"And since it ans we are going to create an expedition, we might look for a good place for the third fortress while we are at it, don't we?"
Mathew's words were the incarnation of saying, it's easier to say sothing than to do it. Because of how easy it appeared to be to just pick up a place for their third fortress, once he started to take into account all the possible factors...
His options started to narrow down and they did it pretty quickly.
"First off, it's too late to do any expedition today," Beatrice said after raising her eyes toward the sun.
It was still high in the sky... but one could already see that it was slowly starting to descend toward the horizon.
"It's only a matter of an hour or two, maybe three, before the sun will go out," she pointed out before lowering her head and turning her eyes back to Mathew.
"I think so too," Mathew agreed after throwing a glance at the sun himself. "We will set out first thing in the morning," he then added, turning his eyes back towards the street.
And for but a second, Mathew allowed himself to relax while watching the few survivors of his group work tirelessly on the street.
Their jobs were simple, ranging from the economic action of gathering the spoils through the sanitary action of cleaning the corpses all the way to the simple construction jobs of moving rubble and wreckage to clear the periter and construct makeshift blockades along the road entrances.
It was all simple and straightforward. Yet, in the long run, the few people that worked on all those tasks would take at least a week to complete even a single one of them, save for the job of gathering the cores.
'The need for more people was staring right in the face and I still took so long to notice it,' Mathew thought, gritting his teeth over his own lack of observation skills.
And then, it struck him.
'No, that's not it,' he thought, shaking his head.
A plethora of images that never took place in this tiline then appeared in Mathew's head. The mories of the world where the people with the system abandoned those without it or with a weak one.
'I guess I was conditioned to look after myself first. Maybe that's why it took so long to realize just how desperately we will need more people to work for us.'
Mathew shook his head, scrapping all those useless thoughts aside.
It didn't matter what made him take so long to realize this truth. In fact, nothing that was in the past mattered anymore, especially things that never actually happened.
The only value in one's life was in the present and in the future. And with the future still shrouded with the veil of ignorance, Mathew opted to just focus on the topic at hand instead.
"Do you have any ideas what would be a good place for the third fortress?" Mathew asked out loud without even realizing it.
"Hmm?" Beatrice twitched before turning her eyes back to the young man. "And what qualities are you looking for?"
'Ah, that's a pretty good question,' Mathew thought, realizing that he missed the most important point to consider.
How could he try to pick up a place... if he didn't even know what that place needed to be?
'We have an administrative district in the school and we will have an economy district in the dia building,' he thought, running down the list of all sorts of gas that whoever was behind the apocalypse could apply to this aspect of human growth.
"It should be sothing military-related," Mathew replied after a short consideration. "Ah, not military," he then shook his head, scrapping his initial response. "Manpower related instead. And easy to defend too."
"Barracks, maybe?" Beatrice replied with the first thing that ca to her mind.
"Are you serious?" Mathew rolled his eyes. "Be it military personnel or civilians, they likely sward this place the second the apocalypse started," he pointed out. "And I don't feel confident enough in taking on a horde of such scale."
There was no doubt in Mathew's voice. He had no doubt about his own ability to take on several tens of thousands of zombies and monsters at once. And given their likely density, there were bound to be a bunch of evolved zombies amongst them.
"A sports hall, then?" Beatrice threw another guess. Yet, before Mathew could even reply, she lowered her head and rested her chin on her hand. "Wait, no, that won't work," she then added.
"Huh?" Mathew raised his eyebrows. "It might be a pretty good idea, though?" he replied. 'If the type of location is related to the bonuses the fortress will give upon establishing it... wouldn't a sports hall be a perfect place?'
"It might fit your criteria, but it's dead in the middle of the town's center," Beatrice then pointed out. "So the problem is the sa as with the barracks," she added with a shrug of her shoulders. "If you don't want to be sward, you should avoid those densely populated parts of the town."
After those two proposals, both of them turned silent. As it turned out, it wasn't that easy to co up with ideas for a suitable place.
"Maybe so sort of a gymnasium?" Beatrice then suggested.
"With all its windows and open structure?" Mathew replied, still busy trying to co up with an idea himself. "It would be impossible to defend. And most of them are by the schools, so it would be a massive pain to clear it out."
Mathew took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
'To think that a day would co when I would wish for a...'
Then, the young man froze. And a single place appeared in his mind.
"Hey..." he hesitatingly raised his voice without even daring to look up at Beatrice's face. "What about the ruins of the dieval castle on the hill on the town's outskirts?"
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