Chương 118: True Loyalty

"Hey... kid?" Bruno opened his eyes to a blur of motion. A dozen heavily armed people were hauling corpses back and forth across the bloodstained concrete. A few guards gripped spears, patrolling the perimeter. But a young man stood just a few paces away from him. He recognized the kid. It was one of the four from the dumpster squad. Since he'd fought alongside them, he was clearly an Awakened too. Bruno tried to shift his weight. A sharp, tearing pain flared in his right arm, making him hiss through his teeth.

"Hss..." But he knew this was a good sign. Pain meant his body was healing. He still didn't have a shred of stamina, though, and could only manage to scrape himself off the floor and slump against the wall. When he first took the hit, the entire arm had gone completely dead. The young man heard him, turning his head to study him with open curiosity.

"Hey, kid... what's your name? Where's your Boss?" Slumped against the baseboard, Bruno didn't rush to get up. He let the memories of what happened before he blacked out wash over him. To buy time for that woman in the dumpster, he had run himself ragged, kiting the zombie horde around the perimeter. He remembered the feeling of his HP draining away with every agonizing step. Bruno lifted his left arm. His hand was sallow and completely drained of blood. He squeezed his fingers into a weak fist. But he was alive.

He noticed the corpse-haulers glancing his way, eyes filled with curiosity. They looked pale and haggard, sure, but they had the stamina to drag dead weight around. That alone made them miles better off than the surviving neighbors back in his own apartment block.

"There's really this many people left..." Bruno muttered, unable to hide his awe. His gamble had paid off. Against all odds, he survived.

"I... I swear I was a goner. How am I even breathing?" His body felt frighteningly hollow. Even after his first life-or-death brawl with a mutant, waking up with two broken legs and a snapped arm hadn't left him this utterly drained. You didn't just walk off that kind of damage by sheer dumb luck.

"There are a lot more who didn't come out. This is just a fraction of us." The young man keyed his walkie-talkie, muttered a quick report, then walked over and crouched beside Bruno.

"It was Vince... our Boss. He saved you," the kid said quietly.

"Said he'll be down in a bit. Here, drink this." He cracked open a bottle of Coke and handed it over.

"Thanks..." The kid had a totally average face. He looked young enough to still be in high school. Seeing as the kid wasn't volunteering his name, Bruno didn't push it. He just sipped the soda, letting the sugar rush hit his system while he waited for this mysterious Boss to show up. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. The kid had no reason to lie about the Boss saving him.

And if the guy went out of his way to pull him from the brink, it probably meant he had a ticket onto their boat. Even through the fog of his recent blackout, the memory was burned into his brain. That monstrosity had nearly one-shot him into oblivion, yet that man had handled it without breaking a sweat. Since they were already on loot-and-clean duty, the mutant was definitely dead. What a terrifyingly strong bastard, he thought. But instead of the Boss, another stranger approached.

"Bruno, man... glad you're awake. Drink up. You got an appetite? I'll get some grub sent over in a sec." A sharp-looking, pragmatic older man walked up with an honest smile, taking the initiative.

"Hey, Ben..." The young man stood up to greet him. They were clearly familiar with each other.

"Seth, my boy, thanks for holding the perimeter with Zack and the guys," the older man said warmly, his face crinkling in a smile.

"No sweat. I'll go check the other side," Seth replied. Knowing Ben showed up right after he radioed Vince, Seth figured the Boss had sent him. He left them to it.

"You... you know who I am?" Bruno watched Seth walk off before turning back to the friendly-looking man, unable to hold back his confusion. The guy had dropped his name instantly. If they'd never met, there was only one explanation: he'd been briefed by the Boss. Hearing this, Ben's genuine smile deepened. Instead of answering right away, he glanced at Bruno's mangled, blood-soaked arm tucked into his shirt. A complex mix of deep respect and faint envy flashed in his eyes.

"You're joking, right?" Ben said earnestly. He dropped to sit cross-legged on the ruined tiles, putting himself at eye level with the battered man.

"You kiting that massive horde away? Half our crew saw you do it. Honestly, man... mad respect." He gave Bruno a firm, appreciative nod.

"Name's Ben. Ben Liu. I'm the temporary head of the Xingfuli survivor camp. Basically, I just scrounge a living under Vince, handling logistics and moving people around."

"Vince? You mean the guy..." Bruno tilted his chin toward where Seth had just disappeared, his brow furrowed.

"... the Boss of that squad slaughtering the infected?"

"Boss... yeah, you could call him that for the strike team. But to the rest of us, Vince is the absolute backbone of this place. Building a setup like this in a world gone to hell? That's all him." Ben paused, leaning in slightly. His tone was heavy with unconcealed awe. He swept a glance over the busy survivors nearby, dropping his voice like he was letting him in on a secret.

"Look, most of us are just regular civilians. Best we can do is haul loot and clean up corpses. The ones who can actually face those freaks out there? That's you guys. The heavy hitters." He looked Bruno dead in the eye, tossing out the olive branch Vince had authorized.

"We're bleeding for solid fighters like you right now. Don't worry about a damn thing. I'll get you stretchered over to our base at the supermarket. We've got a doc, meds, food, water. Once you're fully healed up..." Ben thumped his own chest, his eyes burning with intensity.

"If you don't mind slumming it with us, we ride together. We follow Vince, and we actually survive in this fucked-up world." Ben's words struck a deep chord in Bruno. This didn't sound like some ragtag, makeshift gang. It sounded like a legitimate, fortified survivor settlement. When he'd been watching the quiet kid earlier, Bruno had already realized a hard truth: Awakened or not, a lone wolf wouldn't last long in this wasteland. He had been racking his brain on how to pitch himself when the Boss showed up.

'Boss, you're a total badass! Let me join your crew!' But the guy already had a stacked deck of Awakened. The telekinetic girl, the sharp-eyed woman calling the shots, those two low-key young guys—they were his core team. There wasn't exactly an empty chair waiting for him at that table. To a strike team like that, he was entirely expendable. But Ben's pitch changed the equation. Maybe his stats were nothing compared to the Boss, but against normal people? He was a powerhouse.

Just as Vince had analyzed earlier, Bruno hadn't risked his life out of blind trust. He did it because he had zero options left. It was the exact same scenario now. This monstrously strong Boss hadn't just pulled him from the jaws of death; he'd sent his camp's quartermaster to personally headhunt him. He was giving him a graceful way in and handing him the perfect slot in their hierarchy. Putting the pieces together, Bruno asked the only question that mattered, his voice raspy but dead serious.

"What... exactly are we required to do?" Hearing that, Ben smiled. A wide, genuinely thrilled smile. He knew he had him. He slapped his thigh, speaking as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Do? What else is there to do? We butcher the infected, look out for our own, eat until we're full, and sleep soundly through the night!" Bruno looked at him, the corners of his mouth twitching upward into a deeply relieved grin. It was the smile of a man who had scraped past death and finally found his people. He didn't need to say another word. He just looked at Ben—the man representing the Boss and this entire sanctuary of survivors—and gave a slow, solemn nod.