Two hours later.
Arthur was speeding through the streets of Tokyo.
Ellen, in the passenger seat, was looking at him with starry eyes.
Ellen was so excited she couldn't speak.
Because in those two hours, the things Arthur had led her to do were simply too thrilling!
"Brother Blank, weren't you scared just now?"
Are we that familiar?
Arthur was speechless at the change in her attitude. 'Girl, you trust too easily, don't you?'
He kept his eyes on the road, one hand on the steering wheel.
"There's nothing to be afraid of. Didn't you say it yourself earlier? We have newbie protection anyway, so even if we fail, it's just exiting the instance."
"But..."
Even so, Ellen didn't think such behavior was something a normal person would do.
After he left the school, the first thing he did was take her to a financial company!
Although it was called a financial company, it was actually a loan institution for international students.
Arthur directly used the student ID cards that the Reincarnation Space had forged for them as collateral, claiming they had encountered difficulties and urgently needed money.
And he actually managed to get a loan within an hour!
A full three million!
Though it was Japanese Yen... Arthur's success was actually very simple.
He went around, specifically looking for small companies.
These were generally not legitimate establishments.
But precisely because they were not legitimate, they were most eager to see people borrow money from them.
After all, with such high interest rates and violent debt collection, it was simply using money to make more money, so why wouldn't they?
These lending institutions valued your identification the most.
As long as they knew your identity, address, and where you studied, they weren't afraid of you borrowing money and not returning it.
The most difficult aspect, identity, was directly handled by the Reincarnation Space for him.
Of course, originally, Arthur alone couldn't borrow this much.
He would be lucky to borrow 1 million Japanese Yen.
What he didn't tell Ellen was that he had also mortgaged Ellen's student ID.
In the eyes of the other party, Ellen, who possessed a valuable asset, was clearly worth far more than that small amount of money.
So the other party was eager for him to be unable to repay, and then have this little girl come to "repay" the debt herself.
It was precisely because Arthur saw the other party's gaze and thoughts constantly sweeping over Ellen that he "pushed his luck" and applied for a huge loan with an even higher interest rate.
Under normal circumstances, it would be impossible to approve, but with Ellen, the approval of this loan was incredibly fast.
Sure enough, this girl was sold off and was still counting the money... And finally, regarding the question of repayment?
Are you kidding me!
The apocalypse would arrive in an hour; if these guys' persistence in collecting debts could enable them to break through the zombie encirclement and find him...
Then he would still applaud them with admiration.
Of course, repayment was out of the question.
Arthur glanced at the pile of banknotes he had casually thrown on the dashboard.
Compared to when he first got it, this pile of money had already shrunk by more than two-thirds.
The car he was currently driving alone cost him 300,000 to rent from a car dealership owner.
It was a Ford Raptor pickup truck, modified!
The owner was clearly a car modification enthusiast, and this pickup truck had been almost completely modified.
The outer shell armor was thickened, bulletproof glass, reinforced front end... What satisfied him most was that the open cargo bed in the back had double flip-up metal covers on both sides, which could temporarily double as a small truck.
He had his eye on this point at the time, so that when the car crashed through the streets, the supplies placed in the back wouldn't spill out.
Actually, renting a car wouldn't normally be this expensive, but it was someone's beloved car, and it had undergone such exaggerated modifications.
Although it was indeed a blatant rip-off.
But it was still worth the money.
He just wondered if, when the apocalypse arrived, that owner would regret selling this ride for only 300,000.
After getting the most important car, Arthur immediately drove to the city center.
He went to the largest department store and purchased a large amount of supplies, mostly food.
Anyway, he had money, and the car's cargo bed was quite large.
So the food supplies also included a large amount of snacks, pastries, and even self-heating hot pot, rice bowls, and ramen, etc.!
He had no intention of depriving himself in this apocalypse!
Of course, he also bought a lot of self-defense and even combat equipment from the outdoor survival store in the mall.
After all, weapons capable of fighting zombies were not readily available everywhere.
If you weren't the protagonist, don't even think about being invincible with just a baseball bat or a wooden sword.
"Brother Blank, do you know how to clear the instance?"
Arthur glanced at Ellen, a little surprised by her guess.
After all, although his actions were somewhat unconventional, they were merely conventional "apocalypse survival" preparations.
A normal Reincarnator with a little experience and information wouldn't do much worse than him.
How did Ellen deduce this just from that?
Or was it simply a wild guess?
"Oh? Why do you think so?"
"A hunch."
Ellen said, "Because it seems like everything you're doing now, Brother Blank, is planned, and you're not like you initially appeared in front of those people, just here to play."
"But if it's just to survive in this world, when that person said he had information about clearing the instance, you shouldn't have been indifferent."
"After all, even with beginner protection, a normal person wouldn't be completely uninterested in clearing an instance, unless..."
"Unless that person already knew the other party's information."
Arthur smiled, "You wanted to say that, right?"
Ellen looked at him silently, not answering.
Sure enough, this girl wasn't as naive as she appeared on the surface.
"You think the information that person bought was sold to him by me?"
Ellen did think so.
But there was one thing that didn't make sense.
Although that man was a bit odd, he didn't seem like a fool.
Since he bought such important information from someone else, he should at least prohibit the other party from continuing to challenge the instance based on that information.
After all, you pay big money for intel, only to have the seller clear the dungeon first try—doesn't that make the buyer the sucker?
"Actually, the intel he has isn't hard to guess."
Arthur didn't correct her guess.
"This dungeon has been around for three years; the obvious clues are practically public knowledge."
"The main quest is what decides clearance. Sadly, Reincarnation Space rarely hands you that on a platter—we have to dig it up ourselves."
"Right now there are two leading theories: survive, or wipe out the source of the zombies."
Ellen nodded.
She hadn't known any of this.
Her family kept her on a tight leash, and she was a total tech klutz—she couldn't even search online.
"From what's been explored so far, wiping out the source is almost impossible—it's too hard. The zombie apocalypse erupted worldwide in an instant; 'saving the world' is out of the question."
Of course, when Arthur said impossible, he meant impossible for this tower floor.
Remember, this was a Floor-1 dungeon of the Reincarnation Tower.
Reincarnators on Floor 1 barely had any enhancements; asking them to save a world was setting them up to fail.
And a quick look at the original anime's plot makes the 'main quest' obvious:
"Survive for a set time alongside the story characters of this world!"