Chapter 26: The Most Important Thing
He immediately ordered his subordinates to check the house on the other side of the wall and soon after that, he found the three boys who had gone missing. Well, now the three boys had become two crippled boys and one corpse.
He had found them, tied together, rolling around in the basement, covered in their own shit and piss.
He frowned when he looked at their conditions. They were definitely not useful anymore.
There was no doctor in the town and even if there was, he would not allow him to treat these two. After all, why would he waste so much supplies on two useless cripples.
But he could not kill them either. Al least, not at the moment. Because he needed the necessary information from them. Information about the boy in black. And the girl.
He looked at the corpse in front of him and shuddered once more.
It was the corpse of the boy whom he had given the handgun.
Since they had heard no gun shot, he had already thought of this guy as dead. But the way this guy had died left him feeling fearful.
His face had caved in and his head was attached to his neck with only a thin layer of skin.
Raka did not knew how this boy was killed. Anyone else would have guessed that this was done by a large hammer or some similar weapon. But Raka's intuition told him that such was not the case.
The report from the two crippled boys further confirmed his thoughts.
And after hearing the report, he had finally made his choice.
Next morning, when the guys from the army came, he would offer them a girl that he recently found. Her name was Sera and she was quite beautiful. He had decide to take her this night but now he had decided that giving her to the 'Commander' would be the wiser choice.
He would give the girl to them and then ask them to meet their Commander. After that, he would go their military camp and stay there for a few days.
After that, he did not knew what he would do after that. Saving his own life was the most important thing. Everything else can come after that.
He looked at the two crippled boys who had started crying with apathetic eyes and told his men
"Alright everyone. We're going back to the base." Raka said and turned to leave.
The two crippled boys cried for help but no one paid any heed to their cries.
A short while later, when the Raka and his group had left, a dark silhouette came out of one of the shadows outside the house.
When the two boys saw this figure, they froze in horror as if they had seen their worst nightmare but before they could shout for help, they had already lost their heads.
—————
I looked at the abnormals walking in the ground from the roof of the three storey building.
Although those Abnormals were twice as strong and fast as a normal human, it was not possible for them to jump up or climb to the top of a three storey building.
But that was no reason to provoke their hunger by showing them my face.
I focused on one of the Abnormals who was significantly bigger than the abnormals around it. It was a female abnormal. Most of her clothes had been torn apart and I could see her privates from here clearly.
But looking at her body which was filled with blue veins and skin which had traces of dirt and blood, provoked no reaction from me.
I recently realized that spying of these abnormal felt no different than spying on animals. Now matter what condition they were in, I felt no sympathy for them.
'Is it because they have turned into another species?' I wondered in my mind.
That female abnormal was currently sitting on the ground and constantly rubbing a piece of cloth with a brick.
That was the action of washing clothes.
'She must have washed a lot in her life when she was a human. Perhaps she was a laundry woman. Or maybe she had a large family and spent a lot of time washing their clothes.'
'You're thinking about useless things again.' Lily reminded me of my mission.
'Yeah. You're right.' I said with a bitter smile.
I was trying to find about her past with her actions, but was their any meaning to it.
She was not a human. Not anymore. Now she was an abnormal. And a 2nd tier abnormal to boot.
'That's the fourth 2nd tier abnormal I'd found so far.' I thought and looked at the distance outside the town.
Outside the town, there were a lot of farm lands that were used for agricultural purposes.
I remember seeing these fields filled with golden wheats at the end of summer years back. How farmers used to harvest their crops in unison.
Sometimes me and my friends would help them with some manual labour for some chump changes, which we would then use to buy some sweets and candies.
I looked at the fields in front of my eyes which were now filled with Abnormals and sighed.
'Doesn't look there's going to be any harvest this year.' I smiled bitterly at my own foolish thoughts.
'Focus on your mission.' Lily reminded once again.
'Alright.' I said.
There were around 6000 inhabitants that once lived in Zakopur town. When the Black fog came, most of them turned into Abnormals.
Of the ones that didn't, most died in the next few hours.
According to the words of the prisoners, there were only 32 survivors left in the town now. And that included them and Raka's group as well.
'32 survivors out of 6000. That's a survival rate of about 0.5%.'
'And you just killed 3 of them.' Lily said.
'Yeah! I guess it's 29 survivors now. After I kill Raka's group, there would be even less.' I said with a clenched fist.
'Focus now.' Lily reminded.
'Yeah.' I said and looked at the thousands of abnormals in front of me once again.
When the army came, they had only decided to scout this area at first, but some kind of accident happened which led them to fire their rifles.
The abnormals heard the gunshots and swarmed over to the east part of the city.
By the time, the fight ended, all of the scouts were dead and most of the abnormals had gone out of the city. Some had even crossed the farmlands and entered the forests up ahead.
But this had made my mission harder to complete.
I used the zoom function of my Advanced Vision skill to it's max and started looking through all the Abnormals one by one.
Searching through more than 4000 abnormals who had spread throughout a large field was a very tiring and time consuming task. But I had do this.
'There's one more there.' I found another 2nd tier Abnormal and made a plus sign on the wall as I was losing count by now.
'I don't think that's a 2nd tier abnormal. His skin does not have a lot of blue veins in case you've not noticed.' Lily said. 'I think he's just a tall 1st tier abnormal'
'Hmm… now that you say it.' I looked at it once again and sighed. 'This is indeed a tiring task.' Then I went ahead and made a cross on the marking I had made earlier.
After two hours, I was finally done scanning through the whole 5000 of them.
Although some of them were constantly moving. And I might have completely missed a few areas by mistake as well, I still completed my mission.
'One two three four… … thirty eight and thirty nine. Adding the four that are inside the town, that's a total of forty three 2nd tier abnormals.' I thought 'And most of them are on the other end of the field.'
'That makes sense.' Lily said 'When the abnormals heard the gunshot, the first ones to react and reach the scout would have definitely been these 2nd tier abnormals.'
'Yeah.' I said and sighed. 'Now that I've completed my mission, I will go back to Big bro and Neha.'
'Even though you did such a shitty job.' Lily mused.
'Yeah… Even though I did a shitty job.'
—————
Inside a 2 storey tall building in west southern end of the town, in the second room of the second floor, two siblings were having a chat.
When I entered the room, I was a bit stunned by the heavy atmosphere but then I understood the reason.
'I wonder how much big bro told her about the apocalypse.' I thought as I kept the bag down and waited patiently beside the door.
'Why? You think he won't tell her everything.' Lily said with a giggle.
'Of course not. After this talk, Neha might think that she knows a lot, but the more she stays with big bro, the more she'll realize how little she knows.' I said passively.
"Now… This is the basic defensive suit that I bought for you." Rahul said as he passed a black suit to Neha.
Although Neha had earlier said that she did not wanted to wear such a thing, this time, she quietly accepted it and went to the next room to wear it.
'Seems like the 'talk' had quite an effect on her.' I thought.
'You're saying as if you were any different when you first realized the situation of the world. Compared to you, she's still rather calm.' Lily said.
'Whatever.' I said and ignored her as Rahul was looking at me now.
"43." I said.
"Hmm…" Rahul took the information and thought for a while before saying "That's less than I expected. But that is good news for us. I presume most of them were in the other end of the field."
"Yes." I said.
"How many of them are still inside the town?" he asked.
"Well… There are four that are still on the streets. Maybe I might have missed one or two but should not be more than that."
"I see… Good job." Rahul said and threw me a pouch.
I opened the pouch and found 20 crystals inside it. I looked at him with a questioning gaze and he said with a smile.
"Take it. It's your reward for completing this mission."
"But I…"
"Don't speak anymore. Those who contribute, will get the reward." He said and stood up from his chair "I might have given free stuff to Neha for now but she'll have to work hard in the future and contribute as well."
"Although I love her and don't want to see her get hurt, I also don't want her to remain weak. We won't always be around to protect her. She must become powerful and learn to protect herself. And so must you. Do you understand."
"I do." I said.
"Good. Now tell me about the situation of the… survivors in the town."
I told him everything that I had learned from the prisoners. After I said everything, the room lapsed into silence once again.
"Brother, how are we going to deal with the commander. And what about that guy named Raka. Should we deal with him tonight?" I asked.
Rahul sighed deeply when he heard this then he said "Little brother. Your thinking is still not in the right direction."
"Direction?"
"Right… Why are you wasting your time worrying about those people. Do they really unnerve you that much."
"I… Shouldn't they?" I asked.
"No. They shouldn't." Rahul said. "Let's take that Raka guy for example."
"I don't know why you have such high opinion of his group. Do you think that someone becomes formidable just because they hold a gun or a rifle."
"Not to mention that most the guys in that group have probably not fired a single shot in their entire life."
"I'm pretty sure if you attack them, right now, with the intention to kill, then there a 80% chance that none of them will survive."
"People like them might seem imposing with a gun but when real danger strikes, they won't know which end of the gun to hold."
"As for the Army…" here paused for a moment before he smiled "Why are you worrying about someone who's living in borrowed time."
"Borrowed time?"
"Yes." He smiled "Do you think that their camp has an unlimited supply of ammunition. Fighting against the abnormals in Alampur village might have already exhausted for all we know."
"But even if it didn't, how long do you think they will last against the constant attacks of Mutant beasts and Abnormals who are evolving everyday."
"Well… You're right but if he attacks…"
"Why are you worried about him attacking the town?" Rahul smiled "If he attacks the town, then most of his troops will die in the hands of those abnormals."
"But even if his troops somehow manage to kill those five thousand abnormals, which by the way, is an impossible task, we can always leave."
"Leave?"
"Yes. If he tries to attack the town, then we'll leave. Do you really think that he and his two hundred men are capable of stopping us if we choose to leave." Rahul laughed at his own words "I don't think so."
"But, the people in the town…" I wanted continue but he interrupted once again.
"Why, you want to save them? Be a hero of the town. Kill the tyrants, protect the weak."
"This is not a Fairy tail little brother." Rahul said with a snort "I might have said that we're powerful, but that's only when compared to normal people. In the grand scale of things, we're no more than ants."
"If tomorrow, someone truly powerful comes here and attacks us, we won't last for a second. So none of the things that you've mentioned so far are of any importance to us."
"Then what is important?" I asked, both in annoyance and understanding.
After all, what he had said so far was truly not wrong.
"Family And Power." Rahul said "The most important thing is always family. But in this new world, if you don't have power, then you'll definitely lose your family sooner or later."
"Do you think Neha would have been safe if you had to fight those three as a normal human being."
"You might have become a bit strong but in truth your situation is still not all that different from back when you were just a normal human being. Do you understand?"
Rahul then picked up crystals in his hands and said "And this is the only thing that'll give you power. So tonight, we'll hunt the abnormals down on the streets."
"As for Raka and the military commander, leave them to me."
"Focus on getting stronger and protect Neha. That's all I ask of you." He said "You may leave now."
I took a deep breath and finally said "I understand." And went out of the door.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone