Trash in the Apocalypse

In the living room...

Evo was sitting alone on the sofa, shuffling a ballpoint pen between his fingers. The pen never stopped, and Evo didn't even look at it.

He suddenly threw the pen up in the air. When it reached the maximum height it could climb, it shined brightly then fell down. As it fell, it changed into a green stress ball commonly used by elderlies.

What happened seemed like a magic trick, but it was a simple combination of his skills. Debugger and Backup.

Evo tapped the ball, and an interface appeared.

[item; Stress Ball

change item to ballpen

apply; Skill Backup

use; Skill Backup after 10seconds]

This experiment caused him forty energy, ten energy for activating Debugger, twenty energy for transforming item property, and ten energy for using Backup.

This little experiment helped him understand how his skill works and made him realize how hard it was to adjust an item's parameters.

Earlier, he tried adding one-hit-kill as an effect and was welcomed by a whooping five thousand energy point requirement. The skill failed, and his energy was almost drained. He had to wait nearly thirty minutes before his energy became practically full.

After learning his lesson, he adjusted his goals and managed to reduce his energy consumption.

"You look pleasing to the eyes when you don't talk."

A familiar voice came from behind him. He saw Jun holding onto a pillow and sat down beside him on the sofa.

"And my eyes hurt whenever I look at you." Evo chuckled slightly, then said, "What are you doing here? I thought you'd sleep on the kitchen table?"

Jun sighed exhaustedly. "I woke up. Marianne slept on my side."

"Ohh, isn't that good?" said Evo with teasing eyes.

"...she's snoring like a—"

A pillow hit his face before he could finish what he wanted to say. An angry Marianne was standing on the kitchen's doorway.

"Jun... SHUT UP!"

A loud bellow came from her mouth. Above her head was a blue megaphone icon.

Behind her, raging flames appeared and emitted intense heat that surrounded the living room.

"Calm down! Calm down! I haven't said anything!"

The room where the women were sleeping flung open, four heads peeked out, and they started whispering towards each other.

"Did he do it?"

"I knew he would do it."

"No one can escape those temptations. Haa..."

"I wish I had those..."

***

A silhouette appeared on the window of a two-story house. It watched in astonishment as most of the infected that crowded the streets below ran towards a particular direction.

The person looked back towards the door of this room that kept making pounding noises. Low growls could be heard from the other side.

The person searched the kitchen. He found a set of knives for cooking and chose to pick-up a butcher knife.

***

It was already late at night, and most of the members of the group has fallen asleep. Only four people remain awake and had their own things to do.

Adrian and Edward were both outside sitting on the front entrance, while Jun and Evo discussed things on the living room.

Adrian took a puff of the branded cigarette on his lips, then blew it out, creating a cloud of smoke that was immediately carried away by the cold night winds.

Edward coughed hard since most of the smoke flew in his direction.

"That's bad for your health, you know?"

Adrian glanced at him, then shrugged.

"Isn't it better to die peacefully than getting chewed to death by infecteds?"

"Yet, it still feels better to be alive." Edward retorted.

"What's there to live for anyway?"

"If you have asked me this question this morning, I probably wouldn't know how to answer. But after listening to the new girl, I found my personal goal. To become strong and protect everyone."

Edward smiled sheepishly when he saw Adrian frowning.

"So childish... It's cold out here, but you're the one who's making me shiver. Ugh, so cold. let's go inside."

In the kitchen, Jun was still having a discussion with Evo. Although it was a discussion, most of the time, it was him listening while Evo explained his newfound theory about essence shards.

His discovery was actually something simple. Since those crystals were called shards, then there's a possibility to combine them and make a new item out of it. They experimented for an hour before finally getting results. This hour-long experiment completely drained them of their energy and has used ten essence shards. Jun and Evo both felt physically and mentally exhausted, but upon seeing the transparent round crystal on the table, the two of them became elated.

Evo picked the round crystal to check its descriptions. "Essence crystal, it can store essence, destroyed upon use. Do you know what this means?"

Jun furrowed his brows and sarcastically replied. "You don't know, and yet you're asking me." Jun shook his head, then said, "Let me see that."

Evo handed the round crystal to Jun.

[Essence Crystal (Low-Tier)]

[Description] A crystal that can absorb the purest of life essences. It can store up to 5 attribute points. This item will be destroyed after a user absorbs the stored essence.

Jun explained what he saw to Evo, who scrunched his eyebrows in confusion. Evo was curious about how did he manage to understand the item without further testing.

Evo was a core member of his old group, and Jun trusts him like his very own family. The two of them have already known each other for a long time and understand each other the most. He told him that he could see extra information on any item that he touches, and he could also see names with varying colors above a person's head.

There's also a reason for telling his secrets to Evo besides trust. It's taking a toll on his brain, and he badly needed some help.

"You have two unique abilities that most people don't have, got four other abilities when you leveled up, and two abilities you learned along the way. I can only say that you're so lucky." Evo said unresigned after remembering his two pre-generated skills.

Since they already know that Jun can see additional information, the two of them brainstormed about what the colors could possibly mean. After pondering for a while, Evo slapped his head.

He then turned to Jun with a condescending smile.

"Wow~ you're quite narcissistic."

"What do you mean?" said Jun, confused.

"Have you ever played The Sims? Obviously, no. In that game, the characters have this green diamonds called plumbob above their heads. It shows what the character currently feels, and you need to tend to them based on what they want. This is the closest that I could think of, and I think its a match. We just need to do some additional experiments to make sure."

Suddenly, a childish voice came from the living room that was connected to the kitchen area.

"Wow... we've been here for so long, and they still haven't noticed us," Edward whispered. When he turned his head back, he saw Jun and Evo looking at him.

Adrian glanced sideways as if looking at an idiot. He muttered softly to himself, "Rule number one in eavesdropping—be quiet."

Adrian then faced Jun with an unhappy expression on his face. He then turned to Evo, then said, "Can we join that experiment?"