CHAPTER 16 - Plans

There was some rejection at my proposal at first, but after a long talk where I told them in detail about my plans, they started to give in. However, if they really think that I told them all I have in store, they have no idea of what I am capable of. 

First off, I explained how I really didn't have any kind of intention of taking over the base itself as they suspected. I showed them my perspective of doing things on my own yet together and they liked it. We need to start our plans by having a good foundation, that, for the most part, will be my job.

Laying a good foundation will be the key to not having any setbacks later on so I will be on my own for a month or two, at least that's my estimation. While they keep up doing their own thing managing and taking care of the base itself I will be not only improving my strength, but the strength of the whole settlement. 

I could be considered the person in charge of getting the resources needed to arm our soldiers to the teeth with top-notch equipment and weapons. I will be mapping the furthest areas too, places too deep into the city or too far off into the wild. While our little base becomes a fortress with all things that comes with it, I will be the one siphoning all the important things for the troops that will be preparing themselves by taking progressive risks. You could say that I will be buying time for the base to grow and expand.

Apart from that I am planing on improving my own strength by any means possible. I am planning on building my own lab where I keep running my experiments, both related to monsters and qi. Don't forget about training too! I will be training every single day in my soon to be daily hunts to acquire the monsters' remains we will be using as raw materials for armor and stealing their weapons. 

Hunting is not the only thing I will do on my trips, I will try to map out the places I go too and get important supplies that we need to get before they get destroyed or taken by other survivors. A clear example would be machinery, we will be needing a lot of solar panels and generators and so on as a temporary way to solve the actual lack of electricity. 

To sum up, I will be doing the military aspects apart from training the troops. Well, actually, maybe I do go every now and then to practice my techniques against humans too, just in case…

The meeting ends like that and we end up deciding that they won't be giving me the same leadership position till a few days pass to assure the other survivors that I worked my ass off to get it. It's important to not show favoritism, even though it's pretty obvious the reasons behind. Anyways, it doesn't really matter that much as the important people are going to be aware anyway so it's the same for me. 

"See you tomorrow then guys." I leave on my own to do some things before the day ends. My first stop being the blacksmith.

*knock* *knock*

"Hello!? James?" 

It doesn't pass that much time before James comes to open and lets me in, I follow him to the warehouse as he starts rambling about his plans for the new materials.

"Leo, you said that you wanted one, may I know what are you going to do with it and if you have any preferences when it comes to choosing them?" 

"Nothing crazy, as I need to know where to stab. I am trying to get an idea of the anatomy of the monsters. You will probably understand the difference between piercing some flesh than piercing a vital organ and killing your enemy on the spot." I am definitely not telling him that I am looking for something else, the last thing I want is people thinking I am nuts.

"I will be choosing the body in worst condition, it will end up being wasted anyways so might as well not waste the best ones."

"Okay, take that one then, you can use that to help you." He points to the armless monster and then at some kind of stretcher to help me carry it.

"Thanks, I will be going then."

"Wait, I got your knives already. I will bring them for you." He goes back to search in the back of the warehouse and doesn't need much time to bring back a bundle with all of the knives strapped around by a cloth.

"I made them with an average handle with metal inside to add the weight you wanted. Try it yourself to see if it is what you wanted." 

He hands me the bundle and I take out one knife and start fiddling with it, rotating it and swinging it around. "Is there somewhere here where I can try throwing it couple of times?"

"You can do it right against that wood panel if you want. Do you know how to do it?"

"No, I just tried it a few times before they had the handles. I just want to see if the balance is okay to start practicing with them." I got no idea how to throw anything, I have already tried it once with a spear on the first day and I prefer not to recall it at all. I did try it a few times the day I secured the claws, but I didn't waste too much time on it. Should be easy enough.

*Shoosh* I throw the knife, maybe with too much strength, I actually hit the panel, but it doesn't hit with the right angle and ends up bouncing and falling down.

*Shoosh* *Cling* *Shoosh* *Cling* *Shoosh* *Cling* *Shoosh* *Thud*

I throw all of them, but all of them meet the same result, only the last one does hit the mark in the middle with the point of the blade and stick to it.

"They are better than expected, perfect for the purpose I have for them." I tell James.

"You know, you lose a lot of respect when you say that after missing nearly every thow. Hahahaha." 

"..."

I find myself looking for a good place to train by myself inside the base while I am not exploring. I already took the corpse of the armless guy I will be examining to the place that James temporarily lent me and now I want to exercise for a bit and then improve my fighting skills. I would love to train my qi some more, but I prefer to let it slowly fill up just in case, it's already been a couple of hours and I will probably need a couple more for it to be full again.

I would love to go inside the city again to explore some more, get more supplies or even get that elderly couple here, but while my mood and heart tell me to do it, I know better. I need to get stronger, I cant be going running all around the place with no clear plan, maybe I will be able to do things my way in the future and get away with it, but for now… I can risk it all like that, so I train.

I already got my new weapons so I will be training that after some exercise and practicing some throwing skills while moving too, I can't expect monsters to stay still for me. I want those knifes to act for me more as a supportive tool than another weapon. I want to be able to create openings and cripple my enemies with them, not necessarily killing them.

First I try throwing from a fixed position to get used to the feeling and it doesn't take much for me to get the hang of it. Then as I get better I go to Jake to ask him for permission to make a training ground for throwing knifes. 

Actually, while I am asking for permission on the surface, I am just letting him know in advance, we already decided we are going to be equal leaders with his friends and that I will be in charge of military things and all that so… 

"Jake, I was going to build a training ground for throwing knifes to use on my own, but I thinks its a good idea to take the chance and a proper one for everything. That way all the survivors of the base will be able to train whenever they want if we let them free access."

"That's a pretty good idea Leo, I will leave you in charge of it and tell Josh to bring some able people there to help make it faster." 

I wasn't planning on leading the building myself, but it works for me, it's not like losing one afternoon will cripple me in any way. I will be enjoying them once we build them too, so why not help make them to my liking while we are at it. 

"Sure, if you leave me enough people it will be done by the end of the day. I will do my best to adjust it to be as realistic and helpful as possible to earn some fighting experience." I try to give him the best smile trying to get as much support as I can. As I like to call it, it's all fair play if it is for a good cause. No gaslighting at all.

About a quarter of an hour later

I really underestimated how much faith these guys have in me. Not even half an hour after I went to talk with Jake, Josh comes to see me with 20 workers in tow. I say workers as they seem to be the most prepared people on the base. Most of them bringing something on their own like hammers, shovels, saws and so on while the others workers I saw before around the base were pretty much just amateurs. Most of them doing menial tasks that could be done by everyone.

"I have brought you here some of the best workers we have. They were all just scooping dirt on the future water canal while I received the news that you were planning on building a popper place to train." Josh says as proud as he can be while looking at me.

"Okay, that's perfect then, all help will be appreciated. We will start by choosing the area where we will be building. Is there some free space with trees inside the base?" I ask Josh as I am not yet familiar with the layout of the whole base.

"Yes, there are some trees on the northern part, it's the only patch of trees inside the base that we have yet to chop down if I am not wrong. There should be some free space there too where the other trees were, we will probably need to uproot the stumps though." 

"Guide me there please."

"This place is good enough. We will keep the trees, only uprooting half the stumps, the rest will be left to keep the terrain uneven and help training the footing and maneuver. We will divide it in two halves, one easier and user friendly to start with and another that simulates a harsher environment." I start giving tasks to the people nearest to me.

"The training grounds will be divided into two parts, the real experience one and the rest. I would like to simulate the real experience part at most as we can, for that we will need some things that we probably don't have right now to spare, but I will be in charge of procuring them." If I want to make it as useful as I can I will be needing an urban part too. To achieve that I will need to use destroyed stuff and paved roads or something similar to simulate it. 

"I will go get some things, in the meanwhile I want you all to make some wooden targets. Make sure to make of various kinds, some for throwing knives or arrows from an idle position, some to distribute around the pack of trees and some more with human or monster dimensions to move around." I may be forgetting something for now, but we need to start somewhere. I want to have a training space for each type of weapon if possible, obviously including all kind of range weapons.

In fact, I would want to make a place for people to train their maneuvers too, like some kind of parkour track or something of the like, but for now I will be bringing some cars and other things to lay around in the urban area. It will take a while, but we will probably end tomorrow at noon if we do it properly, if not earlier. I will make sure it's up to everyone standards.