Chapter 36 - Organizing Things

Angelica gave me such a burning gaze from the side, but I chose to ignore her. After all I was protected by my contract, but others would be easily scammed if they dealt with her.

"Just gather up all the chefs here," I said to Sara without much explanation before turning to Gerry. "You'll do like before. Anyone with unique or higher attributes will be gathered in a separate group."

"Ok," Gerry looked slightly dejected. He didn't find any good talent before and so he looked a bit down. But this time the group we had here was bigger and so the chances of finding good talents increased exponentially.

"I'll find those who have good memories," John volunteered. Anyone standing next to me would realize that Angelica was on the verge of exploding.

"Come with me," I said while moving slightly away from everyone else.

"Yeah, trying to threaten me with the contract again, ain't you?" She seemed to misunderstand my intentions. I looked up to her and didn't speak while moving towards one direction; the dorm of the guards.

"What brings us here?" she realized my intentions halfway and her tone looked a bit shaky. I knew she might have deep trauma from that place, but she needed to overcome this now.

That was why I chose her to follow me. "You'll know later," I kept going without stopping while she celebrated her steps for a few moments and then hurried after me inside the small building.

The place reeked with blood. After all that monster had a good feast before we even arrived. The dead bodies of those in her core team were moved and only the corpse of the monster laid at the end of the building.

"Are we here for its items?" she mistook my intentions again.

"You can salvage whatever you want," I said before suddenly recalling something. It was too late for now, as I already took the core of that monster.

If not, then it would be a great chance to learn a few deadly skills from it. Damn! I missed this chance amidst my worry over the core and monster materials.

"But don't mess with its flesh too much," I warned while bypassing it, "we'll need that for later."

"The meat?" she pointed at it like it was a disgusting creature. I knew what she was thinking, what every human had in their minds at these times.

However they were all wrong! One of the big mistakes humanity made at early stages was to avoid eating the monsters' meat. These monsters looked creepy and ugly, a little disgusting to be honest, but their meat was like precious medicine to our bodies.

They lived inside alien worlds, worlds filled with rich energy and good nutrients. So their bodies held such immense strength without even using any skills.

If humans didn't consume their meat early on, they would miss the chance to strengthen their bodies. Time would come when humans would step into the world of cultivation, or ascension as many preferred to say, or true evolution.

Systems were like assisting agents to us. Without good bodies their help was limited. Those who took care of their bodies found it easier to elevate their cultivation fast, strengthening both their souls and bodies.

That wasn't limited only to that. Coupled with systems, stats, and classes later on, humans would really turn into a new page of their lives.

All of this depended simply on such small steps here, like eating the meat of monsters. And I intended not to let the group under my lead to commit such a mistake.

If I had a way, then this would be one of the most valuable lessons I would love to share with all humanity. But there was no such a way to do that, at least not for now.

"What are you doing?

She seemed to lose her interest with the monster once I hinted about eating it. However I was sure, once she tasted its meat and felt the surging power inside her body; she would be addicted to it.

"I'm trying to get this thing working," I was linking to pipelines together. In fact this room wasn't in such a mess until the battle erupted here. The generator didn't take a big hit, luckily, but some of its tubes seemed broken or out of placement.

I didn't know how this thing was built. However I had some common sense inside to guide me. After all the tubes flung free and next to holes meant they should be inserted there, right?

"You want to turn this thing on?" she understood my goal before she went into momentary silence. "They came from dark and cold worlds, so this… This will be a good weapon against them."

Good girl! That was the main reason why I'd entrust my group here with you. "Do you know how to make it work?" I asked and she moved and started to help.

"I knew a thing or two about mechanics but this… let's hope it works at the end."

She was bluffing! Just like me! What a marvelous couple we were!

*Grrrr* *Grrrr* *Clang*

At first it produced strange noises like it was a monster struggling to get up. Then after five times of trying, it finally kicked into life. The next instant the entire place was lit up and we could finally see things clearly.

"Wow! It has rainbow scales!" Under the guidance of the light, Angelica noticed the color of that hybrid monster.

"Sure, it's a hybrid monster after all," I said as if it was something known, "if I were you, these scales won't be left behind. They will be fetched at the market for a high price."

"Oh, you sure know your stuff," she said while jumping around and gathering those few scales. This monster was a baby, so it didn't have its full body covered in scales. An adult would be, and I hoped not to meet such a terrifying monster this soon.

"Let's go," I said and didn't wait for her to finish.

"Wait, wait for me," she urged but I could hear her sword working and collecting these scales. There was no danger here for now, so I let her do what she was doing and went outside.

The sight changed drastically with lights. The museum had a big space, but it was covered with a good wall with big lights all over it. The inside and outside of the museum was now lit up, showing the distance around for almost half a mile.

Not a single monster would dare to approach without being noticed. Such a big distance provided a safe zone for setting up good defenses here.

We had quite a number of survivors, but I knew by looking at the size of the museum, they would face a hard time if they were hit with a large horde of monsters.

"It's looking bright here," Sara and Isabella came side by side with the rest of his team. Only Allen returned to guard Allen.

"Gather up Angelica and her team," I didn't have much time to waste here, "have you gathered the chefs?"

"Yeah, there are around twenty ones ready," Isabella said while Sara nodded.

"What about Gerry?" I looked at the distance but the poor Gerry was still checking the large number of people here.

"He still didn't find anyone worthy," Isabella adjusted her glasses before adding, "we also found ten people with good memories. But why is that all for?"

"You'll know in a minute," I said before leading them towards the museum, "gather up Angelica and her core team."

"I'm on it," John moved while the three girls followed me. Sherry acted all silent all the time, not speaking or doing anything at all but to follow my lead.

If not for the compass, I would have definitely suspected her.

The interior of the museum was vast and well lit. "Wow, it's my first time here," Sara said while the others kept watching around.

"Here is enough," I stood at the entrance and refused to step in. up till now I wasn't sure if our enemies planted anything extra in here. And I didn't have time or the power to resist more frightening monsters now.

I should save my power for my upcoming movie.

I didn't wait for long. In a few minutes everyone gathered. Eight from Angelica's team plus my four people, making us a group of sixteen youths including me and Angelica.

"Listen up," I slowly said but I tried to put my most serious face on, "I'm going to teach you some stuff that are needed to survive this sh*t. First of all, some of you know about how to extract skills from the dead monster bodies, right?"

I meant my team by that. As expected, Angelica and her team looked in loss when I said that.

I started to briefly explain the process of getting skills and the most common ones they might find. Angelica started to get a grasp about why I arranged for the monster drop to be given to her.

After all she needed coins to buy stuff, not only for those here but for everyone as well.

Night vision, dashing, and even wolves' howling and slashing skills were good for common people. Having a large army of humans without giving them weapons and skills was a waste.

I also asked Angelica to buy some weapons for each one outside based on their stats and attributes. She nodded and everyone on my old team knew how to handle this.

"Now I'm going to speak about three important things. First is food," I intentionally paused before adding, "it might seem crazy but the only food we'll get for a long time ahead will be those monsters' meat."

"What?!"

"You gotta be kidding me!"

"Holy sh*t!"

"That's groose!"

I expected their reactions but I ignored all of them. "We all have to survive. If you want to go outside and walk around big supermarkets then be my guest. Not only you'll face a lot of monsters, there won't be enough food left to eat."

"..."

My words left a big impression inside all of them. "We'll have to improvise. Chefs will help us do this, but we need some important ingredients from the market to turn this meat into something we can eat."

In fact those ingredients aimed at extracting more energy and not letting it be wasted by fire. The meat of monsters wasn't poisonous or harmful. But eating it without such ingredients would be a waste.

"Angelica, you need to buy large amounts of proder powder, gemini aura, lepas herbs…" I started to narrate ten different ingredients from my memory. They were simply the cheapest out there, each group of them would cost around ten to fifty coins.

Her complexion fell for a few seconds before I noticed a relieved expression there. As expected of the most stingy person in the group; she checked the list first to know how much this would cost.

Even if I made her pay for it, which wasn't a big deal, she would only take the loss of one thousand coins at max.

"The second part is water," I said before adding, "we are in the central park. There are no ground monsters here for now, and water monsters won't arrive anytime soon. So we have a golden window to act."

In fact getting food was much easier than getting water. Water was considered so rare that it might be exchanged later on using coins.

"There are enough lakes here," Isabella said and I nodded. It was one of the perks of being in the central park and having a new yorker with us.

"But are these lakes safe?" Angelica seemed hesitant, "I mean won't it be dirty or something? It would be bad if we caught any disease or were poisoned by it."

"That's why we need two things from the market," I said and the moment I said these words, Angelica's face changed again.

"Market market market, can't we do anything without spending coins?" she grumbled but I didn't take her words seriously.

"We need detoxifying items to clear the lakes. There's an item called the tinki horn. It has great uses if we smashed it. It's not that hard and we can use our swords or shields to do it."

"Sounds like you used one before," Angelica seemed a little sour about this.

"You can check it, it's only sold for twenty coins per patch. Each patch has ten horns. For one lake we might need ten patches."

"Oh," she felt this wasn't a big loss so her worry subsided and her face relaxed. "So we will select one lake and move the water from there then detoxify it. But how are we going to move enough water for us?"

I knew this would be more painful for her, but she had to carry some of the burden here with me. "We won't carry them. There is another item called liquor. It has the ability to store large amounts of water inside, enough to sustain us for months."

"Wow," the eyes of everyone gleamed with realization, except for Angelica. She knew such a good item must come with a hefty price.

"Holy moly! It costs five hundred coins per piece!" she screamed while looking at me, "it can carry up to thousand liters! How many are we going to buy? Ten?"

"One per person," I slowly said and her face stiffened, "and if any of us is killed, you have to get this liquor from him."

It was a special item that would fall after death. So it wouldn't be a total loss. However everyone just calculated and knew this would cost a huge sum of coins.

"I will handle half of the cost," I slowly said, "and the rest will be divided on you."

As I said these words, the painful expression over Angelica's face softened a bit. "If you say so," she said and I knew what she was planning.

"Don't think I don't know how much I gave you, and how much it should bring from the market," yet my next words turned her face ashen white.

C'mon, you didn't expect me to know all this stuff and not know how much you gained from my items, right?