Looking at all the machinery parts spread out on the floor in front of me, I took a breath and looked at Winter, who gave me a small smile before looking back out of the door. She is currently keeping watch for me as I focus on creating everything for this generator. The wiring will be done by Lemon to attach it to a power outlet we had found and once I had made the water purifier we would have a way to clean the water we found.
Closing my eyes and focusing, I recall the instructions on how to make the generator and begin. Taking it slowly, I followed the blueprint to the letter, slowly connecting the wiring, screwing in the bolts and making use of my tools. It took about an hour, but soon the generator had been constructed, and by tightening the last bolt to hold the fuel tank down, I saw the message from the System and knew I had succeeded.
Low-Noise Generator Created.
+1 Job Point
1/3 Job Points Earnt from Low Noise Generator.
This is the first time you have constructed this machine.
+3 Job Points.
Four points? Looking at the machine, I felt a worry stir within me. If I made the water purifier and oven, I’d get eight more points, and what concerns me is that that would be a lot of points. It’s too many, it’s like we’re being encouraged to build more and have these jobs become more advanced quickly. So far, while we have a stack of problems, our position is improving and the enemies are not exactly a threat, at least yet.
So what is this sense of foreboding I feel? Recalling the ‘lore’ I had received on the first day, it seems the System wants us to become strong to overcome our enemies, yet the Husks only needed one shot to kill. If we had Winter make more weapons, would she not eventually be able to make guns for us? What comes after that? Isn’t there magic in this world too, what are the limits of magic? Too little, we know too little of this world. This sense of foreboding didn’t serve me well, I knew that things were improving too quickly with these Jobs.
“Worried?” Winter walks over and embraces me from behind as I lean back in her grasp. I told her about my concerns and worries, letting myself be that young woman who wasn’t a leader in her arms. I still felt terrified, my mask of a leader had been worn for so many days but I honestly just wanted to scream and bang my fists on a wall.
Winter didn’t say anything but just hugged me. We stood there for some time before I opened my eyes and held her hands. “Thanks, Rebecca.”
“Mm, Ruby you can always pass the burden to Sheep. I’m sure he’d understand if you’re on your last legs. No one will judge you for it, we truly are in a terrifying world.”
“No, I can’t do that to him, everyone else feels the same way, especially Lemon, he’s the newbie who has less experience in high-tense situations. I’ll share my burden with everyone else though, at least little by little.”
Turning and hugging her tightly, I separated from her and turned to the generator. “Right, shall we boot this up?”
“Do you boot up a generator like a PC?”
Shrugging my shoulders, I point at a switch. “That’s the power button, flip that up and the generator turns on. Let’s put that gasoline-like liquid in, flip it up and run from the room.”
Pouring in the liquid into the fuel tank with a funnel made from wood, I screwed the cap back on and flipped the switch. Winter and I dash from the room and wait. It’s not that we weren’t confident in the generator but the fuel. After a few minutes, I poke my head in to see it’s running.
“Success!” Pumping my fist in the air, I ran over and turned it off. We didn’t have much of this gasoline-like liquid, and checking over the generator I saw no heat marks, leaks or damages. Turning to Winter, who had a gentle smile on her face that I returned, I got up and walked with her back to the mechanical room.
“Now, let’s get started with the water purifier.” Digging into the material parts that Sheep had already dismantled, I got to work while Winter kept a lookout for me. After a while, I had to stop, mainly because I needed materials to make filters, which I didn’t have at the moment. Looking at Winter’s figure from behind, I admired the view for a moment before getting up and heading towards her.
“The others should be back in about an hour. Want to switch so you can make another weapon? You only need one more to get the quest done, right?”
Winter had to make five weapons in total by hand, she’d already made three bows and a slingshot. She planned to make another slingshot and once that’s done we’ll see what the next quest is. Winter hands me the Colt Diamondback and we go to an office we had changed to be the weapons room. Sitting down, Winter starts working as I turn and watch the hallway. Feeling a stare from behind, I smiled lightly and resisted shaking my head.
“Rubes?”
“Mm?”
“Can you massage my shoulders?”
Placing the Colt on a bench, I closed the door as Winter removed her shirt. Sitting on the ground behind her, I started to massage her shoulders while she sat there. We would take turns in the past to do these massages, neither of us were any good but it gave us time to be alone and enjoy each other's company.
“I miss Dad and Tim.” Hearing Winter mutter, I felt my smile disappear as my stomach dropped. I had been avoiding speaking about it, but I missed Mum as well. “I had just finished paying off Dad’s house and Tim’s graduation is only a few weeks away…” Hearing her voice become shaky, I stopped my massage and moved closer, hugging her from behind.
“We’ll see them again, we just need to find a way out of this shithole.” Wanting to comfort her, I held her tightly while feeling my emotions become unstable. “Mum was really looking forward to our engagement…” Tears welled up in my eyes as I remembered what had been left behind. I had been holding these emotions back this entire time, they had been in the back of my mind but hearing Rebecca bring it up, I couldn’t hold it back.
Rebecca turned in my arms and hugged me back as we cried. This girl, my fiance, lover and best friend being here is truly what held me together right now. I wanted to be strong for her, like she had been for me. She’d always have that strong face on, only ever showing her soft side to me. I still hoped that this all is some fucked up dream, that I am having while in a coma. I knew though that it’s impossible, and I knew this isn’t a game, at this point we would’ve been pulled out.
Holding Rebecca close, I just wanted to be with her. If I lost her, I’d take my own life. I want to gain enough strength to keep us safe and self-sustaining enough so we can just live until our old age. Fuck this Prime World stuff, as long as her and I can live then that’ll be all that matters to me.
Rebecca pulls away from me slightly and places her forehead on mine. “I love you, Ruby. Please don’t leave me.”
As I cup her face, I looked into her eyes, my new face reflected in them. “I love you too, Rebecca. I’ll never leave you.” I kissed her deeply and she returned it. I wanted to be closer to her and felt her push against me as I fell to the ground. I knew what she wanted and I didn’t stop her. As if we were in a trance, we spent the next hour doing the one thing we had held back on doing since arriving here, embracing each other gently.
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Raising my head and looking into those teal eyes of Rebecca afterwards, I saw her eyes filled with nothing but a swirling love as they stared back at me, my lips met hers once again before parting. Slowly I sat up and moved off her, sitting besides her as she sat up and leaned against me. Wrapping my arms around her and interlocking my hand with hers, we leaned our heads together before separating again and standing up.
Slowly getting dressed again, I started to remember where we were and felt a blush come up on my face. The others would’ve no doubt returned at some points, we hadn’t bothered hiding our voices at all. I trusted Sheep though, the second he realises what we were doing he would’ve dragged the other two out far away. Looking at Rebecca as she finished dressing herself once more, I wrapped my arms around her neck as she wrapped hers around my waist.
“Next time when we have secure privacy, okay?” Rebecca says while a blush spreads on her face, I knew she had realised that we may have been overheard.
“Mm. I love you.” Even if it had been for a moment, I had been able to be with just her without any worries, fears or anxiety.
“I love you too, Ruby.” We finally separated, and interlocking our hands, walked out of the room while I picked up the Colt Diamondback. Closing the door behind me, I focused my mind as I started to think of the next few days once again, but now I felt refreshed and the fear that I had once had had mostly dissolved.
We walked through the building and didn’t see anyone, so we went through carefully to clear the rooms. I started to realise how foolish it had been for us to fall into such a state, we really had forgotten the reality of our situation. Passing by a window though, I saw Sheep and Lemon keeping lookout on the streets, with Ghost a bit further down the street. Sighing, I knew we had been overheard and deciding to face the music sooner or later, I told Winter and we headed out to meet them.
Sheep seeing me, gave me and Winter an amused look before shaking his head and calling out the others. Hoping they’d shut up, I saw Lemon looking a bit confused while Ghost acted like nothing had happened.
“How’d you guys go with dismantling?”
“Got plenty. Ran into two Husks but dealt with them. We scored quite a lot of water, so the sooner we can get the purifier going the better. We’ve mostly focused on electronics as well, so we’ve been out for longer and found a promising building.”
“Oh, tell me more.”
“Lemon, Ghost, head in and rest. I’ll catch Midnight up.” Lemon and Ghost, who had just walked over, nodded and headed back inside without question. Winter and I walked with Sheep as we walked to the other side of the building.
“Next time, just tell me if you two need time alone and I’ll drag those two away. Thankfully those two hadn’t heard anything so I dragged them out.” Sheep turns to the two of us with a sly smile and resisting the urge to pistol whip him, he stops and leans against a wall. “Now, the building we found appears to be a storage unit. It’s about thirty minutes from here and has no winders and just a normal garage door. I’ve memorised where it is.”
“Anything else of note around there?”
“Yes, what looks to be a shopping mall. We didn’t risk going near it though, too high of a risk. What about you two, how did you go with the generator?”
“Up and running fine, that gasoline-like liquid works perfectly. We’ll need Lemon’s help with the output and I need materials for filters and charcoal which is needed for the water purifier. Once we have that, we’ll be good with water for now. The biggest problem right now is food, and without clean water we can’t start growing Ghost’s crops.”
Sheep looked me up and down. “You’re a lot more relaxed, you know? Before you seemed high tense but now you’re speaking calmly. About the food, we found some fruits and vegetables, which appear to be ripe but we don’t know what they are, even with Ghost’s knowledge. He has the seeds but didn’t get anything from the System about them.”
“We need to learn more about the System. You’d think there would be a way to bring up information about…” Frowning, I brought my hand to my chin but before I could try anything, I heard Winter first.
“System Call: Information.”
Turning to her, I saw Winter with her head tilted slightly.
“Entity: Midnight. Job is Machinist. Clan, Unity.”
“System Call: Information” Trying it on Winter, I saw a nameplate come up.
Entity: Winter
Job: Weaponsmith
Clan: Unity
Seeing it show up in the normal silver window, I widened my eyes and looked at the Colt. Testing it on the Colt, I saw information about it come up!
Heavily Damaged Colt Diamondback
Durability: 16%
Requires .22 LR Rounds
Holds six bullets.
Dismantable: Yes
Repairable: Yes
“Ok, now this is huge.” The worth of knowing this information would be massive. Taking a round out, I saw it gave me information as well.
.22 LR Round.
Dismantable: No
“Okay…So we can tell if it’s dismantlable or repairable, so that means we can repair weapons at some point? What happens if the durability gets to zero?” Sheep mutters as his eyes look at the weapon.
“Stop working? Or perhaps misfires could happen the lower the durability? It’s damaged as it is and shooting it is a risk, though it should be fine for now.” Muttering while looking over the Colt, I shrugged before looking at Sheep. “About that building, any risks around it?”
“None, clear line of sight around it with little to no risk of Husks surprising us with the proper set up. The only problem is the inside, there may be Husks inside. The shape of the building is just an outright square, like a shed and is about the size of a house. We think it’s a storage unit of some kind, though we may be incorrect.”
“It’ll be best to head to it tomorrow. We're dangerously low on bullets, I believe the Deagle has about eight remaining but the Glock and Colt both have two bullets left.”
“Three for the Glock and two for the Colt. We’re close to requiring my weapons.” Winter came over, held my hand and leaned against the wall with me, surprising me a little but remembering she trusted Sheep as much as I did, I accepted it and turned to Sheep.
“We’re also in need of food. While Winter’s helped, we’re already a few days from having nothing left.”
“Then perhaps the second quest will give us more to extend that time. Winter, what’s the next step?” Sheep looks at Winter as she turns slightly red.
“I haven’t finished the last weapon…” Understanding why she hadn’t, I felt my lip twitch slightly as I sighed.
“Alright, let's finish that last weapon and see what’s next. Perhaps we should fully send this quest.” Winter and I head back to the workshop with Sheep going to the mechanic room to dismantle what they had brought back. Finishing the slingshot, Winter looked at the quest and turned to me.
“The next step is to loot five houses or storage units.”
“So this is indeed like a guide to survive in this world, given the title of the quest I suppose it makes sense.” Accepting the slingshot Winter gave me, I wedged it into the lining of my skirt. “Right, I’ll get to making more machine parts. I think it’ll be best to make two water purifiers, perhaps make an oven too. Can you check with Lemon about attaching the wiring to the generator for me?”
“Mm, leave it to me.” Winter smiles as we walk from the room and separate. Heading to the mechanical room, I remembered I had four points to spend, and planning to spend them when I got to the room, I let my mind drift as I wondered what we could do to solve the food problem.