The World Cataclysm - Chapter 56: Intimidation

“Where are you hurrying?” Coming near Evelyn, Dave made a swift step and grabbed the male student on his right shoulder. The male student winced as he halted in his steps. He glanced at his back and panicked when he saw Dave beside him. Slowly turning, the male student glared at him apprehensively trying to hide his panic and irritation.

“Ohh…David, are you already up?” Evelyn called him by his name as she looked at him in surprise. She remembered that Dave would leave today, but he didn’t say when they would leave exactly. Seeing him up here now, she assumed that he was going to leave soon.

“Yep…You’ve done a nice job taking care of dead bodies and sorting everything in the storage room. I told you that you’ll be a great leader.” Dave said casually to her while shifting his eyes from the male student to Evelyn.

“Nice try, but I’ll wait till Arthur can move freely again. So, is there something wrong with that man?” Evelyn looked at Dave questioningly, wondering why did he stop a male student. Though she caught him red-handed, she thought it wasn’t necessary to do anything to him if he learned his lesson.

“You’re still too naive, Evelyn! You should have checked his body properly, otherwise, people like him would get braver each time they steal something. Right?” Dave chuckled as he glanced back at the male student, grinning.

“What are you talking about? I’ve already returned it to Evelyn. I don’t have anything on me!” The male student erupted in anger. However, Dave only thought that he was covering his nervousness with his anger.

“What do you mean?” Evelyn frowned as furrowed her brows. She already picked up some clues from the male student’s reaction and was able to guess what was happening. Naturally, upon realization, her gaze at the male student became much colder.

“Then, he shouldn’t mind if I’ll search his body.” Shaking his head, Dave drew his head closer to the male student as he glared at him coldly. “Don’t you think so?”

Paling, the male student backed from him in panic as he said, “I didn’t take anything. Why should I allow you to search…”

However, he couldn’t finish what he wanted to say as he was pinned by Dave to the ground. It was pretty easy for him, especially with his high strength. For a moment, he even thought that he was wasting his skills from his past life.

The male student tried to struggle, yet it was meaningless, so he gave up quickly as he paled even more. Shortly afterward searching his body, Dave found small snacks on him like candies and chocolate bars.

However, not stopping on it, Dave turned him over, so he was lying on his back, and opened his jacket, finding much bigger snacks in it, such as a medium-sized bag of chips and a small bottle of coke. Finishing searching his body, Dave even thought, ‘He’s quite courageous on his first try.’

When Dave was finding more snacks on his body, Evelyn’s face was growing colder with every snack Dave was putting aside on the floor. However, when Dave unzipped his jacket and found a bag of chips and a coke, she couldn’t hold her anger anymore.

“I thought we agreed to do the sorting first. Is this how you thank us when we were risking our lives and obtaining food when the supermarket was full of zombies?” Evelyn shouted madly. She was truly angered now.

“No…No, I just wanted to try a bit after being trapped a week. I just wanted to relax a bit after a hard week” The male student seemed ashamed as tried to defend himself. Quickly, other survivors surrounding them started whispering between each other.

“I didn’t think that Andrew would steal snacks. He didn’t seem to be like one.”

“Yeah, but I could understand him. Life was hard last week, and I also want to relax a bit.”

“Isn’t he too greedy? He should have stopped on small snacks.”

…

Waiting till other survivors calms down a bit, Dave said threateningly., “You know I hate troublemakers. Do you want to follow after Kyle’s steps?”

When he said it, the male student immediately grew as pale as a sheet. Other survivors had already heard about the fate of Kyle…that he was turned into a zombie. Andrew didn’t want to end like him…he wanted to live like everybody else, so he panicked as he shook his head.

“I’ll let it slip once…” When Dave said it and made a slight pause, Andrew sighed in relief, however, when he heard Dave’s next words, his face grimaced in fright.”…but you won’t anything for today.”

“But you can’t do this to me. I didn’t eat a lot in the past week, so…” Andrew mumbled as he tried to object.

“…Or, do you want to feed zombies? I’m sure there are lots of starving zombies outside of the supermarket, so…” Dave grinned coldly at Andrew as he glared at him. Andrew immediately grimaced from fright as he grew silent.

“Then, it’s decided. Evelyn, supervise his punishment and be sure that he won’t dare to do it again.” Thinking that he already finished with the male student, he turned to Evelyn. “Sometimes, you should make your stance firmly.”

“Thanks, David, but I think it’s enough scaring him. I’ll heed your advice and be sure he won’t do anything like this again.” Evelyn sighed as she tried to calm down herself. She was still angered, yet she thought that Dave proposed sensible punishment for their situation. She turned to him and asked, “Do you have anything else to say?”

Dave smiled lightly and chuckled. “Actually, yes! You need to be more cautious when it comes to other people. Humans are more cunning than you can imagine. We need to check everyone in case someone had also taken something from the storage room.”

“Is it necessary? I would have seen if they took something.” Evelyn said doubtfully. However, when she recalled that she didn’t notice the male student taking snacks, her voice grew lower with every word.

“Yeah! We’re not some criminals!”

“We wouldn’t have done it.”

“I’m sure it’s not necessary!”

…

Other survivors seemed to be dissatisfied as they protested loudly. Since they higher in numbers, they seemed to be less fearful of Dave as they voiced their opinions and complaints. Well, it was human nature to grow more courageous with higher numbers.

However, Dave didn’t hold them in high regard. He thought it was better to suppress such crimes while they were still minor and establish discipline. Therefore, he activated the Mana Bullet spell on his ring as it flickered with light, shooting a mana bullet.

Bang!

“…” All the whispers stopped suddenly as people winced in surprise. Even though Dave had aimed at the empty wall, the loud sound of shooting was enough to scare all of them. Panicking, they looked at him in anger from a threat, surprise from a sudden sound…and fear! A gun! The first thought they had was that Dave had a gun on him!

Getting the reaction he wanted, Dave said slowly, “Silence! If you have nothing to hide, then you shouldn’t be scared of anything. Stand in one line, or believe me, my next bullet will hit you.” However, inside he thought, ‘Tsk…Such a waste of mana!’

Evelyn had also glared at him apprehensively, yet being the closest to him and seeing no firearm in his hands, she looked at him confusedly. Dave had hidden more surprises than she had imagined. She said, “David, is it truly necessary?”

“Yes! You need the discipline to keep them at bay. If you leave such situations unnoticed or unpunished, people would get braver than now. However, at that time, you might not be able to stop them to get what they wanted.” Dave said confidently.

He learned it in his past life. Every person strived to live a comfortable life! And at times when not everyone could live comfortably, people would go for anything to get their lives better…Stealing, betrayal, murder, people selling their own bodies, scheming; it was a small list of what people could do in his past life.

“If you say so.” Evelyn finally gave up as she shrugged her shoulders. A short while later, all survivors who had helped with food sorting, stood in one line, some of them fidgeting in their places, as Dave and Evelyn checked each of them. It didn’t take lots of time on searching their bodies.

However, the results were stunning…at least for Evelyn!