Not On My Watch - Rika's Apartment III
Ok it's official. There are too many comments for me to keept up with them, so I'm sorry if I can't like all of them! By the way, I slept like a log! Remember I made a discord, the link is in the previous chapter and in the synopsys, but just in case I'll leave it on a comment in this chapter too.
Someone pointed out a mistake I made in the previous chapter, about Ryo's Intelligence being 13 when it should've been more. I checked back on the previous chapters and, indeed, it should've been 15. Actually all his stats should be two numbers higher! I corrected it already.
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The next day came by peacefully. Besides a couple of zombies banging on the fence, nothing really happened. By 6 AM Ryo, Kouta and Yamada were already working. To their surprise Hiratsuka, Saeko and Miku decided to help too. With three more pairs of hands helping, Ryo had a very easy time working on things.
"Where should I put this, Ryo-kun?" asked Hiratsuka as she carried a box of screws, nuts and washers. Ryo, who had found a very safeguarded soldering kit, was working hard on covering everything below the bus's hood with a plating of the Humvee's tripple copper plated parts. Stopping for a second, he showed his face, dirty with grease and dust. "The bus has a compartment on the right side for baggage on long trips, just load it there for now. Oh! Make sure the box is tightly sealed. I don't want anything missing"
"Ryo~ I found some metal tubes, there is about... five meters, I think" Miku said as she approached him with a roll of copper tubes. They seemed to be relatively thin and easy to manipulate, with a width of about a quarter of an inch. "I saw some foam tubes around the garage yesterday. Put the tubes inside the foam and load it with the box of screws"
When he was about to get back to soldering metal into the bus to cover the electronics, he saw Saeko approaching him. Thinking that he might as well deal with it all in one go, he waited for her to arrive. To his surprise, Saeko didn't have anything to ask him about. She just gave him a bottle of water.
"You're working hard, Ryo" she said when he gave the bottle back to her. Not caring about how he had drank from it a second ago, she took a long gulp of water. "Yeah well. I want to make sure everything is as secure as possible"
With the short episode over, Ryo went back to working. Toshimi Niki came by at some point and began asking Kouta to allow her to help, so he simply asked her to bring him the things he needed to do what Ryo had told him. The rate at which they were working was impressive, to the point they would've probably been one of the fastest pit crews if they were in Nascar. The people who weren't helping thought that Ryo was very reliable, since he gave exact commands and explained things in a way no one could get it wrong.
But the ones who felt it the most where those who were actively helping. Ryo managed to explain to people who knew nothing about mechanics or anything close to it how to dismantle certain parts to salvage the components without breaking anything in the process. That wasn't easy to do, since it was almost at the level of putting an intern to code a program without anyone watching over him!
Ryo decided to take a rest, since lunchtime was approaching and they had been working non-stop for the last 6 hours. That was an entire shift in some places, so they took a breather. He lit a cigarette while waiting for the food to be ready. They all were going to eat outside of the building, since Ryo didn't want the smell of grease and sweat to affect their food.
"The food is ready everyone!" said Kawamoto Chie as she, together with the others that hadn't been working, brough plates with food. Since Saeko had been helping with the bus's refactions, the food had been Chie's responsibility. To the surprise of many, the food not only didn't lose quality, but actually improved. Ryo was slightly surprised when he realized that, so he decided to check her Status in curiosity.
[Name: Kawamoto Chie
Level: 1
Strength: 8
Agility: 12
Intelligence: 14
Dexterity: 18
Charisma: 12
Skill:
Her
"Chie, I see you're very good at cooking" Ryo said once they were finished with their food. "Why don't you take charge of the food from now on? Of course someone will help you, but you will tell them what to do"
"I'll happily do it if I can be of help!" she said with a lot of energy and a beaming smile. Miku on the other hand, was envious because she still hadn't received any praise from Ryo. The only thing she could do though, was work harder.
When they were resting after the food, Ryo and Hiratsuka having a cigarette, they heard a dog barking. Because of how high-pitched it sounded, they assumed it was a puppy. Everyone was about to ask Ryo what to do, but when they looked at him, he was already running towards the place with a crowbar in hand.
Everyone looked at each other and smiled wryly. Their leader seemed to have a soft-spot for animals.
'That puppy... it should be Zeke!' thought Ryo as he ran towards the barking. He didn't understand it though. Zeke shouldn't have appeared until after Alice, so where was Alice then? That was when, running towards the barking, he saw a man holding a little girl in his arms running from around a dozen or so zombies.
The man was approaching one of the houses, probably trying to ask for asylum to hide from the undead, but Ryo knew what was bound to happen if he reached the door. As such, he did what most people would consider stupid. He wasn't allowing the little girl to lose her father like that. Not on his watch.
"Hey! Over here!" he yelled as he waved his hand. The man, hearing someone calling and spotting Ryo almost a block away, began running in his direction. When Ryo reached the puppy, he quickly calmed it down. "Shush, easy boy. If you stay quiet I'll be realy happy ok?"
Zeke was clearly a smart dog, since it quickly quieted down and nuzzled against Ryo's hand. The father and daughter pair was quickly approaching with the mini-horde following after them. Ryo still hadn't finished working on the bus, so there was no way he would leave the place yet.
"Go towards the bus, my group is there and you'll be safe" Ryo said as the man reached him. Saeko, Hiratsuka and Miku quickly approached him, while Kouta was a bit behind them, aiming his rifle. "Kouta don't shoot. It'll bring too much attention to this place. Here, use this"
Ryo threw his crossbow to Kouta, since that way he was going to be able to make full use of his talents. Now that Ryo thought about it, not giving the crossbow to Kouta from the beginning was simply stupid. Besides, he could even make more bolts for it so that there would be more ammo. It really was the perfect zombie apocalypse long-range weapon.
There were around 40 to 50 zombies, nothing they hadn't dealt with already, so Ryo wasn't particularly worried about it. And he did well. After they made quick work of the mini-horde and recovered all the bolts that Kouta had fired, they walked back towards the bus. Zeke was now in Ryo's arms, comfortably nuzzling against his new owner. Of course he still didn't have a name, but Zeke would always be Zeke.
"So... why don't you two introduce yourselves?" Ryo said as they saw Alice's father talking to Kyoko and Saya playing with Alice, clearly enjoying the presence of the little girl. Alice's father turned around and answered, his voice still agitated. "Ah! Of course, where are my manners!"
"I'm Maresato Ichiro" he said as he bowed to the group. He then motioned for Alice to come. "Come on Alice, introduce yourself to them"
Alice skipped the short way towards her father and, beaming the biggest and brightest smile they had ever seen, introduced herself.
"Hello! I'm Maresato Alice, big brothers and sisters!"
Everyone had one thought in their minds. 'She's so cuuuuute!!'
"Uhum, thank you for rescuing us, I don't know what we would've done if you weren't there" Ichiro said as he bowed once again, but this time to Hiratsuka. She on the other hand, smiled wryly while walking towards Ryo and putting a hand on his shoulder. "You shouldn't thank me. Ryo here is our leader and he is the one who jumped into action first"
Ichiro seemed to be surprised when he heard that the young man that had called them was the leader, but he accepted it quickly. The world was turned to shit and the most capable person would take charge. In this group, the young man named Hashimoto Ryo was the most capable. After a quick round of lightning introductions, everyone went back to working on the bus.
"What are they doing?" asked Ichiro to Kyoko as they watched them work. She explained that Ryo wanted to reinforce the bus, since it was the only vehicle were everyone could travel, and how he had been a mechanic when he was younger. She didn't tell him of Ryo's past, since it wasn't her place to do so. But knowing Ryo, she would tell anyone that asked. Ichiro, seeing everyone working, couldn't stay still.
"Hashimoto-kun, how can I help?"
With yet another pair of hands helping, they worked even faster. Ryo had done a lot of work in the bus. The hood was changed with the Humvee's and all of the interior parts were now encased in a box of tripple copper plated metal. Even if the EMP blast happened, the bus would continue to work without any issues. He also had a lot of parts, from screws to metal tubes and wires, that he had salvaged from the dismantled Humvee. The last thing he added was more of a utility function. On the top of the bus he added two sliding hatches, one in the front and one in the back, that could be locked from the inside only. They were so that Kouta could shoot from inside the bus if needed.
[Intelligence +2 - Dexterity +1 - Charisma +1]
'Ok, that seems to be it' Ryo thought as he marveled at his masterpiece. The bus was still all yellow, but now the hood was that of the military Humvee.
"*sigh*... It feels so good to get a job done" he said as he lit a cigarette. He would have to stop by a store when they passed one, because he and Hiratsuka had smoked away most of the package. "Well everyone... it's time to leave! After taking a bath we'll be going to Saya's place since it's the closest!"
No one protested. After all, they knew that they couldn't stay in that place forever and the only reason why the bus was modified was so it would survive the longest. An hour later, after the girl and boys had taken reparate baths, they were ready to leave. Ryo, who was driving the bus, was thinking of important things needed for the future.
'Perhaps there'll be a clothing store somewhere on the way? I'm sick of this shirt...'
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Phew... So... yeah. I held off on Alice's thing until they were almost ready with the bus, but I didn't want it to be such an exagerated horde like the one in the original series. It just felt exagerated like, so many zombies out of nowhere? Yeah... no. Don't worry though... there will be desperate moments. It's just that this one in particular felt forced to me.