Volunteers

That's a relief, nothing much happened from the distribution of food to cause any trouble for me, I guess now I can move on to what the earpiece calls 'my main objective'.

First thing I did was walk around the wire mesh fence, just exploring the map of the this game can help me progress and plan my course of actions much more efficiently.

From what I found, there is only one exit from the Diamonds territory through the wire mesh fences, which is a gate located north of the centre of Diamonds territory where the 60 story tall building lies, about a 10 minutes walk from it.

This is the only way I can find for the spy from Clubs community to infiltrate, assuming there's no aerial transportation in this world.

I also checked out a few building where there seems to be activity, there wasn't a lot. It was almost all just groups that belonged to other ranked officers like myself.

Except for one, one with higher hygienic standards. Just observing from faraway, it's quite obvious it's a laboratory of some sorts, completed with test tubes, beakers, flasks that's filled with...soil?

For a community that believes in restarting civilization, science is undoubtedly an important aspect, and judging by the samples of soil, I think I can make the educated guess that the soil of this world had grown infertile, hence the food shortage.

I didn't stay to observe the laboratory for too long though, I left to continue exploring the rest of the Diamonds territory after about 5 minutes.

I don't think the laboratory will play a vital role in the story here. Clubs is driven by greed, they want more food, more resources.

It's possible that the infiltrators will steal our tech and discoveries to themselves. However, if our researches did succeed, the very first thing we would do with it is to make peace with Clubs, at least logically speaking.

With the tech to produce food for survival, which is the entire reason for the aggression of Clubs, peace can be made. The main priority of Clubs is survival, as established by the mysterious earpiece, if they believe Diamonds has means to achieve it, why would they sabotage us?

Diamonds would never consider other humans enemies, if we found anything contributing to the survival of humanity, we will share it.

My hypothesis is that Clubs has given up all hopes on saving humanity, they're simply fighting to survive for as long as possible.

After getting a rough idea of what the Diamonds territory looked like, I headed back to the gate, it was almost noon.

From a distance, I could already notice around 10 to 20 men and women arming themselves with guns and ammunitions. What is outside of those fences that induced such extreme precautions? That's what I woud like to find out now.

As I walked closer, I noticed a man from my own group even though it's Two of Diamonds that's leading the expedition.

The man's presence along with the presence of women among the group confirmed my previous assumption, volunteering is indeed an option to earn more food for oneself.

I approached the man from my group, he was one of the few that muttered "Thanks" when receiving food from me, so I remembered his face quite vividly.

"Hi um..." I don't know how to approach this, my objective is to understand why weapons are necessary for the expedition, but I couldn't think up a convincing excuse to lure the answer out.

"Thanks for agreeing with me back there." I thought starting a casual conversation could be a start.

"What you said was right, we've been working selfishly for so long that we forgot why do we even fight in the first place."

Honestly, I do not believe in the noble resolve in restarting civilization at all, I just had to use it in my speech to prevent conflicts.

If I was one of them living in this dystopian future, I would definitely fight for selfish reasons, either that or I'll just kill myself.

Can't kill myself right now though, I want to get back to my video games in real life.

"Is that why you're joining the team right now?" Thought this question couldn't hurt, even if volunteering actually wasn't a system and he was forced here, I could sweep it off with "I forgot haha".

"Yeah, I'm volunteering, not for the extra food, but for humanity."

Wow, how noble, you're a better man than me good sir. If you weren't an npc in the game that is.

"Well in that case, I will too." What's a better way to find out the need for guns, than to actually get out there myself?

"Let's fight for humanity, captain." That's what they call me? I guess that makes sense during expeditions, these weapons does make it look like it's war, with all the guns, knives, I even caught glimpses of a few grenades.

He looked like a 45 year old man, but I can't help but feel his way of thinking is a bit childish. His hopes for humanity are so unrealistic.

From the looks of our preparations, it's clear that expeditions are going to be risky, even life-threatening, the fact that he's still full of spirits, throwing himself into the frontline just for the cause, is somewhat laughable to me.

To me, it doesn't matter what happens to others, as long as I myself live my happiest life.

This time however, it's either death, oh wait no sorry, 'elimination' or commit a bit of effort to get back into life, back to the comforts of my bed and game consoles. So this time, I think I'll struggle just once.

"Yo you're also volunteering?" A voice I'm familiar with came from behind, it's Four of Diamonds, with another man next to him dressed like us.

"Yeah."

"The Clubs ambushes are really getting concerning isn't it, it even got you volunteering."

The Clubs...ambushes?

"It's nice that you're here, Three. The ambushes nearly took my life, I will not allow it to take Two's." The man next to Four spoke, seems these two are also volunteering.

From their words, I was also able to deduce that the reason for weapons is the ambush attacks from Clubs community.

"Thanks, I heard that, you guys really don't have to though." Another white collared shirt guy approached us, wait no, not a guy, a girl, I'm gonna assume this will be Two of Diamonds, captain of this expedition.

"Just think of this as me doing it for my own good, Two. I want more food." Said the man next to Four.

"Same here." Four followed.

"Thanks guys, we're leaving in 10."