"Where did we get the bread?" Sergei asked suddenly. He took the sandwiches for granted while he was drinking his coffee, but as soon as his brain started working again, he had an epiphany like a bolt out of the blue.
"I organized people and they ground some wholegrain flour, we conveniently had some few hundred bored people. So I tasked them with sorting out the wheat and grinding flour," replied the smiling girl.
"Great job, Alice! From now on, you will be my designated deputy." Sergei loved enterprising people who understood what their boss wanted of them. Especially those, who knew what their boss wanted, without him even knowing what he wanted himself…
"Thank you, boss!" Alice was really happy because she finally managed to get official recognition and prove her worth. As long as she works hard, she and her son will be safe.
"Alright, I had my rest - now we can get back to work. How our chicks are doing? And I mean the birds," the boss clarified with a laugh, looking at Anne who stood not too far away. She was covered in bandaids, there were a few feathers stuck in her hair and, overall, the girl didn't look good.
"Well…" Alice understood what he was talking about after following his gaze and clarified. "The birds turned out to be very stubborn, especially the rooster… The girls tried to feed them, but the rooster didn't let anyone near the hen and pecked anyone who tried… Anne suffered the most, but it was mostly her own fault."
"Who would have thought… Where are the birds now?"
"They escaped into the rabbits pen."
"Rabbits??? They are gonna eat them!" Sergei sprang up and was about to run off, when Alice stopped him.
"No no, it's okay, the rooster scared the hell out of rabbits and became their leader…"
"A rooster? Leader of rabbits? Well, I've seen enough weird shit in the last two days, let's go and take a look then…"
Upon reaching the rabbit enclosure, the boss saw more than a hundred rabbits. Many of them were large and well-fed, but they were still not big enough to be slaughtered for meat. A huge nest made out of straw was located in the center of the enclosure and occupied by the rooster and his hen. The rooster looked proud and domineering - the rabbits lowered their ears and slowed down every time they walked by. Some of them brought food to their new masters and quickly ran away.
"Where did the nest came from?"
"The rabbits built it," Alice replied with an awkward smile. She then looked at the majestic nest and said: "The hen already laid her first egg, by the way."
"Really? I thought they'll become stressed and stop laying eggs," the man said looking at the two happy birds that were cozily sitting in the nest. The hen was clucking something, while the rooster looked menacingly at anyone who dared to come closer.
"They were quite stressed at first, but then relaxed the moment they ended up inside the rabbit pen."
"Oh well. What is the situation with the fields?"
"The crops were harvested in record time. We have too many unoccupied people, so I'm doing my best to come up with jobs for them…"
"Got it. I think I'm going to increase the number of fields and enlarge the rabbit enclosure in the morning. Let's leave the birds alone for now. And, another thing - how are the newcomers doing? Any problems?"
"There were a few fights, but Solomon has already dealt with them."
"Did he have any requests?"
"Well, he mentioned that the guards could use their own building, along with a prison and a detention facility. But he also said that we can do without it for a while."
"Okay. Tell Solomon, Regina, Professor and Louis to come to me after the breakfast. You can also invite Orianne and Natasha. We need to start designing the haven. We should have enough money by now for housing construction - however we won't have enough for the remaining infrastructure, but the housing is our priority right now."
"Understood," the girl nodded and ran to fulfill the order.
After giving out the final instructions, Sergei finally reached his home. He rested for ten minutes, before forcing himself to get up and take care of business. First, he needed to deal with the loot. The loot that they received for cleaning up the battlefield after the military's attempt to break into the city, along with what Sergei collected in the laboratory, consisted of 24 white, 3 green and 1 blue eggs.
The boss crossed three times and started with the white ones. He wasn't a gambling type and didn't like to push his luck - that's not to say that he was luckless, but he wasn't really fortunate either.
"The first one, *sigh*… Good luck to me! A level 2 sword - well, not bad. A bat, a bat, an empty one… Empty, empty, empty! Fuck!" Sergei never took well to failing in testing his luck… He concluded that fortune wasn't on his side, so he put the rewards aside for later and went to dinner. But the mood was already spoiled.
The dinner was quiet: the boss didn't want to do anything so he rescheduled all his work for the next morning. After thoroughly filling his stomach he headed back to his house, intending to just lie down and do nothing. But doing nothing was boring so he decided to read a book, and ended up falling asleep while doing that…
Knock-knock-knock - someone knocked on the door.
The knocking sound woke up the peacefully sleeping boss, who got up while holding his tongue and doing his best not to swear out loud and stumbled to the door, only to find Alice dressed in her nightgown. Sergei was still half asleep, so before he could react, the girl walked inside and silently closed the door. Feeling a bit embarrassed, Alice undressed, laid down on the bed and covered herself with a blanket and all that while sending playful looks at her boss.
The boss's "second brain" got activated and he was instantly wide awake. After taking away the blanket, Sergei gave himself a few moments to admire the girl, before releasing his "inner beast".
Alice understood him like no other and knew when he needed to relieve the stress, that's why he had great respect for her.
****
In the morning, Alice "woke up" her boss as per usual and ran away to cook breakfast, thankfully nowadays she was assisted by Solomon's wife, Giselle. She made a quick recovery and now, instead of a skeleton-like creature, she resembled a skinny woman in the beginning of her thirties. The women seemed to hit it off and soon became friends.
For breakfast they had pies filled with potatoes and veggies. They also had some scones with jam, which were a little dry but very delicious. They actually had tons of jam with a shelf life for another year and a half, which they got after robbing the blue heads' storages. It was a rather delicious jam, if you ignored a slew of preservatives.
The breakfast was pretty peaceful. Many were still half-asleep, aside from a very energetic Anne, who as usual was very talkative and cheerful. Her victims this time were Kathrine, who has been very quiet lately, and Annette. Usually the girls, along with the rest of the residents, talked to each other in French, they were used to it, plus Sergei never really cared about their chatter.
"The pies are really delicious, but they would've been even better if they had some meat in them," the boss commented, while devouring the sixth pie.
"I'd sell my soul for meat… I feel like a vegetarian," Zoe added and finished her third pieq.
"But you're the one who eats spam the most!" Anne retorted.
"It's not the same…"
"It's okay, the rabbits are almost fully grown now. We do have a butcher, right, Alice?"
"We do, boss, even two of them actually. More exactly, one of them is a professional butcher, and the other is an avid hunter," the girl answered.
"Good, we need them to teach others. Some will gut the carcasses, the others - process the skin. Everyone wants a rabbit fur coat, right?" The boss asked, giving them a closer look.
"Yes!" Anne shouted. Then she added after a short pause: "But I don't want the rabbits to suffer…"
"Well, they were created for us to eat, whether you like it or not. The skins and furs are the byproduct," Sergei shrugged.
"You can search for the right people in Beauvais, boss, they may have leather tanners there," Annette offered.
"The chances that they'll send a spy or a saboteur are pretty high. Gustave is a vile and cunning person. We should look in Paris, or in the cities that used to have leather processing factories," Alice added.
"Leather processing factories? Do they even exist?" Anne inquired
"I don't know how they are really called…" Alice replied awkwardly.
"Doesn't matter how they are called, we all understand what you are trying to say. I agree, we shouldn't recruit in Beauvais. *sigh* It would've been much easier if the internet was still working."
Everyone nodded in agreement. With the internet people could learn anything they wanted, if they had time and will. Notably, no one had thought of books… Children of the digital age…
The breakfast ended up being more substantial - the girls prepared enough food, but because everyone had missed baked goods all of the pies were finished in no time. Everyone ate like it was the last day of Pompeii…
After getting rid of lazy, well -fed bodies, Sergei remained in the company of Solomon, Alice, Louis, the Professor, Orianne and Natasha. Regina was about to join them soon.
"I'm here, boss…" Regina showed up just as he was thinking about her. She gained some weight and started looking more healthy. The cuts and bruises have healed, however the scars still remained but the Professor promised her to help get rid of them.
"Alright, since we are all here, let's discuss our future plans. First of all, we need to design our small city. I don't have time for it, so I'm leaving it to you. Firstly, we need to consider the possibility of further expanding the residential area. Secondly, we need to plan the industrial area. Obviously we don't have anything else to do for now, aside from processing meat and fur, but we still should plan in advance. Thirdly, we need to plan the development of infrastructure and power industry. Fourthly, we need to arrange the issuing of the equipment, tools etc. I'm appointing Alice my deputy, she's in charge of addressing those issues in my absence. You all will listen to her," Sergei waved his hand and a system message appeared in front of the girl.
YOU ARE ASSIGNED A NEW POSITION "THE BOSS' RIGHT-HAND WOMAN".
AS THE SECOND PERSON IN THE HAVEN'S HIERARCHY, YOU ARE ALLOWED TO:
TO TRASFER PEOPLE WHO VIOLATED THE CONTRACT OR PEOPLE WHO ARE SUSPECTED OF VIOLATING THE CONTRACT;
TO TEMPORARILY BLOCK THE AUTHORITIES OF OTHER PEOPLE;
TO HAVE AN ACCESS TO THE PLANNER;
TO ASSIGN PEOPLE WITH THE FOLLOWING POSITIONS: "SLAVE IN THE FIELD", "SLAVE BUTCHER", "SLAVE SOLDIER", …, ….
TO HAVE AN ACCESS TO THE STORE (IN VIEWING MODE ONLY).
"Now, Solomon," the boss then turned to the chief "slave soldier". "What's the situation with the soldiers? What was the progress in the last outing?"
"Yes. All the soldiers reached level 1, eleven of them even reached level 2."
"Good, what about rewards?"
"Twenty five soldiers received skills, twelve - the equipment of level 1 and level 2, the rest got nothing."
"I see, don't forget to make the list of skills."
"Yes, boss."
After giving out the orders, the boss bought new fields and enclosures. He enlarged the rabbit enclosure four times, from 640 to 2560 square meters. It turned out that the number of rabbits was highly dependent on the space that was allocated to them: the first rabbits started breeding rapidly, but stopped increasing their population on the third day because of the limited space.
On average, one rabbit needed 1 square meter of space, thus the new enclosure could accommodate about two and a half thousand rabbits, where each one would give approximately eight kilograms of meat - and this despite the fact that a rabbit reached the slaughtering stage in five days after it was born.
Next a huge potato field was installed, 6400 square meters (about ten big fields combined), along with four big fields for vegetables and three fields for wheat.
Just enclosures and fields alone costed him 32 000 coins… He should also consider the possibility of having to enlarge the cellar in the near future. For now its capacity was 500 tons, it costed 10 000 coins and was already at thirteen percent capacity, which would then become thirty-forty percent after the harvest…
"Boss," Solomon asked suddenly, Sergei didn't notice him approaching - he was too focused on his own thoughts.
"M?"
"It's about that soldier, what should we do with him?"
"Soldier?" Sergei inquired and pondered for a moment. "Right, yes, we saved one during the clean-up. Hm, I'd been planning to get him to the Louvre or the Hubert's, but as you can see, the plans have changed a little bit. Where are you keeping him anyway?"
"We've built a small hut in the woods behind the fields, that's where he's being contained."
"Good, let's keep it that way. I'll let him go as soon as I get to Paris." And then just as Sergei was about to leave he heard someone shouting behind him.
(fr) "Captain!!! We have a problem!!!" One of the Solomon's soldiers came running towards them.
(fr) "What is it?!" Solomon asked.
(fr) "There are zombies! Zombies are coming out of the fog!" The soldier shouted, his eyes wide with panic.
"Boss! Zombies are coming out of the fog!"
"Where?!"
(fr) "Where exactly?" Solomon translated his question.
(fr) "South of the lake."
(fr) "Gather soldiers! Boss and I will go there immediately."
It didn't take long for Sergei and Solomon to reach their destination, but by that time the area was filled with scared people. There were three zombies clinging to the wire fence and they were all just the regular ones.
"It looks like there's a dimensional fragment nearby, that's where they are coming from. I think we should erect a second fence, what'd you say?" Sergei asked, closely observing the fence, into which the undead were clinging for dear life.
"I agree, but it also wouldn't hurt to build watchtowers, a hundred meters from the corners of the haven each," Solomon replied after some thought.
"Four watchtowers? Alright. I think we should make the second wall taller though, in case the mutants show up, those would overcome this fence in the blink of an eye…"
The boss thoughtfully approached the fence. A zombie became more active seeing the human coming closer - it growled and stuck its fingers into the holes in the fence but was unable to reach the juicy human. The zombie took great offense and shook the fence angrily. The fence didn't even move but it didn't care.
The black sword appeared in Sergei's hand which was then stabbed into the zombie's eye.
YOU KILLED A ZOMBIE, LVL 1. YOU RECEIVED 1 EXP POINT AND 1 SURVIVOR'S COIN.
(rus) "M? They are dropping coins!" Sergei was shocked, his brain started working with an unprecedented power. If there will be more zombies, then people who killed them would get coins. And that is an additional source of income!
(rus) "However, if the mutants show up it will become really dangerous… Plus building the defenses will cost a fortune… But it will pay off over time…" By thinking out loud, Sergei considered his future plans and finally decided to invest in defense.
"Solomon, go fetch Annette, I want to test a little theory of mine," Sergei ordered, giving the two remaining zombies a predatory look, they looked eager to take revenge for their brother - or were just hungry, which was more likely.
The girl was a little late - she had to find Gai and ask him to replace her before leaving her post. Upon approaching the borders of the haven the girl witnessed a big crowd of whispering people and a group of haven's soldiers. But after passing through the crowd, the girl finally saw zombies and froze.
"Don't be afraid, they're on the other side of the fence." Her boss's voice shook the girl out of her stupor panic and after taking a closer look she realized that they really weren't dangerous. She walked closer.
"Here, and now go and poke this sword through that beauty's eye over there," Sergei passed the girl his sword and pointed with his hand at the skinny female zombie with an almost completely gnawed face.
"But… I…" The girl mumbled as she took the sword. She was scared to even be there. It was one thing to watch zombies through the screen and completely another to see them up and close, to look into their soulless eyes, to hear their voices and to smell them…
"Don't be scared, it won't be able to hurt you. And plus I'm right here, so is Solomon. We'll protect you," the boss encouraged the young woman with a gentle smile.
"Okay," as if adopting her boss's confidence, the girl finally approached the fence and thrust the sword through the hole into the zombie's eye. She didn't put enough force into her thrust and the sword didn't reach the brain… The zombie became angrier and started pulling on the fence more actively.
"Just push a little more and you'll pierce its brain." Sergei was calm and gentle and didn't pressure her.
"Okay." The girl gathered her strength, pushed the sword further into the zombie's skull and it froze. The living dead gave one last wheeze and fell, leaving the sword stuck in the fence with the blood and brains dripping from it. The scene was enough to make Annette throw up on the spot. It's one thing to see this stuff through the screen and another to see it right in front of you and feel this horrible smell.
"Well done. Here, rinse your mouth." Sergei offered the girl a bottle of spring water.
"Thanks…" She rinsed her mouth, spat it all out and took a mouthful of water once again.
"Did you get exp points? A level? Are you a system user now?"
"Yes! I gained the skill called "Eagle Eye". According to the annotation, now my eyesight is better and I can see much further and also pick up a lot of details," the girl stated proudly.
"Huh, it looks like the system itself is telling you that you belong behind the laptop. Hey, does anyone want to try to kill a zombie? There's only one left," the boss shouted at the crowd, but it went completely silent - people were too afraid of zombies, they couldn't even gather enough courage to come near them.
"I do…" A pretty girl tentatively raised her hand. She was one of those girls that he saved from the feminists' camp.
"Good, I praise your bravery. Here, give it a try. Don't worry and everything will be okay. We won't let anything happen to you," Sergei smiled and gave the girl his sword. She took a deep breath and went closer to the fence.
"Argh-hh-h!" A zombie on the other side leaped forward all of a sudden and bit into the fence.
"Ahh!!" The girl got scared and dropped the sword.
"It won't come near you. Do not rush, it won't be going anywhere. Look at it - it cannot do anything to you and the fence."
"Yes, I can do this." The girl got up and picked up the sword once again. She walked back to the fence, looked at the zombie's face and steadily pushed the sword through its half-rotten eye.
"Good job!" Sergei came to her and took back his sword, which was left stuck in the fence. The girl said nothing, her eyes were unfocused, she didn't even move. This caused the surrounding crowd to start becoming worried, but then the girl finally came to her senses.
"I got the skill!" The girl jumped happily - all this time she was focused on the spinning roulette and couldn't decide when to stop it.
"Awesome!"
"It's called "The cry of the banshee". I can make a narrowly focused sound wave, which stuns anyone who gets hit," she informed them happily.
"That's a good skill. If you ever decide to fight zombies, tell Solomon. And inform Alice about your skill."
"Will do, boss!"
Once all the zombie were killed, Sergei was about to climb over the fence and retrieve the bodies, when he was stopped by a system message:
THE INVASION HAS BEEN REPELLED, THE BODIES OF FALLEN ENEMIES ARE BEING UTILIZED. YOU RECEIVED 30 UNITS OF BIOMATTER. 3 SURVIVOR'S COINS WERE RECEIVED FOR DEFEATING THE INTRUDERS, THE COINS WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY SENT TO THE WAREHOUSE.
The bodies melted into the ground like they were made out of water…
"How convenient!" Sergei was happy. Now there will be no need for him to collect coins from the soldiers. They will be automatically sent to the warehouse!