected in the horde shared similar traits. They tend to just continue traveling together but could also break apart at any time. Once they encountered another horde with a leader, they tend to get absorbed into the latter, however.

[Organized Wandering Hordes] were the opposite of the previous type of horde. They wander around with a [Leader Type], going to places that the leader of the horde wanted to go. They tend to grow larger as a [Wandering Hordes] were most likely to encounter each other. They would absorb [Leaderless Hordes] into their ranks.

The other category of infected hordes was the [Territorial Hordes]. Also self-explanatory, they were hordes that frequent a certain place without going too far from it. Unlike [Wandering Hordes], [Territorial Hordes] were not divided into sub-types, at least, currently. So far, [Territorial Hordes] tend to have one or more [Leader Types] within them.

Why was this information brought up suddenly? It was because it had something to do with the strange behavior of the infected.

A few days ago, they only had to scope and map the place, and they would be able to maneuver across the outskirts of the city without too much confrontation with the infected. [Territorial Hordes] tend to not wander off too far from their territory. As such, if those territories were avoided, they only had to deal with the infected that did not belong to any hordes.

But the other day, the [Territorial Hordes] they mapped began moving away from their territories. In fact, they started behaving like [Wandering Hordes]. The difference, however, was that the hordes were all moving towards Mt. Penn.

It was the worst thing, of course. After all, their base of operations here was The Pagoda, situated atop Mt. Penn.

Although they had countermeasures scattered across Mt. Penn, like the illusion magic of Tikbalangs and walls of vines made the Dryad, it would still be questionable if these defenses would be able to withstand hordes with tens of thousands of infected.

Thus, once the phenomenon started, they all considered pulling back the operations from this place. And today, they began to transport all the remaining supplies they gathered towards the portal Spera opened.

But, of course, it would be hard to do all of it quickly. They had little manpower, after all. Thus, they needed to delay the incoming hordes as much as possible. If it came to a point that they could not handle it any longer, they would have no choice but to abandon the remaining supplies.

Nonetheless, what was the cause of this strange phenomenon?