Investing in My Harem in the Apocalypse Makes Me Stronger
Chapter 4: Investment Harem System

Chapter 4: Investment Harem System

Cain recognized him.

"Oh, it’s you, Jack."

The muscular student looked over.

"Cain?"

Cain stepped around one of the corpses.

"At least someone in this dorm came to his senses."

He inspected Jack’s blood-covered fists.

"You’re not at the gym training your boxing?"

Jack shook his head.

"Nah."

He looked down at the dead zombies.

"Today was supposed to be my rest day. I didn’t have classes, so I planned to bed rotting until evening."

Jack kicked one of the corpses.

"But these ugly bastards kept disturbing my peace."

Cain glanced at the broken door.

Rather than hiding, Jack had apparently beaten every zombie on the floor to death with his bare hands.

Jack frowned and asked, "Also, what the fuck happened?"

"I have no idea."

Jack opened and closed one blood-covered hand.

"I suddenly got some kind of skill. Then I walked outside and found people eating each other."

His expression became slightly darker.

"I punched a hole in one of them, but the bastard kept charging at me."

Jack pointed toward a corpse whose chest had collapsed inward.

"I broke its ribs, its arm, and one of its legs. It still tried to crawl over and bite me."

"So I blew its head apart."

Cain looked at the blood covering the nearby wall.

"That explains the decoration."

Jack ignored the remark as he continued, "After that, I aimed for their heads."

"I don’t know exactly what happened either," Cain said. "But most people have become zombies, and the infection seems to spread when someone gets bit—"

Cain stopped as Franz’s face flashed through his mind.

He immediately looked at the blood covering Jack’s hands and clothes.

"Wait."

Cain drew his dagger and raised it.

"You weren’t bitten, were you?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Jack frowned as he walked slowly toward Cain.

Cain shifted into a fighting stance.

"I’m serious. Were you bitten?" He asked with a solemn expression.

Jack stopped.

Cain tightened his grip on the dagger.

"Because if you were, you’d become one of them."

The atmosphere in the corridor changed.

Jack looked at Cain’s weapon, then at his face.

"No. This isn’t my blood." He raised both hands.

Cain’s eyes remained cold.

"Show me."

Jack clicked his tongue but wiped both hands against the bottom of his shirt.

The skin beneath the blood was bruised and split around the knuckles, but there were no bite marks.

He pulled up his sleeves and turned around, allowing Cain to inspect his arms, neck, and shoulders.

"Happy now?"

Cain lowered the dagger.

"Good."

"You thought I was going to become one of them?"

"It happens quickly."

Cain returned the dagger to his side.

"One of the students ran into the bathroom asking me for help. He spoke normally, but a few seconds later, he tried to bite me from behind."

Jack glanced at the corpses.

"I’ll remember that."

"Change your clothes and pack anything useful," Cain said. "We’re leaving this building soon."

"We?"

"I found several survivors. My roommate is clearing the lower floors."

Jack looked surprised.

"You’re gathering people?"

"More people means more fighters, more supplies, which means that we will have a higher chance of surviving this Apocalypse."

Cain headed back toward the stairwell and said, "Meet us on the first floor when you’re ready."

Jack looked at his room.

"Give me two minutes."

Cain quickly went to the third floor, then brought the others to the first floor as he could tell that Ron had swept the second floor and should already be on the first floor.

As they approached the first floor, Cain heard someone breathing heavily.

He pushed open the door and saw Ron stood near the dormitory entrance with both hands resting on his knees.

Sweat poured from his forehead. His shirt had been torn near the shoulder, and blood covered the point of his javelin.

"There you are, Ron!"

Cain raised one hand.

Ron looked up, his expression immediately became murderous.

Cain approached with a faint smile.

"Why are you out of breath already?"

Ron stared at him in disbelief.

"Haah... Haah..."

He straightened his body and pointed toward the entrance.

"You bastard!"

Dozens of zombie corpses lay across the lobby and the area outside the dormitory doors.

Some had been stabbed through the head with the javelin. Others had fallen on top of one another, creating a bloody pile near the entrance.

Cain looked at the bodies and thought that his friend seemed to have been busy.

"Why the fuck did you shout like that?" Ron demanded. "Did you not think the zombies nearby would hear you?"

He pointed at the corpses again.

"Look at what you’ve done!"

Cain finally understood.

His voice from the third floor had probably even reached outside from the broken windows and somehow attracted the zombies wandering outside the building.

"At this rate, I’ll get killed by you instead of those ugly things." Ron complained.

Cain shrugged nonchalantly. "That’s good, no? This way, you’ll level up quickly."

"Y-You..."

Ron appeared unable to find the proper words.

In the end, he decided that arguing with Cain would only waste his remaining energy.

He grabbed a bottle of water from the floor, removed the cap, and drank several large mouthfuls.

Cain looked around the lobby. "How many people did you find?"

Ron lowered the bottle.

"Only five."

His expression became more serious. "Everyone else on the lower floors either disappeared or turned into zombies."

"Where are the five?"

"The women’s bathroom."

Cain nodded. "Good."

He turned toward one of the women he had rescued from the third floor. "Go call them."

Cain looked toward the dormitory entrance before tightening the strap of his backpack.

"Tell them to come out quickly. We’re moving now."

At this time, he heard a notification from the system.

[Ding! Investment Harem System has been successfully activated!]

Cain’s eyes lit up when he saw that he obtained something that sounds interesting.

He noticed this but he ignored it since it was still in the process and he couldn’t do anything to it at all.

Without further ado, he quickly checked what the Investment Harem System was all about.

Cain silently read through the information sent directly into his mind.

The Investment Harem System allowed him to spend System Points to strengthen another person’s traits, whether it was skill, element, or even talents.

Cain’s eyes immediately lit up.

He had already witnessed how powerful Talents and Skills could be.

His Piercing Momentum was only S-rank, yet it could greatly amplify anything he threw. Ruin Dragon Force was even more ridiculous. It allowed him to borrow the power of the Primordial Chaos Dragon despite being low-level.

If he could directly increase the rank of a Talent, then he could turn an average person into someone truly powerful.

Unfortunately, the following information quickly ruined his excitement.

[The Host cannot invest in himself.]

[Only women possessing sufficiently high Favorability toward the Host may become eligible investment targets.]

Cain’s face darkened.

"What the fuck?"

He looked at the System panel as if it had personally offended him.

Cain had already opened his mouth and was ready to curse the system, but stopped when another stream of information entered his mind.

[The Host will receive Investment Rewards after making significant investments in eligible targets.]

[Significant actions include rescuing an eligible target from danger, assisting her growth, increasing the rank of her traits, providing valuable resources, helping her accomplish a meaningful goal, etc.]

[The value of the reward will depend on the target, the investment, and its importance to her.]

Cain immediately closed his mouth.

The curse he had been about to release vanished.

He reread the information more carefully.

"So I strengthen them, and I receive rewards?"

The more he thought about it, the better it sounded.

Cain could not invest directly in himself, but the System would reward him whenever he helped an eligible woman grow stronger.

That meant the System had not truly prevented him from benefiting, it had merely added an extra step.

Cain rubbed his chin. "That’s actually not bad."

He was also given an important function—Inventory.

Inventory was a private space where he could place nonliving objects. Its current capacity was as big as 1 meter cubic, but he could expand it by spending System Points.

Cain focused on the dagger at his waist.

The weapon disappeared instantly.

When he thought about retrieving it, the dagger returned to his hand.

Cain repeated the process twice before nodding in satisfaction.

The Inventory alone would be extremely useful.

He would no longer need to carry every weapon and valuable object inside a backpack. More importantly, nobody could steal anything stored inside it.

As for obtaining System Points, the available method was to kill any living beings, whether it was zombies, monsters, or even humans.

Cain stared at the words for a moment.

He did not feel particularly disturbed as the world outside had already become a slaughterhouse.

If killing zombies and mutated creatures allowed him to survive while strengthening the people around him, then there was no reason to hesitate.

He closed the panels when he heard footsteps coming from the stairwell.

Jack soon walked into the lobby wearing a clean black shirt and dark university track pants. A large backpack hung over one shoulder, while strips of cloth had been wrapped around his damaged knuckles.

His previous clothes had been completely covered in zombie blood, so changing had been the correct choice.

"You’re finally here," Cain said.

Jack looked around the lobby.

His gaze passed over the survivors gathered near the bathrooms before settling on the large pile of corpses beside the entrance.

"What the hell happened here?"

Ron was still drinking water.

He lowered the bottle and pointed at Cain.

"Ask that bastard."

Cain ignored him as he opened the long equipment bag that Ron had brought downstairs.

Five usable javelins remained inside.

Cain removed them one by one before distributing them among five of the strongest students they had rescued.

Most of them had never thrown a javelin properly, but that did not matter.

They could still use the weapons as spears.

A sharp metal point attached to a long shaft was far safer than fighting with a chair leg or kitchen knife.

Jack did not receive one.

Cain doubted Jack would use it even if offered. The muscular young man had already killed a lot of zombies with his fists and seemed far more comfortable fighting at close range.

Cain stood in front of everyone.

"We’re leaving this dormitory."

Several survivors immediately looked uneasy.

One of the women asked, "Where are we going?"

"The fencing club’s training hall."

Cain explained that they should gather more talented people and the people there were one of the best choices when talking about talents in the current situation.

Well, the true reason he wanted to go there was to save Elara as she was one of his closest childhood friends.