I Hate Systems
chapter-155

'Now, first things first, let me search for a bunch of things. Might as well use the internet to its full extent.' Compass Carburettor thought, opening up the browser as he probed with it a bit, understanding its functions, 'It's more or less similar to the one on Earth, albeit with minor differences.'

He then began to search numerous keywords in it.

[Melora Technical Institute of Sciences]

[College Admissions]

[Cute Girls]

He just surfed through numerous search results of the related keywords, jumping into various forums as he read through them all.

He then looked at one of the forum posts, grinning mentally, 'Alright, I stumbled upon it while surfing.'

He didn't wish to directly search for the related term the first thing. That might make him look suspicious. After all, he was under watch by the CCTV. There was also his browsing data that could be looked through later.

If he deleted them, he would only look all the more suspicious. So instead, he acted as a regular college student his age, spurred by the curiosity that came with the age.

The post he stumbled upon was posted a couple of days ago on one of the forums related to a university page. It didn't generate much traction as people just commended that it had been photoshopped.

The post only had seven likes. But, Compass Carburettor paid attention to it, reading through it.

[Guys, you really won't believe it. Yesterday night, I and a couple of my friends were racing through the night on the national highway when something ran past us at tremendous speeds. We were scared since our bikes were travelling at 90 KMPH. Since it ran opposite to us, it happened too quickly. But thankfully, one of us had been filming at that time. Look at the video. It was scary. We don't dare race during the night after this.]

Compass Carburettor clicked on the video that had been attached to the post. It was a video spanning a length of 30 seconds. And for the first 25 seconds, it was just the scene of the people riding their bikes.

There were two bikes in the frame, proceeding one behind the other. The one filming was seated at the backseat of the second bike, currently focusing out.

It seemed he had whipped out his phone just to capture the taunting they were throwing at each other while racing. But suddenly, there was a brown coloured blur in the video. It lasted for less than a second as there were sounds of shock by the people in the video.

But there wasn't anything beyond that as Compass Carburettor frowned, 'There isn't anything of detail here. The video itself has a very low clarity, not to mention the shaky cam. All I can see is a brown blur.'

He then paused the video at the exact moment when the blur happened, noticing that the trail of brown seemed to resemble a…dog?

But, he wasn't sure yet, since the video quality was subpar enough for him to make out anything. Sighing, he acted as if he was curious about it, beginning to search related to that on the internet.

Soon, he pulled up similar videos and images. But, as most of them had happened on the night and those involved in the scene had only been filming casually with their phones, the video was subpar at best.

After all, the technological development meant the phone cameras didn't have much quality, at least in the hands of the common populace that had encountered such incidents.

'But, it is apparent that something is happening.' Compass Carburettor nodded, trying to further understand just what this apocalypse was about, 'Are all the animals mutating? Is that how it goes?'

'At first, there would only be a rare few cases, but eventually, every single animal would mutate into fearsome creatures.' He then frowned, 'But, that actually won't be dangerous enough. Since this world's development is similar to Earth from the early 2000s, it means there should be countries with nukes.'

'It is not to mention the powerful firearms under the military. No matter how fearsome the animals mutate, once their threat is determined, they would simply be crushed. It won't be an apocalypse.'

He then recalled the Coincidental Luck System's words, 'It said the apocalypse is nature related. So, what about happen?'

He continued to search through the internet but failed to find anything concrete. All he found related to concerns about nature was global warming and similar articles.

'It would have been better to be dropped here when the apocalypse starts in full swing.' He sighed, shaking his head to think, 'No, this actually gives me time to prepare.'

He continued to stare at the monitor while thinking, 'Now, how should I spread Secret Society here?'

He was averse to the notion because of one reason: There were too many Systems in this world.

So, if he was careless, a System Host might come across a member. There was a good chance any information withheld by them could get leaked. The nature of Secret Society implies that everything related to it would be secretive.

But, it wasn't a guarantee that it would remain as such. After all, the Coincidental Luck System had addressed him as Secret Society and not as Compass Carburettor. Just that alone was enough proof that his Personal Fragment's effect wasn't foolproof.

There could be a System with an ability capable of piercing through the Secret Society's defence and infiltrate as one of the members. Or even worse, override the curse and make a member act as a spy and leak out all secrets exchanged through their network.

Had it been just one System, he could have tried some means to probe its ability first. After all, a System Host would never remain low profile. So, based on their actions, a general conclusion can be deduced about his/her System's Core Skill.

With that, he could remain assured about spreading Secret Society.

But when many Systems were running about, carelessly spreading around Secret Society would comprise his situation. That was the reason he had been averse and hesitant all along.

Otherwise, using Slave Harem, it would have been easy.

'I should only use Slave Harem strategically. Only on members that would help me survive this apocalypse and hunt the Systems.' He concluded, continuing to surf through the internet for any other information.

He was trying to use various keywords that might unearth any useful information.