Sergei was gloomy when he woke up in the evening. The very drunk residents woke him up from his slumber a few times with weird drunk accusations. Sylvie and Kathrine brought out some guitars from the warehouse and played and sang songs very loudly, but considering their condition they were just howling like cats in heat.
"Having a rest?" Sergei stood over the brothers' bodies. These brats managed to get drunk even when they weren't allowed to.
*splash* A bucket of cold spring water woke the young drunkards up immediately.
(fr) "WHAT?!" Gautier sprang up. "Bo… boss?!"
"No, I'm your evil twin from the future. Of course it's your boss! Get your butts up and go wake up other alcoholics. Gather near the campfire in half an hour." The man said with a smirk, eyeing their puffy faces.
The brothers nodded and ran to wake people up but it wasn't long before Gai came running back.
"Boss, can we wake people like you, if they not be waking up?"
"Yes," he answered and handed the teen a bucket. Before long, the camp was filled with squeals and curses… And after half an hour all the residents gathered near the campfire, where Sergei was brewing a very strong coffee.
"Hm, good job!" The man gave Gai a thumbs up, praising the little pervert.
Some girls who were particularly drunk and refused to wake up were splashed with cold water. Thankfully, despite it being evening, it was warm outside, especially near the campfire.
The kid got praised my male populace for an excellent view - particularly, for a wonderful view of Melanya and Martha. The first one was the owner of DD cup breasts while the second could boast a D cup. It was almost impossible to find the right sized bras for them, therefore a magnificent view could be seen through their wet shirts.
Aside from those two, Natasha, Kathrine and Sylvie got splashed as well. Others either didn't drink at all or could hold their liquor. Or like Alice, knew their limits.
"Help yourselves to some coffee, and here are some sweets as well."
"You're so kind, Boss." Martha said taking a sip of her coffee and sighing in pleasure.
"Almost." Boss replied confusing the girl. He took a sip from his cup of coffee, put the cup on the table and gave her a creepy smile. "Have you forgotten that we have an important business?"
"Business?"
"The potatoes are about to ripen in an hour and a half!"
Melanya dropped her candy from shock and looked at the fields - the crops were almost ready to harvest!
"But, Boss…"
"They will rot in half a day, we don't have a choice. Drink your coffee, come alive and get to work. But so be it, you can sow another batch in the morning."
"Really?" Anne immediately brightened up.
"Yes."
"You're the best, Boss!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Now drink your coffee."
Soon a slightly more alive crowd headed to the fields, the big boss decided to help as well and discovered an interesting fact. Now he understood why the little perverts loved to plant potatoes so much.
The weather in the haven was always of a comfortable temperature so the girls dressed in light clothes and now all of the male population saw a ravishing sight of a two dozens of beautiful women and Alice digging out and collecting potatoes.
They bent and stooped in different poses while their wide necklines and still wet clothes almost paralyzed the teens' work. In order to hide their boners, the brothers were forced to move close behind each other while they were collecting the crops, which amused Sergei to no end.
After harvesting almost 5 tons of potatoes everyone was bone tired and after washing themselves (the female part of population as usual) everyone went to sleep.
"I need to enlarge the public bathrooms…" Sergei thought, while soaking in a cool pond, because the girls smartly occupied women's and men's bathrooms yet again.
The morning greeted everyone with the fields completely overgrown with weeds - some of which were almost a meter in height… Most people lost their appetite from what they saw and the breakfast went in a depressing mood.
"The corn will ripen today - anyone knows how to cook it?" Boss asked interrupting the silence.
"I can boil it and also know a few other recipes but they require other ingredients as well." Alice replied.
"Anyone else? No? Alright, then we are having some boiled corn for dinner."
Sergei didn't go outside after breakfast - his wounds restricted his movements so it was wise to stay out of battles for a while.
***
"Well… And what am I doing here?" Sergei asked himself, upon noticing that he was standing in the middle of the warehouse. "My memory's playing tricks again…"
He suffered from severe headaches ever since he woke up in the pod. But sometimes he would just completely lose memories of last couple of minutes - sometimes even an hour or more. The medicine helped with the pain but the memory losses still happened… It wasn't the first time Sergei forgot where he was, how he got there and more importantly why he was there? For example, he went to drink some water and suddenly forgot where he was going and why…
"Maybe I should try my luck with skills…" Sergei thought about Professor Curie's words. If he was lucky, one of his people would get the skill that could cure him, but Sergei knew that it wouldn't be that easy. When even the miraculous spring water wasn't helping…
"System, can I be cured?"
YES
"You won't tell me how to do it, will you?"
YES
"But for a huge thanks?"
NO
"You're heartless…"
The man exited the warehouse and headed to the fields where everyone was hard at work. The most part of the fields was cleared of weeds and being planted with potatoes.
The corn was almost ripe and looked incredible. The cobs were pretty big, but most importantly, there were four to six of them on each stalk! The stalk itself was pretty powerful as well. Even though he's never seen how the corn ripened, he was sure those stalks were not supposed to be so powerful. Leaving the mundane business to the "slaves", the man headed to the laptop.
"What's the situation?"
"It be quiet, Boss. The street be quiet too, I not notice something suspicious."
"Yeah? Hm, do you want to go on a hunt?" With a nasty smirk plastered on his face, he pointed his finger at the monitor. "Look, right there, one of them is wandering around all alone. Just asking to be taken down, become free of the coins and thrown into the pit."
"I be shooting arrow?" Gai asked cautiously.
"No, you'll be shooting from a slingshot with potatoes instead of bullets." The man replied with a serious expression. "Don't ask stupid questions. You think I'll trust you with my gun? The bullets are expensive, you know, but the arrows aren't, even Sylvie can create them."
"Now, find someone who can take your place. Someone should be watching our surroundings. Be responsible about it. It takes me only a moment to get back to haven… But whether I would be able to take you with me… It depends on the "dispatcher"." Sergei shamelessly delegated such an important and responsible task to the teen. He already thought about involving him into the hunt, but couldn't decide who to pick to take his place behind the camera…
"Annette…" the teen mumbled.
"You sure? I know you like her, but aren't you scared that she'll make a mistake and we both die?" Asked Sergei, who suddenly became serious.
"Boss! You understand me wrong! Annette be streamer in past and she be good gamer. She notice many detail and think quick." Gai started justifying his choice with a blush.
"Hm, yeah, I remember something like that… Okay, you have a green light, mister lady's man." Sergei laughed which made the teen blush even more.
Gai ran away and the man started changing into his system gear.
"Boss! Is it true? You really want me to be watching the real world?" He heard Annette's happy voice the second he took off his pants.
"Oh…" The girl saw Sergei standing there in his red boxer briefs and didn't know how to react.
"Only when he's accompanying me." The man calmly pointed at Gai and continued getting changed.
"I agree, Boss!"
"Of course you do, as far as I know you're completely useless in the fields, even Natasha works better than you." Sergei stated sarcastically, observing the embarrassed girl. "Anyways, don't take it personally, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses." Sergei waved his hand (he had no idea why he kept doing that all the time) and a system message appeared in front of the girl's eyes.
YOU WERE ASSIGNED TO A NEW POSITION "SLAVE BEHIND THE CAMERA".
AS A "SLAVE BEHIND THE CAMERA", YOU ARE BEING GRANTED THE RIGHT TO USE THE "CAMERA" APP, BUT YOU CAN USE IT ONLY WITH YOUR BOSS' PERMISSION.
"A slave???"
"Gai, you are a "slave" with experience, show her how the program works."
"Yes, Boss!"
Annette's gaze instantly became more serious and extremely focused as soon as she got behind the computer and touched the mouse, there were no traces of her usual playfulness left behind. She turned out to be very intelligent and got the hang of the program rather quickly. She quickly examined the surroundings within the range of the camera, occasionally changing the modes to night vision and thermal imager.
"Boss, I've found a secret stash! Here, look!" The girl exclaimed happily. There was a stash hidden in the wall shown on the monitor and it was filled with… a lot of stuff!
"Excellent job! Let's see what's inside." Sergei returned to the real world and approached the stash. It was located in one of the rooms that belonged to old cannibals. There was some food (somewhere around fifty kilos), two guns and a whole box full of 9mm bullets!
"Great job, Annette!" The boss was happy, Gai not so much.
"Don't be offended. It's obvious that she's interested in you. She's testing the waters, so to speak. You need to understand that women need men that can protect them. Can you protect her?" Sergei took the teen to the side and asked him a question.
"I…"
"…*sigh* Come, kill a few zombies and show her how much of a cool man you are." Boss summoned the system equipment from the warehouse. "Here, get changed. And here's your headset. Wait, where are you going?"
"But Annette's here…"
"Are you shy?" Sergei asked and looked at the girl behind the laptop who kept throwing glances at them every now and then. "Alright, but be quick about it!"
Gai ran away to get changed into the system gear and returned literally three minutes later.
"Not bad." Annette nodded taking her eyes off the monitor.
(rus) "What does she see in him? I don't understand this generation…" Sergei thought out loud, looking at the teen. Gai was of medium height and skinny. He was now dressed in a system gear which was made of black leather - but even with it he didn't start looking manlier…
"Boss?" Gai asked.
"Nothing. Let's go. Annette, is everything clear at the entrance point?"
"Yes, Boss, I checked five times. There are three lone zombies wandering outside and that's it." The girl responded, without taking her eyes off the monitor.
"Good girl."
Sergei put his hand on Gai's shoulder and both of them teleported to the real world.
"Don't be so nervous, just aim and kill it." Sergei pointed at a chubby zombie who decided to turn its attention towards two humans. "Don't be scared, the girl of your dreams is watching you!"
"Yes, Boss!" The teen took a deep breath and grabbed an arrow. One second and it was sent flying through the air. The chubby zombie was only able to take one more step forward before it fell with a thud - the arrow pierced its left eye killing it instantaneously. "I do it!"
"Yeah, yeah. You're awesome, blah blah blah. Go collect your reward and don't forget an arrow! Annette, report."
"Everything's clear, Boss, but you need to go further for me to examine the nearby buildings." Immediately came the girl's reply. Sergei liked the way she reported back, fast and clear. Without mumbling or doing dumb things, like Gai.
"Copy that. If you see anything interesting or dangerous, report immediately."
"Copy."
Soon Gai finished off two remaining zombies and Sergei walked further along the street, he wanted to reach the sewers near Hubert's camp.
"Boss, they not be so scary!" Said the happy teen, whose self-esteem skyrocketed in last couple of minutes.
"Of course, they are not scary from a twenty meters distance, from ten meters they are a little bit scary, from five meters they are creepy and from half a meter you'll shit your pants from terror!" Gai's fighting spirit evaporated immediately after those words.
"Ha-ha-ha, the only thing you should do is to always be minimum twenty meters away and that's it! Alright, let's continue our journey, you'll reach second level soon so let's go kill a couple more zombies."
"Yes, Boss…"
"Boss! Stop!" They heard Annette's voice. "There's a giant zombie hiding in the building twenty meters from you."
"Copy that. Is it alone?" Sergei asked freezing in place.
"No, there are four regular zombies with it. It looks like they are in ambush…"
"Zombies in ambush? Interesting."
"Boss! You really want kill mutant?!" Gai started shaking in terror from a sheer thought of having to face a mutant.
"Don't be so scared, it's pretty slow. We need to test if it's possible to kill it with an arrow and if it is, then we won't need to be scared of those bastards anymore!" Sergei replied and summoned an assault rifle. Which surprised the guy.
"What? You think I'm going to encounter that two-meters tall creature in close combat? Do you remember that I'm still wounded?"
"No, Boss…"
"Stay here, I'll go and lure our new friends out."
The "wounded" man went on ahead without showing that he knew about the ambush.
Bang! The wooden door broke and flew off its hinges and a huge two-meters tall mutant jumped out of the building. To be more precise, it was two meters and a quarter tall. Next to show up were four regular zombies who immediately rushed towards the human.
"Gai, those weaklings are yours, I'll distract the big guy. Hey, you, do you want me to turn you into a typical Skyrim guard?" Sergei shouted and shot an automatic burst through the big guy's knee.
"AARRRGGGHH!" The mutant fell with a furious roar, but instantly tried to get up. At this moment an arrow pierced through one of the regular zombie's head and Gai was already aiming at the next one.
"I didn't expect it to be this easy…" Sergei led the rest of the regular ones away from the mutant and finished off two of them, the fourth one was killed with an arrow.
"Rrraaahhhrr!" The mutant roared trying to get up, but when it realized that it couldn't, it started crawling, and successfully so! It was very good at it.
"Kill it! If you can't do it, I'll finish it off with my rifle, but in that case we will lose the reward and I will make you work it off!"
"But, Boss!…" Gai paled and released an arrow that pierced the giant's elbow, which made it momentarily lose the ability to crawl, but soon it started moving once again. The arrow wasn't able to crush its bones.
"Shoot it in the head, you dumbass! Or shoot it in its eye or ear, what's even better!" Taking advantage of the mutant's halt, Sergei leaped aside and walked around it, forcing the mutant to turn around rather clumsily.
"You're a bit clumsy, aren't you?" Sergei gave it a nasty smirk: they didn't look so scary to him anymore. Especially when you turn them into "Skyrim guards"… The guns weren't really effective against the big mutants, but the rifle - that's a different story! It easily pierced their hides and bones, but there weren't many bullets left…
"I should go to the Louvre, buy some bullets," Sergei thought out loud and the next moment an arrow pierced the giant's head, which made it roar in anger and start crawling towards Gai.
"Pull the string harder! It wasn't powerful enough! Motherfucker! Where are you running?! Shoot it again - it won't catch you, it's too slow, dammit!"
With some difficulty, but Gai finally managed to kill the giant off. However, he had to listen to a lot of curses in his address during the process. He didn't understand half of them, though, as they were in Russian…
"How many XP did you get?"
"Fourteen." Came the teen's instant reply.
"The thirty percent was reduced because someone else helped you… a bit too much. Alright, have you reached the third level?"
"Yes."
"Split the points equally and put them into strength and dexterity. If you become stronger you'll be able to pull the string harder and kill a giant with a single shot."
"Why dexterity then?"
"Are you stupid or are you pretending? You will be able to ran faster and be precise… accurate…Ugh… You'll be a better shot, okay? Now give me the reward!"
"Huh? Yes, Boss…" Gai handed him six coins and a green egg.
"The egg!" The man was ready to devour it, the chocolate was so tasty. It was the best chocolate he ever had in his life! And it wasn't particularly easy to find the chocolate in the apocalyptic Paris…
"Here, give it to Annette when we get back, but for now let's move on." Sergei handed the egg back to Gai.
"Thanks, Boss!" Gai was touched by this gesture and followed his boss with a huge smile on his face.
It turned out that the giants body gave him only 10 points of biomatter, which was unfair in Sergei's opinion - but as an answer for his complains he only received more trolling from the system.
***
"It be little empty, Boss." Noticed Captain Obvious. They didn't encounter any zombies in the five minutes walk.
"When the horde moves, it gathers all wandering zombies. The ones trapped inside the buildings are still there, aren't they, Annette?"
"Yes, Boss. There's a blue colored building ahead and I see several of them through the windows. I'll be able to give more accurate information if you upgrade the camera once again."
"I'd love to, but it's the highest level available right now. Although… The haven leveled up yesterday, I need to go through the rewards and see if something new appeared in the store."
"Boss! There's a family hiding in the basement of a building on your left and they look severely exhausted. The big group of zombies are standing in front of the door to the basement." They heard Annette's worried voice.
"You're asking me to risk my life to save some strangers?"
"I…"
"Gai can't use his bow inside. And I don't really want to face the group alone."
"I understand…" Annette sounded upset, Gai too was sad.
"Kids… Ah, Annette, I need the full analysis of the building."
"Yes, Boss!" The girl swiftly examined all of the rooms in the building.
"I report, nine zombies near the entrance of the basement, seven more are locked in different apartments. The building is looted but only the bare necessities are taken, there's still a lot of loot left. The man in the basement is clearly military, he's wearing a military uniform and he has a FAMAS (an assault rifle) by his side. His wife and two little kids are with him, all of them extremely malnourished."
"Military you say… Well, it's worth a try. Kid, go back - I'll handle this myself."
Sergei touched the teen and he instantly appeared in the haven. Then a gun and a sword appeared in Sergei's each hand.