Stronghold In The Apocalypse

Chapter 146: The Three Hunting Squads

"Alright" Leo dusted off his hands and in his mind he plans to reward that soldier who thought of that great idea of bringing it back for research.

And then Leo deactivated his Armor but just after he did that, he suddenly fell on the ground on all fours and started throwing up!

'Oh god! The stinker just multiplied!' Leo cursed inside his mind and the same time, he didn't know if having an improved sense of smell was good thing or not! It was because the smell was so bad that Leo felt like someone threw him inside a latrine pit or maybe even worse!

'I've smelled bad things like zombies before this one is the smelliest of all! No doubt!' Leo bitterly thought but then he suddenly heard people vomiting behind him which made him have feel a weird satisfaction that there are others suffering the same thing as him!

And the soldiers who saw him from inside the house panic as they thought that something bad probably happened but they didn't saw him throwing because Leo's buttocks was facing towards them.

"Quick! Something happened to the commander!" the soldier who brought Leo here panic and immediately ran towards the door with the others following behind him but just after he opened the door, a super disgusting immediately assaulted their noses as they started vomiting! Some were on all fours on the ground while there are some leaning on the sofas or wall with their hands with tears in their eyes.

But if it makes the soldier feel better then they are not the only people who befell the same fate as them as there are also others suffering the same thing outside the house as there are also others who smelled it when the disgusting smell rode along with the wind and brought this disaster to the others.

All of them felt that today is one of the unluckiest thing that happened to them especially those male soldiers who threw up embarrassingly in front of the woman they like!

Then the soldiers who didn't get to smell that stinky smell immediately burst inside the house because they were hearing weird noises which made grew worried but when they got inside what they saw shocked them because they saw their companions sprawled everywhere wifted the smell of vomit wafting in the air.

One of them got curious and said, "What the heck happened here?"

One soldier who is lying on the back rail of a sofa weakly raised his hand and said with a voice full of bitterness, "The smell...the smell was trying to kill us earlier"

"Yea...it was so bad that I thought I was going to die an embarrassing death!" another soldier leaning against the wall with his back cursed angrily.

The soldiers who heard them didn't know what to say and just looked at each other and every single one of them is wearing that look of 'What the heck are these bozos talking about!?'

"Enough, get up already and get out of here" a voice suddenly rebuke them.

The soldier immediately turned their heads towards the direction of where the voice came from and what they saw was Leo standing at the doorway, looking at them sternly but the soldiers who suffered like him also the bitterness on his face.

"Yes sir~" their voices weakly trailed off as they weakly stood up on their feet and saluted Leo before they followed him out of the house.

But what they didn't know is that Leo was actually laughing inside and while thinking to himself, 'Haa~ what happened here will surely become one of the talks at the camp after we go back'

*****

Southeast of Manchester, Buxworth Village.

"Alright, is this all the survivors?" Leo said to the man beside him while he drank a bottle of water.

"Yes sir and in total, there are exactly eighty seven survivors out of its over a thousand original population, sir" the soldier beside him reported skillfully like he already rehearsed this scene a countless times in his head and mostly because he wanted to impress this commander of theirs.

Then nodded to him as he had a huge grin on his face as he stared at the space in front of him and that would how others see him because they didn't Leo was actually looking at the blue interface in front of him!

[You have successfully occupied Buxworth Village]

[You have been rewarded by the following items!]

[Fifty Thousand Defender Coins, One Hundred Bags of Wheat Seed, One FN Minimi]

[All items has been sent into your inventory]

'That's it?' Leo thought as he had wasted a lot of ammo capturing this village but then he thought it was just fair as his total expenditure only amounted to over ten thousand defender coins and now he has a total of sixty defender coins which ten thousand came from killing the zombies and mutated beast around here.

And what's more he had also harvested a total twenty barrels of gas from the only local gas station here and there would have been more if they had sufficient metal barrels.

"Go and assign people to keep watch for the night and get people to immediately prepare food for the night" Leo ordered to his temporary adjutant.

"Yes sir!" the adjutant saluted and hastily exited the house that they occupied which was also the "cleanest' and went to immediately execute the orders he received excitedly.

Leo had also wanted to continue to another town or village near here after capturing this place but immediately decided against when he saw that dusk is already here and on travelling at night would be a bad idea for the army as they would surely face more dangers along the way with limited visions. It would have been okay if he is only with a few people but with army with him?

Bad idea.

*Tap* *Tap* *Tap*

Leo continued tapping the table in front of him with his fingers with his head resting on his left hand.

Countless thoughts are currently running inside his head of what his next move is and what of his worries is that he doesn't have enough men to capture the entire capital and put it immediately under his control.

That's the reason why he finally came into a final decision to turn this village into another base of his and this place also has a wide expanse of farmland which is good for growing crops. Leo's plan for this place is to turn into a both military base and a place that would supply food for the other bases in the future which would eventually turn this place into one of the most important places in the near future because of its agriculture.

*****

For the next five days, Leo stayed in the village for the time being as he directed the construction of a makeshift wall that would surround the entire place and things that needed his attention along with the workers who were specifically sent to assist him here by his mother.

*Vroom!* *Vroom!* *Vroom!* *Vroom!* *Vroom!*

Suddenly, the sound of muffled engine roar appeared from northeast side of the village where the road that Leo and his army came from when they entered this village.

"Good, They're finally here" Leo smiled as he stood up from his chair after talking with someone who was farmer before about something regarding the crops that would suitable to plant which would suitable to plant this time and Leo even hope that those wheat seeds he got as a reward are actually mutated seeds that grow bigger than their former size which would certainly produce a lot of yield when they are ready for harvesting.

This time the convoy was much simpler than when Leo came to this village as there are only three Foxhounds leading the convoy with the rest being modified pickup trucks with machine guns mounted on the back and couple of modified SUV's with its windows plated with metal railings and their front bumpers were mounted with a half triangle that has sharp tip like a spear like those cars in the Death Race movie.

But what truly differs them from the army that Leo brought is that heavy and suffocating aura that they bringing with them and soldiers who were visible from the vehicles all wore stern faces.

They are the true definition of battle hardened warriors like those warriors from ancient times that face death multiple times where they crawled their way out from the countless dead bodies of their enemies and lived to tell their tales about it.

"Who are they? They are so scary that it makes it hard to breathe when they were near us" a greenhorn soldier, probably a new graduate said with a trembling voice.

"You never heard about them?" his companion looked at him weirdly.

"No. You should know that I haven't been with living in Hope 101 for a long time" the young man shook his head but his eyes are glued to the back of the convoy with eyes full of interest and curiosity and even a bit of desire.

"Wow, have you been living under rock?" the other soldier said with a laugh before he continued and said, "They are the Three Hunting Squads. You must have heard about those hunting teams back at the base, right?"

The young man immediately nodded as he listened intently like a kid that just got his interest piqued.

"That's where the name Hunters or Hunting Teams originated from. All them says they didn't want to join the army or they just didn't to be restricted if they join the army or what not but do you know what they really wanted the most?"

"What is it?" the young man said, feeling like he is on the verge of knowing a deep secret.

The other soldier smiled as whispered to him, "Their goal is fame"

"W-what? F-fame?" the young soldier suddenly stuttered as he looked at him wide eyes full of disbelief as he didn't expect it was something like fame where it's probably the most useless thing to have right now as people won't even care you're the most famous person in the world before the Apocalypse started.

"Of course I'm not talking about fame like those celebrities. What I'm talking about are achievements. They wanted to make a name for themselves by killing formidable zombies something like The Big One or something along the line or Solo killing an A Class or B Class Threat mutated beast"

"Why would they do something as stupid like that?" the young soldier was thoroughly confused this time as why the heck would risk themselves just to fight those kind of monsters.

"It's because they wanted to join the one of the Hunting Squads! Every single member of the Hunting Squads are the elites of the elites! The most formidable fighters of the camp! Every single one of them had face zombies and mutated beast beyond their capabilities and managed to survive it all! You can't even compare us to them because it's like a chicken facing a tiger!"

"Then wouldn't it better to just join the army and probably get transferred to one of them!?" the young soldier said while the others who are eavesdropping at them are all seething in excitement!

But then the older soldier coldly snorted and said, "Have you been listening at all!? You can't join either of one of the Hunting Squads just by joining the army! You can either join one of the three by getting referred by a member of a Hunting Squad or get personally assigned by the leader!"

"Or you need to make yourself known and gain battle achievements to show them that you're worthy to even f*cking join them!"

"And everyone.. including me, wants to join them because of its benefits too!"

The older soldier finally stopped and panted as he tried to breathe more oxygen into his body!