With the family secured, everyone took a break for the day and decided to rest at the house, since there were relatively few zombies and the house itself had good defences.
"Alright listen up! Sean will be my second in command and will take charge of the entire group while I am not there. Is that understood?"
"Yes Sir!"
"Good! Now, everyone will form groups of 8, whose members will select one leader for that group. One of the groups will naturally have Sean as their leader. You have 60 seconds to choose your groups and choose a leader. The remaining three will be with me. Got it? Go!"
…
"Okay, now all the leader step forward and announce yourselves for me!"
"Sir! I am the leader of group 1, and my name is Tom, Sir!"
"I am John, Sir! The leader of group 2"
"My name is William, leader of group 3, Sir."
"Sir, I am Sean, leader of group 4."
"Good, now, this is how it will be. It I currently 1700 hrs, and there are 12 hours before we leave at 0500 hrs. Starting now, group 1 will take watch over the entire exterior perimeter of the house for 3 hours till 2000 hrs. Group 2 will also be on standby during this time, while groups 3 and 4 will get some shut eye. When the 3 hours are up, Group 2 will take over group 1's positions before group 1 gets some rest. Remember that before group 1 goes to sleep, they have to wake up all 10 members of group 3 to remain on standby.
This will repeat until we reach group 4's turn to keep watch, at which point group 3 will need to wake up group 1 to be on standby. When it becomes 0500 hrs, I want every living person back in this yard, ready to move out. The rest is up to you. Remember to lock all the vehicles and bring the keys with you and give them to me. NOW!"
With this, everyone was moving frantically across the lawn and inside the house. Soon, Merlin had 10 keys in my hand, but one of them was missing the spare manual key.
Frowning, he said, "Whose key is this?"
But there was no response. But then, Merlin's inhuman senses heard the door to a car being opened. Realising what might have happened, he ran with all his might towards the car, leaving only an after-image, and a stunned group of police officers.
"Hey are you sure this is safe? We already know that the boss is really strong. What if he finds out?"
"Shush! If we be quiet and run away with all this food and ammunitions, we can just chill for a while, without having to follow that devil boss's commands like dogs"
"Is that so?"
A chill ran up the group's spine as they heard those words. Just by hearing it, they knew whose voice it was. Looking up, they saw that the 18 year old face, matched with an extremely well-built body, was staring right at them with a cold expression.
Hearing the conversation between the two idiots, Merlin knew what they were trying to do. He unconsciously began emanating his formidable mana, which created intense pressure on everyone in the lawn, making them all unable to move.
Everyone was terrified, most of all the two who were being stared at by Merlin.
Merlin reached out for his phone and called up Alex.
"Hello, Alex? Tell your parents, to look away from the lawn for some time."
"O-Ok"
*Beep*
Closing the call, Merlin picked up the two by their necks and stated loudly, as the two struggled to breath.
"This is what happens to those who disobey my orders"
Everyone's complexion grew increasing pale as time went by and the struggles of the two reduced and their cursing grew quiet. Their bodies were frozen as they stared at the two slowly loose energy, and finally fall limp.
Merlin then moved to break their necks with a little movement from his wrist, before disposing of their bodies two blacks away just by throwing them.
By now, Merlin had controlled his mana and had calmed down. However, no one could move. They were frozen with fear. The 17 year old ordering them around wasn't only overwhelmingly strong, put his personality was too ruthless. He not only killed zombies without becoming tired, he also could kill perfectly healthy humans, without a hint of hesitation. This was too ruthless.
Even the group 11 that were tied up were terrified. The truck they were kept in had an opening, from which they saw the whole scene take place. How could such a young man be this cold-blooded?
The only reason Merlin had kept them live was the fact that they hadn't harmed anyone, and were in fact only looking for supplies. They were also astonishingly well-built, to the point that Merlin suspected that they were football players, along with the fact that they were wearing that gear as armour.
He thought he could have used them for something, along with the fact that one of them had hints of mana on his body. Maybe he was a pre-awakened, since he didn't have any floating sign on his head.
What was a pre-awakened? It was what one would have called mutants in the normal world. They were evolved, deformed, or trained humans. Some had tougher skin, some were faster, some had abilities like foresight. Some, like the cultivators in the eastern fantasy novels, had trained their own form of mana before the system came about.
They were instantly advanced to a tier 1 human. However, due to their rigid training techniques, they never advance much further and were all slowly killed by the increasing strength of the enemies.
"So, you are all finally awake?" Said Merlin after making everyone return to their tasks.