Stronghold In The Apocalypse 175 Acquaintance

"Alright, alright. I'll see to it. Do you guys even have enough living space there?" Rachel immediately agreed when he heard about his suggestion of transferring Laura at Cambridge Base.

"Of course, mom. The place is very big. Why don't you come with us and have a look around over there?" Leo said.

Rachel thought for a bit with her eyes directed at the ground, and then she looked up and said to Leo, "Hmm..alright. Pick me up when you plan to go back"

"Sure, mom! I'll get going then, see you in a bit" Leo said as he turned around.

"Wait.." Rachel called out.

Rachel didn't say anything and gave him a kiss on his cheek, "Always be careful, okay?"

Not wanting to make his mother worry, Leo answered confidently, "Of course mom. See ya!"

"My son had already grown up, huh" Rachel proudly mumble while looking at Leo, who's slowly going downstairs.

*****

Exiting the mansion.

"Now that I think about it, where did Michelle and Amanda go?" Leo said as he just realized that the women aren't inside the mansion.

"No use worrying, they are probably wandering somewhere around here, besides they have the two Direwolves with them" Leo said clearly not worried, after all the only ones who could probably content with those two wolves are him and those pride of lions living somewhere around the forest.

"So..what should I do now?" Leo thought while looking around.

"I think I should go check out the training ground and see how the new recruits are faring" Leo said as he walked towards the training grounds for the new recruits here.

Reaching the training grounds, what met Leo was a lot of shouting.

"Haa!" "Haa!" "Haa!"

*Slash* *Slash* *Slash*

There were a total of one hundred recruits on the grounds from different ages, with the youngest being twenty and the oldest is probably around mid thirties and all of them are executing the same move of overhead slash at the training dummy in front of them.

Every single recruit are training like martial artist, most of their training mostly consist of physical training and close combat training and only ten percent of the overall training is spent in training in firearms.

After all, you don't really need a high level accuracy of killing zombies and fighting with other humans had become rare as groups don't want to waste their bullets in fighting with others unless they were cornered to do so.

"Yaat!"

Suddenly, Leo noticed a beautiful woman at an open space, training with a medieval looking combat axe in her hand.

"Haa!"

The woman executed a powerful horizontal slash as the training dummy in front of her got sliced into two, and cleanly at that.

"Luna!" Leo immediately called out to her as he walked towards her.

Luna stopped what she was doing and turned around to see Leo walking towards her.

"Cousin! You're back!?" Luna said as she rested her weapon on the ground.

"Yep, I just came back. I thought you went with Caleb and the others doing a supply run outside?" Leo asked as she gestured for them to sit on a nearby bench.

"Nah, it was getting tiring doing the same thing everyday so I stayed behind and at the same time, Auntie assigned me train this guys" Luna said as both of them took a seat while her thumb pointed at the recruits.

Leo raised a surprised eyebrow, "Do you even know how to train people?"

Luna immediately answered him with a firm, "No, but they did teach me how"

"What!? Are you saying that you're the only Instructor here?"

"No silly! There are also others"

"Oh~ and here I thought that those bastards are slacking off" Leo snorted.

Luna giggled, "They wouldn't dare. Everyone is afraid of receiving military punishment as all of them wants to excel over the others to catch your attention and receive better treatment"

"Why don't you start observing them now? It's been quite a while since you did an inspection here" Luna suggested.

"I'm already doing it" Leo said as he already started observing the recruits, the moment he stepped foot inside the grounds.

Leo had already been observing them since he arrived and he felt pleased that there are more and more survivors joining the army which really helps a lot with the increasing task around here.

"What do you think about the new recruits then?" Luna asked.

"Well, all of them probably already had their fair share of dealing with the zombies so I know they'll survive outside but I don't know. After all, I haven't seen them fight a mutated zombie before" Leo just gave her a vague answer because even he doesn't know well they would be if they did actually encounter mutated zombies or even beast.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Leo turned to Luna.

"What is it?" Luna asked as she is already munching at an energy bar.

"Mom, told me you're actually now dating someone, is it true?" Leo suddenly asked a personal question.

"Yep~!" Luna answered with a huge smile on her face.

"It's Michael, isn't?" Leo said while suddenly rubbing one of his temples.

"Yup again, but why are you asking?"

"It's Amanda's brother, isn't it?" Leo said.

"For the third time! Yes!"

"Seriously? You don't find him bratty at all?"

"No~ why are you asking me this question? Are you my Dad now?" Luna sounded a bit irritated.

"Shut up, and how the hell did the two of you even hook up?"

"It's not of your goddamn business, Leo"

"Oh god, that guy is f*cking lazy, you know that right?" Leo said.

"I don't think he's lazy though, he's very active when were doing supply runs" Luna said with a raised eyebrow.

"Of course he wouldn't be lazy while doing a supply run, it's because he knows he's putting his life while outside the protection of the walls"

"It sounds like you don't like him at all, do I need to remind you that he's gonna become your brother in-law sooner or later?" Luna said as she bit off the last chunk of that energy bar.

"It's that I don't like him, it's because he doesn't do anything if he's here. God, if he weren't Amanda's brother then I would've kick him out!"

"Just look at him!" Leo suddenly spotted Michael lying on a bench opposite of them from a hundred meters away.

Luna looked towards where his finger is pointing at and she did see Michael lying on the bench with a towel over his face.

"But he looks cool though" Luna said.

Leo suddenly stood up and said, "Oh my days, your taste of men still haven't changed since huh? God, you're weird" then Leo started walking away from her.

"Oi! What do you mean by that!?" Luna called out to him.

"Nothing! Pretend that you didn't see me at all!"

'How could she like a lazy bum like him? He's only useful when there's a zombie in front of him. Aish~ I can't really understand women sometimes' Leo thought.

While walking on the busy road, Leo was deep in thought.

'God, I just realized that I really don't have anything that needs my attention in this place anymore except for upgrading the Stronghold, but upgrading it isn't really necessary for now though as there are more important things to spend on my [D.Coins]'

"It seems I need to go back sooner then, I also need to check how my men are faring back at London" Leo as he started walking back to the mansion.

While walking towards back to the mansion, Leo's step started to become heavy as his mind kept going back to the [Conspiracy Mission] that he had received earlier

"Why did the [System] issued that mission just after Alastair told me that they had opened the [Scout Ship]?" Leo felt very uncomfortable knowing that there's a situation not within his capability and power.

"Is there something more behind that war?"

"Dammit, even the [System] is not giving me any hints or clues about it. It's like its deliberately hiding something from me"

[...]

If the [System] had human feelings, then it would probably feel hurt right now. After all, it's just doing its job!

"Damn, I feel like there's a huge storm brewing above me and I'm at the center of it!"

"Hmm..it's really depressing knowing that you don't have any clue of what's truly going on. It's like when a woman teases you while on the bed and just when you two are about to have sex, she suddenly stops you mid way, leaving you blue balls"

Leo kept mumbling to himself, that he didn't even know that he was actually heading towards the wrong direction.

"Kyaa, that hurt!"

Because Leo wasn't paying any attention to where he was going, he suddenly bumped into someone.

Leo was startled at first before he immediately went to help her while offering his hand, "Sorry, are you okay?"

"Y-yeah, I'm fine"

Just as Leo was about to pull her up, the woman suddenly raised her head towards him.

"Allison?"

"Leo? Oh my god, you- you're actually alive!" Allison suddenly exclaimed in shock as she didn't expect that she would actually bump into an "acquaintance" here of all places.

"Wait, that's not the point. How did you even get here?" Leo was startled at first, but then he remembered that he clearly forbade that no one is allowed to enter the Stronghold from now on unless they have his permission, and the only exception is that if they were handpicked to as recruit to train here.

Chapter end