Chapter 103 Choice
Just five seconds had passed since Dilan had begun to move.
However, in these five seconds a lot happened! Because the shepherd had been busy checking on the food in the pots and pans, it also took him five seconds to leave the kitchen.
But, somehow he had an ominous feeling that made him turn around and slid open the door.
How could he have expected to see Dilan standing in front of him, with the blood of his own people smeared on his face?
The shepherd had noticed way too late that Dilan was much more of a threat than he ought to be.
But that was something he could have noticed the moment he pierced the spoon in Dilan’s abdomen.
The resistance of Dilan’s body had been way too high, despite the injury being a deadly one that had merely begun to heal.
But now, it was already too late to complain, which was why the shepherd wanted to jump up from the ground in order to initiate an attack.
Unfortunately, even before he could pierce out with the hidden dagger he had unsheathed, Dilan lifted his left foot and mercilessly stomped on the shepherd’s left leg.
What followed suit was a sickening crunch of bones breaking in his leg due to Dilan’s powerful kick that soon got lost in the shepherd’s pained cries.
His cries of anguish bounced off the walls of the cafeteria making the survivors flinch but Dilan, who was standing right there, didn’t even budge.
A moment later, Dilan bent down with gritted teeth before he grasped the shepherd’s other leg.
Afterward, he turned around to drag the middle-aged man outside the kitchen to make him see what exactly had happened to his own people.
“Can anyone take the metal chains, and tie him up? We need to get some information from him!”
Dilan’s voice echoed through the cafeteria, and his gaze swept through it but most of the survivors tried to hide behind each other, not wanting to face him when he was fuming in anger. Only Kathrine, Yvonne, and the rest of Dilan’s closer subordinates were able to move.
The others were still cowering on the ground. They were unsure if the fight between Dilan and the 10 men and women armed to the teeth was over or not.
There might not be gunfire anymore, but it was always better to be safe than sorry.-.
As such, it took most Survivors quite a while to remove their hands from their ears, let alone open their eyes.
When they got up from the ground, a total of 11 corpses were littered on the floor. Only one infiltrator had survived, and his left leg looked like it was barely held together by the fabric of the pants he was wearing.
It was twisted at an odd angle that looked even more grotesque than the corpses lying on the floor.
However, Dilan’s appearance seemed even worse. The wounds that had barely begun to heal were bleeding severely and his face was paper-white.
Ordinary humans would have collapsed by now.
But Dilan was simply standing in front of the shepherd staring at him furiously.
“It looks like I didn’t take the situation seriously enough…”
Dilan felt a little bit regretful for not having come up with a plan to tackle possible trespassers.
Just a fleeting glance through the cafeteria told him that nobody was severely injured or killed.
This was already great, but it could have ended much differently.
He figured that the shepherd and his people were scouts or something like that.
The shepherd spoke about a head shepherd and other survivors.
Considering that they planned to conquer several districts, it was quite easy to decipher that the head shepherd was not easy to defeat either.
“He will come to search for the shepherd…there is not much time…” Scratching the back of his head, Dilan felt that the situation was way too frustrating.
He didn’t like the direction in which things were heading.
There was no way for him to control the happenings of the following days. This was the worst that could have happened because there were way too many things he wanted to do instead of fighting other humans.
After all, this was simply dumb when they were facing the aftermath of an apocalypse!!
Feeling slightly suffocated, and extremely exhausted, Dilan’s breathing grew labored.
Seeing this, Kathrine approached him carefully after confirming that she had chained the shepherd properly.
“Dilan?…Are you fine?”
She sounded concerned as her gaze kept flitting to his abdomen.
Following her gaze, he saw that warm blood was spurting out of the three self-inflicted injuries.
Dilan wanted to say, ‘I’m fine, don’t worry!’, but he felt incapable of doing so.
There were also a few bullet holes on his upper body through which a few bullets had pierced through his skin.
Removing them would be quite easy. However, that was not the problem.
Rather, Dilan’s rapidly depleting Stamina and his condition that kept getting worse were more problematic.
“I…will get…better.” Dilan could only say in between a few breaths. He was pretty sure that he wouldn’t die.
It would be easier for him to endure the pain if he had some mana to activate his Origin ability, but he was drained of mana as well.
Thus he had to endure the pain that swept through his entire body.
His abdomen felt like it was on fire, but as long as he didn’t move everything would be fine.
“Is everyone…else fine?” Dilan asked because he was not even able to turn around anymore.
Since the adrenaline had been released from his body, Dilan felt as if he had to be a stone statue in order to overcome the following hour or two so as to not feel any pain!
For the next two minutes, Kathrine remained silent. She scanned through the survivors to see if there was someone else who was not able to move or was severely injured as well.
However, that didn’t seem to be the case.
“Excluding you, only 11 humans died in the last few minutes!”
Yvonne appeared next to Dilan all of a sudden.
Her eyes were full of vigor as she smiled at him innocently.
Before absorbing Essences, this wouldn’t have been possible because the trauma she had faced on the fourth floor had made things hard for her.
But now, she was perfectly fine with looking into his eyes.
Dilan even thought that her words were quite specific because the words ‘Excluding you’ seemed to have a deeper meaning.
How could Dilan know that Yvonne was able to perceive the death of 12 beings, with Dilan being the harborer of Death and the one who should have died as well?
In fact, Yvonne had foreseen that Dilan would survive the fight, and overcome death itself.
[Angel of Death] was something directly linked to Death itself.
This allowed her to see upcoming deaths. Sometimes Yvonne was able to see specific information about death itself like the beings that were about to die, or even how they had died.
But on the other hand, there were specific circumstances where her Origin ability was not even able to detect how many beings would die if a specific being would survive or be forced to take eternal rest, and so on.
It was as if [Angel of Death] was a defect…but that was only the case if the situation was related to Dilan.
Whether this was because of him, or the Origin ability he owned, Yvonne didn’t know.
However, in almost all situations that revolved around Dilan, Yvonne could be certain that it was possible for him to survive, that he would get everything under control.
And the same happened once again, which was why she couldn’t help but smile faintly.
Her fear of men was still present, even if it was not as bad as earlier thanks to her absorbing Essences.
But Dilan was different. She didn’t fear him, even though he was powerful.
Dilan might look cruel quite often, but owing to her Origin ability, Yvonne could relate to most decisions he took and understand his reasons behind the same.
Yvonne was also sure that he was the kindest and most generous person in the cafeteria…after her sister, of course!
Dilan’s eyes were fixated on Yvonne, who seemed quite calm after the incident they faced.
Everything happened so suddenly but had ended quickly as well.
Not even 15 minutes had passed and the infiltrators were eliminated.
But that didn’t mean the entire incident had already ended.
Dilan realized that there were way too many serious issues with their ‘safe-zone’, which was something they had to take care of.
“If nobody else…died it’s good. But we need to pay more attention to…the defenses. Let’s assign some Survivors to be scouts to warn us of the dangers arising from outside the hospital.”
In the end, he finally found his breath once again. Thus, it was possible for him to talk without sweating profusely, or the need to take breaks in between breaths.
“It might be better for us to move away from the first floor as well. There are too many ways to access the hospital, and there is only one entrance.
So it is not even possible to run away if a powerful monster would barge into the cafeteria!”
Dilan was pretty sure that moving away from the first floor would be for the best.
In fact, the hospital itself was way too huge for their small group. Unfortunately, it was the best place for them to stay because the number of Survivors was bound to increase.
That made moving away from the hospital quite difficult, even more so because they didn’t have a place to go, no idea where the power supply was still working, and so on.
Right now, everything was just a mess, which was why Dilan turned his head toward the shepherd, who was looking at him with a frightened expression.
“Did you decide to tell us everything?” He simply asked before adding, “This obviously includes the location of your great head shepherd. I want to see him!”
Dilan smiled faintly, acting as if he was innocent.
But owing to the blood all over his body, innocence was the last world one would use to describe Dilan!
Even though he was scared, the shepherd would never reveal the information about his beloved master.
“Fuck you, you little piece of shit! Just kill me, I will never tell you anything!” He shouted in rage as the chains holding him in place rattled loudly.
However, just a moment later a gust of wind brushed on his face. Before he could even process what was going on, Dilan had moved faintly, swinging his arm wearing the Clawed Gloves down, just to look at his hand a moment later.
Blood was trickling down the ripped-out ear that he held in his thumb and forefinger that he then dangled in the air right in front of the shepherd.
“So, you really want to die the painful way? That’s quite a surprise. I wonder how fast your body will be able to regrow your nails once I pull them out one after another. Or should I start pulling out your teeth first? Maybe breaking your bones would do the trick as well.”
Dilan stopped listing numerous types of torture. He didn’t really like torturing people.
His past had been enough torture to make him feel disgusted at the mere thought.
But it was necessary for him to find out more about the head shepherd because he might be searching for the shepherd, with more people, and more gun power at that!
And Dilan knew that he wouldn’t be able to protect his people if that were to happen.
As such, for the sake of his group, it might even be necessary to do things he hated, maybe even to become what he hated the most…
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