Chapter 48 Living conditions
“My ability is called [Warrior’s Strength(Passive)] Ungraded ★.” Ella, the nurse, who had helped Dilan to leave the cafeteria in the morning, said.
Afterward, she looked at the other nurse, without saying anything further. One could easily predict what kind of effect Ella’s ability would have.
But even then, she seemed to be contemplating what she should do with the ability.
Dilan accepted this with a short nod. He felt that the passive ability would be quite decent in terms of providing additional stats as long as one focused on upgrading it.
As such, all of them believed that Dilan would want the passive ability for himself.
However, he looked quite unbothered about the fact that Ella was contemplating.
His attention turned towards the other nurse, who looked at her ability a little bit sadly.
“It says [Higher Vision(Passive) Ungraded ★★★★…”
She was visibly displeased, only to add something after a short sigh,
“Someone else can take the ability crystal… I would rather not fight!”
For her, it was more than enough to see Dilan’s current appearance and never want to enter a battle.
He looked as if he had barely survived and missed death by a hair’s breadth while fighting against some sort of powerful monster.
Not wanting to face the same life-threatening dangers as him, she would rather do some chores.
On the other hand, the ability crystal in her hand crumbled as Ella absorbed it.
This astonished quite a few people, but Dilan simply nodded his head.-.
“You’ll have to fight then. But no worries, it won’t really be problematic as long as you focus on fighting beings weaker than you.
With your ability, it should be quite easy to become rather powerful!”
Dilan was not really affected by Ella’s choice. The ability might have been a great asset for himself, but he was more than glad to have one more fighter in their rows. After all, everything would become much easier with more helping hands.
As such, he felt quite happy, which led him to take one of the eight War Krendel claws out of his backpack.
“If you work properly on shaping and fixing it, it can be turned into a dagger or the tip of a spear.”
They didn’t really have much of a weapon choice, to begin with.
Using what they could find was their only choice.
Thus, Ella just nodded her head, not really understanding the value of the claw she was just handed.
After considering something for a moment he gave two claws to Oliver.
“In case one of them breaks again!” He said with a faint smile on his lips, clearly recalling that he had broken the Reinforced Stone Daggers in his last fight.
There were still five more Claws left, but he didn’t really feel like giving them to the others.
Right now, he was just tired, and wanted to sleep for a few hours.
However, first he wanted to eat something, which was why he thought of entering the kitchen.
But just when he moved aside the sliding doors, Bianne appeared in front of him, blocking Dilan’s path.
“Look at yourself. If you want our food, and the entire kitchen to stink, and be dirty, go ahead!”
Bianne was not being overly confident in facing Dilan head-on, but she had a really hated a few things, such as a dirty kitchen, and dirt or something else inside her food.
This led her to subconsciously place herself between the kitchen and Dilan, who could only stare at her blankly for a moment.
But the way she placed her hands on her hips and stared down at him made him follow her gaze. It was only now that he saw what he looked like and gave an exasperated sigh.
Only now did he recall that his clothes were drenched in blood and that his face didn’t look any better.
Thus he turned back to the cafeteria doors before he mumbled.
“A bunch of clothes and a mattress would be great!”
Afterward, he simply walked out of the cafeteria, fully prepared to loot a few patient wards.
He didn’t show any interest in the others, nor did he foolishly assume that the other Survivors must have put their time to some fruitful cause.
After all, he knew that nobody had dared go to the second floor for the last few hours.
The entire morning, nobody had stepped outside the cafeteria.
That meant nothing had progressed in their group, meaning that food was the only thing Dilan didn’t cook by himself.
Seeing that Dilan didn’t even consider sending out other survivors for a quick check and instead simply took the plastic bag with the three horned rat corpses, and the backpack with him, without looking anyone in the eye, everyone felt a little bit guilt-ridden. He said nothing but the way his shoulders sagged and he dragged himself away from the others made them feel uneasy.
Somehow, even Kathrine felt guilty of not doing anything.
And she had just reached the small shelter.
As a reaction to Bianne’s words, Kathrine looked at her own clothes.
They were still rather clean, and she didn’t smell much.
But even then, thinking about new clothes made her move rather instinctively.
Meanwhile, the others looked at each other before frowning deeply while Ailee couldn’t help but mumble,
“At least, he doesn’t look visibly angry anymore…”
Ailee predicted that Dilan wanted to calm himself by clearing the second floor.
This resulted in Dilan awarding himself with a lot more pain, which was quite easy to tell according to his appearance.
Nonetheless, both Ailee and Oliver couldn’t help but feel that something was off about him.
They figured that their strength was not even close to possibly fighting him if that was something they would ever desire.
And even if their abilities were quite useful in terms of gaining experience to wield one specific weapon, and hunt, Dilan was on a completely different level.
He had actively acquired experience by fighting monsters after the Primordial Ascension and seemed quite capable of staying level-headed while enduring tremendous pain.
That was something both Ailee and Oliver had witnessed more than once.
If they were to think about it, Dilan was always in pain owing to some sort of unique incident, which made them doubt that he was doing this intentionally, even if they knew that this was not the case.
However, if they were to know that Dilan was considering injuring himself lethally, their entire opinion of him would have changed.
But for now, the two were oblivious to Dilan’s requirements to upgrade his Origin ability.
As such they were clueless about what awaited them in the future as long as they stayed by Dilan’s side.
For now, their plan was to rush to his side, and get their hands on some neat clothes, as well as a mattress!!
Their living conditions had improved considerably, but a few survivors would always find excuses to avoid going to the second floor.
They were just lazy or truly too afraid to get bitten by a zombie.
Unfortunately, this excuse was not feasible anymore because the second floor had been cleared.
This only included the part of the hospital they were in, but that was everything that mattered for them to step in it without being afraid of a zombie ambush.
Understanding that they had no excuse to remain idle anymore, the few Survivors chose to move as well.
In the end, everyone knew that it was important to get at least a little bit of comfort in the current testing times.
Nobody knew how long it would last, and they should gain the most out of it.
With that in mind, everyone began to move and got busy. Some picked up new clothes and carried the mattresses of the unoccupied patient wards to their safe haven.
Hours passed, and the large cafeteria turned into a comfortable place for everyone to stay.
Only Bianne had been left alone in the kitchen because she couldn’t just leave it open and unguarded.
Fortunately, some other Survivors brought her some things, which was something Dilan noticed as well.
Dilan was finally ready to shower after enduring six days full of sweat, dirt, blood, flesh, internal organs and so on!
He ignored his pain as much as possible, which led him to ignore the discomfort he felt while activating the Origin ability as he used it whenever it was possible.
Thus, his current condition was already much better than before as he took off his clothes when he reached the bathroom that they found on the second floor.
At this moment, someone rushed in, and saw him in his underwear.
It was one of the older Survivors, who had been taking a shower in the patient room next to him.
“There is a zombie running on the floor!! Heel–…”
He chickened out at the sight of an ordinary zombie, which led Dilan to look over to the middle-aged man in annoyance, while the man stared at him in astonishment.
Dilan’s entire back was still bluish due to the numerous bruises, his arm looked bad as well, in addition to the rest f his body that looked beaten and injured as well.
Despite the numerous injuries and bruises on his body, the middle-aged man’s gaze was glued on Dilan’s right leg.
“Are those…zombie scratches?”
Dilan just smiled upon seeing the fright in the eyes of the middle-aged man, and he couldn’t help but start chuckling.
“So you do know what zombie scratches look like. Not bad! You might even be more intelligent than I expected you to be!”