The World Cataclysm - Chapter 45: Foolish Arthur

“Ehm…Arthur, does Evelyn have any close friends in the underground basement?” Dave asked as he thought over the problem.

“I, Evelyn, and Mary graduated from the same high school. With both of us here, Mary, my girlfriend, is the only one who can be called a close friend to Evelyn down there.” Looking concernedly at Evelyn, Arthur hastily replied to Dave as he was also worried about his girlfriend.

‘His girlfriend?’ Dave thought as his face had darkened. He felt strange talking to a boyfriend whose girl was probably violated in his past world, so he slightly pitied Arthur for that reason.

He wasn’t a saint nor a hero, but it wasn’t too difficult for him to save their friend. However, should he help them, knowing what was going to happen?

To be honest, Dave didn’t imagine that he would come to the supermarket so timely. He didn’t even know were the rumours true or not before coming here, taking the odds and coming here on his whim.

The only problem was that he had come here exclusively for Evelyn, so he could entrust her with the task of unifying their university since he didn’t want to do it himself. He thought that it was a waste of time. However, recalling how she differed from Evelyn from his past, Dave doubted that she would achieve what he wanted.

Evelyn he had remembered was strict and unyielding. Despite being a woman, she was able to unify their university and established new rules among all the chaos. To achieve this, she had killed both monsters and people, instilling fear into other survivors.

However, looking at the unconscious Evelyn and recalling gentleness in her eyes, he doubted that she will dare to kill a fellow human. Earlier, he had never understood why she was so hateful towards other survivors, but now everything had come to its place, as a puzzle was solved in his mind.

‘Losing both of her close friends due to the malice of another survivor, something should have snapped in her mind. Stunned by the death of Arthur, she should have gone insane after knowing that her best friend was violated by someone else, not to say that her friend had killed herself after that.’ Dave pondered as he held his chin.

Truthfully, he had never imagined that her story was so tragic. However, knowing it beforehand, he could prevent it from happening, so Evelyn and Arthur won’t go through it. But in that way, Evelyn won’t be able to achieve what he wanted her to do.

Should he help them or let it be?

Should he save her or let her be raped?

Should he make Evelyn the way she was in his past life?

‘Ohh, fuck! It’s so frustrating!’ Dave thought as massaged his temples.

“So, will Evelyn be okay? What’s going with her?” Arthur asked Dave as he woke him up from his thoughts.

“Ahh, yes? She should be alright after several hours. Her cells are going through a process of mutation, adapting to a new environment, so she should be fine after she wakes up.” Dave gave a brief answer to him. Since he already knew that her awakening was successful in his past life, he wasn’t worried much about her.

“Then, did Kyle’s cells had also mutated? He had also gone through a fever.” Even though he didn’t understand everything, Arthur was still able to recall it.

“Kyle? The jerk who had left you to your death? If he had awakened, why didn’t he just seized the position of the leader from you? Do you have anything special to threaten him?” Dave asked since he found it strange that Kyle dealt with Arthur with tricks rather than directly while being an Awakener.

‘Perhaps, he found his Awakening useless like evolving stamina or intelligence since they aren’t much of a use in early stages.’ Dave thought as he analyzed the whole situation.

“Ohh, I learned a skill called Shadow Step. It increases my agility by 10 points for a minute, so Kyle might have been cautious of it.” Arthur replied courteously as he still felt thankful to his saviour.

“So? You had just exposed your skill to me. Do you trust me so much?” Dave asked him jokingly as he found Arthur trusting a stranger too much. He was quite surprised to find out that Arthur had a skill, but he wasn’t shocked by it since they were common in his past life.

“Of course! You’ve saved my life!” Arthur said as his eyes shined with good-will, gratitude…and respect.

“…” Dave was left speechless. Living his second life, he had already forgotten that there were still people who were true to themselves, saying what they mean and doing what they feel right. It was so unfamiliar to him that it made him uncomfortable.

‘Fuck! Whatever, I’ll think about the unification of our university later. Perhaps, I can entrust that task to Adam, so it will be his problem instead of mine.’ Dave finally decided to meddle in the problem as he felt bad for Arthur.

He also wanted to avenge Adam for spilling his secrets and embarrassing moments from his school years. Even though he was 25, including his age from the past life, Dave still felt flustered about it.

Yet he admitted that he had longed for such small jokes from Adam!

Even though he didn’t have a lot of time to familiarise himself with Arthur, only several hours, Dave already got a grip on his personality. He was kind and cheerful with his own sense of justice. Probably, he would have been able to become a hero with such an attitude.

However, usually, such people hadn’t lived long in his past life. Help them once, and they will feel thankful to you all the life.

‘He did get a quite useful ability. With this skill, he could easily fight a low rank 1 Hunter and escape from Giant. It’s unsurprising that Kyle didn’t fight him head-on. He could even run away from a bunch of zombies without…a problem!’ Dave thought as he squinted his eyes.

“Hey, Arthur, if you had such a skill, then why didn’t you just use it and ran away when you were surrounded by zombies?” Dave asked and looked at him as he was looking at a retard.

“Well, I didn’t want to leave others behind, so I didn’t use my skill to escape. I needed to cover our escape.” Arthur said as he put his hand at the back of his head and laughed embarrassedly.

“…”

At his words, Dave glared at him stupidly and thought ‘Retard! Fucking idiot! He put the lives of others over his own life. How foolish can he be?’

“What?” Arthur asked Dave as he caught strange glances from him

“Whatever, nothing.” Noticing that Arthur still didn’t understand the implications of his actions, Dave quickly gave up. Instead, he turned to Rebecca and said, “Rebecca, look after the sick as you did with Adam.”

“Okay!” Rebecca exclaimed in agreement while nodding her head. She was silent all along when Evelyn had entered since she didn’t want to interrupt their conversation.

“I’ll leave my bag here, so if you need anything, use everything you’re required. In case you want to wipe her sweat off, then don’t worry, we’re leaving shortly, so do everything you need to. Arthur, follow me!” Dave ordered as he also used Mana Sensing to survey their surroundings.

“Are we going to the underground basement?” Arthur asked in anticipation.

“Yeah, if you want to reunite with your little girlfriend, then follow me. We need to deal with a pest down there.” Dave said as he reached for a door handle.