Rick returned to base with a grocery cart filled with the corpses of birds. After placing them somewhere where they wouldn’t get desecrated, he looked to the sky. The sun was just approaching the horizon and the Castle was complete. There was a total of five levels to the building. One basement, two regular floors, the roof, and then the four rooms on the staircases.

On the first floor was a magnificent entryway that had some big double doors and four strange locks. Apparently, this was to be the plan in case of an attack. Since the leader was massively important, thanks to this system, they would remain in the Throne Room on the ground floor. This floor had a kitchen, a dining room, a study, the Throne Room, and a master bedroom behind it. The kitchen had the stairs down to the basement. The basement was also fitted to be a safe zone for the noncombatants in the Castle.

The basement had large areas for storage and pipes connecting to the bathrooms were found here as well. The pipes also connected to the kitchen and electricity and such. The building may have been created after the apocalypse, but the Builders were definitely skilled in their work.

There were some strange placements of piping and areas being practically secret passages to an important location or some other strange building plan. It actually felt like a haphazardly created videogame dungeon or something. Rick wasn’t going to complain since this made it difficult for enemies to easily locate the power supply or the room the regular people would hide in.

There was a walkway connecting the kitchen to the exercise room. This had the bikes and belts used to produce power. This was also where the bathrooms for the ground floor were located. Going to the second floor, Rick saw the changing rooms for the workers and some other rooms for those that would live here.

For now, Rick would stay in the Throne Room until Andrew returned, but when he did, Rick would probably move into one of these rooms. Rick bumped into Lucy and Sarah who were playing in their room. They had a bunk bed and some toys that were scavenged from around the area.

“Grandpa Spot, why did they leave?”

Lucy looked at Rick with water forming at the edges of her eyes. She had lost her family to the first day of the apocalypse and was found and taken care of by Spot. Somehow, she had grown more favorable towards Andrew in these several days. Rick guessed she needed someone to fill that hole and he was only a friend in Lucy’s eyes.

Sarah was confused and wondering why her mom left as well.

Unsure of what to say, since he never really talked to kids, he said something he thought would help.

“Well, they are going on a vacation.”

“Why didn’t they take us?”

Shit.

“Because it’s dangerous for you two.”

“Then why did they leave if it was dangerous?”

Because it was more dangerous for them to stay. He couldn’t say that. He knew whatever he had to say would only sound like excuses so he messaged Andrew and had him and Rebecca talk to them. It wasn’t bad since they were only about 12 hours away by foot.

‘Hey, how’s it going over there?’

“Hey, why didn’t you take us?”

Wow, she just jumped in there, didn’t she?

‘Hehe, because we are doing adult stuff. No need to worry. We will come back.’

“But…that’s what my parents…said to me before…”

‘Aww, don’t be like that. You’re not alone. You have your little sister Sarah!’

“Sister?”

“Lushy ish my shishter!”

Seeing Sarah hug Lucy brought a warm smile to Rick’s face as he relaxed. Andrew seemed to have a ways with kids.

“But I want you guys back here!”

It appeared that Lucy had difficulties with being left behind. She was practically ignoring everything else.

‘Now Lucy. We are trying to get stronger. Are you going to just stay the same way and watch everyone leave you behind?’

“Whoa, Andrew, that’s not something you say to a kid. What are you doing?”

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

‘Calm down, Spot. Look.’

*sniff* “Okay. If I get stronger, can I go with you?”

‘Of course. Besides, if you were with us, we could be extremely lucky! But as you are right now, you might get hurt. And I don’t want that. So have Spot continue training you and soon we will return. I promise. Give me a couple months.’

“Okay. See you later.”

‘See you soon, sweetie. Rebecca says she loves you!’

The girls began laughing and hugging each other, probably trying to not cry. Lucy turned back to Rick and took a deep breath before giving a determined look.

“Grandpa, I want to get stronger.”

“Certainly. Tomorrow, we will begin your training. In fact, we will be training all of the people we can. Even the Skeletons!”

Rick was going to start a boot camp here so everyone had some experience with combat in case of another raid.

The sky was getting darker when the groups returned with Clan mates and survivors willing to join. They moved into the huts after eating some small rations the Builders had made. Judging from the food everyone had remaining, they were getting towards the red.

“Candice, can we buy food from the Shop?”

“Of course!”

Before Rick on his monitor was a blue Fairy darting around his screen. She had green hair and glittery wings that resembled a butterfly’s. She was more energetic than Navi had been. In fact, Rick didn’t remember seeing Navi with Andrew. Where did she go?

Shaking the distractions away, Rick looked up consumables on the Shop interface and found all sorts of seeds and food. Seeds were cheap, ingredients were a little expensive, and complete meals were downright hard to get. There was no baked potato, it was a loaded baked potato with cheese, bacon, and chives with a side of sour cream.

You could get potato as an ingredient, or as a seed. It wasn’t really a seed, but it was categorized as one. Seeds grew into materials and materials were used to make food. With the Shop, the people now had a way to procure a source of sustenance.

The next day, Rick had some of the newcomers help ready the land for crops and sent some others to hunt down regular animals that they could capture and breed for food. Trying to rely on the system too much would leave everyone with a hole in their pockets. He supervised the others as they practiced and trained. It was just a simple track, but Rick had already told the Builders to construct an obstacle course. The firing range was modified to look more professional with lanes and racks to hold weapons while the combat area was made to look like a ring.

The borders were coming along as well. After several more days, the entire Region now belonged to the Undead Clan. There were still some places that had survivors living here and there, but people were sent there to complete Quests and to trade any possible goods they received. The Clan had grown to Level 2 and so Rick sent a list of all the remaining survivors in the Region to Andrew so he could invite them.

They all accepted and there was a notice from the monitor.

“Congratulations! This Region has been completely taken over by the Undead Clan! By killing everyone else or accepting everyone, it doesn’t matter! This Region is the first Clan in the State to be completely taken over! Everyone in the Undead Clan receives 200 GP and any Units belonging to any members within the Clan under Level 1 have now Leveled Up once!”

There was a few basic Skeletons here and there, but now they were evolved. In fact, there were now two Brutes and 3 Wicked belonging to the Zombie race. They were like Haunters, but a different stat focus. There wasn’t any other special race that appeared, so that was kind of boring.

On the morning of the fifth day after Andrew and Rebecca left, a group of Undead appeared on the outskirts of the Region. Thankfully, they were only some Undead Andrew had Summoned and sent back to base. A nice new addition of 10 Units.

But what surprised Rick the most was the armored caravan approaching from the opposite direction. Andrew had left for the north so seeing these people come from the south both made Rick sigh in relief and curse under his breath.

South was the direction of the nearest military compound. It didn’t take but another thirty minutes for the entourage to approach the Castle. The soldiers that exited the vehicles were well trained and well-armed. The men all protected a solitary figure that stepped out of the ATV.

Taking one look, Rick couldn’t help but groan in frustration.

“Shit. It’s Jane.”