Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Chapter 1041 30% – Can I be brutally honest?

As I said that, everyone from this camp was more or less convinced to be under my wing though we did discuss the rest of the specifics while my builders started to come in droves. It was to patch up the hole in the wall for this afternoon and build its new solid gate then eventually mounting it first thing in the morning.

Other than that, my old truck also came in driven by Unc Zardon and it carried a top-up of sorts for the items they’d need moving further.

Granted I said that once we divvied up Mr. Crisologo’s stash, they’d have enough for five months to a year, but that doesn’t mean that they’d only need food to “live” like normal humans.

To further supplement their supplies, we parted with some fruiting bags, different varieties of seedlings, a couple of vermicomposting bins, miscellaneous tools, toiletries, cleaning products, a few sets of clothing, footwear, a cage of rabbits, books, electronics, etc.

But in addition to these people whom we had just taken in, I gave some goodie bags and minor upgrades—in regards to their loadout—to the soldiers that belonged to Mr. Garciano, who were on the inside when it all went down. And last but not the least, I handed over Mr. Garciano a few boxes of specialty products that I thought he’d very much appreciate and I thought that he damn near lost his mind when he offered me a handshake.

“THANK YOU SO MUCH! I DIDN’T THINK YOU’D HAVE THIS! I-IT’S INCREDIBLE!”

Quinn had to chime in, “That… moisturizer?”

Mr. Garciano had never nodded so fast, “Yes! And this soap! This perfume! This aftershave! Everything! I’m a huge follower of this product line! I-It’s made with all-natural ingredients and it still baffles me to this day as to how they could grow a business this big with barely any advertisements at all! Well— They’re not as big as the top brands but they could be bigger if they do it the right way!”

‘The Rivas Family’s that good, huh?’

Quinn rolled her eyes, “Why’d you need advertising for if the product could speak for itself? Fuck them commercials if you already have top shelf—”

“You took the words out of my mouth! To be honest, I started saving up on all my products and had to supplement them with the riff-raff but this couldn’t have come at a better time! I really did wish they expanded so they’d have more of this stuff on the shelves in the malls but alas, I’ll treasure these products until the lost drop…”

Tatiana then came up from behind as she rested her elbow by my shoulders, “You gotta tell him now, correct?”

Mr. Garciano turned to us while testing one of the moisturizers, “T-Tell me what?”

Long story short, we further secured our relationship with Mr. Garciano and we already brokered a deal with him on the spot.

Because with the people we had just taken in, our deal was to take a 30% cut among their harvests and scavenged goods until they paid for the top-up we gave them, then it would lower down to a 10-15% in the months right after. However, they would now be required to learn various skills to survive these times and send daily, weekly, and monthly reports all the while a representative should be attending our meetings bi-weekly.

In Mr. Garciano’s case, the deal we made was that aside from supplying him the same thing I gifted him from the Rivas Family’s product line among other necessities they might need and vice versa, his soldiers in this community would be required to stay with a few of my own to buff up this place’s security. Furthermore, I’ll be sending another group of people over to their place to further relations with his group and mine.

Like with Mauricio and the Intercity, they weren’t necessarily under my wing but we were more like business partners who had a mutual benefit with each other.

‘My initial goal was to occupy cities along the coast but the city he’s in is right next to the dam where Ilana is so that’s a good thing still… All that’s left is to occupy the City of North Caloocan and we’d have a general hold of almost a third of the National Capital Region and a bit of the Central Region, Region III…’

With that said, even if we had more things to talk about, we thought that it’d be best if we could also sit down with Mauricio since the two were closer to each other, location-wise, and introducing him to Iskoh, Oscar, Ferdinand, Morales, and even the president should come at a later date.

“He’s… He’s one of the merchants in the Intercity, right?”

“You know him?”

“Not personally, no… but we purchase rice from the same place”

“What did you trade in then?”

“We’re known for being the highly-urbanized city around our parts but we can’t just carry around houses, can’t we?”

“Not with that attitude, no.”

“Hah! In any case, even now, we have a huge surplus of building materials from the several projects that got halted when you know… all this started—and I know, I should’ve told you before you sent people fixing everything already but it could be part of our deal too if you needed a lot of I-beams, cement, and whatnot.”

I shook my head, chuckling, as I decided to be blunt, “You have this habit of keeping some things left unsaid, huh?”

“Ah—”

Then I suddenly smacked his shoulder and started laughing, “Don’t look too shocked, alright? How could you have known that we work this fast? Don’t worry about it.”

“Ahaha… You scared me there for a moment, truly…”

“Just a friendly reminder though.”

“Hmm?”

“I’d rather be hurt by the truth than to be lied to. Omitting some stuff doesn’t work that well with me too. Do you understand where I’m getting at?”

He nodded solemnly, “I do understand that but I’m not like you.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“Can I be brutally honest?”

“Now we’re talking. Go ahead.”