151 Frontier's Higher Ups

Jun and Evo started their drinking session on the spot. They sat on the floor and didn't care about the outside world. They didn't talk initially but when Jun got drunk, he started talking trash about people, about society in general. A bunch of idiots he said. Evo was never a good drinker nor a good social person. He just passively nodded his head and gave short replies.

Bottle after bottles piled up beside Jun making him wasted while Evo stayed clear headed. There's only one reason he could outlast Jun when he wasn't even a heavy drinker. He cheated.

After the first bottle, every time that he drinks from his glass—a small black vortex the size of his palm would appear before his mouth. The liquor would fall into it and disappear in thin air. Jun could have easily caught him cheating if he was paying attention to him but he wasn't. Jun was busy drinking himself to death.

When Jun woke up the next morning, he felt a splitting headache. He fumbled besides him as he massaged his forehead. Then, he suddenly opened his eyes.

Jun sat down and looked around, followed by a despondent wry smile. The blankets slowly fell down revealing his muscular body. The well defined arm muscles bode well with his perfectly dense abs. Finally accepting the truth that it wasn't a dream, Jun plunged backwards back into his bed. His eyes appeared nonchalant but his hollow expression gave it all.

He spent the morning lying on his bed. By noon, he was able to force himself to get up and walked around. On the way out, Takaw saw him and excitedly followed him around. When he passed by the living room, he saw everyone chatting with each other.

A new batch of survivors just got rescued by the police and is currently the talk of the town. People talked to him when he passed by and he just acknowledge them with a nod of his head. He couldn't get the hang of this new feeling as everyone stared at you filled with pity. He hated it. Jun left and went back to his room followed by Takaw.

With nothing else to do, he trained his energy control and further raised his familiarity with his skills. He also experimented with different energy applications that he could do over his body. With past experiences, he easily found some useful ones like applying energy on his eyes for night vision, channel energy to his ears for increased hearing and enegizing his nostrils to amplify his sense of smell.

Though he got great results from his experiment. he easily felt bored after an hour. Thanks to Old John passing by and suggesting that he should go outside, he thought of an evil plan. He blackmailed Old John that he wouldn't go out if he doesn't come out with him. For once, he finally understood how Old John was feeling. The feeling of losing someone and you couldn't do anything about it, except accept it. The way he looked at the old man became much respectful and he felt an invisible bond between them.

With Jun's blackmailing or for some reason, Old John accepted to spend some time outside. There's nowhere interesting to go to since Old John has a low-level. They couldn't go out and slaughter some carriers to pass some time since Old John wasn't fond of fighting the undead. His reason? He was to old to be swinging things around.

Old John doesn't like public places since he always get mobbed by people asking for internship. It was very rare for him to come out and whenever he did, it would always be for a short time in the morning. Jun could only laugh at his problem. Old John's words of being too old to swing swords sparked some ideas on Jun's head and so he brought him to a place where they could find an old person busily swinging a tool by himself.

They arrived at the vegetable garden and chatted with the father and son duo as they helped them tend the small plot of land. On the distance, interested individuals, man or woman, could only look from afar. No matter what their plans were they couldn't approach closer due to the masked men standing around the vegetable garden. During normal times, the vegetable garden was quite empty and only people who liked eating vegetables come here.

Anna had a frown on her face as she watched the commotion from the side. She felt that the man was somewhat familiar but she couldn't accurately pinpoint what she was currently feeling. She ignored the weird feeling and went towards the Black Haven bus to look for a job.

A few people in blue shirts came towards her, surrounding her. A bearded man with a round face and haircut, stepped forward and said, "I'm Melchor Galvez, Guard Captain and the Frontier's recruitment officer. According to our interviews from other people from your group, you know how to use a bow?"

Anna felt unpleasant after realizing that these people have looked into her but still tried to be polite. She nodded her head but kept silent, waiting for more information whether to label them as bad or good people. They arrived here this morning thanks to the rescue operation by the police but then realized that the money they stocked on themselves couldn't be used since there's a new currency circulating around. This forced a lot of people to adapt and look for odd jobs so they could supplement and lead a stable life.

Seeing her confirmation, the bearded man's expression visibly lightened followed by a smile. "Just like what I've said, we are from the Frontier. The Frontier is an organization made by common people for the people. We help everyone that is willing to be helped and aims for a future were everyone is equal. We give full supports to our members so they could easily strengthen themselves. From weapons, armors and medicine. We also give financial support to their families if they ever got injured on battle and shoulders their bills. You can learn more about us after joining or you can attend a seminar. You can find our place at the East Road Apartelle and just say my name Melchor as the recruiter." The bearded man handed a simple namecard made from thick paper and handwritten name.

Anna was awestrucked as she held the namecard on his fingertips.

Is this how people do recruitments today?

—

In the afternoon, Jun went to Calvary Hill with Old John. He also brought anyone who wanted to come and to his surprise, most of the Black Haven employees came with him. Only leaving Tatang Robin alone in the mall. To be fair, he didn't want to go out and would rather stay back to guard the place.

For the first time since they opened, Black Haven closed its doors to its customers. This action was solely to give everyone some rest and to widen their world view. Jun already had several encounter with otherworldy phenomenon—from weird events, monsters and strange powers—so his wprldview already changed a long time ago and he wanted his family to experience them too.

But some people didn't see it like that. On a rectangular dining table sat four men and two women. Alday Ruan, the founder and leader of the Frontier sat on one side of the table while his wife, Monica Ruan sat on his left. Marichu, the Frontier's secretary, had a frown on her face as she angrily tapped her fingers on the table. Monica glanced at her and slightly shook her head.

"Why are you so restless? Calm down." Monica suggested.

"You do realize that they are trying to control us, right?" Marichu said impatiently, even eagerly for that matter. Though she didn't name anyone, everyone knew as to whom her words were meant for.

Monica turned to face her and replied, "Wait for everyone to arrive. That's why we are here instead of outside. Honey, don't you think that calling for a meeting should atleast have substance and a level of importance? If anyone can call a meeting just because they can't handle things, then we'll be here everyday."

Alday Ruan felt awkward with how the two women in the room were act. At that time, the door opened widely and a blood stained bulky man entered the room. Unlike his fiery and robust aura, the man slightly lowered his head and bowed.

"Hello everyone. There's a bit of a delay since our communications network are still a bit... too primitive." The man lowered his head once again and bowed when his eyes met with Alday.

Alday nodded towards him and motioned for him to sit down. The bulky robust man sat beside a scrawny man and their contrast was a refreshing sight for everyone in the room.

The scrawny man said towards the robust man, "As usual your late. You should trim yourself a bit. Maybe I should reduce your supplies so you can slim it down."

The man was called Crisanto Simon, the quartermaster of the Frontier. He is the one who manages and distributes supplies and provisions among the Frontier's soldiers. He's also the person who supervises what things to buy and sell.

The robust man squinted his eyes and without waiting for the man to continue spouting nonsense, he glared and said, "Want to square it out? No? I thought so. Just keep your hands to your goods. That's were you excel."

"You!"

"Stop it you two. Aren't you ashamed?" Melchor Galvez said as he sat composed on the side of the table. When Melchor intervened with their little quarrel, the two quickly stopped their banter and apologised to Alday Ruan.

Alday Ruan nodded and said, "Gener, I sincerely thank you for your efforts on guiding our new people. Don't ever worry about being late, it's never going to be a problem if you have proper reason. In the future, we won't have to rely on smoke signals. My discussion with the Black Haven's Finance Director Bernard is getting better. I don't know why but things were just becoming better. He might agree to sell us some wireless earphones."

Everyone's eyes twinkled at the news. Black Haven's technology were considered advanced for today's people. It was something rare and anyone who owns them are automatically regarded as Black Haven's staff.

"Okay, I know that it became too early, but let's start today's meeting."