11: I'm Going Home

As Corey felt a feeling he could not describe engulf his heart, he had a depressed and disappointed look on his face.

"No matter what I'm still going to beat up the Universal System in the future."

Corey muttered then looked at the crystal in his hand.

"Absorb."

Corey did not need to read the contents of the screen to know what it was telling him since he already knew what it was going to tell him.

The moment Corey spoke, an orange glow appeared from his right hand and enveloped the crystal, eventually the crystal turned to ash and the orange glow disappeared.

He pulled up his status screen and looked at the skill section of it.

*SKILLS*

Record- Talent Skill

Danger Sense- Level 1

Corey looked at the new addition to the skill section with a blank look for a few seconds before a sigh escaped from his mouth. He walked to the stairs and sat on a clean stair, then he spoke.

"I expected something different like maybe a skill I can use to attack or even defend myself, or maybe a skill that will teach me how to fight or something, but noooo, the useless system gave me this."

Corey sighed once again, then looked at the screen.

"From the name, it should at least let me be aware of dangerous situations beforehand. Although it's not an offensive or defensive skill, it's at least useful."

Corey tried to encourage himself and be positive, so he put his disappointment at the back of his mind and tapped 'Danger Sense' on the screen.

[DANGER SENSE(Level 1): A passive skill that allows the holder to sense dangerous situations ahead of time. If the danger level surpasses a Tier 1 situation, the skill would not be activated. The higher the level of danger, the more warning is transmitted to the holder. The lower the level of danger, the lesser the warning transmitted to the holder.]

As Corey read the description of the skill, a surprised expression appeared on his face.

"The useless system gave a very good explanation this time around."

Corey said with surprise, then his eyes moved to the resistance section of his status. He tapped on the ability he got from his first skill scroll which he ignored the first time he checked his status screen.

[FEAR RESISTANCE (Level 1): A passive ability which reduces the fear of the holder in dangerous situations not greater than Tier 1.]

Corey rubbed his beardless chin a few times after reading the description. It was explanatory which was shocking to Corey since he didn't expect it to be that explanatory.

Though the only part he didn't understand was the 'Tier 1' aspect. He had no idea what it meant and since the system was not giving him any information on it, he didn't bother himself with it anymore.

Corey then looked at his attributes and his free attribute points. He still had the 12 free A.P from the first Smiley and he was currently wondering whether he should use them now or later, during an emergency.

When he thought of using the free A.P in an emergency, a thought came to his mind.

"Will this useless system listen to me if I tell it to add an attribute point to one of my attributes through my mind?"

The more Corey thought about it, the more he felt uneasy about it. So he spoke in his mind.

'Add an attribute point to agility.'

'Please add an attribute point to agility.'

'Please o great and wonderful Universal System, add one bloody fucking attribute point to agility.'

'…'

"Add one attribute point to agility." He spoke out loud with a dead expression.

"…"

Corey's right eye twitched and his head throbbed in anger as he felt his body change slightly and he saw his agility increase from 5 to 6 on his status screen.

"You useless piece of shit!

What if I'm in the middle of a fight and I want to catch my enemy off guard!!

So I can't increase my strength in the middle of a fight quietly without him or her knowing?!

Must I say it out loud?!!"

Corey cursed and shouted so much that he started taking in deep breaths after he spoke.

Just when he was starting to change his opinion about the system, it just had to do this.

And the worst part of it was that, the system was totally silent.

No response.

Nothing.

"Ah. Fuck. I need to meet other people. If I spend another second with this damn system alone, I might finally run mad."

Corey said and then remembered about the soul stone he got from the fifth corpse on the stairs.

He brought it out from his pocket and observed it first, trying to see if there was any difference from the first soul stone he got, but seeing no difference, he looked at the screen, curious about what it would say.

[SOUL STONE OF A TIER 0, LEVEL 1 HUMAN IDENTIFIED]

[DO YOU WANT TO ABSORB?]

"Human?"

Corey had a shocked and baffled expression.

"Humans have soul stones and you can absorb them?"

To say Corey was shocked would be an understatement. His talent, Omniscience, which improved his brain to inhuman levels allowed Corey to know the consequences of this message. Especially when other humans find out.

And the more his figured out the consequences, the faster his beat in anxiousness.

'I need to get out of here and call home. Hopefully they're all safe.'

'Thank god Anna chose to have super powers, she should at least have the ability to defend herself from the beginning unlike me.'

He could not have faith in the goodness of humanity and hope that humans won't start hunting one another to get stronger when without a weapon like Smile Reaper, one could not kill a Smiley.

Corey calmed down a few seconds later and looked at the soul stone in his hand.

He was somewhat conflicted in his decision, but due to his high wisdom and understanding, he knew what might happen if he decided to be moral.

"Absorb."

After he spoke, the same orange light appeared on his hand and spread to the crystal, eventually turning it to ashes.

Corey felt something flow throughout his body from his right hand, but he did not feel any sensation of him getting stronger.

He pulled up his status screen and saw that nothing changed. His level, strength, agility etc. were all the same, which was not surprising considering he was level 4 and the soul stone belonged to that of a level 1 human.

As Corey looked at his status screen, his eyes fell unto his free attribute points and he decided not to use it for now.

Despite the fact that he'll have to speak out loud for the Universal System to respond to him, he didn't know when he'll urgently need it to increase a particular attribute so he was going to keep it.

Corey stood and was about to walk up the stairs to pick his bag before his eyes were drawn to the corpse which the second Smiley possessed.

A thought went through his mind and he walked up to the corpse. Reaching the corpse, he removed Smile Reaper from his waist and frowned as he looked at the corpse due to two reasons.

First was because of what he was about to do.

Second.

"The corpse is still smiling."

Corey's frown deepened the more he looked at the creepy smile of the corpse which still remained even after it died. He then looked at Smile Reaper in his hand and,

He was…disappointed

Smile Reaper didn't do what he actually wanted it to do.

"If I can in the future I'll create a weapon that will definitely wipe away the smiles of my enemies even after their death."

After Corey added that to his list of future goals, he bent, and pushing his disgust away, stabbed into the corpse's chest.

Shockingly he dissected the corpse much better than a novice would and the reason for that was because Corey was a medical student and had dissected a few corpses in this school.

A few minutes later, Corey pulled out a crystal.

"Another soul stone."

Corey muttered and turned towards the fifth corpse where he found the soul stone of a human.

A complicated expression appeared on his face for a second before he focused on the soul stone in his hand.

He looked at the screen on top of his right hand and read the contents, just to be sure it was the soul stone of a Smiley.

[SOUL STONE OF A TIER 0, LEVEL 8 REVENANT]

[DO YOU WANT TO ABSORB?]

Corey was somewhat surprised to see that the Smiley he killed was a level 8 unlike the first one which was a level 10. [A/N: Sorry for not putting the level previously.]

He was also thanking the heavens that he decided to run and not fight any of the Smileys since he doesn't know the actual stats of a level 8 or 10 monster and there was a very, very high chance, his was smaller.

Seeing that there was nothing out of the ordinary with the soul stone, he decided to absorb the soul stone.

"Absorb."

The same orange light appeared from his right hand and engulfed the soul stone turning it to ashes.

Corey felt a familiar sensation of something traveling into his body from his right hand and this time, he felt his body getting stronger.

He pulled up his status window immediately the sensation ended.

Level: 4 -> 5 (Unawakened)

*ATTRIBUTES*

Strength: 7 -> 9

Agility: 6 -> 7

Dexterity: 2 -> 3

Constitution: 5 -> 7

Intelligence: 50 -> 60

Endurance: 4 -> 5

Mana: 0

Free A.P: 11 -> 14

Seeing his level and strength increase made his sensation of safety to increase slightly. Just very slightly.

Corey released a breath and sat on the stair for five minutes to try and relax his mind and body.

After that, he walked to the end of the stairs where he dropped his bag which he used to hit the head of the second Smiley.

As he reached the bag, he opened it and saw that some of the cans of food he had prepared for the apocalypse were bent and in fact some almost snapped into two.

"The bastard had a hard head."

Corey muttered, then hung his bag on his shoulder and walked down the stairs while singing a song.

"I'm going home

I'm going home

Tell the world I'm going home

Sing to the world I'm going home

Yeah I'm going home

Tell the-"

Just as he was singing, he heard something in his ears. He ignored it at first due to how low it was, but later the volume of the sound increased and he could hear it clearly.

The sound was like a whistle, just that it was very loud and annoying.

Corey looked around with wariness wandering what was causing the sound but he didn't find anything, so he behaved like he ignored the voice and took a step down the stairs.

But just as he did, the whistling sound increased causing Corey's face to grimace.

Seeing that he could not find the source of the sound, he wanted to leave this accursed building immediately but as he was about to take another step, the sound increased causing Corey to pause his step.

"What the fuck?"

Corey cursed and just as he did, he noticed out of the corner of his eye, figures outside the glass door which led outside. And when he looked over properly, a feeling of hopelessness washed over him.

"Oh shit. I'm so not going home."

Outside the door were at least ten Smileys walking around.