Chapter 3: Brian and Terry

[Congratulations, Host, for killing off 32 mutated beasts.]

[Dispensing rewards now:]

[200x bottles of mineral water.]

[100x packets of MRE ration.]

[20x boxes of essential medication.]

[All items are stored in your storage space now.]

[Current status: 32/200]

[Day 1 of 3 for SSS Level Storage Ability.]

Alex was pleasantly surprised when he saw the information panels.

The rewards for every kill were much more generous than he had thought.

He would need to kill more to gather more of the rewards to ensure his chances of survival.

Who knows what would happen next?

One by one, as he saw the items appear in his storage space within his mind, he gave out a sigh of relief.

He knew that he would have to reach the target of 200 kills to keep this ability.

If not, he would have to take out everything from the storage space when it was the final day, and having so many resources at his side might make him a target for others.

Right now, the civil and social order was still largely intact where everyone wasn’t aware of what was going on at the moment.

But who knows what will happen when everything goes out of the window.

It might be men and women fighting among themselves on top of having to fight against the mutated beasts.

With this in mind, Alex decided to take necessary risks whenever possible to achieve the target of 200 kills to keep this storage ability.

By now he was going up the stairs, and there was no one around so he raised his hand and tried taking a bottle of mineral water out from the storage space to be sure that it works.

Out of nowhere, a bottle of mineral water appeared just as he had visualized it.

"Great, and now to test it..." He drew in a slow breath and uncapped the bottle before he gulped down a mouthful of it.

It tasted like how he expected it to be.

He put back the cap, and when he was done, the bottle disappeared from his hand.

Alex continued his way up the stairs towards Brian’s room, which was three floors above his dorm room.

It was relatively calm on the seventh floor when he reached it.

The students were outside in the corridor, oblivious to what had happened on the lower floors.

All of them were busy on their mobile phones, checking all the social media for the latest news or chatting with each other wondering what was happening.

"What are you doing out here?" Alex asked and they glanced over at him.

At first they were astonished to see him with his backpack and baseball bat in his hand.

But when they saw the blood spots on his shoes and jeans, they opened their mouths wide and gasped for a moment.

"What... what happened to you?" One of the students pointed at his shoes and asked.

Alex sighed and told them what had happened.

"So, if I were you, I would be somewhere safe with a weapon in my hand to protect myself, instead of standing out here," he said and the students quickly dispersed from the corridor.

It didn’t take too much to convince them after what they’ve seen on the social media and outside.

They just wanted to believe that it was still safe for them here in their dorm rooms until Alex appeared with the bad news.

"Open up. It’s me, Alex." Alex knocked on the door of Brian’s dorm room and it opened.

"Hey, Alex." It was Terry who opened the door with a bag of potato chips in his hand.

Terry was a plump and relatively well-off guy among his friends.

Alex entered the room and closed the door behind him.

At the end of the room, Brian, who was skinny with thick glasses, was at the computer looking at the screen.

"There goes my freelance gigs... Shit is real and I think that we are in deep trouble now." Brian threw up his hands in the air and said with exasperation.

"Still thinking about money even when the world is ending, huh?" Alex shook his head at Brian and said.

"Come on, who doesn’t love money..." Brian sighed when he realized that money might not matter so much soon.

"You found anything useful on the web?" Alex pointed at the computer and asked.

He was busy with the rats earlier and he hadn’t looked at his mobile phone for a while so he wanted to know what else had happened.

Brian shook his head and replied, "It’s bad, there was only a public announcement for everyone to stay in their homes.

"And that there will be officials on the ground to take care of the problem.

"But so far, all I’ve seen are videos of the officials being overwhelmed by the hordes of insects, rats, dogs and whatever animals that had gone rabid."

Boom!

Just as Brian had finished talking, an explosion could be heard in the distance and sirens wailed for a few moments before they died down very soon.

Things were turning south very fast and Alex would have to figure out something soon.

"Where the hell is Riley?" Alex asked and Terry, who was munching on his potato chips, said, "He told me he was going to the Business Building earlier."

"Of all times he had to be away."

Terry put his greasy hand onto the back of his head and said, "Heh. I asked him to help me get the contact number of a student."

"The student that you have a crush on, you mean." Alex rolled his eyes at Terry and gave out a sigh.

"Well, you know me..."

"Sure, Mr. Casanova."

Alex walked over to the window and glanced in the direction of the Business Building.

The usually crowded building with students that were relatively better dressed than others was now empty.

There was no one around except for scattered books and even a shoe that was left behind.

Alex thought about whether they should go and check on Riley if possible, but before he could say anything, he heard a loud thud.

"Brian!" Terry shouted when he saw Brian drop to the ground unconscious.

He took a step forward, but he also dropped to the ground suddenly.