Four of Them

Dave frowned when his eyes fell on the disfigured corpse of the woman. With cold eyes, he scanned the circular space he had gotten in. It was quite huge for an underground tunnel since it was slightly larger than lecture halls they had in their university. Similar to a long pathway they came from, floors and walls were adorned with simple white tiles. The only noticeable difference between the two was that the circular room had enough light bulbs to fully brighten it.

Of course, he had seen similar entertainment methods in his past life since there were various types of people in the world, yet he didn't expect to stumble upon one so soon when people were still coping with new rules of the new world.

Anger boiled in his heart as he glared coldly at students circling around the corpses. Dave hated such kind of people that totally cast away any humanity they had after the start of 2nd Cataclysm. He had no qualms with people that decided not to involve themselves with a problem since it truly wasn't their issue, but when a fellow person stood behind such inhuman acts as pitting people against monsters, raping, or massacring people, Dave doubted that humans were any different from monsters they kill. On the contrary, since most monsters were either mindless or hungry, doing everything to survive, people were worse than monsters in that aspect. Some people may even kill a person for their own entertainment.

Noticing an abnormal state he was in, Dave tried to suppress the anger in his heart and calm himself since he knew it was better to keep his calm in such situations. More angered he was, more cool-headed he should be unless he wanted to cross his bottom line.

Furthermore, he understood that only a few of the students truly enjoyed such a scene, while most of them were either unwilling to get involved or scared of the consequences that may follow if they refused to submit. Not all of them were at fault, but they were still involved in it.

Although he was slightly saddened by the way the female student died, Dave didn't give it much of a thought. People die, and it was a normal occurrence in life, especially when humans had gotten at the bottom of a food chain. As a person who came back in time, Dave understood that much.

When those students met his icy eyes, they flinched naturally as an uneasy feeling rose in their hearts. Immediately, complete silence fell in the circular room as students curiously, and with some apprehension, observed an arrogant newcomer.

However, when others followed after Dave, they heaved a sigh of relief, understanding that they were part of their group. Grinning, one of the students laughed embarrassedly and said, "Abon, you've returned from the surface. It seems you brought quite an arrogant brat here."

'Abon? Oh, Must be the third guy!' Dave thought inwardly as he listened to gather any useful information. Instead of getting anything useful from them, another student stepped out from the group and tried to grab him by his shoulder, saying, "Brat, you can't barge into the room of your seniors and should like this. It seems I should teach you some man...Argh!"

Swiftly catching the student's arm before it grabbed him, Dave twisted his arm coldly and positioned it on the student's back as he said coldly, "Don't touch me." Next, sending a kick on his back, Dave quickly released him, so the student fell on the ground.

Immediately, the silence fell in the circular room for the second time as all the students stared at Dave in surprise and in interest. They didn't expect that such a skinny brat would be able to twist an arm of a male student that was several years older than him.

However, in the next moment, dealing with their surprise, they burst into laughter as some students ridiculed the one on the ground, "Hahahahaha! Zick, you lose to a brat younger than you. I knew that you were boasting about how you could fight."

Reddening from embarrassment, Zick hurriedly stood from the ground and said angrily, "Hey, I was just caught by surprise! If I had attacked him directly instead of grabbing him, I would have easily beaten him."

Next, he dashed at Dave with a reddened face as he tried to beat him up to regain his lost reputation that was important to have higher status among other students. It was essential to have a good reputation unless you wanted to be picked up among the group.

"Heh! Amateur!" Dave scoffed as he stared at the student dashing at him. He was already tired from their reactions, so sending a punch into the student's solar plexus, he easily took him down. Abon, Rob and Stan, observing it from behind, stared at Zick with sympathy as they personally experienced it. If they were needed to put it in words, they will say that getting a punch from Dave to the solar plexus was like getting hit by a reactive gauntlet. It was really painful!

The students that were ridiculing and laughing at Zick immediately shut up as they stared at him, groaning in pain and coughing as saliva dripped from his mouth. The only one thought resounded in his mind as he wasn't able to follow Dave's movements. 'What happened?'

Although he was able to understand that he was hit, Zick wasn't able to see the punch. Feeling like he was suffocating, tears welled up in his eyes as he stared at the ground in shock.

Getting everyone's attention and silence he needed, Dave looked at everyone and said, "I'm warning you only once if you don't want any troubles, then move to the side and tell me which one of you is the gang's boss."

At his words, students snapped out of their dazed state and looked at Dave strangely. Next, some of them burst laughing as they thought that if they dealt with this brat without troubling their boss, they would get on his good side.

With this thought in their minds, the most courageous ones stepped out of the group, gripping their improvised weapons like metal pipes or metal rods. Giggling, they stared at Dave and saw a chance to raise their values in the eyes of their boss.

"Hahahahaha! What can you do about thirty of us?"

"You are too arrogant if you think that you can meet our boss just by barging in our place."

"Such a fucker as you isn't worth to meet our boss."

Dave noticed that one in front of everyone held Survivor's Bat in his hands and was respected by others. Except for him, only a few of them held Wooden Clubs in their hands. Nathan, whose words held the most power after their boss, said indifferently, "Quite stupid of you to barge into someone's place when you're outnumbered."

'Is he Richard? No, it doesn't seem so. He would have reacted somehow if he was the one.' Dave thought inwardly. But on the outside, he said, "At least, I don't hide underground like rats. Well, we'll see."

"Yeah! We're going to crash all of you! Prepare yourselves, fucking shitbags!" Oscar said with fiery eyes as he took one step forward. As agreeing with him, Luther and Brook also stepped forward as Brook mumbled something silently. "No second of peace."

It was the first time that Dave heard Brook speaking, and he was slightly surprised since he had expected a somewhat rougher voice from a silent giant, but it was more clear and normal than he had imagined.

Well, Dave didn't have lots of time to pay attention to such details since over thirty students were rushing at them. Instead of waiting till they reached them, Dave decided to dash forward to end it more quickly. Before dashing, he just said to his teammates, "Try not to get beaten up."

Saying what he wanted to say, Dave quickly barged in the ranks of thirty students crashing at several of them. Trying not to kill anyone, Dave either punched them or hit them with the hilt of his sword. Several students rushed at Dave, trying to hit him with their metal pipes, but not a single attack reached him.

Making minimum movements, Dave easily dodged their attacks so that the metal pipe meant to hit him hit the other one of his attackers. Without any coordination, they only got in each other's ways as they hindered each other.

Having been provoked by Dave's words, Oscar also dashed after him as he tried not to lose to his peer. Naturally, Luther and Brook followed after him. Although they didn't have as much experience as Dave, their moves were coordinated with each other as they had already fought alongside each other in the past.

As the one in the front, Oscar was the first one to smash his metal pipe to someone's head. Though he was clearly smaller than his older brother and gigantic Brook, he compensated for his lack of strength by high reaction speed and dirty techniques like spitting at someone's eye or kicking the knee.

Luther had both strength and speed as he combined both of them to send fast and unexpected hit at unusual angles. Moreover, he was able to control the pace of his fights and lead his opponents to follow his tempo.

Compared to them, Brook's way of fighting was crude and simple. Like a moving fortress, he endured all the hits like they were nothing and fought, relying purely on his enormous strength. Well, it was conclusions Dave had drawn after seeing their fighting style. 'Heh! They seem to be fighters. Their base should also be higher compared to an average human.'

Since 10 points in strength was an average strength of an average human, there naturally were people who were stronger than others or had higher stats compared to others. For instance, the highest base strength he had heard in his past life was 24. It was whopping 24 points in strength from the beginning. When he thought about it, Dave slightly regretted that he didn't work out when he still had a chance. He was weaker than his peers due to a toll he had received from being hospitalized for a year.

Therefore, not every person started from the same point. To begin with, life was never fair, and some people were naturally fitter to survive compared to others. He could do nothing with it. However, Dave could recruit such people and make use of them.