' Well well well what do we have here? '

As he looked around, he quickly saw wannabe leader red hair, wannabe leader Steven and Sheila. Red hair and Sheila were totally unharmed while Steven had a few deep injuries, but compared to the mob, he was relatively fine. Speaking of the mob, its number lessened quite a bit. Roughly counting, there were 60 survivors.

Some had heavy injuries while others had more superficial ones. What caught his interest was the figure of Sheila kneeling by the side of a very heavily injured buff man. Looking at this Luke's first thought was that she found another meat shield while he was not here.

The man looked... entranced by her and Luke wouldn't be surprised if he began an emotional speech depicting how he would do anything for her, even at the cost of his life... and that dumbass did

" cough Sheila, I'm relieved that I actually protected you cough... " ' Aaaaaawwww what a touching moment, if this continues anymore I will cry ' To obtain Luke's honest thoughts, you just have to replace touching by cringy and cry by vomit... but that dumbf*ck continued

" It seems like, I will only fulfill half of my promise cough " Of course, such a scene took everyone's attention and they all looked at him with sympathy for the most part while Sheila was busy pretending to cry. Most, because there are not only idiots here.

' But... why does he look like he is on his death bed? The injuries are heavy sure, but it's nothing a good ol' health potion can't cure... don't tell me he even forgot about that in his idiocy? He just can't be that dumb right? ' He is. Proof of that being: " I don't have much but please take my loot and my little savings. It should at least help you get out of this alive cough " He gave her more than enough to save someone cancerous, afflicted by A.I.D.S, having chopped off limbs and a stick shoved up his ass. And this thing isn't even finished

" cough, we didn't know each other for long but I think I found love with you cough my last moments are at least happy, unlike my life cough cough cough " And he died.

' ! ... seriously ? is that piece of shit serious? How the hell did he get that entranced by this girl in only 20 f*cking MINUTES ?!!!!!!! And here I thought I experienced everything. My vision in life just changed a great deal here. '

Unlike Luke who was busy reflecting on life, the others gathered around were trying to 'appease' the 'devastated' Sheila and once again, wannabe leader red hair took the lead ( I know my puns are shitty but Welp, I do what I can ) " sigh Sheila, he was a great man, to honour his memory..." ' blah blah blah... are there hidden cameras here ? Was it a goddamn film from the beginning? '

He seriously reflected about this possibility and the more he thought about it, the more he found it credible. Between the cliché dialogues and the cliché situation, the only thing lacking would be a bunch of people crying in the background, wait there is a bunch of people crying in the background...

Luke was kinda mind blown now. Not only was he almost fatally trolled twice by the system, now there's this. So he did the action anyone in his situation would have done :

' shop, food, sweet popcorn, little bucket '

* 1 PT deducted *

And he began munching on them while looking at them from the side.

....

After roughly 15 minutes of the 'film', Luke had to quickly store his popcorn since Sheila looked his way and ran up to him before giving him a tight hug. In normal times, he wouldn't mind having breasts pressing on his chest but the fact that he was disgusted by the bearer of the latter made his mind.

" Sigh, I don't know what happened to you all but know that from now on I will be here for you. So few people are still alive. It kills me that I have a part of the responsibility. Sigh, I was shortsighted, I'm sorry. " He said the first part to Sheila and the last to the group who nodded their heads while Luke was thinking that he unwittingly became part of the film.

" Also "

Aaaaaaaand, like always, the system interrupted him, though, he was quite happy this time

* calculating... 59 humans still alive... the third phase will begin in 3 days. There will be no solo quest for it. Firearms will be allowed in this quest *

" That aside, we have 3 days of freedom so let's cheer a little, this atmosphere is killing me " joked red hair

" Yay, but Carl, before that let's bury the dead. That's the least we could do " proposed Steven to red hair.

Then we all got busy burying the dead. Well, almost all. The 2 leaders were 'supervising' the process. Through all the burying event, Sheila was keeping near me with expressions that were like writing on her forehead: " pity me and become my next meat shield " Oh and the name of the last was Eric.

That aside, the first night since the beginning of everything is coming so we each bought what we needed for the night. Thinking back, the system's store is amazingly useful. No risk of food poisoning without any chemical products, top quality tools that are not easily broken, unlimited supply... these are very addictive.

...

As night slowly fell, Luke couldn't help but think that the night will be pretty eventful.