Chapter 1024: Progress Report - Too Generous
In any case, from the two weeks plus that we were away, a few things in my territory and other outposts changed.
It didn’t take long before evening came as I gave everyone else a proper tour around the area but we would always gather around the compound for a meeting, especially now because not only was Oscar away, but I was gone for quite a while and I needed a recap of sorts as to what happened while we weren’t here.
Rin took to the stage with a projector and her own laptop though she already gave me a copy of everything else as she started with a foreword and welcomed everyone else that came again.
‘Let’s see here…’
Starting from the distance between the harbor I owned and Iskoh’s, we could confidently say that, with 99% certainty that we could let a child walk that path without encountering a single deadhead, because not only were our soldiers and civilian fighters hard at work for keeping the threat outside that area to zero, several blockades made with shipping containers were successfully placed to essentially close out the roads, only leaving a couple of areas where vehicles could pass through.
It was the same thing that was placed all around Iskoh’s main area, due to the number of dead in that place being significantly higher than mine, but since we were right next to the coast, we should take advantage of what it could offer instead of the high-rise cities that would take a lot of time, resources, and people to clean up compared to the ones near the water.
But in regards to land where we plant our oh, so needed rice, right after the mission to clear out a road leading to both harbors, a portion of our soldiers was sent over to Mauricio’s HQ, where the intercity was, to beef up the rice fields for our farmers in Bulacan.
Furthermore, since we have visitors coming from Subic, it was just the natural decision to have more of our people on that side because driving further northwest would lead to where Subic was.
But before that, it would tread on the part where one of our mutual business partners whom we met due to our fateful meeting with Mauricio, Jessica, where her HQ was located way~ past Bulacan and a couple of municipalities deep in Pampanga.
From our last known news from her side, it was mentioned that she fought off a group that was led by a high-ranking officer of the Philippine Army that had gone AWOL, and it was partly due to the reinforcements and the equipment we sent her.
Granted she offered me an airport to use, but we still haven’t been to that place except for Oscar when he drove straight to Subic—and of course, Mikhail, who was now incapacitated at the moment due to a gunshot wound.
It has been a while since we last spoke, so the moment we set off to follow after the old man, we should probably catch up briefly to maintain or even further increase the relationship our groups had with each other.
But yeah, speaking of relationships, my eyebrow raised the moment I realized the number of guns, ammo, medicine, food, water, gas, vehicles—essentially all of the fucking essentials he brought with him—not even including the people he sent over to help his folks get settled in that Marine base.
And let me be honest, I was both a hoarding Scrooge and a generous god about our personal stock, and I’m particularly giving when it comes to establishing connections with other people—even though it might sound like I’m buying their trust—but at the end of the day, it just speeds up the process and I can just stop sending them supply crates if the return in my investment wasn’t enough.
Furthermore, Oscar out of all the people I know was the most stingy fuck when it comes to his guns and he just straight-up sent a third of his own collection over—not including mine or our “emergency”, “emergency-emergency”, “emergency-emergency-emergency”, “collected”, “reclaimed”, “repossessed”, and “hidden” stocks—to those people.
“I can understand his desire and happiness to help the unfortunate ones and probably his brothers in arms but GOD FUCKING DAMMIT THEY’RE IN A MARINE BASE! DON’T THEY HAVE GUNS?! IT’S LIKE DONATING A CUP OF WATER TO A FUCKING OCEAN!!! Ah—”
I didn’t even notice that I was already thinking out loud from the last part while tightly clutching my hands and as a vein was protruding out of my forehead—and right now, everyone else was just staring at me confused because Rin was still discussing about clearing out the space between the two harbors and it seemed like I may have read a bit too far in her report.
But yeah, Quinn, Tatiana, and a few others started laughing from strategic points from the chairs we prepared for them and it just turned into a chain of laughter from one person to the next while my ears just burned from the embarrassment. Even Zeus had to lay down and cover his face—as if he was facepalming—and he had the fucking audacity to let out a huff once we met eyes.
Rin turned to me while trying to hold her laughter, “U-Umm… W-Wanna continue this instead?”
I waved her off while trying not to look at the crowd who was still laughing at me, “N-No… I’m sorry, you know how it is…”
“Pfft… Yeah, I do… I was surprised too but we’ll get to that…”
“Yeah… Again, sorry…”
“It’s okay, it’s okay~ Pfft…” then she turned back to the crowd with a smile, “Alright, as I was saying…”
On that note, there was a lot of things to go through not only from what happened in this current time because of course, we had several projects running at the same time before and coincidentally, it just either progressed a good amount or straight-up got finished so they would be included in the report.
‘Hmm~ Oh! This is…’