The World Cataclysm - Chapter 83: Into the Tunnels

The next day, having nothing to do, Dave quickly gathered his stuff into his backpack and headed to the nearest entry point into the tunnels. Having studied the map, he discovered that those tunnels were scattered all around the university. He wasn’t sure about the intention behind building them, but it worked well for him.

After the lightning had struck his room, it left a vulnerable point in their dormitory, so they quickly needed to clean the debris and cover it with something. However, Dave doubted they could find something big enough to cover the hole. The next solution was to find another dorm, so Dave left this task up to Adam. Until that, Dave decided to gather some man force and assign them a task to clean the mess left by the World.

As usual, waking up early in the morning and doing his daily training, Dave immediately headed to the tunnels after finishing his breakfast. Rebecca, who also wakes up with the sunrise, had fried him a pair of eggs and poured him a glass of milk. It was quite luxurious for their situation, but they were quickly perishable products, so they were eating them first before other products.

Moreover, Dave had stopped sparring with Adam and others since they had begged him to stop with it. After several days of whining, he finally agreed to their pleading. Instead, they were sparring with each other now and also teaching other students how to fight and kill zombies. Well, he had Richard to beat up for now.

‘It should be here.’ Dave thought as he stopped in front of the glass door. It was built for students as a place to study with round tables all over the building. It had several vending machines where students could buy snacks and drinks while they were studying. If he wasn’t mistaken there was an underground floor where Dave should find a door that would lead to underground tunnels.

Opening the door and entering the building, he was welcomed by the view of several growling zombies and turned over round tables. Finding the prey, zombies quickly dashed to him as they tried to bite off his flesh.

Infusing his sword with mana, Dave glanced at them indifferently and rushed at them as he quickly dealt with most of them. Enveloped in blue light, his sword accurately sliced zombies’ heads into two pieces.

A Hunter, hiding among other zombies, leapt at him from behind, but, quickly turning his body, Dave easily beheaded it as Hunter’s head was separated from its neck. Having dealt with it, Dave killed other zombies without any troubles.

After picking up all Survival Coins that had dropped from zombies, Dave found stairs and headed to the underground floor. Dave couldn’t note anything interesting down there, except for the metal door. It was similar to the one that was in the sewage. When he tried to open it, the metal door didn’t budge.

Clang!

‘Well, if they hadn’t been locked, students and other university staff would have eventually found them in the past.’ Dave thought inwardly. Fortunately, he had a trick to open the metal door.

It was delicate work and would have been impossible without Mana Sensing. First, using Mana Sensing, Dave scanned the door to identify the way it was locked. Then, he poured mana into the keyhole and, probing it with Mana Sensing, he shaped the mana inside the keyhole into the correct shape to open it.

And then…

Click!

‘Quite convenient!’ Dave thought as the door finally give in to his efforts. He had learned this trick right after learning how to control mana and shape it into different forms. Although it was convenient, it didn’t have much attack power. Moreover, it worked only for simple shapes like threads, screens and keys. He couldn’t make a sculpture entirely from mana. Well, not yet…

Spending a full minute to open the door, Dave entered the pathway that opened before him. The corridor was the same as when he tried to reach Richard. The same white tiles, narrow corridor and dim light bulbs after every 10-15 meters.

Opening the map, Dave strolled through the tunnels as he oriented by the map to reach region C. First, Dave wanted to visit Luther and check on the progress he made with the gang. He expected to see several stubborn guys among them that may cause troubles to Luther. Well, it may be regarded as a test for Luther.

Then, Dave wanted to check every region for the presence of any survivors. If there were tunnels under the tunnels, at least, university officials should have known about their existence. Faced with the danger of getting eaten by zombies, they should have used those tunnels as a pathway for retreat. Well, he will lose nothing even if he didn’t find anyone in those regions.

‘Actually, these tunnels should be safe to some extent, right? No zombies can enter those tunnels since entry points are either closed or located in difficult spots.’ Dave thought inwards as he wandered through tunnels.

As he had covered half of the way to region C, Dave already grew familiar with the silence in the tunnels. It was silent down there that Dave could hear his own heartbeat with every step. Due to such silence, Dave was surprised to hear an unusual sound ahead of him.

The sound was akin to the steps of a large beast with its claws clattering to the ground. Sensing that something was amiss, Dave used Mana Sensing to probe the way ahead of him. Although he couldn’t clearly understand what it was, he was able to make a general image of it. It had a tail, big ears, a massive body and sharp forward teeth, reaching his torso in height when it was on its four legs.

As he was pondering about what it was, the monster finally stepped out of the darkness into the area illuminated by a light bulb. When Dave’s eyes fell on it, he exclaimed loudly, “A rat? But there shouldn’t be any rats in the university!?”

No matter what monsters wandered across their university, it still should have a base animal to evolve from. Humans become zombies, dogs may turn into mutated dogs, but if there were no rats in the university, how can the mutated one appear?

“Damn, whatever!” Dave said as he stood into a stance with his Steel Sword pointed at the rat. Stepping outside the darkness, the mutated rat stared at Dave with its blood-red eyes and hissed at him. Next, it leapt towards him.

Infusing mana into his sword and holding it in his right hand, Dave formed a round mana shield in his left hand. However, he was still a step late since he hadn’t expected such explosive force from it. Under the effect of Battle Focus, Dave was able to keep his calm and put a mana barrier before him, backing it up with a shield-like barrier in his left hand.

Ding!

His mana barrier shattered as he used the force of the collision to use Flash Step and retreat backwards until his back touched the wall. Although he tried to use the collision to his own advantage, he still felt a sharp pain all over his left arm since he held a mana shield with it.

“Ouch…” However, having no time to catch a breath, Dave jumped sideways and rolled over the ground as he dodged another leap from the mutated rat.

Crash!

It crashed to the wall with its head as it squeaked in pain. Seeing it, Dave said in a high tone, “Right, eat the wall, damn animal!”

However, it didn’t give him enough time to kill it as it already freed its head from the wall. Since it attacked with an intention to bite him, its mouth was open at the moment of collision. Therefore, it had a large piece of rock in its mouth.

“Now stay still, so I can kill you,” Dave said when he saw that it couldn’t bite now.

However, the mutated rat quickly proved him wrong as it bit through the piece of wall in its mouth, freeing it from the lump of rock. As his eyes widened in surprise, Dave said, “Hey, quite a sharp pair of teeth. Where can I get one for myself?”

However, Dave doubted that it had enough intelligence to understand his words. The mutated rat hissed at him in anger and leapt at him another time. However, Dave won’t fell for the same trick another time. Unfortunately, the corridor was too narrow to dodge it or to use Flash Step.

Instead of dodging it, Dave wrapped his left fist in a mana barrier and mumbled, “Muscle Expansion.”

With an additional 10 points in strength and stat bonuses from Mana Enhancement and Reinforced Breathing, Dave made a small step to the right and slammed his left fist wrapped in the miniature mana barrier into the rat’s head, crushing it to the ground. It squeaked sharply in pain as it fell on the corridor floor.

“Got you,” Dave said as his Steel Sword followed after his fist. It flashed with blue light as it pierced the rat’s skull, reaching to its brain.