In the dinner meeting between Group Leaders later that evening, James informed them about the Contract System; minus the part where Aurelia was owed 100 frappes by a covert outfit.

"James, I've always wondered this, but how is it that you keep attracting strange organizations?" Mendosa asked.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

The Medical Mafia was just the first in a long line of strange organizations, it seemed.

"Maybe God cursed me? Not sure."

"Huh, you still believe in that?" Lewis asked.

James gave it a thought.

"I'd like to think that he didn't expect any of this to happen, so he's just seeing what else will happen."

"Omnipresent but not omniscient, huh."

"Something like that."

"Young people, I swear…" Charlie muttered.

"You don't like it, Cha? I think it's adorable," Mendosa remarked.

George was left remarkably out-of-place surrounded by such high-level conversations.

"Anyway," Charlie said in a louder voice, recapturing everyone's attention. "I think we're all still confused by what James has told us. Going by the surface benefits, I think it's okay to take advantage of this Contract System to the fullest."

Everyone nodded.

"…but it still feels incredibly shady," he added.

Everyone nodded.

"Leave that part to me," James said.

Everyone nodded. The meeting was going too smoothly.

"That said, everyone, I'll have you write down your top three concerns. I'll sort them out tonight and bring you my conclusions tomorrow morning."

James distributed paper slips. The other Group Leaders didn't hesistate and scribbled away. It seemed they each had a lot of problems.

Later that evening, he stared at the four index cards from the Medical, Guard, Crafting, and Farming Groups.

As expected, they were all running out of something.

The Medical Group, led by Dr. Mendosa.

They were running dangerously low on antibiotics and vitamins. These could be bought from the Medical Mafia at a steep price, but no one in Diliman wanted to have anything to do with them.

Without these two supplies, they would start seeing frequent deaths. Something like this would shake Diliman's society at a fundamental level.

In less modern times, humanity had a ridiculously-high death rate from diseases, famine, and war. However, it was also an era when it was common for a woman to birth 10 children, so it canceled out.

Just the same, in the worst-case scenario, the only way for Diliman to survive was to have a ridiculous birth rate.

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The women of Diliman wouldn't accept this. Many of them would die from childbirth alone. Not only that, but they also represented a good chunk of the labor force. There were women actively working in all five Groups. Setting them apart and giving them the full-time job of childrearing was equivalent to annihilating 40% of Diliman's productivity in one go. To have them die in droves in the process was even worse.

But society would survive.

Diliman would regress into an agrarian society that disallowed its women from being anything other than a mother, all out of the sheer necessity of survival. The alternative was extinction.

…or they could just make the death rate low enough that they didn't have to resort to it in the first place.

The Medical Group was also running low on bandages and stuff. Those were always on the Scouts' grocery list, so there was little else to be done about it.

Next, the Guard Group, led by Charlie.

Perpetually low on ammunition and manpower. That's who they were.

As Diliman's only line of defense, they were also given the keys to a bunch of buses and pickup trucks for emergency evacuation purposes.

Of course, they needed gas, too. Since gas went bad over time, it was starting to become an easter egg hunt for gas that was hopefully spiked with enough additives to last for more than a few years.

Though, Charlie hadn't written any of these as his top concerns. Those were perpetual concerns that couldn't be fixed with a single looting run, after all.

Instead, he mentioned that the lack of training was starting to show.

It wasn't that the Guards were lazy.

Daily training required a high calorie intake, or else they'd be shrivelling instead of bulking up. As it stood, Diliman could not produce enough food to support the daily exercise of 20 to 30 militia and sentries.

This was one of the main reasons why the Scouts received far more gruelling training than the Guards.

The community's calorific resources being concentrated into a select few who would venture out beyond Diliman's fences to find food and supplies—this was James' idea. It had worked well until now, but neglecting the Guards couldn't go on for too long.

Charlie also mentioned that more and more of the Guards were becoming susceptible to the common cold.

It was currently being passed off as a joke in the rank-and-file, but this was a sign of a weakening immune system. The Medical Group had been propping them up on stilts made of vitamins and food supplements, but those had been running out like they mentioned.

In the end, it all circled back to nutrition.

The Crafting Group, led by Lewis.

Crafting was mainly preoccupied with making nifty gadgets and weapons for everyone else.

Their martial arts-obsessed members were the ones who introduced steel-cored stick and staff weapons. The Scouts trialed them and also became obsessed with them for being nigh-indestructible. This reputation spread, and Crafting ended up equipping the entire community with these weapons.

Thanks to being based out of the Mechanical Engineering Department, they had a ridiculous amount of materials to work with. It was sort of amazing that they never really asked for anything serious up until now.

What Lewis wrote on the slip wasn't any particular concern. It was an abbreviated inventory report.

Flatbars: 2 months. Dimensional lumber: 1 month. Nails: 1 1/2 months. Screws: 2 months. Wood glue: 1 1/2 months. Epoxy: 3 weeks.

This was Lewis shorthand for "At the rate we're going, we have this long til supplies last."

Crafting was also in charge of logistics when it came to construction. If all progress halted just because they ran out of nails and glue, it'd be stupid and catastrophic all at once.

Lastly, the Farming Group, led by George.

Expansion of food production and increasing crop diversity was a priority for the whole community. Because of the lack on manpower, George and Charlie had adopted a strategy of turning potential farmland into miniature forts that could be defended by untrained farmers.

This meant that they had to handle a whole bunch of construction.

There was no other Group that had the manpower to spare. Crafting, who shared some responsibilities, were mostly busy with weapons maintenance and arrow-making. As a result, Charlie lent a pickup truck for Farming to pick up the pace, even if gas was precious. That's how dire the food situation was.

The Farming Group was also responsible for maintaining the water supply, which was currently a solar-powered pump in the Lagoon, about a kilometer from the Library. In emergency situations, their members would go on bicycles to ferry water from the Lagoon.

George didn't make any particular request, aside from "More variety".

James felt that in his soul. They were all collectively tired of potatoes in everything.

The Philippines was a rice-eating country. Potatoes were good, too, but it just didn't feel right.

Taking all of these into account, it was obvious that the very first thing that they needed to work on was the nutritional situation. Even if they ignored the dwindling medical supplies, as long as people didn't come down with unnecessary illnesses, the death rate could still be effectively reduced.

"Do we even have enough soap?"

Antibacterial soap. The fate of Diliman rested on having a greedy supply of this, as well.

In the end, it seemed that they would have to rely on the Contract System as a source of antibiotics, at least. James thought to bring this up in the meeting with Coronel the following day.