"You wouldn’t dare..."
Magnus stared coldly at Sophia. "Then how can you guarantee Cliff won’t? What makes you qualified to vouch for him? Are you his wife or sothing?"
"You - You’re full of crap! I’ll kill you!"
Sophia exploded, raising her gun to shoot. Magnus didn’t expect her temper to be this explosive. He started regretting his words - just a little. Luckily, two female soldiers rushed up behind Sophia and pulled her back.
"Captain, drop the gun. Let’s at least hear him out."
This was about all their lives. Soone had to stay calm. One of the won took off her helt and mask, gave Magnus a look with aning, and stepped forward.
"I’m Charlotte Renard, political officer of the unit."
"Magnus Specter." He shook her hand, silently noting she was definitely sharper than Sophia.
Things got easier from there. Since Magnus planned to take this powerful group under his wing, he laid everything out - his team’s current state, his future plans, and the Emberleaf Legion’s tiline to enter the city.
Charlotte and Sophia’s Female Special Forces Unit was from the Northern Reaches Command, not with the 7th Division under the Northreach Command. They only had a single platoon deployed out here on a border mission when the world collapsed around them.
Out of the 30 soldiers, 2 stayed behind to watch Magnus’s crew while the other 28 held a eting in a sleeper bus.
Have to admit, Magnus’s words hit ho. These ladies knew exactly what kind of degenerates so male soldiers could be.
In the end, 25 voted to join Magnus instead of trusting the unfamiliar 7th Division. Only Sophia and her two close friends still refused to believe in him.
But with Charlotte and the rest persuading them, even those three gave in.
"We’ll join you," Sophia finally said when they all got off the bus. She still looked pissed, her face cold. "But we have three conditions. First, we verify everything you said. Second, you tell where Grace is. And third, most importantly, if we’re joining, then you’re under our protection now. That Ice Regint of yours? From now on, we call the shots. You take orders from us. Got it?"
"We don’t need your protection!"
Magnus’s expression turned cold. "Since you’re playing hardball, fine. I’ve got three conditions too. First, once you join us, your unit’s structure has to be broken up and integrated into our teams. Second, I might tell you where Grace is, but only if I feel like it. Third, you want to run the Ice Regint? Then you’d better shoot dead right here and now."
"You think I won’t?" Sophia flared up again, hand already reaching for her gun. Charlotte quickly stepped in to stop her.
In the end, with Charlotte’s constant diation, both sides backed down a little. Sophia agreed to hand over command, and Magnus accepted her request to stay by his side 24/7 to supervise. If the team ever acted in a way they couldn’t accept, they’d be free to leave, with enough supplies to make it on their own.
Truth be told, it was that last part - the freedom to leave any ti with resources - that finally convinced Sophia to agree.
By 4 a.m., Magnus glanced at the countdown on his phone: 36 hours left until the Emberleaf Legion’s large-scale attack on Springvale City.
Still, what they’d gained over the past few hours was massive. First, a dozen brand-new cargo trucks, three long-distance sleeper buses, and three standard ones.
Even better, two brand-new 20-ton fuel tankers - one already half-filled with diesel, thanks to Sophia’s team hitting a powered-up gas station.
That whole day, all they did was collect vehicles.
And then ca the real prize - 30 fully ard female soldiers. But not just any fighters - they were special forces.
These won were hard to co by even in peaceti. Now, with the end of the world just beginning, Magnus had run straight into a goldmine.
They could drive big rigs, repair them, survive in the wild, scout, fight hand-to-hand, and shoot with deadly accuracy. On top of that, Magnus found out sothing even crazier - besides Sophia, who was already a rare speed-type Awakened, nine others among them had Awakened abilities too.
A 3-to-1 ratio of Awakened - way above the 10-to-1 odds he’d heard about in his past life. He started wondering if that old stat was ever true.
*****
By 6 a.m., with 34 hours to go until the siege, Magnus led the 30 special forces won and his original 10 teammates to rendezvous with Sophie’s convoy.
By 7 a.m., the entire Ice Regint had been reorganized. Including Magnus, their headcount stood at 245. They were split into squads of 10, each led by a female special ops soldier, forming 23 squads in total.
Magnus retained overall command. Emily and Sophia each led 10 squads. Charlotte stayed on as instructor. Liana handled logistics. Sarah, Taylor, and Isabel continued as non-combat support, sticking close to Magnus. At 7:30, the whole group had breakfast. Magnus, Emily, Liana, Charlotte, and Sophia held one last eting in the truck. Just over thirty hours left - every mont counted. The team still lacked too many supplies.
Liana, who hadn’t slept all night either, had been organizing the stockpile while rotating rest shifts among the team. She handed Magnus a handwritten inventory list.
"These are the items we counted last night..."
Magnus read through it, frowning, then passed it to Charlotte.
Vehicles: 5 sleeper buses, 3 standard long-distance coaches, two 20-ton fuel tankers, two 5-ton tankers, 2 Dongfeng Warriors, and 20 vans.
Weapons: 65 modified nail guns, 102 machetes, nurous daggers not fully tallied.
Motorcycle gear: 135 suits - 55 for won, modifiable. 220 helts, 15 welding pliers, 6 steel plate coils, 266 shovels, and rebar not counted...
Food: 255 boxes of instant noodles, 182 cases of bottled water, 55 boxes of at and fruit cans, plus 64 boxes of items like chocolate, beef jerky, sausages, peanuts, sachima, biscuits.
Also: Thirty-five 100-pound bags of rice, sixty-five 50-pound ones, cooking oil, bedding, paper goods, cleaning supplies, and more...
"You’ve got all this?" Charlotte looked at Liana in disbelief.
"Not all from us," Liana explained. "A big part ca from Sophie’s family warehouse."
"It’s still far from enough," Magnus said, exhaling smoke through tight lips. "182 cases of water sounds like a lot, but we’ll burn through that in a week - tops."
"And fuel," he sighed. "All our tankers together only hold around ten tons of diesel - that’s thirteen thousand liters total. A single van guzzles 400 liters per fill. Multiply that by 20 vans - 8,000 liters gone in one round. We probably don’t have enough for two full refuels."
What he didn’t say out loud: the numbers still weren’t right.
Sure, the convoy now had 245 people, with 82 Awakened. On paper, it looked decent. But any random college could pull off that kind of number. The Emberleaf Legion alone had twenty thousand trained soldiers.
If he wanted to control all the teorite zones outside the city, he needed at least a 1,000-strong convoy, ard and ready.
But with only a little over thirty hours left... could he make that happen?
For the first ti since coming to this world, Magnus felt real doubt.
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