21 The Hunting Team (2)

Larcen took the pack of biscuits and contemplated his choices before deciding to ask for more, "Are there any other options?"

"Well, there's two.", the guy said with a displeased expression on his face before adding, "You can either go and ask the bunker guy to let you in. The only way he will let you in is if you pay him 1SP for a day's shelter. The other option is to wander on your own and leave the rest to luck."

Larcen nodded. He liked the last option the most but he wasn't strong enough to survive on his own for now. He smiled at the others and thanked them again before joining them while they searched for more survivors. 

He walked towards the nearest person and whispered, "Hey, can I ask you a few things if you don't mind?"

"Sure, what do you want to know?", she asked and Larcen did exactly that.

"Well, it's about the bunker guy. I just wanted to know if he has firearms."

"It's a polite thing to introduce yourself first, you know?", she said as she smirked while Larcen gave her an apologetic smile.

"Ahaha, Where are my manners? My name is Jake by the way."

She nodded, "Anna. As for the bunker guy, he seems to have a lot of food stored up and as for guns, I did see him holding a shotgun when he came out to talk to us. If you were a girl, he would've let you live with him for free at a cost but you're a guy. You have no other option but to pay him SP every day.

Once the sun set, he traded a few weapons for food with us. He mentioned something about saving the long-lasting food for later. He gave us one of his rifles.... if I'm not wrong, it is a bolt action .22 rifle. One of our guys had experience with guns so it's mostly with him during the day but now it should be with his daughter.

Anything else you want to know, handsome?"

"Huh? Oh, I mean thanks. I don't think I want to know about something specific but if there is something that you feel like I have to know, please tell me.", he said, his attention on the sudden compliment he had gotten. 

From Jack's memory, he was mostly called cute by the girls but he knew the truth. He was just extremely skinny and his face simply made him look malnourished. While he did have good genetics, he never really worked to make them pop out.

He wished he had a mirror to see how he looked right now but gave the girl his full attention as information was one of the most important resources, at least to him. The group moved on and the two of them chatted all night long until the sun rose. Unfortunately, they couldn't find any more survivors as Larcen was the last one.

They walked back and the different teams met in front of the large mall before moving in. Larcen spotted the girl with the rifle and followed her with his eyes as she walked toward a middle-aged man. 

The man looked like an experienced veteran. Larcen did not have much interest in the man at the moment and looked around, hoping to find his previous group but failed in doing so. He turned to his new friend to ask about them.

"Hey Anna, do you know if a group of four came here? Two sisters who aren't identical and two really strong guys. The tall guy is a cousin of those girls."

"Oh them.", she said and paused for a few seconds before continuing, "They left for the military base after taking some things from us. They were the ones who promised to give us a way out of here. I just wish we could go with them but they refused saying that we were too weak. 

They were not wrong though. The strongest guy we had got easily beaten so we decided that we would wait for them here but one of those sisters, the elder one if I'm not wrong, asked us to search for survivors while they send help here."

Larcen nodded and just stayed silent, leaving Anna clueless about his thoughts but she still asked him.

"Looks like you know them huh?"

"Yeah...", he nodded again. "We could be considered friends I guess."

All the groups reported a total of three survivors including Larcen and he was by far the most healthy one. The other two of them were badly injured and one of them had a stump instead of an arm.

A small kid walked up to Larcen and patted his hand to get his attention. Larcen looked down to look at the kid and the guy simply pointed at five men who were sitting on the floor and waving at him.

"Those guys are the team leaders of the hunting groups. They probably want you to join them so what do you plan on doing, Jake?", Anna asked, nudging him with her elbow.

"I'll talk to them and see. I want to join but I'll only join if their teams aren't shitty.", he said before walking towards the group. He wanted to join as he wanted more skills but wanted to properly learn about the system established here.

"Hey mate, are you interested in joining the hunting teams?"

Larcen nodded and sat down with them before directly asking the thing that was bugging his mind.

"I am interested but before that, I would like to know if we have to give away some of the SP to the others here. If that's the case, I'll refrain from joining."

"Jake huh... well, you don't have to fear all of that. Hunters keep all the SP to themselves but we have to provide them protection during the day. We have five teams and you can decide which team you want to join. We take turns every day so it can be fair. You can call me Bull, by the way."

"Mhm, got it. As for the team I want to join...."