Everyone started talking at the same time - but it didn't last long, only about ten minutes… If before Sergei would say "whole ten minutes", now he could safely say "only ten minutes" - because girl talk could go on and on for many, many hours! Moreover, it's a huge accomplishment for more than a dozen girls to come to a consensus in just ten minutes.
The male part of those present immediately stated that luck isn't their thing. Only Gai hesitated a little, but soon joined the camp of "not so lucky" men, after his brother reminded him of a few things. The women, on the other hand, came to the unanimous decision, that the luckiest of them all was… Anne - one of the chattiest and, at the same time, one of the most useless girls. But she was very lucky with slot machine games - so much so, that if that ever became known back in the days she would've immediately been blacklisted from all the casinos around the world!
"But why did you even ask, boss?" Inquired the winner of "Miss Luck".
"You started arguing and didn't give me any chance to explain… Here's a thing. These are the eggs of reward, open them. We'll split the chocolate, but half of it goes to the soldiers."
"Chocolate!" Anne's eyes lit up, she was a huge fan of chocolate. Besides, Annette's been bragging about already trying that delicious goodness and kept vividly describing how good it was.
Following the boss's instructions, the girl opened all sixteen white, three green and one blue egg. Out of twenty rewards only one ended up being empty! For comparison, Sergei opened eight rewards and four out of them were empty; the difference was crazy.
The girl managed to collect two complete sets of level 2 gear, three level 2 bows, one bat and one sword - both of them of level 2. But most importantly, she got three skill books! And all that out of just sixteen white rewards! Three green eggs gave them two level 3 swords and a bow of the same level.
"Phewww…" Only the blue egg was left unopened and the girl was really nervous and scared of letting her boss down: what if the most important egg happens to be empty or the reward isn't good? Anne breathed out, removed the wrapping, broke the chocolate in half and opened the reward.
"Wow!" Exclaimed the happy girl. Her eyes were aglow and her soul yearned to be praised. She did a great job, she's the best, she managed to get such an awesome reward!
GUN, LEVEL 3.
AN AUTOMATIC PISTOL, DESIGNED EXPLICITLY FOR KILLING, POSSESSES A LOW PENETRATING FORCE, BUT HIGH ACCURACY. IT HAS A MAGAZINE CAPACITY OF ELEVEN BULLETS.
WARNING! DO NOT AIM IT AT YOURSELF AND TRY TO KEEP THE SAFETY ON!
"Awesome! Well done, Anne! You are in charge of opening rewards from now on," the boss smiled widely. He's been long dreaming about a system gun. No one even heard of it before, there's always been just bows, swords and bats…
"Fits well in the hand. *sigh* If only I had two of them, I would've been unstoppable!" No, Sergei wasn't planning on shooting with both hands, like people do in movies. He tried to, multiple times even, but it eventually came down to "shooting with the right hand, moving to the left one, aiming, shooting, moving to the right one, aiming, shooting…". Maybe he could've figured something out and combined it with his battle reflexes, but he had something else on his mind.
Sergei planned to do this: he empties the clip of the first one and sends it to the haven, takes the second one. Meanwhile, Sylvie reloads his gun, the boss summons it back and sends the second one for her to reload… But they'll know if it's really effective only when they try it.
"Sylvie, you are allowed to spend coins to create ammo for this weapon. And make lots of mags."
"Got it, boss! I will reach level 5 soon and then I can level up my skill."
"Do you want to go on a hunt to level up faster?" The boss asked the redheaded beauty.
In just two weeks the girl turned from a scrawny stick to a slim, fit beauty. Sylvie's everyday life usually consisted of maintaining the equipment and creating arrows. After she spent one third of her mana she usually either worked out or helped in the fields, then she would spend another third of her mana and so on. The girl tried not to spend half of her mana as it would affect her physically and emotionally - her body became tired and sluggish, plus mana regeneration became much slower after crossing that threshold.
"No, boss… I can't do it," the girl said. Boss remembered how he helped her to become a system user and nodded.
(fr) "Back off! He be my shadow!" Zoey barked suddenly. Anne, feeling very full of herself, grabbed Zoey's pet-kitten and started cuddling it. The kitten mewled miserably and tried to break free from her hold, it was, however, an unequal fight.
Zoey got the kitten as a reward for joining the system. The skill was called "Pet-Panther", and allowed to summon a panther, which for now was just a defenseless kitten…
(fr) "Ouch! Alright, alright…" After receiving a rather powerful smack on the back of her head from Orianne, the girl finally returned the kitten to its owner, her eyes full of unshed tears.
"Zoey, does your kitten even grow at all?" The boss asked, looking at the cute ball of darkness.
"No, boss… and he be eating not well," the girl answered and it looked like she was about to cry.
"I have an idea. The system skills are oriented towards fighting zombies, directly or indirectly. Which means that the primary purpose of skills is to kill zombies. Maybe your kitten is supposed to be eating… zombies, instead of regular food?"
"No! I not want my shadow be eating zombie!" The girl objected, squeezing her kitten closer to her chest.
"It's up to you, starve it all you like," Sergei returned to his plate and continued eating his food, which became a little cold with all that talking. Zoey looked at her kitten - it looked back at her and mewled miserably.
"Okay, boss, I agree…" the dark skinned girl agreed with a heavy heart.
"Then tomorrow we'll conduct an experiment," Sergei smiled and went back to his food.
After chatting a bit and discussing the less important things, everyone returned to their houses. They had some very important events planned for tomorrow - the building of their city and selling of provision, so people decided to retire earlier than usual.
****
WARNING! A DIMENSIONAL SHARD HAS BEEN LOCATED ON THE HAVEN'S ROUTE, COLLISION IS INEVITABLE.
30 MINUTES TO IMPACT!
A sudden message woke Sergei up and frightened him as he read it. He jumped off the bed, ran out of the house and shouted at the top of his lungs
"Wake up! We have a huge problem!"
"What's going on?"
"Boss, why are you shouting?"
People begrudgingly started coming out of their houses, dressed in their sleepwear, but they all were so nervous that they didn't even take notice of the provocative clothes on some of the girls.
"Solomon, take Sylvie and start equipping the soldiers. We are about to crash into a dimensional shard, and I have no idea what the consequences of that will be… We have half an hour to get ready!"
"Yes, boss!"
"The rest of you! Your job is to find flashlights, projectors, anything that can shine." There was lighting in their little settlement, but along the borders… Only watchtowers were equipped with spotlights.
The half an hour passed in an instant. There was a sudden push, but nothing serious happened - they had it worse during haven expansions. The west wall of fog started dissipating and then came them - the undead! A lot of them! Hundreds! Maybe even thousands of zombies that ran into the wire fence - but, thankfully, the fence stood strong. Yesterday's defense modernization was quite convenient, because the system just informed him that the store will be blocked during the collision!
"Archers, shoot at point blank range! Swordsmen, pierce them through the fence! Rest of you - conduct aimed fire at their heads, save your ammo! Militia, spread along the perimeter and cover the soldiers," the boss barked out the orders and threw himself into the battle.
One of the reasons why he didn't replace the wire fence with a concrete wall, was that it was easier to kill zombies through the fence. Because with the wall, their only option of attack would be using bullets and arrows. Of course it was a risk, but Sergei was sure that it was a risk worth taking. The best defense is a good offense.
The defense was overall going smoothly, however the undead kept pushing and pushing. The fence stood strong, but only until the big hulking mutants showed up - and there were a lot of them.
The mutant-zombies were more cunning than their smaller brethren, so they would usually attack only after a few trial waves of their minions. Now too they used the same tactic - once the fence happened to be under a lot of pressure, three giant mutants made their way through the sea of zombies, like huge icebreakers, and started smashing that very fence. And the same was happening in three other locations.
Sergei quickly transferred reinforcements to those locations. It was hard to lead his people without radios, but that was where Solomon came in. He organized people and divided them into groups of five, each group had its own captain and number. Of course, all those civilians didn't suddenly turn into full-fledged soldiers in the span of last few days, but they still managed to put some knowledge into their brains.
Upon arriving to one of the dangerous locations, the boss encountered four giants that almost took down the fence - and the horde of regular zombies. Fortunately, there were no fast-type acrobatic mutants among them - those would've easily jumped over the fence and started a massacre.
"You take on the small ones, I'll deal with the giants!" The boss gave out orders and headed to the nearest giant. In his right hand, Sergei was holding the black sword - it was the only weapon capable of effectively killing giant zombies; in his left hand he had the gun, the one that Sylvie was frantically creating bullets for.
Only level 3 weapons were effective against giants, level 2 swords just barely cut their skin, but were unable to cut through their strong muscles and bones. Of course that problem could be fixed by simply leveling up ones strength, but the haven's soldiers were mostly on level 1…
"Grr-rruu-aaahhh!" The giant roared upon seeing a more stronger enemy and punched the fence with redoubled force. With just the right timing when the mutant's head came closer to the fence, Sergei lunged forward and pierced the giant's eye. It's body went limp and fell on the fence.
Upon seeing their brother being taken down so fast, the remaining three giants pulled back a little, under the cover of the smaller ones.
"You think you are the smartest here?" The boss smirked. The sword disappeared and instead of it a clip appeared in his hand. Sylvie drained all her mana reserves but managed to create two full mags - it was best not to disturb the weapon-smith for a time being…
Bang! The level 3 gun turned out to be really loud… It sounded like he just fired a "Desert eagle", with a small bullhorn attached to it. However, the giant's head practically exploded, like someone took a sledgehammer to a watermelon.
"Is this what you call a low penetrating force?" It was clearly stated in the description that this weapon had a low penetrating force, but if that was the case, what was taken as an example, then?..
Putting aside unnecessary thoughts, Sergei continued shooting - in fact, he fired twice. Two giants collapsed and boss ran off to another dangerous location. He killed one more giant on his way.
"Good job!" Upon arriving to the next dangerous location he saw that it wasn't so dangerous anymore. The soldiers managed to kill off one of the giants! There were two people with lightning skills in that squad. They launched an attack and the giant's brain was fired and then started dripping out of its ears… The boss took on the second one - an aimed shot and the mutant was done for.
He couldn't make it in time to the third location and the fence collapsed… Fortunately, the soldiers had enough time to retreat. The fences that divided the sections were also reinforced. Though it was easier to break down the door rather than the fence itself, zombies haven't figured it out yet.
When zombies filled one of the sectors, it became possible to attack them from three sides and things had begun to speed up - but they had to work for it. Because only boss could fight the mutants properly.
There were no more breakthroughs and the defense held successfully, but they were running out of 9mm bullets rather quickly and the soldiers were becoming tired.
The beastmen were the most effective. Because of transformation, their stamina was at least two times higher than that of a regular system user.
****
By five in the morning all zombies were eliminated. Unfortunately, not without casualties. One of the giants managed to get to one soldier and one militiaman. The soldier escaped with multiple broken bones but the militiaman didn't make it.
YOU REPELLED THE ATTACK, THE STORE IS UNLOCKED ONCE AGAIN. YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO EXPAND YOUR HAVEN UNTILL YOU EITHER CONQUER THE DIMENSIONAL SHARD OR DETACH FROM IT.
THE REWARD HAS BEEN COLLECTED AND TRANSFERRED TO THE STORAGE. YOU RECEIVED 3 123 COINS AND 48 EGGS OF REWARD. 3 046 ZOMBIE CORPSES HAVE BEEN SENT TO THE ABYSS, YOU RECEIVED 30 470 UNITS OF BIOMATTER.
The boss almost collapsed from fatigue upon seeing the system message, but was able to remain standing.
"System, can I ditch the dimensional shard?"
NO. IN ORDER FOR YOU TO DO THAT YOU NEED TO LEVEL UP YOUR HAVEN.
"Well, I wasn't going to throw away the free land anyway, just curious."
He left ten soldiers to guard the perimeter, the rest were sent to sleep. The tents for the resting soldiers were set up ten meters away from the wall. The fence was fixed for 480 coins, so there was no need to worry about that, but people were too nervous to sleep anyway - well, except for their boss. He was out like a light the second his head hit the pillow.
(eng) "Boss! Bo-o-oss, BO-O-OSS! Sylvie, wake him up! I can't don it," It was five minutes to eleven and boss asked to wake him up at ten. But no matter how hard Anne tried, she couldn't wake him up. Meanwhile Alice (the expert in waking their boss up), was busy dealing with organizational issues with Solomon. It was important, so she wasn't to be bothered.
"You were the one given the task, I'm not doing it for you," Sylvie answered with a straight face - she just had spent the usual "working" part of her mana reserves and thus was just chilling.
"But he's not waking up!" Anne exclaimed, stamping her foot.
"Then do something," Sylvie laughed. The sight of panicking Anne amused her greatly, as well as poking fun of her.
"I've tried everything!"
"Then try doing what Alice usually does, I think it has become a habit and he won't wake up without it," Sylvie suggested seriously after thinking it over for a moment.
"What Alice does?" Anne was taken aback. "You idiot!"
To the redheaded brat's surprise, Anne burst into tears and ran away.
"You overdid it," Natasha told her sleepily as she was walking by.
"You are probably right… it was a cruel joke…" Sylvie sighed, she sounded really guilty.
(rus) "Boss, we have a problem! Someone spilled a whole keg of cold beer!" Natasha exclaimed loudly, but it didn't work.
(rus) "Hm! Boss, Colorado beetles are eating our potatoes! Soon all of our crops will be destroyed!"
(rus) "What?! Send everyone to the fields immediately… Huh?" The boss jumped to his feet and noticed the smiling girls. "Damn it, what time is it?"
(rus) "It's eleven minutes to eleven, boss. You overslept," answered the redhead.
(rus) "I asked to wake me up at ten…"
(rus) "Anne failed the task," Natasha, who was normally so unflappable, chuckled.
Sergei yawned a few times and walked out of the tent. He, like many of the soldiers, slept fully clothed and with his shoes on. Thus his feet stank horribly, his clothes were dirty as well… After all, they all went through a fierce battle last night. So, an unprepared person was better not to enter the tent…
"So how are we doing? Were there any attacks?" The boss asked while stretching his body.
"Not as far as I know, everything is clear. Most are in the fields at the moment, harvesting."
"That's good, and there's Solomon!" The boss saw his captain and headed to him.
"You are awake, boss! I report that the night was quiet, with no incidents. No casualties among the military personnel, the civilian casualties - one. Four soldiers were slightly wounded, mostly due to the inept use of weapons and skills. One soldier was also wounded with moderate injuries, but he was already examined by the Professor."
"I see, what about the experience points? There were a lot of regular zombies yesterday."
"Situation with experience points - more than good. The system counted kills even when the person wasn't using a system weapon!"
"Is that so? Interesting!"
"The average level of soldiers is 3 or 4, I raised my level to 5. I don't know about the rest, but there were a lot of militia members, about thirty of them."
"Good. Let the soldiers rest, we will make a sortie in a couple of hours, then I will head out to Beauvais to collect my money, it's time to finish our little city…"
After examining the defense and checking on his people, the boss went searching for breakfast.
Everyone was waiting for him, so the breakfast was just made. Some girls looked depressed because of yesterday's attack, but most were in good spirits.
"Boss, can we organize some sort of stage near the lake?" Spoke the usually quiet Kathrine.
The quiet "snow maiden" has recovered and grown stronger. She ate well and worked in the fields, her body became stronger than ever. According to Professor, it was all the effect of local environment and food. The girl became tanned, which made her look even more exotic - a fragile gold-skinned beauty with hair of the color of milk, small breasts and innocent face.
"You want to play music?"
"You remember!" Kate was delighted, she didn't think he would remember.
"Heh, yeah it so happened that I remembered. Okay. Natasha, will you make changes to the project?"
"Alright, boss," the girl tore herself away from her food and answered sourly.
"Okay, then let's dig in, I am hungrier than a horde of zombies."
After breakfast Sergei discussed strengthening of their defenses with Solomon and it was decided to install lighting along the border and to add the barbed wire to prevent zombies from climbing over the first fence. Anne was assigned with opening forty eight eggs of reward, six of which were green.
Meanwhile the boss was deciding what to do with the transport. The camera didn't work in the haven so they had no idea what was waiting for them on the other side of the fence. As it turned out, there was also a restriction on the transfer as well. They couldn't transfer large objects, it was possible to transfer the smaller ones but there was a cooldown before they could transfer again.
It was decided to install heavy double gates made out of steel concrete and iron doors. It was not a cheap pleasure and costed him 5 000 coins, but on the plus side everything was automated.
They prepared a military jeep with a heavy machine gun installed on its roof. Their sortie included Solomon, Sergei and the brothers. As it turned out, both brothers did pretty well during the defense. Gai reached level 5, Gautier was yet on level 4. Solomon was the one who took over the turret - he was the only one in the haven who knew how to use it. Well… unless you counted the captured soldier that everyone forgot about already.
The massive gate lifted up letting the car into the gateway - ahead there was another gate, it opened and the gate behind them closed. The road was free.
"I think we overdid it a little," Sergei noted looking at the huge gate that could withstand the ram from a tank.