Stronghold In The Apocalypse

Chapter 129: Chase!

Beetham Tower now turned into a restricted area in Hope 101.

The Tower where only high ranking army officers and the people that Leo could trust can enter had become heavily fortified that there are even a wall made of cement currently being constructed around it, teams of armed soldiers constantly making their patrols along with four military post with their own AMV Foxhound stationed at its Northwest, Northeast, Southeast and Southwest of the building.

At the highest floor of the tower, Leo was standing just at the doorway and observing the members of the Magic Corps doing their routine training.

The floor was had been renovated or more like it was literally cleaned up. The entire floor had became bareback with almost nothing on it except for mats and the training dummies at other end of the floor.

And at the other side of the room are people currently meditating on their own mats. There are a total of fifteen people sitting crossed legged meditating. Seven adults and the rest are all kids around seven to ten years old. Among the kids are Jacob, Olivia and Jess who is Amanda's niece while the rest of the kids are especially handpicked as they are the most talented and have good morals among their generation and the two adults are Arthur and Aria.

The atmosphere of the Earth is already slowly changing like it was regressing to the atmosphere back in the Ancient Times and this only confirmed that magic truly existed back in the ancient times with the slowly emerging mana in the surroundings.

"It seems their training is going well" Leo rubbed his chin as he observed the people meditating.

Along with Leo's stats rising, his senses towards the different elements on his surroundings had also become more distinct now and that is the reason why Leo could feel the mana around them even though it is only feeble for now.

"Yes" a bespectacled man beside him nodded while looking at the people inside with sparkling eyes. It was Alastair who was an Engineer/Mechanic turned Scientist and Researcher.

He is really interested in this so called magic so he has been here for the past few days observing how they train and at the same time also eager if they could really wield magic like Leo said they would.

In actuality, Leo is having complicated feelings right now. He doesn't know if he should be happy with this achievement or feel bitter instead.

Why?

Well...because he's now bankrupt again. It's because the System scammed him!

Leo thought he only need to spend thirty thousand defender coins to buy a book that would immediately let the people who learned it sense and gather the mana in their surroundings but.. No!

It was actually a freaking pill like those medicinal pill of that of an alchemist and it freaking cost thirty thousand defender coins each!

Now, he was only left with a meager seven hundred seven defender coins left!

While Leo was walking down the flight of stairs, he was also mumbling to himself "System, do you know that you're really a f*cking bastard for scamming me like that?"

[...]

"Hey, the installment of the Gun Turret has always been delayed for quite a while now but because I expect to actually conquer the inner City of Manchester. This time I don't plan to install it on the wall back at the Stronghold but here instead. Is it possible to that?" Leo asked excited at the thought of finally installing that big gun.

[It's possible but your galvanized wall won't be able to hold the weight of the turret so you will need to at least build a sturdy platform where it would be installed] the system replied.

"Of course, I know that I'm not an idiot. I was just asking if it's possible to install this kind of items outside the walls of the Stronghold"

[The Guard Statues are installed outside the walls of the Stronghold]

"..." the corner of Leo's eyes and mouth twitched when he heard that like the System was implying to him that he should stop acting all smart around it.

Leo just ignored it in the end and just hurriedly exited the building and once he was outside the restricted area. What greeted him was a bustling scene on the street with people here and there doing their thing.

There are vendors on the side of the streets selling mutated beast meats. It probably came from those easy to kill small monsters like rabbits and the like. There are also patrolling soldiers, people training at the abandoned construction sites, kids playing along the streets while some who have matured thinking are training as they copied the people swinging wooden sticks like swords.

In this place, no one could recognized him that he's the ruler of this place and the survivors here only thought that he was probably new here when they noticed a new face around here so they just gave him glance along with smile or nod before resuming what they are doing.

And for Leo, the feeling was quite nice as he finally knew how celebrities probably felt when they walked around the streets and people would recognize them which causes some trouble. Especially for big celebrities that the people would suddenly turn into a mob wanting to have an autograph or wanted to have a glimpse of him/here and people who doesn't know what is happening would think they are criminals that just got from the court for a trial and the fans would then look like they are reporters and haters mobbing them.

While Leo was walking around and taking in the scene around him, there was suddenly a towering shadow in front of him and when he finally focus his attention to the person in front of him.

He saw a huge guy probably around six feet and eight inches with ripping muscles and he also noticed that the person has long steel staff behind his back that looks like the Monkey King's Ruyi Jingu Bang. Of course it wasn't, it was just a plain long steel acting like a bo staff and as thick as an adult man's arm and he probably picked it from a construction site or a hardware store.

"It's my first t- Oof~!" the guy wasn't able to finish what he was about to say when he suddenly felt searing pain on his stomach while feeling suffocated and forced him to bent down and clutched his stomach as he vomited that things that he had eaten this afternoon on the ground.

"Why did you attack him!?" suddenly a guy from the side ran towards them while yelling.

And the commotion on the street attracted a bit of an attention from the other survivors as they started paying attention to them.

"Isn't he a bully and wanted to extort me because I'm a new guy?" Leo said while raising an eyebrow.

"Grr.." the guy with a mesomorph build didn't answer him and just glared angrily at Leo before he went up to his companion and helped him get up on his feet.

"Wait..so he wasn't here to extort me?" Leo said while rubbing his chin with an eyebrow raised, sounding a bit surprised.

"Of course not, you bastard! Do you think this is story or something? He just about to ask you if you want to team up with us in hunting mutated monsters at the nearby Black Forest" this guy really wanted to charge at Leo and beat him up but he knows it would probably end up the other way around as he can't even defeat his friend while Leo already defeated him with just single punch and the said person is even still panting for breath as the attack was really too heavy for him especially when it suddenly came out of nowhere.

Well, it wasn't that it came out of nowhere. The guy just couldn't see Leo's fist heading towards him.

Leo wasn't even listening anymore but what got his attention was the Black Forest because as far as he can remember, there's no forest with the name Black Forest around this parts of the state. Leo didn't even notice that the people who are expecting for a fight to occur already dispersed even the two men are already walking away from him while the huge guy earlier that got knocked down was walking in limp.

"Oi..where the heck is this Black Forest?" Leo immediately called when he noticed them walking away.

"It's the forest around thet core area!" the other man didn't even bother turning back and just yelled.

"Core area? Where the f*ck is this core area?" while Leo was deep in thoughts, someone tapped his shoulder. Leo immediately turned his around and saw a man staring at him.

"The core area is that place surrounded with walls" the man said as he pointed at the direction of where the Stronghold was built before the guy walked away.

"What~?" Leo's expectation of that place suddenly crumbled when he heard that it was just the forest around the Stronghold!

He didn't even know that the forest was now called Black Forest by his own residents!

Ohh~ come on!

They could have at least come up with a better name!

Leo looked for a pebble on the ground and kicked angrily before he walk away and continued inspecting this newly acquired territory of his, oblivious to the gazes directed towards him.

When Leo turned into another street corner, there was silhouette of a person that appeared at the edge of an alley and that person just stood there and stared at the place where Leo disappeared from and a few moments later, the man looked around before the person hurriedly walk towards that specific street corner.