After leaving the store, I opened my status to summon our base.

  The option to find allies was new, so I turned to Freja and asked, “What does ‘find ally’ mean?”

  She looked up, considering the question. “You mean in your status, you can’t summon our base the way you can summon yours? But it’s still here on this floor, so it’ll lead you to us. However, you’ll have to walk for a while, and it only gets worse the deeper you go. On the lower floors, you’ll probably be driving for a couple of hours to find your allies.”

  Freja didn’t think much of what she had just said, but it hit me: we would need vehicles when we reached the lower floors.

  I nodded, selected "summon base," and immediately the location of our base became clear to me—along with the knowledge that all the monsters in the area also now knew where it was.

  After a while of running and gunning, we reached the base, just in time to meet a massive goblin horde. Normally, this would have been disastrous when it was just me and Monty. But now, with two trained soldiers alongside us—both armed with automatic weapons—I felt more confident.

  I pushed my trolley toward the door, aiming my Browning BAR at the incoming goblins. Dropping to one knee to help manage the recoil, I signaled to Freja. On cue, we opened fire, mowing down the horde with automatic gunfire. Meanwhile, Monty picked off a goblin shaman in the back with a well-placed shot to the head from his .45-70. The goblins were reduced to a pile of corpses, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I quickly moved to the door, placing my hand on it and activating the Overload skill. The electric buzzing died down, and the door slowly began to open. We pushed the trolleys and shopping carts inside to the loading area.

  I entered the guard room and closed the door, ensuring no more monsters could follow us.

  Freja glanced around the loading area, noting, “Nice place, but it could use a bit of maintenance.”

  I chuckled. “Tell me about it. We’ve been cleaning this place for days. Only recently have we started fixing things. We really need to find a better way to open the door. While using this skill works, it can’t be great for the relay.”

  I then looked at their cart. “Do you have anything that needs refrigerating?”

  They shook their heads. “Nope.”

  “Okay, then you can just leave it here,” I said, then started unloading the contents of Monty’s cart and bringing them to the kitchen.

  After making several trips between the cart and the kitchen, everything Monty brought was stored away. We could now focus on the hydroponics materials provided by the general. However, there was one thing that bugged me: the system requested wood and plastic bins for the flood tables, but we had a massive supply of aluminum from cleaning up the goblin mess—and even more plastic.

  Once we had everything brought in, I asked Monty to wait a moment while I tried something. I gathered about half the aluminum bars along with ten fifty-pound rolls of plastic. When I was done, I told Monty to click “yes” on the hydroponics option.

  Monty raised an eyebrow. “Why bring in a bunch of materials that weren’t asked for?”

  I shrugged. “Just trust me.”

  It quickly became clear why I had done so when the system's message appeared.

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  Monty looked at the second message, then clicked “yes.”

  He clicked “yes” again.

  It would take a while for the hydroponics to finish, and I was curious about the atrium upgrades, which we hadn’t yet checked out.

  The list went on, but I suspected these four would be the most useful. I planned to go over the rest tomorrow, but one thing was certain: the “prison” option was not on the table.

  Turning to the two soldiers, who were eyeing the options with interest, I said, “Seeing as the hydroponics need to be finished before we can give you the crafting specs, you two will be staying with us for the next couple of days. Let me show you to your rooms.”

  Freja smirked and said, “One room will be fine. There’s no need to give us separate rooms; we wouldn’t want to add more work for you.”

  I narrowed my eyes, smiling. “Sure, that’s why you only want one room.”

  I looked over at Freja, who was now giving Micha? a mischievous grin.

  “Alright, if you say so,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “But I’d suggest you take your own advice.”

  Freja didn’t stop grinning. “One step ahead of you.”

  wich one do you like the most?