The World Cataclysm - Chapter 54: Checking up

Noticing that Dave had already killed a Hunter and was searching its corpse for any black coins, three girls approached him with tiny steps. They moved to him apprehensively since they were the witnesses of the fight all along, and for them, it didn’t seem that Dave even struggled over it, on the contrary, they thought that he found enjoyment in it.

In Evelyn’s mind, a person who enjoyed fighting with a Hunter was a psycho no matter how she looked at it, so she said, “Sick! How can you smile in such a situation? Do you enjoy killing zombies so much? You know you should quit it before it becomes a habit of yours.”

Lifting his head, Dave glanced at Evelyn and said, “It’s none of your business. And correcting you, I enjoy the feeling of controlling the course of battle and getting stronger, not killing. Also, I would better smile in such situations than to cower from them.”

Saying it, Dave put his battle suit into his backpack, intending to wear it later, and thought inside his mind, “It’s much better than an empty life I had before.”

Some people may say that they were living an awesome life before everything had happened, especially people, who had enrolled to the university, were ambitious and strived for success in their lives. Someone wanted to take over the family business like Adam had or had other plans for their lives.

However, compared to others, he didn’t have any lofty dreams about his future nor did he wanted to achieve something marvellous. Even his enrollment to the prestigious university in the Federation was due to it being something his parents wanted for him, not his own wish. Without Adam’s convincement, he wouldn’t have even sent his documents here.

Even though he had joined the rank of hunters late in his past life, he liked how simple everything had turned; if you are strong, you will survive, if not, then you are dead meat. Of course, it’s terrible if you’ve been left in the latter, and Dave had personally experienced it in his past life; but the feeling of levelling up, getting stronger and killing monsters, which would have been impossible just a few days ago, is the best feeling…at least for Dave. He couldn’t do such a thing before everything had happened…without being able to level up.

Thinking in this track, Dave couldn’t help but recall the time of year and a half he had been in the hospital after a car accident: wheelchair, the smell of medical alcohol and thick aura of death. Life was somewhat different for him after that time…it felt like time slipped before his eyes…like everything went surreal.

“Dave! ….Dave, what are you doing? Why are you staring blankly at the air?” Evelyn waved her hand before his eyes. Waking up from his thoughts, Dave thought, “Shit! I went deep into my thoughts.”

Shaking his head, he assured, “Nothing happened, just thought too hard about something. Did you finish killing ordinary zombies?” He asked while turning his head to look at the corpses of other zombies. Well, adding dead bodies of zombies on the second floor to the ones on the first floor, there will be more than 60 of them.

“En, I think we finished everything here.” Rebecca nodded her head while replying to him. Even though she had stains of blood on her clothes, she still looked quite beautiful as she nodded her small head.

“Then, let’s double-check the supermarket for the presence of any other zombies. When we will be sure that no one has left inside the building, you can start counting the edible food here.” Dave said as he moved ahead of everyone.

“Can’t you just sense it like before?” Rachel asked him doubtfully. Since Dave knew the position of zombies when they had killed them from their backs, she found it strange that Dave didn’t do like before, instead of asking to search the floor.

“Ehhhh…After the battle, I feel slightly mentally tired…and making mana shields were also energy draining. I don’t want to strain my mind too much. Furthermore, it isn’t like everything becomes clear in my eyes. It’s a more ambiguous thing…like a sense of smell or even hearing, maybe a sense of touch…but not the sight.” Dave tried to explain to them what was Mana Sensing, but he doubted that he made it clear enough for them.

It was quite hard to describe that feeling in words. Mana Sensing requires to touch or sense mana surrounding you, and read its movement as well as differences in mana density around you, so he sensed general shape of the object or the creature, but he couldn’t identify precisely what it was until he sees it. With each level, clarity of Mana Sensing increases and he also could deduce much finer detail about the object or the creature.

“Can I also learn it? It seems quite handy in scouting and locating zombies. Or is it a skill like Arthur’s Shadow Step?” Evelyn asked as she pondered about the possible uses of the skill.

“Right! You should also teach us.”

“It will be useful for us.”

Shaking his head lightly, Dave chuckled silently. “Heh…I learned it by myself. However, I don’t know about you and Rachel, but Rachel has a slight chance to learn it due to her affinity to mana.”

Evelyn and Rachel had already been growing excited. If they could learn it, they would have less fear of other zombies since knowing positions of zombies beforehand was quite a big advantage. Dave’s words were like a bucket of cold water which extinguished all of their excitement.

“Are you talking about that scroll which shined when dropped our blood on it? But you also hadn’t any reaction from the scroll. Then, how are you able to do it?” Rebecca asked him only half believing his words.

Dave shook his head and said, “Well, let’s say that my case is slightly special. I spent a lot of time learning about mana and its control. I also advise you to learn more about it, and much more possibilities would open before you.”

After that, they searched over the supermarket again and found one or two zombies in isolated or hard to get in places like some enclosed rooms or toilet room. They had also gone through a storage room once to check it if any zombie had passed unspotted by them.

Finding no zombies in the supermarket and being sure that no one had passed undetected, their group returned to the underground basement to inform other survivors.

Clank!

Having been the last to enter the underground basement, Dave was the one to close the door. Just when they entered the underground space, Mary was the first one to welcome them. “Are you injured anywhere? Hopefully, all of you have returned safely. How is it on the upper floors?”

Glancing at clearly worried Marry, Evelyn smiled lightly as she said, “We’ve dealt with most of them up there. However, there are lots of dead bodies on the first and the second floors, so it might be not a scene that you want to see. By the way, how is Arthur?”

“He is there, leaning on the wall. We need to quickly find somewhere he can lie flat on his back. Finding something soft to lie down would also be nice.” Mary said concernedly as she glanced worriedly at somewhere on the right. As he had understood, Arthur should have been in that direction.

Dave scanned the underground basement and observed facial expressions of other survivors. There were more than a dozen people, with slightly more women than male students. Considering that Arthur and Evelyn took leading positions among them, he assumed that most of them were either in their freshman or sophomore years.

“Evelyn, prepare people to take care of the dead bodies on the upper floors. If you want to take care of and protect people close to you, then you should take the leading position. You can’t keep avoiding it, otherwise, such conflicts as with Kyle will continue to happen.” Dave pulled Evelyn closer to her as he whispered it to her.

Even though she knew that he was right, she was still dissatisfied slightly. Evelyn also whispered silently to him, “But I didn’t agree to be a leader. We have Arthur for it.”

“I thought we already talked about it…Whatever, I’m sure you didn’t want to disturb Arthur when he is injured. Currently, there is no one to do it, except for you. We’ll be leaving shortly after several hours, so you’ll be the one to control the situation over here. Also, I didn’t tell you to replace Arthur, just be sure he won’t do anything foolish. I know you can do it.” Dave told her a piece of his mind and headed towards the empty spot to restore the mana he had spent on killing zombies.

‘Did he plan it over?’ Evelyn couldn’t help but think so since it was too much of a coincidence. Of course, it wasn’t Dave’s intention from the start, but Dave also thought that Arthur was also injured timely. He needed to rest a bit.