Chapter 078: System Warehouse!

Cold, hollow, dark.

This was the morgue of De M-anila University. Black leather body bags lined up, each likely containing a corpse. 

No sane person would want to spend a night here.

Since the outbreak of the apocalypse, the guttural roars of zombies echoed outside from time to time, sending shivers down anyone's spine. It was a place that made people feel an instinctive chill run down their backs.

Emaly felt exactly that way at this moment.

The tall girl was curled up in a corner, her long legs tucked tightly against her. She didn't dare fall asleep, terrified that if she closed her eyes, the next thing she'd see would be a zombie sinking its teeth into her beautiful neck.

She cursed Novak silently, over and over. 

How could he leave her in a place like this? Even if the zombies didn't get her, she'd die of fright first!

But... had he really died in that vortex?

Even though Emaly tried not to think about it, her thoughts kept drifting that way.

If Novak was dead, her chances of escaping from this siege, in a city teeming with zombies, would be as unlikely as a dream.

Just as exhaustion started to pull her toward sleep, Emaly's eyes suddenly snapped open. 

At the far end of the morgue, in the doorway that led to the underground garage, a swirling black vortex appeared. A figure emerged from within.

Dressed in black, with a mask Emaly had never seen before – a zombie mask.

The moment she recognized who it was, her anger evaporated.

Novak had returned.

Wearing that mask, he looked even more dashing...

Novak glanced at Emaly, who quickly stood up, and nodded. 

"What time is it?"

Without hesitation, Emaly replied, "A little after 1 AM."

Midnight.

If he had a choice, Novak wouldn't have chosen to leave at this time. The night was even more dangerous in this apocalyptic world. 

But this wasn't a place they could stay long.

If his suspicions were correct, he needs to prepare for another encounter with Zogwort soon.

Fortunately, in the Trial Ground of Gods and Demons governed by the Cosmic Will, gods could not directly harm ordinary evolutionaries. Only once someone signed a spokesperson contract, like in his previous life, could they receive boons from the gods, bypassing the usual limitations of the Trial Ground.

That's when gods could truly impose their will through contracts.

Just like in his past life, when every gift came at the cost of freedom and life.

In general, even gods projected onto the Trial Ground couldn't directly interfere with an evolutionary's safety.

But better to be safe than sorry.

"Let's go."

In the dead of night, Emaly didn't argue. She followed Novak as they left the underground garage, emerging onto the De M-anila University campus.

The campus was eerily silent.

Streetlights still illuminated the walkways, their automatic timers seemingly unaffected by the apocalypse. For now, they would continue to work for a while longer.

It looked like a normal university campus. In the past, one might have even stumbled upon some couples sneaking around in hidden corners.

But that was all before the end came.

That world no longer existed.

Novak didn't have time to appreciate the scenery. Nor was he in the mood.

At night, zombies mutated and evolved faster. While he wasn't afraid of them, getting surrounded would still spell trouble.

In an instant, he grabbed a startled Emaly and, with fast speed, vaulted over the campus wall, landing on the quiet street outside.

The road was as it had been during the day—quiet, with few zombies in sight.

Novak didn't waste time pondering why it was like this. After ten minutes of walking, they entered the city proper and came to a dimly lit street. Without warning, he tossed Emaly, who had fainted from fear, down beside a streetlight.

The soft glow of the streetlight revealed mosquitoes, now the size of a baby's fist, buzzing in the warm night air.

In the future, these creatures would pose a significant threat to evolutionaries.

But for now, they weren't yet a major concern.

Novak took a deep breath and glanced at the strange object in his backpack.

He didn't immediately retrieve the summoning scroll for Zogwort, the God of Trade. Instead, he took a moment to reconsider his decision. With a plan forming in his mind, he recalled the system's recent events.

After completing the dungeon, he had received over 100 gold coins as a reward. Within hours of releasing a video of the walkthrough, his balance had skyrocketed by thousands more.

It might not seem like much, but it was significant. Each gold coin equaled 10,000 copper coins. One copper coin represented 10,000 views of his video.

Tens of millions of views were nothing compared to the billions of surviving evolutionaries across the world. However, given how recently the apocalypse had started, it made sense that not everyone had access to coins yet. Many wouldn't even spend them on a strategy video, especially when one copper coin could be traded for basic food and water to survive another day.

Still, within hours, Novak had spent thousands of gold coins like water.

He had activated a new system feature – the System Warehouse.

Unlike the system backpack, the warehouse was completely autonomous. Items in it wouldn't drop if an evolutionary died. The contents could even be willed to someone after death. Protected by the Cosmic Will, even the gods themselves wouldn't know what was stored inside.

Novak couldn't afford to be careless.

Even if the gods couldn't harm him, if Zogwort, the God of Trade, realized Novak had what he was after, it could ruin everything.

After securing the mysterious '?? Face' in the system warehouse, Novak exhaled in relief.

Then, standing under the faint glow of the streetlight, he crushed the summoning scroll Zogwort had given him earlier that day.