As I walked out into the courtyard, I wasn’t particularly worried about assassins. My one-shot protective shield had plenty of time to recover, and I had turrets trained on this crowd, so things would be far messier for them. A normal turret would end up killing everyone in the crowd, but Cecelia could control the turrets whenever we were within signal range, and thus there accuracy could be improved by a large margin. I wouldn’t say they were the level of a sniper rifle, but they could selectively fire in a way that would make the mall security programming jealous. A certain familiar person seemed to rise out of the group to meet me, and I was instantly shocked when I laid eyes on them.

“Sovereign Gunner?”

“Sovereign was my title.” She sighed. “I’m just Gunner now. My first name is Riley.”

“Riley Gunner…” I spoke the name. “What happened to your slave caravan?”

“What happened?” She glared at me. “Wasn’t it your sister that blew it all away?”

“What? Me? Don’t you mean the syndicate?”

“The Syndicate indeed killed a large portion of my caravan, but if we salvaged our tech, we could have rebuilt and recruited! The nail in the coffin was your sister laying waste to the entire place. There wasn’t a single cage or craft salvageable that was above ground!”

“Ah… that…”

When they were attacked, the slavers had been packing up to leave. It was likely all of their stuff was placed in some part of the mall, ready for them to leave. Even if they fled, they would have been able to take some of it with them, but my sister incidentally was a magical savant and ended up creating a psychic tornado that wiped out the entire mall, and everything in it. Now that she mentioned it, I also lost all of the supplies left over from my kitchen. The nuclear-powered grill and all of the other stuff had also been caught up in her storm.

“You owe me restitution!” Riley announced angrily.

“I… what? Restitution? You and all of your stuff would have been captured by the syndicate if it wasn’t for her. You slavers promised the safety of everyone who attended the auction and followed your rules. You failed to give it. Where’s my restitution?”

I was going to apologize to her, but since she decided to immediately go for the bottom line, I responded in kind. I found a few people in the ground, particularly those that weren’t part of her slaver caravan, nodding. I think their policy had always been to enter at your own risk, but the entire reason it worked was that people would feel safe coming.

“Your restitution? Aren’t you the one who acquired all of the security droids and supplies from the depot? You left us with nothing to survive!”

“Oh, that’s a good point!” I heard Red same from behind.

I ignored Red and focused on Riley. “I managed to unlock that through my resources. Just because you lacked the hacking skill to take complete control of the technology on your means nothing to me. They escorted you back to the city, didn’t they? Who said you could use my space for free?”

“Also a good point.” Red continued to spectate until Katarina elbowed her in the gut.

“The city is even more dangerous! How can we just leave? We are essentially out of food and raiders are blocking us in. As soon as any group tries to leave, they’re slaughtered.”

“I thought you said the raiders left…” I looked back at Raven, who flushed.

“You didn’t give me time to explain the entire situation!” She replied defensively. “What I was saying was that the attacks had stopped, but they’re still blocking any traffic going in and out. A few of the people here had attempted to leave in their groups, but they were immediately attacked after getting out of site and only a few survivors made it back.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

So, it was a bit more complicated than I had originally thought. These weren’t just the people who were too lazy or scared to leave, but they couldn’t leave.

I made an irritated noise. “Then, we should go greet them.”

“You want to start a fight with raiders?” Riley gasped.

“They’re the ones causing trouble,” I responded. “What would you do instead?”

She thought about it for a moment and then spoke. “I would create an alternative safe trading route. Aren’t most of the Wastelander towns to the north anyway? The only thing down south is the colony who has its doors all but shut, and that dinky underpass trading town that is too small to offer any real business. If you want business, you should be connecting with the people north of here, let the raiders keep wasting their time on a generally undefended area. As long as you create one defensible trade route, then none of this other stuff matters.”

“As much as I hate to compliment a slaver, her advice does make sense,” Raven spoke up.

Raven hadn’t said much about it, but I had a sense that she was uncomfortable with the slavers. She had once been forced into slavery by raiders, and she probably saw the slave traders as enablers of that. That was one of the reasons I had left her behind when I went to buy slaves. She had never specifically said anything about me putting slave collars on Red and the other raiders, but maybe it was bothering her.

“Alright, we’ll do that then,” I responded.

“Um, what is that?” Riley blinked.

“Just behind the Allco office, a block from here is an underground subway. It leads to the Rink. I was once told by the mayor that with enough labor, the subway could be dugout. The street between the museum and the Allco is far more defensible than the area out there.” I gestured to the open area where the raider attacks had been coming from. “We can position turrets and robots from the mall security, and create a safe and defended route to and from the rink.”

“Enough labor…” Riley gave me a suspicious look. “What labor?”

I lifted my arms, waving to the group of them. “You.”

“What? When did we sign up to be your labor force?” She demanded, and her words were joined by several other parties agreeing with mutters of irritation and anger.

“Didn’t you just say that you’re running out of food?”

“Geh!” She stumbled back as if she had just been punched.

“It seems pretty simple to me. You guys dig out my tunnel, and I pay with food. You’ll also get shelter and security, but I’ll give that for free while you work for me. When it’s done, you can go to the Rink and take off anywhere in the wasteland if you want. Or… you can become an employee under me. The choice is yours.”

Riley glared at me like she had eaten a bad apple. Behind her, some people were muttering angrily, but a few seemed to be interested in the offer.

“You’ve trapped us in your compound, and now you want to force us to work for food?” She demanded.

“Where would any of you live in the wasteland where you wouldn’t have to work for food?” I quirked an eyebrow. “Isn’t it more ridiculous you expect us to give away our resources and receive nothing? If you’d rather, I’d happily sell you supplies instead. You can check out my list on the board over there. I accept gold, silver, gems, art, and crystals along with a variety of other items. Our bazaar opens every weekend. However, if you can’t pay, excuse me for not just giving my livelihood away.”

Riley hesitated for a moment, and then looked back at the others. There seemed to be enough people interested in the offer that she couldn’t try to strong-arm me. Then again, I wouldn’t have tolerated being strongarmed anyway. I knew who had the advantage in this. Other than studying high school, during my punishment I had also spent some time reading some business books. I believe they called this a hard sell.

“Fine! We’ll dig your tunnel. However, you have to guarantee us safety. We need a security detail protecting us, and we need proper equipment so the tunnel doesn’t collapse on us. Those requirements are non-negotiable.”

She was saying that like she expected me to not be concerned about their safety. Well, she was used to using slaves, and the mayor of the rink had even suggested we used slaves for this, likely so that we wouldn’t have to worry about things like safety. It looked like I was going to have to go to my world and get some literature on the building.

“Is there any architect or construction worker among any of you?” I asked the crowd.

The crowd of people seemed surprised they were being addressed, and they started muttering as they looked from one to the next. Was skilled labor so hard to find?

“Ah… I guess… that would be me.” An old man raised his hand. “I’ve acted as a foreman on a few projects in Twin Elms… a long time ago.”

“Good, then let’s get started.”