Sylas woke up about an hour after he drifted off. He saw Swain talking with an unlikely candidate, Diana, but if anyone could get a shy girl to open it would be him with his charismatic and friendly personality.
Sylas smiled as he gently rested Sam against the wall instead of himself while she groaned in protest.
Professor Medina leaned against the wall at the entrance of the alleyway still keeping watch. She jumped a little as Sylas spoke.
"Hey Professor, you can go rest now. We'll stay here for another half an hour before heading out to the cafeteria."
The professor nodded and headed deeper into the alley, finding a spot a couple of feet away from others that didn't have any debris. Sylas looked around outside of the alley taking in the scenery. It was beautiful if he didn't look at the corpses scattered on the ground, but when he did he noticed an odd looking clothing item wrapped around one of them.
Sylas made sure the coast was clear and walked over to the remains. As he got closer he realized what he had seen was a black cloak. It was wrapped around one of the victims of the roaming zombies. Using [Analyze], Sylas realized he had to take the cloak with him.
[Cloak of Death]
[Grade: Growth]
[+3 Intelligence]
[This cloak was once a Common cloak, but after the tragic death of its first three wearers in the first five hours of the System Integration, it absorbed the death aura emanating from the remains of its third wearer. The death aura transformed the cloak into more than it was allowing it to absorb more death aura to strengthen its changes.]
[Passive: The aura of death permeates those who don this mantle causing all death skills to be more effective.]
As he unwrapped the cloak from the remains in front of him, Sylas thought about the history of the cloak and the unfortunate end of its three former owners. He wasn't going to let himself be the fourth. The cloak would give him a decent boost since it should boost the [Rotting Bolt] skill from his new [Rotting Wand] as well as giving him more Intelligence points which would also boost the skill.
While removing the cloak he noticed the remains were decayed further than he thought a few hours old corpse should be. He remembered a TV show saying it would take at least a couple of days for any kind of decomposition to be visible after someone died. He was about to chalk it up to the cloak absorbing death aura, but decided to check a nearby corpse as well.
Sylas checked many of the remains in the surrounding 50 feet and saw them all in various states of decomposition with some only having bones left. He was stunned at the speed of decay, but couldn't attribute it to just the cloak so he was stumped.
He didn't want to get too far away from the group even if Swain and Diana were awake. If they didn't know they were abandoned and to be alert then they could still be snuck up on. He calmed his brain, putting aside the thought of decay, as he walked back over to the alley.
What Sylas couldn't know was that the System had a plan for the deaths of the many inhabitants of Earth. Each death was used to push mana into the Earth, packing the mana in and reinforcing the planet. Every corpse decomposed quickly because the mana was being forcefully extracted from it.
Sylas hadn't looked at his [Stats] for a few hours, which felt a lot longer for him, so he pulled them up to see the changes with the last fight and his equipment.
[Name: Sylas Redstone]
[Race: Human]
[Class: ]
[Level: 5]
[Tier: 0]
[Rank: Commoner]
[Strength: 8]
[Vitality: 7]
[Dexterity: 8]
[Agility: 8]
[Intelligence: 16(4)]
[Equipped: Rotting Wand, Cloak of Death]
All of his stats were increasing, but none as fast as his Intelligence. His equipment helped by doubling the increase, but the 4 point increase without the equipment was still the largest increase of any of his stats. Sylas didn't feel like he was getting smarter with his Intelligence rising so he decided to check the System tutorial for Intelligence and see if it explained anything.
[The Intelligence stat is a combination of several hidden stats that are all mana based. Some of these hidden stats are mana control, mana capacity, mana flow, mana gathering. These hidden stats are combined and Intelligence is the weighted average. Any improvement to Intelligence is actually an improvement to one or more of these hidden stats.]
Sylas shook his head. It was too bad he didn't have an easy way to get smarter. He was almost hoping it would be like some novels he had read where the characters were able to split their minds and have multiple trains of thought at once.
He sarcastically thought 'Oh no. I guess I'll have to live with only the magic of mana and, well, magic.'
Lost in thought, time quickly passed until a little over half an hour later. Sylas gathered the group and they headed off to the cafeteria in search of food. As they walked to their destination they ran into several groups of zombies which were swiftly taken care of thanks to Sylas hitting them with [Rotting Bolt] from afar so the DoT could tick as the zombies approached. Then the melee combatants, Swain, Sam, and the newly level Diana, would quickly finish them.
A/N: DoTs deal damage every so often. Each time it deals damage is referred to as a 'tick'.
Sylas noticed the rapid decomposition of corpses along the way and that the zombies hit with [Rotting Bolt] continued to rot quickly even after their death. With a new sense of rhythm, the group quickly made it to their destination. A large building with windows wrapping around the front half.
Peeking in the front doors of the cafeteria, Sylas didn't see any movement inside. That was expected as the cafeteria should have been closed at 9am when the System Integration started so there should only be workers and maybe a straggling student inside at the start.
Sylas led the group and towards the serving lines as he looked down the rows of tables. He sent Swain a few rows down to cover more ground as they looked. Not seeing anything unusual, Sylas had Swain lead as they went through the large swinging doors into the storage and cooking area of the cafeteria.
Here they found zombie remains with large knives sticking out of their skulls. Doing a quick sweep around the large kitchen they couldn't find any movement so Sylas gathered the two empty backpacks and sent the others to find food. He also went around the kitchen looking for supplies and found a supply closet the professor was already in.
They went through the canned section grabbing cans of vegetables, beans, and tomatoes. Sylas couldn't be called much of a chef since he mostly made food from prepared boxes while growing up and during the summers and only at the cafeteria during the school year. Luckily, the professor was used to cooking for herself so she pointed out and approved different canned foods that could either be eaten alone or as part of a larger meal like a stew.
Sylas was zipping up the full backpack as he heard a scream. Sylas and Professor Medina glanced at each other before heading out of the supply closet. They met up with Sam, Swain, and Diana in an open part of the kitchen, but they could still hear multiple screams coming from the dining area.
They realized who was missing and ran over to the large swinging doors, bursting through. Around 50 feet from them, Cam Fitch was screaming, but the group couldn't see why or where the other nursing student was. Swain immediately dashed towards her running on top of the tables in the way. Sylas followed closely behind as they saw Cam drop to the ground and go out of view behind the multiple tables and chairs between them.
There was only a few seconds between Cam disappearing from view and Swain arriving where she had been. Swain swung down with his axe as he reached her location. Sylas arrived a second later, both girls lying in a puddle of blood and the headless torso of a zombie that still had its arms wrapped around Cam.
Observing the scene, Sylas could see a green blood trail from where the legless zombie must have pulled itself over to where the girls were sitting and ignoring the instructions to gather food. He heard gurgling. Looking over to see Cam choking on her own blood, he thought about how he didn't feel any sadness for this scene.
Sylas didn't think he was heartless enough to not feel any sadness or pity for those who were dying in front of him, at least not yet. Watching the light leave her eyes, seeing the fear, the anger, the unwillingness, he felt nothing for her. Instead he thought about how she had befriended his wife, pretended to get close to her while Sam did a hundred percent of the work in group projects for her, and then, when they no longer had any classes together, how Cam changed.
Cam started to spread rumors about Sam. She said Sam forced her to do all the work in the group projects and cheated off her during simulations and tests. The worst was when she started the rumor that Sam was sleeping with professors to be able to progress through the classes so fast. Cam was able to convince so many people that the university actually opened an investigation into the rumors. The investigation concluded that there was no evidence of any foul play but the damage was done.
Sylas remembered all the times Sam had cried after hearing the rumors, hearing others talking about her, and after every interview for the investigation. He remembered how Sam had never once lost temper at anyone who was talking down to her, even Cam.
He remembered it all as he watched her draw her final breath, thinking he was okay with this feeling of indifference to her death. At some point, he would've been happy this was her ending, but Sam was an amazing example and helped him to move past his anger, or at least most of it.
The others had caught up by the time Sylas had settled his thoughts. Professor Medina bent down to check the pulses of the girls, shaking her head after each one. Everyone in the group knew who Cam Fitch was and what she had done. They also understood that the girls were shirking their duties of food collection if they were way out here in the dining hall when they were attacked by a slow moving legless zombie.
They all wordlessly went back to the kitchen. Professor Medina took a backpack of food on her back and the medical supply backpack on her front saying she wasn't a combatant so it's the least she could do to help. Sylas took the other food-filled backpack since he was now the only ranged attacker.
With the logistics handled, the group walked to the front of the dining area, completely ignoring the girls' remains. They left the cafeteria, heading into the setting sun towards the student center.