Chapter 202 Distrust?
After Dilan felt as if they had overcome the worst, his mind shut down on its own.
He was feeling way too exhausted and needed some rest. Thus, Dilan entered a deep slumber even if he didn’t want to fall asleep just now.
When he finally woke up it was late at night, and their buses had long since stopped. Even the reserves of their gasoline were nearly used up.
This made things quite difficult because nobody was sure where they should stay now.
As they had been driving over the highway, their group had passed by a few small cities and villages. However, they didn’t dare to halt there because the cities and villages were completely devastated.
There weren’t any signs of human survivors left amongst the ruins and it almost looked like monsters had taken over control of everything.
They were everywhere, creating their own territories and hunting grounds.
While Dilan had been asleep, the buses had been attacked more than five times. However, instead of attacking in large groups, four times there had a single predator that had attacked their group.
It had appeared all of a sudden and simply killed a few Ascenders before it disappeared once again.-.
There was no pattern in its attack which was why it was hard to find clues in foreshadowing its next attack.
The existence of a monster that couldn’t be killed by anyone instilled fear within the unleveled Survivors. They had to rely on the powerful Ascenders to survive.
But seeing that even the superhuman and mighty Ascenders were not able to defeat some monsters, let alone ensure that they could protect themselves, was not really helpful.
On the contrary, it ruined everyone’s mood and prevented the Survivors from being at ease.
Nobody complained about it openly because everyone could perceive that the Ascenders were even more tense than anyone else but it was quite obvious that the trust of the ordinary survivors in the Ascenders of Dilan’s group was slowly decreasing.
Yet, oddly enough, the exact opposite was the case with their trust in Dilan.
Dilan had warned all of them about the threat lurking in the mountainside long before something had happened, to begin with.
Because of his warning, everyone, who had trusted him, had received more than enough time to pack up and make necessary preparations to move at once.
Dilan might have taken a lot of time to return from the Sun temple and he had looked as if he was closer to death than to stay alive, but he had managed to come back to them.
He never thought of abandoning them, even if that was something he could have done a long time ago.
Most Survivors were not even sure if they would be able to lead a group like Dilan was doing, and continually sacrificing his well-being for the sake of others.
Dilan might be scary but his actions were still a clear indicator of how much of a good person he truly was.
Furthermore, his strength seemed to be unparalleled. Considering that his condition was so bad, they could guess that he had fought his life on the line when he was at the Sun temple.
This may not be impressive for most Survivors, but each Ascender and many members of the Porter Unit clearly knew how powerful each of the Sun temple’s believers was, especially the Priestess and her Eternal Guards.
They were certain that Dilan had killed all of them. His power was incomparable to the others and even Yvonne was pretty sure that she was much weaker than him.
Because of that, while the Survivor’s trust in the Ascenders decreased owing to their incapability to protect them properly in times when they needed them, their trust in Dilan reached new heights, which resulted in his dumbfounding when people began to treat him differently, almost with a bit of reverence.
Dilan hadn’t been moved outside the bus he had been sleeping in. As such, when he woke up, there were only other Survivors, who were too weak to sleep outside, in the cold weather of late January.
No one wanted to sleep outside in the cold but the buses didn’t have enough space for everyone. Fortunately, they had a few Ascenders with fire-attributed abilities and certain treasures that generated heat as long as enough mana was supplied to them.
These heat packs were not necessarily great or had a wider reach but they were more than enough to prevent anyone from freezing to death while sleeping outside.
“What a mess…” Dilan mumbled when he found the strength to get up from his seat, put on the remaining treasures that were lying next to him, and leave the bus.
Everyone treated him nicely and some Survivors were even staring at him as if he was some sort of saint or holy figure.
He ignored them but their expressions and attitude didn’t match the way they usually acted.
‘Well, whatever.’
Dilan’s [Nightvision] made things much easier for him while he was searching for Sven and the others.
Some of them should still be awake, and take turns guarding their group.
The buses had been set up in a circle, with the resting Survivors in the centre to prevent the cold wind from blasting into their face, and to protect them from monsters.
It was certainly not a great means of protection but one of the only solutions they could come up with for now.
“Dilan, you’re already awake? Are you fine? Don’t you want to rest some more?” Xenia found Dilan as he was walking past one of the few campfires they had set up.
He halted in his tracks and turned to the woman in her 30s with an impassive expression.
“How many died? Tell me what happened.” Dilan asked without any emotions in his voice, causing Xenia to flinch the moment she heard him.
It was almost as if he was a robot but Xenia didn’t comment on it. Instead, she quickly summarized what happened when he had been asleep.
“So we’re nearly out of gasoline, the Survivor’s mood is bad, 13 Tier-1 Ascenders have been killed, and everyone is afraid?” He asked to make sure that he understood everything correctly.
“And, we don’t know if the unleveled Survivors or the low-leveled Ascenders will be able to survive if we keep sleeping outside in the cold.” Xenia blurted out in frustration.
She and everyone else knew that they had to leave Rian. If not for Dilan’s warning all of them would have been dead by now. The Red Dragon was not something they could play around with, after all.
But even if they now knew that it had been necessary to leave Rian, the short period of peace some Survivors had received in the last few days had been truly wonderful.
It had felt as if the world had calmed down and that peace would return.
Because of that feeling, it was further disappointing to realize that their situation had grown worse once again.
Even Xenia was unable to hide her frustration and sadness about this unavoidable truth.
They were not at the peak of the food chain anymore. Instead, they were now struggling to survive.
Everyone understood this, now even better than before!
‘Looks like, I cannot waste my time in this ridiculously weakened state…’ Dilan thought as he moved his pained body toward a small and empty area within the circle of buses.
Taking a few deep breaths, he looked at his storage ring before turning his head toward Xenia once again.
She had followed him without receiving an order from Dilan or saying a word. And after seeing his fiery eyes and the expression on his face, Xenia knew that she had done the correct thing.
“If Williams, Yvonne, Kathrine, and the others are awake, tell them to come to me. We have something to talk about…”