A Smart Man

Randy: "Man this place is nice! Wish we would have had this kind of building during my time in school. The only thing I would change is all the Shadow Corpses running up and down the halls"

Rosa: "Ok I'm finally going to say it, why is it that you keep stating the obvious? No one wants to see those undead running down the halls of their school. Especially when they are coming at you with the intent to rip your throat out! Please stop talking for just a little while, it won't kill you"

She had gotten annoyed with how many little things this man would notice only to make little pointless comments. It was disturbing her from focusing purely on Baladan who was up ahead.

Bal: "Both of you can stop now, we have arrived"

When the last camera pointed at the door he walked up after cutting down one of the last Shadow Corpses until it was just a nugget making groaning sounds on the ground.

The door had been severely beaten, lucky this was a thick metal door. When he looked around the door he saw a sign saying "VR Capsule Storage" Baladan had only heard about virtual reality before from the news. He wasn't all too excited for it.

Bal: 'Why go into a Virtual Reality that doesn't do anything for you besides makes you spend time in a world that brings you no benefit when you could be making money? Feels kinda pointless to me honestly'

Looking at his Aura points he sighed to himself, a little annoyed with how slow his Aura was coming back.

Still he had 3 points now which he used 1 to grab hold of the door and pull hard! This caused the door to make a loud cracking sound before snapping off its hinges.

Bal: 'The person or people in here must be feeling extremely lucky that they didn't get attacked by a Shadow Blob or Behemoth. All they would need is a punch to destroy this kind of door'

When the door opened what greeted him was a skinny man on the opposite side of the room typing away at a computer while a few other people were looking over at the door with horror.

Bal: "What? Not happy to see your savior? I'm sure you all saw me go through hell to get here"

"W-We are thankful b-but… we saw you get bit! We saw them all bite you over and over again!"

"Yeah! What if you suddenly turn and try to kill us!"

Josh: "Don't mind them… they have no idea what they are talking about. During the sudden attack of those creatures you call Shadow Corpses I had done a small experiment in the middle of the madness.

I have seen a couple people getting bit before, it takes exactly 1 minute for someone to turn. Seeing as you haven't turned after so long I can only assume it won't affect you. My name is Josh Jewel I would appreciate it if you helped us out"

The man in the chair stood up slowly approaching the group. He had an indifferent look on his face but his eyes exposed his calculative nature. This man had to be the person directing Baladan towards them, from the way everyone else was acting it couldn't have been any of them.

Bal: "You seem to be a smart man, no wonder you could survive in here for the last couple days. After today or tomorrow we will be taking the buses and transporting them along with anyone we can take to our shelter in the work district. I'm sure you understand why we can't stay here, especially after taking all the food already"

Josh: "Of course, the work district has a lower amount of people compared to the rest of the city. If your people have already taken out what did come from the area then that would be a very good place since you'll be connected to the learning district, central district, and housing district while also having a very safe location to work out of. I dare say you guys might just have the safest place in the city all to yourselves"

Baladan's impression of Josh kept improving the more he listened to him. It was always easier to talk to someone who understands and is smart enough to figure out your intentions without you even saying anything.

Bal: "Good! We will be heading out now, first we will be gathering the gymnasium people and let them go through and kill all these limbless corpses for their level. Then we shall either rest or spend the rest of the day transporting people and supplies to the shelter"

Josh: "Ok, I do have a favor to ask though. I would like to take 2 of these corpses for my level"

Baladan took a second to look into his eyes, the cold piercing stare looked back at him with a determined glint.

Bal: "Fine kill these 2 quickly then"

He soon handed his crowbar to Josh, of course he wasn't so trusting to assume nothing bad would happen. So he was prepared to attack if Josh got any funny ideas.

His preparation had gone to waste the next second as Josh immediately hit the crowbar over the heads of the zombies before handing it back after getting his level.

[Title: Grim Reaper Activated-Undead Sent: 30]

Bal: 'Huh? So if I assist by making them unable to attack then it can still send them to Shoel even if I don't finish them off…'

Josh: "By the way… that should be 300, I couldn't help but hear you talk earlier about how many you killed. Fortunately I had been keeping track of the numbers so we can guesstimate how many corpses are left"

Baladan was impressed, this man had so many things running through his mind and yet he kept track of it all and could accurately recall every single piece of information he had recorded.

Bal: "Ok let's get you guys out first, you can pick whatever ability you like. I will just say utility is something we need but something you can use in combat is always handy"

———

Boss: "We are heading out now! With the sun still in the sky we will go around leveling you all until the sun goes down! Make sure to work hard and get good abilities to protect yourself and those you care about in the future!"

Josh: "Is it really ok to give so many people abilities?"

He whispered those words to Baladan as he watched the group of around 200-300 people following an old man in a leather biker jacket.

Bal: "It's fine, even if everyone in the settlement was to get an ability it wouldn't cause problems for us. We used to be gang members, this meant we have lots of illegal weapons and have even killed before.

A group of normal people with an ability they can't level up unless they go out and fight won't be a problem. Actually these ability users could speed up the projects we have in the works! This means we can become even safer faster, of course there will be trouble makers but sometimes people need to be made into an example"

He was watching Josh like a hawk, with those words he was trying to get a read on how Josh felt about them being gang members and even willing to kill those trouble makers making everyone else's life harder.

However Josh still had his indifferent look as if none of it matters to him.

Josh: "It looks like this group will survive then. With such decisive leadership and a system that forces others to fight to get stronger. It seems like you all were meant to live in the apocalypse instead of society"

Bal: "Haha, you know, most of the time I don't get along this well with people. You are definitely very smart, and I like talking to smart people. So I hope we can get along in the future"

Josh: "Only the future will tell, but I have no reason to leave your group any time soon. So we will be working together for now"

It took a couple hours for the large group to slowly go through the halls. At first they were hesitant the moment they saw the bloody entrance but after going through their fear washed away.

Well at least at first before they saw the first Corpse Nugget groaning on the ground. Fortunately it didn't take long for one of the people to come forward and split its head. When they saw a skinny women lift a pipe she found and easily smash it into the head of the undead before watching it disappear, the fear they felt lessened even more!

Now more and more of the people would step out to split the zombies skulls. Eventually a good portion of the people had gotten their ability before heading back to the gymnasium to rest for the night.

Boss: "Bal, do you know where the rest of those undead went? At this rate we will run out of corpses before we can give everyone an ability"

Bal: "The only thing I can think of is the parking lot and the upper floors. We had mainly stuck to the bottom floors thinking it would be better to clear them before working in the other parts of the building"

Josh: "There are no more in the building… the cameras link up throughout the whole building besides in the parking lot. That lot is supposed to be a secret, they use it to store the buses along with the Principles car and the cars of those he deemed worthy. He had personally gotten it built for his own private use"

Bal: "Ha! Of course a bastard like that would have his own private area where he can fuck any of the girls he wanted! Looks like the rest of the zombies headed down there then… wait, what could be down there that could cause 700 of them to gather like that!"

Boss: "We won't know until we head down and clear them out. For now let's try and draw out groups and funnel them through the tight halls. We will set up trip wires to slow them down, then we will either aim to kill or disable. If it's either you or them then kill them without a second though! Now go and get some rest! We will take shifts and switch out with Grim throughout the night"

"Yes sir!"