Trash in the Apocalypse

Chapter 269: The Glaring Truth

Before Jun's group could leave for Lakeside Marina, they encountered Paolo Canlas.

At first, Paolo Canlas wanted to ask someone to bring Jun over to the town hall for them to talk but considering their power levels, it didn't seem appropriate. 

Black Haven solidified their foothold among the people with numerous tricks and benefits. The EXP buffs, the stat buffs, and the items that they sell. There was nothing flawed about how they ran the town except for their cold and uncaring attitude to most things. They mostly interfere when things turn too bad, but if its just quarrels and disputes, they won't care.

That's why, Paolo Canlas met him in person, as a sign of respect and to personally ask the information that he wants.

He was already informed by his subordinates when the group got out of the mall and headed somewhere else. So, they followed them and arrived at the recruitment place and even waited for them to finish.

As Jun walked away with his crowd and were headed to Edward's Fiery Dragon, the two faction leaders met.

"Heya!" Jun casually greeted and raised his hand. "It's rare to see each other. I guess this is not by chance, right? Is there anything that I could help you with?"

Seeing Jun agreeable, Paolo also didn't make things difficult and also acted like the two of them were best buddies.

"Hahaha, that's quite true. Even though we were able to clear the nearby towns and barangays, there were still sitios and barrios on secluded places. We don't know whether there are people awaiting rescue and we're still doing our best to rescue everyone every day. I'm here to clarify somethings about rumors that I've been hearing for the past few days. Does Antipolo really have the city secured? Is there really a stronghold established at Taytay?"

Jun pondered for a bit. As someone who works for the government, Paolo Canlas would surely be interested in this information. The problem stems from the probable effects of the National Police reestablishing communication with the government. But still, he can't just lie and can't say the whole truth either. 

So, he decided to say the truth, the whole truth.

"Yeah. Antipolo was secured but is too crowded with refugees. I think their food is already running out and riot might occur soon if things continued that way. They also made a stronghold at Rotunda Tikling. They're trying to rescue the president for a month now but haven't succeeded. You know how it is in the Capital. It's the most populated place in the whole region. The amount of regular, evolved and mutated carriers must be overflowing.

"But don't worry, they have strong firepower." Jun was reminded of the guns and ammunition the military used to sieve holes on the bodies of his mother's people. Although he and the Halfdeads didn't see eye to eye, he could still understand that they only did those things in order for themselves to live. "They even forced local groups out from Taytay who aren't willing to follow their demands. Most of them got injured, some got killed while others were captured. Yeah, they're doing great. The best thing about this was that I helped the military thinking I was doing a good thing."

Jun chuckled softly then shook his head. "I'll head out first. I still need to search for food sources. We can't all starve, right? The marketplace needs food so people won't riot."

Although Jun seemed casual, everyone could feel the hatred in his voice.

To those who were informed about the situation, they couldn't help but feel remorse and anger. Jun's mother was forced out of the town just because she and her group had a strange appearance and doesn't want to submit to the military.

Paolo Canlas and his escorts didn't know how to respond. How could they even respond? They didn't even know whether the information they received were truths and their faith on the government kept them from siding with him.

Still, some small seed of doubt was planted on everyone here.

After the small chat. Jun's group was then able to leave without much trouble.

It didn't take long for the Fiery Dragon to arrive at the outskirts of Lakeside Marina. Edward parked the car near the dirt path and the group went straight to the docks to greet Gilbert.

"How's the marina doing? Do you encounter any problems here?" Jun inquired interestedly with the small marina's situation.

This place was his treasure trove. He had the Tree of Life planted at the beach end of the marina. With the marina's people as caretakers, he at least wanted to treat them better. It's a must after everything they have been through. 

Their first meeting was kind of not good. Jun was very selfish and hotheaded and Gilbert lied to him about rewards. That ended up creating friction between them. It was when everyone sees the new world as something helpless and terrible.

However, a month has almost passed after that. Jun experienced a lot of things. The killings, loving someone again, trusting people, getting betrayed, and mutually taking advantage of each other. In these few weeks, he was able to experience most of the things that he experienced in his life during his gang times.

It was quite hectic, and yet, it made him improve himself so much and see new things that he couldn't see.

After reuniting with his mother, and saying farewell once again, he realized that people aren't just resources to move around like chess pieces.

They are people.

He somewhat forgot that along the way after experiencing the worldly affairs the world has to offer. The beautiful lies and the accompanied sorrows.

He thought that as long as he kept them safe, fed, and happy everything would be fine.

But he finally understood. As people, it's not enough to give them what they need. You still need to communicate with them. 

People are such a troublesome being to please.

The Tree of Life remained stagnant at ten energy fruits and one life fruit per day. Also, after the Tree of Life was planted at the small island at the end of the marina, they never experienced high tides anymore. Even the low tides were getting so low, they had to get a longer boarding wood to climb their boats.

Helena was still taking charge of the Tree of Life and has several people training under her with energy control.

There was nothing much the marina people could request and Jun thought of a good gift for them.

Improved housing!

He could use Blueprint to copy a bungalow or some cottage houses and build it at the higher part of the marina. He didn't tell Gilbert about his plan and only kept it in the back of his mind.

They sailed using abandoned boats retrieved at the Public Marketplace's docks. They were for civilian uses and were easy to drive around, so the marina people already adjusted to them.

Gilbert reported to Jun what they found out yesterday after investigating the fish ponds at Cardona.

"We're still not sure where the exact spot is, but it seems like this dungeon was huge. If I only guess, it should be a vast part of the lake. Since this is a wild dungeon, the dungeon zones might even have combined with each other and expanded. We got the general direction of the dungeon and they mostly spawn at the eastern part of the uptown district of the town."

"You already caught some of them? How are they? Are they edible or are they mutated?" Jun asked. 

Gilbert looked around the boat and stalled his reply. There were many people here and what he's going to say might disgust people who had weak stomachs. 

There were two passenger boats with thirty seater capacity. One boat had the veteran fishermen while this had the people from Black Haven; Jun, his bodyguards which is Nik's group, and the Elite unit.

"There's a variety of fishes in the fish pond but the most common were the milkfish. They were the ruling species and has the strongest group. Although they don't have sharp teeth, they had great suction and could nibble at your skin and flesh in seconds. While investigating, we happened to chance upon a regular carrier walking underwater get dismantled by a school of milkfish. Thankfully, we were fast swimmers and got up the boats in time before they noticed us."

Everyone's imagination was vivid. A regular carrier unfortunately drops into the water, walks around aimlessly, then gets swooped back and forth by the school of fishes, nibbling at every part of its body.

It was horrifying and disgusting.

Jun said. "Let's hunt every fish in the area first and feed them to corrupted pet animals. I heard the corrupted dogs have big appetites, sell them at a cheap price. If no one wants the fishes, hand them over to Felipe, so he could convert them to energy."