Mutagen

<strong>Day 261 - 2:14 PM - Living Room, Cliff House, Mountain Base, Mount Malabito, General Nakar, Province of Quezon</strong>

After a morning walk around the Mountain Base and a hefty lunch, Mark was now sitting inside the living room of the Cliff House.

Since it had been a while since Mark and his group were here in the Mountain Base, it was time to decide how things would proceed from now onwards.

The Mountain Base might be an ideal place to live during the apocalypse, thanks to Mark and those who created this place. However, it was far from the perfect place. It was not like they were aiming to make it perfect, as nothing could be called perfect even before the apocalypse. At the least, they wanted to deal with the problems the base currently had and could possibly have. And most importantly, what it essentially lacked for everyone to continue surviving the apocalypse.

While Mark had his own plans, he still lacked on-field experience in many aspects. And since he was always away from the base, dealing with stuff that could cause problems from outside, he lacked information on the current specifics of the base.

With those reasons at hand, Mark decided to schedule this meeting between the people he tasked with leading various designations within the base.

For the first and the most important thing within the base, safety, it was Edzel and Edward.

Edzel was here to represent the hunting group. The ones tasked with both hunting animals and foraging the mountain for food. He was not really the leader of the group right now, but his father, Pefile. However, everyone knew how Pefile did not like talking too much, making him unsuitable for meetings and such things. That was why his Edzel was here instead. Although the hunting group felt more among the people in the food department, their hunting tasks allowed them to survey the surroundings of the base.

Next was Edward, a former soldier and the leader of the survivors trapped in the University of Perpetual Help in Las Piñas. After he joined Mark's group with his members from the University, he was now in charge of combat training and the one in command during defensive battles.

The two began with their reports one after another, with Edzel being the first one, having both good and bad news.

"The whole mountain is basically yours now," Edzel declared.

According to Edzel, animals in the nearby areas began forming territories.

Animals forming their own territories was not surprising. Even before the apocalypse, many species of animals and insects were territorial. Now that [Evolved Animals] gained more intelligence than their pre-apocalypse counterparts, the chance of them making territories was something more or less expected.

However, Edzel was saying that animals began forming territories outside Mount Malabito. Animals seemed to have concluded that the mountain where the Mountain Base was built belonged to humans. That was why he said that Mount Malabito belonged to Mark, the leader of the Mountain Base and the people living within it.

"But that's also problematic, isn't it?"

Mark said, to which Edzel nodded.

"There are fewer animals to hunt in the mountain. We are lucky we got one early this morning. The previous days, we would need to reach the foot of the mountain hunting and go back late in the afternoon," Edzel supplemented Mark's thought.

Since Mount Malabito was marked as human territory, fewer animals would try to enter it. It was like how it was rare for mountain animals to actually enter a populated town or city before the apocalypse. This was what the bad piece of news was about.

One would think how funny it was. Before the apocalypse, the meat produce had sky-high prices, and the vegetables that many people hated were cheaply priced. Now, vegetables were a luxury, and meat from dangerous [Evolved Animals] was the staple food.

But because of the territorial changes around Mount Malabito, the stable flow of food from hunting was reduced drastically. Although animals would still enter the mountain due to uncertain reasons, mostly feral ones trying to attack anything along the way, it would be hard to pinpoint their locations over the mountain's size.

If the hunting group wanted to hunt animals more stably, they needed to leave the mountain, risking their lives on unfamiliar terrain.

"That's troublesome," Mark said, tapping his chin. "Even though we have food in stock, we can't just use it all up nilly-willy."

Mark then turned to someone present in the room. The one in charge of the food supplies and the head cook of the base, Trisha.

Trisha was one of the so-called founders of the base. She was respected by the residents, especially since she had the natural talent for making even the simplest meals tasty. She was one of the reasons people did not mind the rationed food in the base and were rather looking forward to it.

"The food supply is still fine, right?"

Mark asked.

"It's still in the green," Trisha replied. "Though we can't really splurge on it a lot. But it would be nice if we could use more than usual from time to time."

"And that's why you are here, right?" Mark asked. "Well, tackle that later."

"Okay." Trisha nodded as everyone's eyes turned back to Mark, who was now looking at Edzel.

"You have a plan?"

Mark asked Edzel. This, in turn, made Edzel turn his head to Edward.

"We actually have a suggestion about this," Edward spoke. "It also has something to do with what I want to report."

Edward then began his report amidst talking about the problem of the hunting group.

Being in charge of combat training, Edward was satisfied with the training results the so-called recruits had shown. The two young soldiers from Codon also helped a lot in giving the basic training.

However, these recruits lacked something.

"They needed on-field training and experience," Edward continued. "In theory, they are already good combatants. But we can't still gauge their reactions toward actual threats, especially in unexpected situations."

It was a reasonable thought. Although the recruits were trained physically, all those trainings would be for naught if they did not have the right mental capacity to back it up.

After hearing Edward's words, Mark caught on to what the two wanted.

"So, you two wanted the recruits to join on hunting sessions outside the mountain as field exercises?"

Edzel and Edward nodded at Mark's words.

It was hitting two birds with one stone. With a larger group, the hunters would be safer while also allowing them to bring back a larger haul. On the other hand, the recruits would get more experience fighting actual enemies.

This was not really something they had to ask Mark permission for. However, there was one thing that would need his help. Allowing the recruits to fight outside the base meant they would need more equipment and weapons.

In the base, Mark was the only one who would be able to provide stable armor and ranged equipment. After all, he was the only one who could command the [Blood Children] to make those. Although they were gathering animal remains and materials to possibly make armor and weapons, it was still in an experimental phase. And while the warehouse had guns, ammunition and explosives were far limited. Due to that limit, hot weapons were only designated to be used during crucial battles.

That was why Mark's help was needed to provide what they needed if they wanted to deal with things quickly.

"Hmm..." Mark started thinking before turning back to Edward. "I'll see what I can do. Just bring me the number of recruits along with their measurements. You can do that, right?"

Edward sternly nodded. Despite the expression, he was quite happy inside. One reason he wanted Mark to make the equipment and weapons of the recruits were for their morale. It was not wrong to say that Mark was idolized by the people of the base due to his strength. The recruits getting personal equipment that was personally made by the leader would bolster their confidence and morale during field training. It would likely end up with positive results.

"Is that all?"

Mark asked the two.

"Actually, there's one more thing," Edzel replied. "Past the river at the south, we spotted a giant creature yesterday. We can't determine what creature it was since we didn't approach it. I don't think it's an immediate threat, but it's better to be sure."

"You didn't report it yesterday?"

Mark asked.

"I did try to, but Miss Odel said to report it today instead since if I did yesterday, you will definitely neglect rest and fly straight to it."

Mark turned to Odelina, who was handing out drinks and treats for the meeting. She did not say anything but only gave a knowing smile.

Odelina's attitude made Mark sigh. She had loyalty as her [Mutator Trait], but she was not blindly loyal to the point of only following Mark's words. Instead, she put her master's circumstances before her own. Since Mark's group had just arrived home and needed their hard-earned rest, she had decided to tell Edzel to report it today instead of yesterday since the situation was not urgent.

Mark looked around the room before giving a shrug.

"Let's put that on the important list."

Mark said with a grumble. It was clear that everyone in the room was on Odelina's side in this one.

After Edzel and Edward, Mark listened to the reports one by one. Some were positive, while others were issues requiring a solution.

One of those issues was the one Trisha tried to propose. It was to establish an event from time to time to lift up the people's spirits and raise morale. Of course, it would consume more food and supplies.

Mark was not against this, however. In game terms, it was more or less raising the culture stat to raise the happiness stat and morale stat of the people. Since Mark actually had similar plans, he supported them.

Of course, Trish was happy her proposal was approved. It was actually the first time she proposed something for the base, so she was quite nervous.

The meeting went on for a while. It was already sunset when the meeting finished.

Mark felt tired after dealing with stuff. Deciding things, weighing options, and providing solutions, he was not really cut out for things like leadership work.

This was why Mark was not really thinking of making an entire base initially. Just a group of small survivors was enough. However, this apocalypse was not like most zombie apocalypse concepts he had seen before. The [Infected] mutates, the world changes, things keep on falling from the sky, and other dangers lurk in the dark. A small group of survivors and a small base would not be able to survive such stuff for long.

Now that Mark had established a thriving base, he found it really troublesome to manage. In the first place, Mark did not like city or kingdom management games. Colony-building games with a small number of people to manage were fine, though.

Mark remembered his time as a Tricycle Driver. He really hated attending their monthly meetings even though his father was one of the elected officers of the association.

As everyone left the room, Mark was left while checking some notes he took while listening to the reports.

At this time, someone entered the room.

"Everyone left already?"

Mei asked Mark.

"Yeah, the meeting just ended."

Mark replied, tired.

"Is anything urgent?"

Mei asked, approaching Mark and standing behind him.

"Luckily, there's nothing," Mark replied before remembering something. "Aside from the giant Edzel's group saw yesterday south of the river."

And as said, it was not too urgent, either.

"Then leave those papers for now," Mei said, patting Mark's head. "We can let Odel arrange those later."

Mark glanced at Mei and sighed.

"Alright."

Mei smiled, glad she could take Mark away from more work he hated when he was already tired. Mei could not really provide Mark much support in these things. Aside from her beauty and current combat abilities, she had nothing much to boast about. She was not specially trained in these things and was just an ordinary student if not for her rich background. She did not even know much about managing business and stuff, even though she came from a family known for such things.

The most Mei could do at these moments was to be Mark's source of relaxation and moral support. And most importantly, the one to stop Mark from overdoing things.

After all, one odd thing Mark was the best at doing was neglecting his own wellbeing.