14 Corruption

Elena's eyes widened as she looked at the small blood crystals which Zane had previously scavenged by digging into the brains of the walkers. An expression of horror appeared within the crimson-haired beauty's eyes as she questioned Zane's sanity on the spot.

"You must be joking! You intend for us to stick one of those disgusting things in our mouths? Are you fucking insane?"

Olivia, however, did not even dare to question Zane's orders. She knew that the only reason she was still alive was because of Zane. And right now, he was the only person she knew that could keep her alive.

He was also perhaps the only man she knew of who would not just keep her around for her body. Thus she had no hesitation as she reached into Zane's hand and grabbed the blood crystal, which she swallowed on the spot.

Her eyes widened in shock as she felt the putrid taste of coagulated blood enter her throat. Though she wanted to throw it up, she could not do so. Instead, she saw the same blood red writing that Zane had seen when he first awakened the system.

[Living Being Detected! The Penalty for consumption will now be applied!]

Immediately, Olivia felt as if a deadly poison had just entered her bloodstream and was rapidly flowing through her veins. In fact, Zane and Elena both witnessed the women's veins turn black as she fell to the floor while convulsing in agony.

Zane stared stoically at his former homeroom teacher as she nearly frothed at the mouth. Just what had happened to her? This was not at all like what he experienced when he first consumed the blood crystal.

Unfortunately for him, Zane could not even form a hypothesis on what had happened to Olivia, because Elena rushed towards him and grabbed the collar of his shirt while screaming at him.

"You fucking asshole! What the hell did you do!?"

However, Elena's rage did not last long as Zane immediately shoved the other blood crystal into Elena's mouth, forcing her to swallow the bloody substance on the spot. Just like with Olivia, Elena witnessed the same message, one that Zane had never seen.

[Living Being Detected! The Penalty for consumption will now be applied!]

Elena too fell to the floor with blackened veins, and a sensation of overwhelming pain that she had never experienced before. This caused Zane to gaze curiously at the two women as he tried to examine what was happening to them.

Luckily, there was quite literally a feature in his system's UI that allowed him to do this.

[Examine]

Zane's own thoughts activated the feature, allowing him to determine exactly what was happening to his two would be companions.

[A Living Being has consumed a blood crystal, a Debuff has been applied!]

[Debuff: Corruption]

[Duration: 30 Minutes]

[Effects:]

20% Chance of Success of Awakening

20% Decrease in Experience Gain

80% Chance of Infection

Paralysis

Zane stared at this debuff and was surprised by it. Why didn't he suffer such a thing? In all honesty, he didn't have time to sit around and think about it. Elena and Olivia were now at risk of death, partially from the actual debuff itself. But also from any Walkers that might walk in on them right now.

Thus he picked the mature beauty up and carried her on his back, while Dragging Elena's body at the same time towards the shop class which he knew was safe already. Once inside, Zane shut the door behind him as he went to retrieve the clubs.

After getting hold of the weapons and the girls' backpacks, Zane barricaded himself in the room. The two women appeared completely in agony as they suffered through their debuff penalty. Zane did not know what to say to help soothe them, nor did he really care.

He had far bigger priorities, and those were watching the two women in case they got infected and hulked out on him. And watching the barricaded door to make sure no other Walkers tried to hurt himself and the two women.

Though Zane was fairly certain he and the girls had cleared the building, he also knew that he was being watched by that stalker. And since he did not know the exact abilities that monster possessed, Zane was constantly keeping an eye out for the creature whose intelligence was well above that of an ordinary Walker.

Ultimately, the thirty minutes passed, and against all odds, both Elena and Olivia emerged from their debuff with their lives intact. The two women stared in disbelief at the UI, which displayed itself. And once they had enough time to adjust to their new reality, Zane was quick to ask about their newfound abilities.

"So, what powers did you two get?"

Olivia spoke before Elena had a chance to do so. She had a bit of an excited tone in her voice as she tested the ability while announcing it.

"It's called Electric Discharge! Apparently, I can manipulate electricity to some degree! Though it has a cooldown of 90 seconds. Whatever that means…"

It was abundantly clear to Zane that Olivia did not play MMOs, because a ninety-second cooldown was fairly standard for powerful abilities in a game whose gameplay mechanics were well balanced.

As for a demonstration, the woman straight up shot a lightning bolt out of her hands without even realizing the damage it would cause. Luckily for the two of them, she shot it out the window, albeit quite literally blowing up the glass in the process.

By all miracles, the shards of glass missed them entirely. But this also meant that there was now a giant hole for walkers from the outside to get inside of, and thus Zane sighed heavily as he walked to the storage room of the shop class where he began nailing planks to the door.

As for Elena, she did not feel comfortable announcing what her skill was. After all, Zane had forced this transformation on her, and she felt like it had nearly killed her. She was in a very foul mood, and instead sat there in silence as she pouted.