RTS System in the Apocalypse-Chapter 106: Quiet Aftermath

The corridor felt narrower on the way up. Footsteps thudded on the wet concrete, echoing Tyrus’s heavy words.

Stale air. Nuclear radiation. Inevitable death.

Hans slowed to halt, his brows creasing.

Yunera’s eyes landed on him, remaining for a second. Then her mouth moved and broke the silence.

"You believe that guy’s words?"

Hans didn’t answer immediately and took a deep, deep breath. He closed his eyes and let the air flow within him.

His lungs moved, exhaling the turbid air out.

"His words are trustworthy. I believe he believes himself."

"That’s not the same."

"No," Hans replied. "It isn’t."

"If the air truly is changing... I can’t sense the radiation."

Hans looked at her for a second.

"That’s because if you did, we’d all be suffocating now."

Yunera flicked her hair, scoffing at the same time. A retorting question came into her mind.

"If breathing radiation is death, what’s your excuse about Tyrus then?"

"He’s a superhuman," Hans smiled. "He has his own ways."

"And you?" Yunera raised a brow.

"I have my own ways too."

Hans resumed walking.

"If radiation is leaking from the north," he said, "it won’t kill us overnight."

Kimmy listened carefully.

"It will thin the weak first," Hans continued. "Then the children. Then the workers. A slow, painful death."

Yunera’s scoff disappeared. Her actions may look brash to others, but to her, it was a world of difference.

Hans’s thought process spiked her curiosity.

Her secretarial life could have played a role, or simply an innate behavior of hers.

Whether it was this or that, she just wanted to hear Hans’s side of things.

"If the reactor collapses?" she asked.

"Welcome to Pripyat."

Hans smirked, his mysterious words confusing the two women.

"Pripyat?" Kimmy tried to recall, but her memory lacked such vocabulary.

A place? She was uncertain.

Aurelia was too large. Hans may have referred someplace the two of them have not heard, seen, or visited about.

I’m sorry, Hans observed their oblivious expressions. You wouldn’t get it... no matter how I explained.

"To sum it up, you won’t feel the danger until it is too late. That’s what makes it dangerous."

When they emerged into the alley, sunlight struck Hans’s face.

He looked west first. Then north.

"Alexei, this is Overlord," Hans spoke through the comms. "Do you copy?"

"Alexei copies. What do you need, Commander?"

"Tighten the western block tonight," he said, eyes lingering on the Radar map.

"We have red dots in some areas. I will ping them to you later."

"Waiting for coordinates, Commander."

"Do not execute immediately," Hans ordered sternly. "Wait for sun fall."

"Roger that. Alexei copies."

"Good," Hans nodded. "Tell Selene I am calling for a council meeting."

"Specifics, Commander?"

"The colony’s life and death."

The other end remained silent for half a minute.

"I will urgently report to her, Commander."

"That will be all," Hans replied. "Return to your duties."

"Understood, Commander. Alexei out."

Hans lowered his arms. His vision shifted into Yunera. She glared at him, saying with arms folded.

"You want to tell them they might all die?"

"To tell them," Hans replied calmly. "That I am moving north."

Kimmy’s head tilted.

"You want to leave?"

"Temporarily," Hans stole a glance. "I will inspect the nuclear reactor. I also have other business in that area too."

"Let me guess," Yunera pointed her fingers, her arms folding in a lackadaisical manner. "It’s classified."

"You will join me," Hans stated his verdict. "Lest you run rampant here without my supervision."

Yunera’s arms froze mid-air.

"We will what?"

"Join me up north," Hans reiterated, his figure already several meters away. "It’s more fun than staying here, bored and lazy."

Before she could wave her hands in disapproval, Hans vanished from their vision.

"Sister Yunera," Kimmy approached her. "You won’t be able to chase him. He’s... already far away."

"What?" Yunera’s eyes blinked. She dashed into the alleyway, her breathing hurried.

Her heels miraculously squeezed on the concrete, stopping her motion.

Indeed, Hans was no longer there. Even Callum’s shadow vanished into thin air.

The squad leader that was left behind scratched his head, unable to explain what just happened.

Hans moved across the rooftops without slowing. Wind brushed against his coat as the colony blurred beneath him.

Smoke rose from the controlled burn pits.

Walls were being reinforced.

Generators hummed loudly, producing electricity.

For a moment, it almost looked normal. At least on the surface.

He stopped at the edge of a building and faced north. Beyond the broken skyline, the horizon shimmered faintly under the afternoon sun.

Radiation.

The invisible hands that slowly grasped their necks.

It was patient in its approach, unforgiving of its effects.

Superhuman or not—it would not care.

Tyrus might be right, or he might be wrong.

But Hans didn’t build this colony on guesses. His RTS senses were tingling both in anticipation and dread.

The north was rotting with death. It was time for him to cut it out—personally.

He wasn’t helping Tyrus out of earning loyalty or reciprocity from him.

It would be foolish to think that Tyrus was a man so easily swayed by fulfilling his wishes. Such words could be mixed with personal motives, but whatever it was, Hans did not give a damn.

Behind his actions lay another well-crafted plan.

The industrial north.

Hans recalled a line that described the northern district of Grefort City.

Shipping industries that lined up from kilometer X to Y.

Cargo ships blaring their horns in the middle of the night.

Trucks that silently traversed the isolated bypass roads.

And the smell of chemicals, fire, and smoke while materials were being processed from raw to output.

"No other place is more suitable than that," Hans grinned.

The MCV had strict requirements for deployment? He had one place where it might just tick every flavor that the system wanted.

Yet before he could set sail on a long quest, some internal issues must be resolved.

First, the thugs that threatened the safety of his colony.

Second, the approval of the council to his plans.

Third, setting up the convoy for the operation.

And lastly, the journey to the north.