Gradually Logan's flexed muscles went back into his body. He was breathing heavily when he saw David standing up. Apart from a few splashes of red blood and black goo on his robes, he looked perfectly fin in Logan's eyes. The same couldn't be said to Logan himself as he wanted to stop fighting the urge to faint.
Logan bent down, clenching his knees to support his body from falling down. The rest of the team was too spent to gawk at Michael in surprise.
"Keep your shit together big guy, we have one more thing to take care of" Michael gave a shot pat on Logan's shoulder before walking towards the rest of the group.
On his way, Michael picked up a crossbow bolt from the ground. They all wondered what's he doing
Bam!
Their bodies again tensed up when they saw Michael lift Jessie by his neck and slam him against a tree. The tree trembled as leaves and twigs blasted away by the force,
Marcella immediately raised her crossbow at Michael while the others also had serious looks on their faces.
"What the hell are you doing?!" H shouted,
Instead of answering, Michael just stared at the masked face of Jessie for a few moments.
"What..." Jessie tried to speak but words barely escaped through against Michael's clutch.
"Did anyone notice that the black panther never targeted Jessie or attacked him?" They were all confused by Michael's question. In the heat of the battle, they never noticed anything weird.
"He stayed out of its target range, so what?" Marcella growled, refusing to let Michael manhandle Jessie like this. She knew and trusted Jessie more than Michael
Giving no answer to Marcella, he just ripped off Jessie's cloth covering his arm. The moment H and everyone saw Jessie's right forearm, they took a step back from him. Marcella's eyes went wide as her body jerked in shock.
Jessie's forearm had a two-inch diameter circle bite mark. The area around the mark was riddled with yellow and blue veins.
"It's...nothing..." Jessie mumbled,
"He was already infected when the battle started, that was why the panther never targeted him, that was why he was stumbling on the way"
The first thing that raised the suspicion on Jessie was when he stumbled down. If Jessie was here, it was obvious he's an expert thief. Otherwise, Ross or H wouldn't have hired him. A single misstep would cost a thief's life hence they trained themselves to take each step with utmost care no matter where they are. For an expert thief like Jessie, falling down clumsily was pretty unusual.
The next thing was when the team fought the panther, although it focused its attacks on him, Logan, and Marcella, it never seemed to target Jessie. Besides, he also kept scratching his forearm instead of throwing the throwing knives hidden inside his cloak.
"How long?" H asked, gently patting Michael's hand, wordlessly telling him to loosen his grip.
Michael did loosen his grip but didn't let go,
"Grhh" only a menacing growl came out of Jessie's mouth. Jonah cautiously stepped towards Jessie, adjusting his glasses to examine the wound.
"Judging by the color around the wound, I'd say three hours"
"That's approximately the time we faced the undead monkeys," said Brownie. Thinking weak undead such as the monkeys managed to bite Jessie, he just shook his head in disappointment.
"If my guess is right...he will turn undead in...one hour" he stuttered in fear. The reality of someone he knew will be undead in a matter of time freaked him out.
"Whatever he's here for, we have to do it without him" Michael's face was calm. There was no shock or fear on his face despite holding a soon-to-be undead in his hand. He spoke looking at H and Ross since this was their operation and only they knew the real reason to bring a thief to this island.
H just nodded, without stating the obvious.
"Sorry dude, any last words?"
"Grrrrah,"
"Suit yourself"
Pulch!
Michael stabbed the crossbow bolt he was holding in the other hand through right between Jessie's eyes, killing him quickly and painlessly.
"Check yourselves, I'd hate for you to turn into an undead" H said, quickly hiding his concern from showing on his face. With the system on his side, Michael couldn't care less about losing a thief. It was indeed a pity for the team to lose one but at the end of the day, it was expected.
"You cannot leave him like that" Maria protested against leaving Jessie's body.
"We don't have time to give him a proper burial" Ross sighed but the others showed no concern for Jessie's body. After all, Jessie died and it was just the mortal shell.
"It's the least we can do for him. Undead or not, he was a human being"
"Let's move" H ignored the protest of this naive young girl. Michael followed H behind. Although he trusted Gaya to find and stop the other team from reaching the center, he still didn't want to waste any time doing cores for this stupid girl.
"If you don't, I will!" the girl stomped the ground. She looked extremely stubborn as she began to walk towards Jessie's body. The team stared at Ross while H clenched his teeth in frustration. Not only H, but Michael also looked pissed. Unlike the rest of them, he needed to find the artifact the most, it was his real mission, not escorting them safely.
Ever since they started the mission, Maria had been nothing but trouble. If she wasn't Ross's daughter, they would have personally kicked her off the ship.
"It's not a good idea to stay here any longer. The corpses might attract predators or even undeads " Jonah, the expert on undeads warned them. He was already gawking around to see if there's any more undead creatures approaching them.
"Ross" H looked at Ross to knock some sense into his daughter,
"Maria, we're leaving" Ross tried to stop her but she just swatted his hand before he could stop her.
"I said I will give him a proper burial he deserves!"
"You kidding me? We have to go before anyone else ends up like him" Finally Marcella said something that Michael approved of.
"This is not the time for stubbornness Maria" Ross spoke in a grave voice.
"This is exactly the right time. How could you leave him like this, like he was some kind of animal? Would you leave if it was me?"
After this, the father and daughter began to argue. Michael was already annoyed at these two for delaying the mission. He paid no attention to the argument. All his attention was on his surroundings but he could hear the argument heating up.
While everyone's focus was on the father-daughter duo, he slipped behind a tree for cover.
"Fly my little bird" he gently tossed the palm-sized drone into the hair. The white drone transformed its surface into an army camouflage to blend with the forest.
However before the drone could fly deeper into the forest, he controlled it to fly around them, making a rustling noise.
"Something's coming" Michael quickly stepped out from the darkness of the tree. H shouted at the team as he had nothing to do with the noise,
zzzhhhhhhh
The noise immediately stopped the arguing.
"We're moving" This time everyone followed H, leaving Ross and Maria behind. They didnt think Ross would be dumb enough to stick around, burying Jessie. Digging a grave for Jessie at this moment was equal to digging two more graves for him and his daughter.
"You're coming with me" Ross grabbed Maria by her hand and started moving. She was still stupid enough to struggle but this time, she couldnt escape Ross's hold.
Michael followed them behind while the drone kept making noises by flying around them. Looking at the speed they were running, he wished he used the drone earlier which would have saved them some time.
They continued to run as fast as they could. Even after a couple of hours, they never dared to stop. Eventually, after running for so long, Michael heard the sound of water flowing.
"The river is closer," H reminded them.
"Human, we have a problem" suddenly, he heard Gaya's voice. What she said slowed his pace of running,
"What is it?"
He whispered,
"It wasn't one team hunting for the artifact, it's two. One group was already dead when I tracked them down"
"Where?"
The thickness of the trees suddenly declined as they stepped out of the forest to see a beautiful river.
"Near a river on the south"
Gaya answered but he already knew the answer. The shore was filled with almost twenty bodies. Their blood painted the golden sandy shore red.
"What happened here?'
The sunlight entered in abundance due to the lack of canopy above them. It reflected on the dead bodies and the broken ship parts floating on the river.
The team cautiously took steps forward towards the dead bodies. Everyone was on their guard. He wished he sent three more drones so one would have surveyed this direction. The drone he sent unfortunately covered the forest quite some distance from this place.
After slowly approaching the sight, they came to the first dead body on the shore. It was of a middle-aged man. He wore a toga just like the two southerners Michael met on Lars's ship. He wondered what a nobleman was doing in a dangerous place like this.
Michael squatted down beside the dead body to study the wounds inflicted on the body.
"Gaya was right, he wasn't killed by an undead but a human" looking at the clean-cut across his throat, he could tell it was the handiwork of a human. No undead would kill with such precision or leave the body untouched.
"They were killed by humans" Marcella came to the same conclusion as Michael.