Tricked

After everyone agreed on how to distribute the Essence crystals, Jack had no way of making more gains.

He had to accept the given situation, and could only reluctantly start pulling the Essence crystals out of the zombies he and Ailee had shot.

Seeing how his greed was strong enough to overwhelm the fright of escaping death by a hair's breadth, Ailee decided to pull the Essence crystals out of the zombies as well.

She was sure that Jack wouldn't leave her any Essence crystals if she were to stay idle right now.

As such, Ailee didn't take a break, while both Oliver and Dilan chose to start collecting their rewards as well.

Nobody knew how much time passed while they were busy collecting their rewards, but once they were done, everyone with the sole exception being Jack, was quite satisfied.

Ailee and Jack had shot a total of 24 zombies, which was more than expected.

Unfortunately, they had less than 20 bullets left with them. This was nearly nothing, and certainly not enough to survive in the outside world.

At most, one could protect one's life against other humans, or a small group of zombies.

That was why Jack's mood was even worse.

But Dilan ignored this and focussed on the 15-centimeter-long horns of the horned rats.

His hand was still aching due to the injury he had sustained by punching the horned rat.

Dilan thus looked at the corpses of the horned rats before asking for Oliver's dagger.

"Why do you need the dagger?" He asked in confusion but hand it over without waiting to receive an answer.

Yet, when he saw that Dilan cut the horned rat's horn from the skull, he began to understand what Dilan was doing.

"Do you want to turn them into small knives, or something similar to that?"

Dilan just nodded his head before adding,

"If properly grinded, and fixed, we might even be able to turn them into daggers or the tip of a spear. They will be worse than the Reinforced Stone weapons, but it's better than nothing!"

While saying so, his eyes had flicked to Ailee as if he was telling this to her instead of Oliver.

"If you want to use a weapon as well, you should try to think about how you want to make use of the rats' horns."

Afterward, he stored the horns in his backpack, ignoring the bright glint in Jack's eyes.

Jack had listened to Oliver and Dilan's conversation with obvious interest.

'Even if I don't like to acknowledge it, I won't be able to avoid fighting… I simply cannot allow them to become stronger than myself…and once I lose the advantage of owning a gun, everything will be over…

I might even lose my kingdom before it was established…That cannot happen!!'

Clenching his fists, he set his eyes on the two reinforced stone weapons before shaking his head as his eyes fell on Dilan's backpack.

Suddenly, an idea flashed through his mind as he recalled what had happened after Oliver had killed his first zombie with his own strength.

'Abilities…first kill…Maybe I can make use of that!'

A vibrant smile emerged on his face as a plan began to take shape in his head.

Greedily devouring the 12 Essence crystals that belonged to him, he had expected to level up, but sadly received no new notification.

This irked him a little bit, but he didn't let it spoil his good mood because his plan was just too good!

While Jack didn't level up, Ailee reached Level One. A bright smile emerged on her face afterward, and when Dilan noticed this, he suggested,

"You should kill a zombie with my spear next time. Like this we can test out if we can get an ability from each first monster kill in ur group! This way maybe we would encourage more Survivors to fight, or we will get our hands on some useful abilities that are not related to fighting."

Dilan had come up with the same idea as Jack.

Because of this coincidence, Jack's expression worsened as he stared daggers at Dilan, who was calmly absorbing the large number of Essence crystals right in front of him.

[Essence of a Tierless Level 0 Zombie has been absorbed]

After the same notification popped up seven times in a row, a different yet familiar notification appeared in front of him.

[Essence pool has been filled. Host reached level 3! +0.5 Status points can be allocated!]

Following that, 20 more notifications about the essence of zombies appeared before he could finally see a change.

[Essence of a Tierless Level 2 Horned Rat has been absorbed→ +0.2 Strength, +0.1 Health, +0.1 Agility, +0.2 Mana]

[Essence of a Tierless Level 2 Horned Rat has been absorbed→ +0.2 Health, +0.1 Stamina, +0.1 Mana]

[Essence of a Tierless Level 2 Horned Rat has been absorbed→ Host cannot gain more status points from ordinary Horned Rats!]

[...]

After he was done absorbing the seventh and last Essence crystal of the Horned rats which he killed, he received a surprising notification.

[Essence pool has been filled. Host reached level 4! +0.5 Status points can be allocated!]

Dilan had expected that leveling up once again would require more time.

But from the looks of it, this happened quickly and he was quite pleased with the notification.

'Finally, I gained some status points for mana!' He thought before averting his attention to Oliver.

While Dilan killed 27 zombies, and seven-level 2 horned rats, Oliver killed three horned rats and 21 zombies.

In the beginning, his moves had been sluggish which is why he took longer to kill zombies as he was still adapting to the brutality and killing beasts.

But then he slowly overcame his initial hesitation and grew faster, nearly reaching Dilan's kill count.

Yet, the moment he saw the fresh blood of the horned rats splattering through the air, he froze in place which prevented him from moving properly.

Only the memories and instincts of his newly acquired passive ability allowed him to survive and kill a total of three horned rats.

Nevertheless, he leveled up and was probably close to reaching level three as well.

Even if their leveling process was not excessively fast, it was still decent in Dilan's opinion.

As such, he was quite happy as they returned to the cafeteria.

When the doors of the cafeteria were opened, everyone greeted them with a mixture of nervous fear, and hope.

Seeing that the entire group of four was fine if one excluded the reeking stench of the dead zombies, and the horned rat's blood that was smeared on their clothes and faces, everything was fine.

A few Survivors looked at Dilan's hand warily, but when they saw that it was punctured, and not scratched, they calmed down.

They might not like him, but it would be a shame if Dilan were to die.

After all, he was the strongest as well as the smartest in their group according to what Oliver told them with bright gleaming eyes.

Oliver's demeanor had changed the most after meeting Dilan.

Just a day earlier he was scared to even approach zombie corpses, but now he was proudly telling everyone about how he had killed more than 20 zombies, all by himself.

Yet, his bragging was not just limited to himself, but he even included Dilan's bravery and every little detail of how Dilan killed 40 zombies all by himself on the first floor.

When he stated that Dilan shared his Essence crystals with the others, the survivors looked at him with less suspicion and a trace of hope.

But Dilan could only shake his head as he announced,

"I've absorbed all Essence crystals already!"

This led all of them to be disappointed, but Jack saw the opportunity to jump in.

"Don't worry guys! Our dear Dilan got his hands on the horns of the horned rats we killed! As long as some of us are willing to fight, he would gladly share them with us, right?"

Looking deep in Dilan's eyes, Jack smiled innocently.

However, that made Dilan feel like punching Jack's face, but he had no other choice but to nod his head reluctantly,

"We have a total of 10 horns. If we use them properly, we can create at least 10 weapons."

Just a moment later, Jack cleared his throat before he loudly announced,

"After witnessing Dilan and Oliver's bravery, I have understood that it would be the best for me to start fighting in the front as well! As such, I would be honored to receive two horns for myself."

The smile on his face grew only wider before he craftily added,

"Of course, only if you accept my humble request!"