Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse! Chapter 1159: Jack Dewey - Combat Hardness With Softness

A couple of hours into our discussion, Mrs. Dewey felt like she needed to give us a tour of their space just to see if we could recomnd so improvents. Of course, what's passable in our eyes was totally subjective but that was one of the reasons developers, for example, do alpha and beta tests before releasing their product.

Besides, we've pretty much done around 70% of what I wanted to talk about but before we could even head for the door, we heard a knock from the other side.

Everyone thought that it'd be Sir Jacobs but the voice that entered our ears was completely different:

"Dear? Can I co in?"

I turned to Mrs. Dewey and mouthed, "Mr. Dewey?"

She nodded at with a smile before she responded to her husband:

"It's your place, you can barge in any ti you like!"

Yet the doorknob didn't even move:

"I know but… Wouldn't that be disrespectful? You have guests, right?"

Mrs. Dewey chuckled, "They're OUR guests. They ca over here to talk to us."

"Really?"

'Pfft… This guy…'

"Oh my goodness, yes! Just co in! We're all waiting for you!"

"But I'm not decent! I'm covered in dirt and everything!"

Mrs. Dewey facepald as she tried to not laugh, "Alright, dear. Once you get cleaned up, we'll et with you right here—"

But the door suddenly burst open and a woman covered in dirt, who I assud to be Eden ca in, rolling her eyes as she made her way to the table and poured herself a glass of water:

"I'm so sorry but I'm really parched! I don't have ti to wait for Dad's silliness!"

Eden had short brown hair, a slender figure, and more Asian features than Arican despite the color of her skin. From the surface, she'd look like a pure Filipina but the mont she drank the glass of water with both hands, her midriff exposed pasty white skin that in comparison to the rest of her exposed tanned ones, ant that she tended to go out a lot, especially in the mornings.

At the sa ti, when I glanced at the doorway, all I could see was Sir Jacobs wearing a smile, looking behind the wall where Mr. Dewey was hiding because he didn't want to lose face from so dirt on his boots.

But his voice echoed with a bit of anger:

"Eden! How indecent! This is why you don't have anyone courting you!"

Eden snorted as she rolled her eyes, "I'm more surprised you managed to get Mom! Oh, wait~ She ca to you, right?"

"Eden!"

Mrs. Dewey cut them off, "Alright, you two… All the work I put in to make us look intimidating and you just ruined it—"

Mr Dewey exclaid from behind the wall but this ti, his hand appeared, pointing angrily at his wife's words:

'That's a big hand…'

"Are you crazy?! Intimidation— Why?! Didn't you see what they ca in with?! That was the Eisenhower! Oh my God, Edna! They could blow this place up if they wanted to!"

Eden piled on after glancing at her mother, "We can just take them hostage, right?"

Mr. Dewey exclaid once again and this ti, showing even his forearm, "PREPOSTEROUS! ABSOLUTELY— Dear guests… I deeply apologize for my wife and my daughter, everything that has happened the past year had rendered their ntal capabilities akin to a 12-year-old, it's totally unacceptable and I'll gladly take the punishnt for them…"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Oh, co on, Dad! We're just playing around! Now you just ruined it! They're pretty much on it too!"

"Excuse , what?" Mr. Dewey replied as he retracted his forearm from view.

"Dear… Why don't you co in here and introduce yourself properly? Isn't it more rude to just be a disembodied voice and pointing around like a madman? Trust , they're pretty nice and you'd be glad to et them."

"Ah… A-Alright, if you put it that way I was pretty rude… Give a minute…"

"..."

"..."

"..."

To our surprise, the motherfucker actually took an exact minute to compose himself before coming in, looking even more terrifying than Sir Jacobs. Because if we hadn't seen his funny display earlier, I'd assu he was sent here to collect from his mob boss because an accurate description of this "Mr. Dewey" was as if a human was about to transform into a bear and stopped halfway.

I did see his big fucking hands and forearms earlier but I assud he'd just be a carbon copy of Bartow's physical features, not that it was proportional to the rest of his body.

Mr. Jack Dewey was close to seven feet in height, had wide and broad shoulders, a huge torso, log-like legs, an aweso full beard, Prince Vegeta-like hairline, "dirty" boots, but most surprisingly, a gentle expression.

It was like he swapped bodies at so point in his life because his mannerism was totally contradictory to what he fucking looks like, but I guess this place had a lot of contradictory things in and of itself. And yeah, he was sporting a huge-ass splitting axe, a huge-ass bowie machete, and a double-barreled break-open shotgun which seed to have pleased the old man sitting to my left.

"G-Greetings, J-Jack Dewey… Welco to my humble abode… I-I believe you've already t my darling wife and my second-eldest, Eden— A-And let just say that we don't have anything against you and we'll be glad to work out in any sort of agreent and change anything my wife had told you that's to our advantage… W-We don't want any trouble and—"

I just had to stop him:

"Mr. Dewey and Ms. Eden, I'm Sky, this is my wife, Kaley, and this is my uncle, Oscar. I think you might have mistaken our purpose for coming here—"

"W-Well once again, I apologize—"

"What for? You haven't done anything—"

"I apologize, we should've done sothing."

"Wut?"

Eden facepald, "Dad! Breathe!"

"Ah— Did I do sothing wrong again? I apologize…"

Mrs. Dewey glanced at her husband lovingly before she said, "Dear… We've done nothing wrong, alright? And they're actually here and brought so gifts and proposed wonderful arrangents for all of us! You'd be really glad to hear them!"

Mr. Dewey bowed deeply, "We aren't worthy but we accept them all with great thanks!"

Oscar chuckled, "That's a little…"

"I APOLOGIZE, SIR!"

"We're the sa age, brother. Why don't you take a seat so we could refresh ya?"

"O-OF COURSE, SIR! EDEN! SIT DOWN AS WELL! Edna! Did you offer them a refreshing beverage!"

"Of course, dear… We're all set and been talking for a couple of hours—"

"I'M SORRY I WASN'T PRESENT!"

I waved him off with a smile, "Don't worry about it Mr. Dewey, you had a lot of work to be done— That reminds , Mrs. Dewey ntioned you play D&D— Mr. Dewey?"

As soon as I ntioned the magic keyword, his downtrodden expression suddenly turned to shock, then to confusion, disbelief, and finally to suspicion as he put his huge hands under his chin and eyed for a good minute:

"Curious… What edition?"

"Fifth Edition. You?"

"Look at , punk. 1st Edition."

'Did he just call punk?'

"That's hardcore—"

"Psh. You kids have it easy, you don't have any idea—"

"I run a hobrewed campaign though and depending on the players, it could be easygoing or hardcore—"

"Psh! You don't have any idea about hardcore!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Then prove it!"

"Five extra characters minimum."

"Hmm."

"I check components for spells."

"Eh."

"Realistic Weight System."

"So-so."

"Dismbernt System."

"Hmm. That's—"

"When you create a character, I employ curses especially if they're working with a deity, giving them the curse of the opposing god or gods."

"That's a given."

"Have you done it?"

"..."

"Also, this is sothing unbeknownst to ya, if you really wanna make it an experience, have them stick close to their phones and they could only hear the results of their own checks and it's up to them to decide whether to tell the party the truth or lies. It's the Paranoia system. Sounds very simple but it gets worse if you have more than six players and you have a traitor or traitors in the mix."

He rolled his eyes, "That's too complex to run in a pen-and-paper system."

"We're already using phones, right?"

"Then is that even D&D?" Enjoy more content from m-v l'e|-

"I can hand them a note or whisper."

"Mmm. Better but not great."

"You're a fucking hard-ass, you know that?"

"Only when it cos to D&D, nothing else."

"It's really hard for you, huh?"

"Of course, you don't have a fucking idea—"

"One ti I scheduled a ga and no one ca so I used four of my self-made characters to play with myself."

"You think that's hard? Scheduling problems—"

"For a year."

"..."

"I may have developed multiple personalities from that because two of aren't on talking terms and one of got replaced by another because one of them just went out for milk and didn't co back."

"W-Wanna play soti, Sonny?"