Free Web NovelChapter 24: More Power
By the time Hans returned to the freight yard, the training had already shifted from testing to routine.
Callum did not waste words with everyone else.
Johannes continued his balance-based conditioning, controlled impact drills, and versatile sparring sessions.
From basic footwork to pressure control. Though his path wasn’t sharp, it had few obvious weaknesses.
Evelyn trained in threat detection, discrimination, and enhanced reaction time. One attacker was easy. But a shifting attacker was not.
And when she thought she already had grasped the idea, Callum instantly raised the difficulty by adding another unit in the middle of the session.
Her danger sense had to learn not only where danger existed, but which danger mattered first, and how to react against them.
Yunera received the longest training list. Due to her lack of combat experience and techniques, Callum had to train her personally.
And Kimmy remained on the side, her training vastly different from the rest.
Short-interval layered spatial tracking.
She was tasked to observe everyone else’s training in as much detail as possible and call it out while an Engineer on the side quickly typed into a computer interface.
The task sounded simple. It was not.
Kimmy had to track Johannes’s posture and the sparring DASF’s stance, Evelyn’s decisions and reaction delays, Yunera’s clumsy footwork, Callum’s movements, the DASF positions, the warehouse layout, and the Engineer’s timing prompts.
One layer at a time, then two, then three.
The moment her breathing turned unstable, the Engineer marked it down. The DASF guarding her would quickly break her concentration and pull her back.
Callum’s instruction was simple—nothing heroic and no forced breakthrough.
Kimmy had to build capacity without losing control.
Hans watched as everyone engaged fiercely, nodding at their commitment to train and improve.
I should train too, sometime. I should ask Matilda and the other DASFs.
Callum’s body was already strained by training with these people. Pushing him to do more would reflect badly on Hans’s leadership.
Hans rubbed his forehead, feeling that he was slowly becoming a full-time CEO.
From training people to feeding them.
From deploying structures, setting up construction plans, to powering them.
And the burden of maintaining his soldiers, watching the city, and eventually formulating plans to conquer it...
When he first received the RTS System, Hans had been very pleased. He thought he had finally landed a cheat.
Now, he was starting to think systematically again.
A phenomenon far too similar to what he had done before the apocalypse.
Hans opened the construction interface.
His gaze immediately drifted toward the Airfield Base option.
I really can’t wait to deploy this.
The airfield would finally open the doors leading to the aircraft units.
Actual, very real aircraft.
The word alone almost dragged his hand forward. Then his eyes moved to the construction queue.
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[ Gold: 35,285 (-8000) -> 27,825 ]
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[ Power Plant enqueued for construction. ETA: 8 hours and 15 minutes. ]
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Hans queued another Power Plant construction hours ago.
He had just deployed a Radar Facility. He had unlocked new construction options not only from the Radar Facility, but from the Barracks deployment as well.
The good old Wall and Pillboxes.
Garrison Post. Watch Tower. Field Hospital.
SAM Sites. Sensor Towers. Command Link Outposts.
All of them sounded useful, with a place somewhere in his growing base.
Hans leaned back and exhaled. The Airfield Base could wait. He needed a huge stream of Gold to even make the Airfield one bit useful. If each Aircraft cost at least twenty thousand Gold...
As for these new toys, he needed a battlefield to test them out. However, he needed more power first, or else he would bankrupt himself electrically.
And if the results did not satisfy him, he could sell them anyway.
"System, do I receive half the cost when selling buildings?"
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[ Affirmative. ]
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"Is deconstruction instant?" Hans worried.
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[ Deconstruction time is equal to deployment time. ]
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Thank goodness, Hans breathed a huge sigh of relief.
The last thing he needed was to accidentally deconstruct a building, taking both time and construction queue.
The refund worked similarly in-game as well.
"Can deconstruction be cancelled?"
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[ Negative. ]
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"Does the refund arrive at the end?"
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[ On deconstruction confirmation. ]
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"What about the energy consumption?"
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[ Energy consumption is released after successful deconstruction. ]
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Hans nodded. That was fair enough.
He had no instant abuse, nor refund exploits. And not even a chance to escape from his bad decisions.
The System was convenient, but it wasn’t a saint.
After closing the construction interface, Hans let the afternoon pass under a more controlled rhythm.
He returned to his office and started scribbling more notes, drafting several rough plans regarding Cell 7, the nuclear power plant, and the western districts of Grefort City.
Cell 7 remained simple on paper and complicated.
They must not be approached, nor proactively provoked.
The nuclear power plant was worse. Hans circled its rough location on his freshly charged tablet’s map, then placed a large question mark over it. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
The Radar Facility could not give him a reliable picture from this far away.
He already planned to send scouts even without terrain data as constructing a second Radar Facility might take more time than simply looking around.
Then came the western districts.
Commercial-heavy blocks filled with offices, hotels, banks, jewelry stores, pawnshops, pharmacies, shopping center. Basically, every other structure that yelled "money."
And somewhere inside that mess were more survivors, more infected, more loot, and probably... even more and worse problems.
Hans tapped his pen against the table.
The banks were always a treasure trove—one that his troops had personally opened before.
But commercial districts weren’t idle. They were dense, vertical, full of blind corners, locked rooms, basement levels, and places where infected could gather without making it obvious.
The Radar facility could detect them, but if they overlapped, that would be a different issue on its own.
Still, even with a godly support tool, he still wanted to clear the western district with discipline.
He needed routes. From small entry points to important fallback paths, and which building to prioritize as first.
As his mind focused on answering each question that became complicated as time passed—
On the other side...
Callum continued drilling the four superhumans.
The remaining Engineer recorded data. The Medics monitored fatigue and overall conditions.
The Power Plant continued counting down in the construction queue.
And above the eastern side of the base, the Radar Facility kept turning, quietly reminding Hans that one pair of eyes was not enough for a city this large.
From time to time, Hans checked the private marker near the northwestern district.
Cell 7 did not move. The underground sentry pair remained in place.
Dmitri’s group stayed at the abandoned SAS outpost.
Dusk slowly pressed orange light across the broken rooftops.
At that moment, Bastion three finally returned.
