LOSS System: Last Store Standing

After Justin finished speaking, the warehouse fell silent for a moment.

A refugee sitting beside one of the folding beds looked up at Justin, then toward the distant shelves.

“I’ll stay too.”

Everyone turned toward him.

“Justin’s right. Besides, he can’t watch this entire place by himself.”

“Count me in too,” another refugee said. “As long as we have somewhere to live, it doesn’t matter where.”

Several more people soon volunteered to stay. In the end, nine refugees, including Justin, decided to remain at the agricultural supply center.

The others planned to move closer to Jack once the heat wave ended. As previously agreed, they would search the ruins for supplies and repay the food, water, and other resources they had received. Whether Jack would hire them after they had settled their debts would have to wait until then.

Once everyone had made their decision, one refugee joked, “Looks like this place will be your outpost from now on. Don’t lock us out when we come back.”

“Of course not,” Justin said with a smile. “We all made it this far together. That practically makes us family. You can come back whenever you want.”

The refugee stared at him.

“We count as family?”

“Why not?” someone else said. “We started as strangers, but now we’re all from the same settlement.”

Another person laughed. “We even got up to no good together. If that doesn’t make us family, what does?”

Everyone immediately began laughing and cursing at the speaker.

Justin laughed with them. Once the noise died down, he looked around the warehouse.

“Why don’t we clean this place up?”

The others followed his gaze.

The warehouse was large. Apart from the makeshift enclosure where everyone was living, the rest of the space remained cluttered with boxes, bags, collapsed shelves, and loose metal parts.

“We don’t know how long we’ll have to stay here,” Justin continued. “We might as well organize everything and make the place more comfortable.”

“He’s right,” one refugee said. “I didn’t pay much attention before, but this place really is a mess.”

“No objection here.”

The others quickly agreed.

“Then let’s get started,” Justin said. “We’ll sort everything out, clear some space, and find somewhere to store the rest.”

“Once we’re done, this can officially become our outpost.”

Everyone soon got to work.

Several people joined forces to lift the collapsed shelves. Those still in usable condition were placed upright against the walls, while others gathered the scattered boxes, bags, and metal parts and sorted them by size.

If a box was too heavy, they called more people over to help. Anything they couldn’t immediately identify or assign a place to was moved to the other side of the warehouse rather than carelessly thrown away.

Before long, they cleared an area that had previously been buried beneath clutter.

Several people were about to carry away some empty boxes when one of the refugees staying behind stopped them.

“Wait. Leave those here.”

His name was Chen. He walked over, crouched beside the boxes, and measured their depth with his hand.

“What do you want those for?” someone asked.

“Do you think we could grow something inside the warehouse?”

Everyone stopped what they were doing.

“How?” one refugee asked. “And what would we grow?”

“Anything,” Chen said, patting one of the boxes. “This is an agricultural supply center. Even if there’s nothing else, there should be seeds somewhere. And if there aren’t, we still have potatoes.”

“If we’re lucky, we might even find gardening soil.”

“And if we don’t?”

Chen pointed outside.

“Then we try the sand and soil out there.”

Someone couldn’t help asking, “Can anything even grow in that sand?”

“I have no idea,” Chen said frankly. “That’s why I said we should try. If it works, we’ll have more food in the future. If it doesn’t, we haven’t lost anything.”

The others considered it and found the idea reasonable.

One refugee looked at the boxes.

“Then you’ll take responsibility for it?”

“No problem.” Chen stood. “Tomorrow, we’ll search for seeds and soil. If we can’t find any, we’ll plant potatoes.”

The others agreed.

They moved the selected boxes beside the newly cleared area and arranged them neatly in a row, planning to experiment once they found seeds and soil the following day.

With that settled, everyone returned to organizing the warehouse.

No one paid attention to how much time passed. By the time the nearby clutter had been moved away and the fallen shelves stood upright again, people gradually began stopping to rest.

The cleared space was much larger than their original makeshift enclosure. There were still plenty of boxes and bags nearby, but at least they no longer had to watch every step to avoid tripping over something.

Everyone was drenched in sweat, their clothes sticking to their bodies again.

One person lifted an arm and sniffed.

He immediately gagged twice.

“Damn! I stink!”

Laughter erupted around him.

Justin tugged at the shirt clinging to his skin.

“We all smell about the same. We have water now, so we might as well take turns washing up.”

“Good idea!”

Someone who had clearly had enough of the sticky clothes immediately stood.

“I’m going first.”

“Why do you get to go first?”

“Because I smell the worst.”

It took everyone a moment to process his answer.

The refugee burst out laughing and hurried toward the water line before anyone could stop him.

Once the others realized what had happened, they began laughing and cursing after him. Some told him to hurry, while others started searching for clean clothes.

While everyone waited for their turn to wash, one of the nine refugees staying at the agricultural supply center stood beside a shelf, studying the metal framework.

Justin noticed.

“What are you looking at, Wesley?”

Wesley turned away from the shelf.

“I was thinking about how large this place is. There’s no perimeter wall outside, either. The nine of us could never defend it.”

Several people nearby looked over.

One of them nodded.

“If something really happens, it might not matter whether there are nine of you or all of us. We still might not be able to defend this place.”

The others agreed.

“Exactly.” Wesley patted the metal shelf beside him. “These shelves are made of metal. What if we dismantled them and used the frames to build a perimeter wall?”

Chen stared at him.

“You’re joking, right? This place is enormous. How are we supposed to surround all of it?”

“We don’t need to surround the entire agricultural supply center.” Wesley waved a hand. “Remember the fence around Jack’s place? He only enclosed the main activity area. We can do the same thing.”

The others quickly understood.

“What about the rest of the facility?” Justin asked. “And all the equipment?”

“We don’t need to worry about that,” Wesley said. “If mutant beasts get inside, they won’t start destroying equipment for no reason. And if raiders come, there’s even less reason for them to do it.”

He paused before continuing.

“Once they deal with us, everything here would belong to them anyway. They wouldn’t ignore us just to run around wrecking machines first.”

“How large an area are you planning to enclose?” someone asked.

Wesley gestured around them.

“The warehouse and the ground around it. We’ll live inside the warehouse, with enough open space outside for daily activities and storing scrap metal and boxes. That should be enough.”

Everyone looked around and roughly estimated the area they would need to enclose.

Even if they only surrounded the warehouse and the nearby ground, they would still need a considerable amount of material. No one knew whether the metal shelving would be enough.

“Do we have enough shelves?” someone asked.

“I don’t know,” Wesley replied. “We’ll have to search and find out.”

Chen looked toward the boxes and metal parts they had just organized.

“We might not need to use shelves for the whole thing.”

Everyone turned toward him.

Chen pointed at the boxes.

“There must be plenty more boxes and scrap metal around here. We can fill the boxes with sand and stack them to form the body of the wall, then reinforce everything with dismantled shelving and scrap metal.”

Wesley walked over and pushed one of the boxes.

The empty box was light, but once filled with sand and stacked in layers, it could indeed form a barrier.

“That could work,” someone said. “There’s sand everywhere outside. We can fill as many as we need.”

Another refugee nodded.

“And we wouldn’t have to dismantle every shelf. We’d only need enough metal to reinforce the wall.”

Chen nodded.

“That would be much easier. Sand-filled boxes would be more stable than a wall made entirely from shelving, and they’d take less time and effort.”

Everyone gathered around the boxes and considered the idea.

The more they thought about it, the more practical it seemed.

“Then tomorrow we start by looking for seeds and soil,” one refugee said. “While we search, we can also count how many usable boxes and shelves are left.”

“Sounds good. We’ll figure out what materials we have before deciding how large an area to enclose.”

The others agreed.

Jack knew nothing about the refugees’ plans for the future.

After returning to the convenience store with Megan, he didn’t go upstairs to rest. Instead, he grabbed several potatoes and went outside to find the Dustchucks roaming nearby.

Jack crouched in front of several of them and gestured at the ground.

“Tomorrow, you’re going to help me dig.”

He pointed at the Dustchucks, then mimed digging through the soil with both hands.

“Dig. You understand?”

The Dustchucks circled him continuously, occasionally stopping to sniff his pant legs. None paid the slightest attention to his gestures.

Jack refused to give up.

He took out a potato and waved it in front of them.

“If you finish digging, you’ll get something good to eat.”

The sight of the potato immediately caught their attention. The Dustchucks crowded around his hand.

“Not now.” Jack hurriedly raised his arm. “You dig first, then you get food. Dig, then eat.”

He repeated the gesture as he spoke.

The Dustchucks stared up at the potato. Whenever Jack moved his hand, their heads turned with it.

As for the digging, not one of them appeared to understand.

Megan stood nearby, watching Jack negotiate seriously with a group of Dustchucks. The longer she watched, the funnier it became.

Eventually, she walked over.

“Stop wasting your energy. Let’s go back inside and sleep.”

“Give me another minute.” Jack kept his eyes on the Dustchucks. “I refuse to believe I can’t get through to them.”

He crouched again.

“Watch carefully. I’ll show you one more time.”

Jack placed the potato beside him and began miming the digging motion with both hands.

The Dustchucks continued circling him.

One of them seized the moment when Jack wasn’t looking, grabbed the potato, and ran.

The rest immediately chased after it.

Within seconds, every last Dustchuck had disappeared.

Still crouching on the ground, Jack stared in the direction they had gone and didn’t move for a long time.

Megan fought back a laugh.

“Do you want to keep trying?”

Jack stood and brushed the dust from his hands.

“We’re going inside.”

He took Megan by the hand and headed toward the convenience store, still grumbling under his breath.

“Ungrateful little freeloaders. They eat my food, drink my water, and the moment I ask them to do one tiny thing, they all run away.”

Megan finally burst out laughing.

“They don’t understand you. It’s hardly their fault. Why are you so angry?”

“I don’t care. It’s their fault.”

Watching him sulk, Megan leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“Feel better now?”

Jack stopped and turned toward her.

Megan stopped as well, still smiling.

Jack seriously considered the question.

“A few more should do it. I’d say I’m about a third... no, maybe a fifth...”

He paused, then shook his head.

“No, that’s not right. I’m only one-tenth—”

“Go to bed early tonight,” Megan said, looking at him seriously. “You can have anything you want in your dreams.”

She laughed softly, left Jack standing there, and headed straight for the convenience store.

Jack stared after her for a moment before hurrying to catch up.

“I wasn’t finished.”

“You don’t need to be.”

Their voices gradually faded.

Before long, the area fell quiet again. Only a few Dustchucks remained hidden in the distance. The lead Dustchuck watched Jack disappear into the distance, its thoughts impossible to read.