Surviving the Apocalypse: All I Want Is to Find a Husband
Chapter 103: Little Dog

Chapter 103: Little Dog

Medeia showed the blueprint for fortifying the base to Richard and Lucian. The details were impressive, making them wonder when Medeia had the time to create such a comprehensive plan.

"This isn’t that hard, though," Medeia said proudly, then looked at Lucian. "Besides, you’ve drawn maps of this canyon before, so it was easy for me to make this one."

Well, Medeia never even looked at the map made by Lucian and let it gather dust among her piles of belongings.

The blueprint depicted the base’s first line of defense mechanism. "We can take advantage of the natural canyon terrain as our primary defense," Medeia explained.

She pointed to several marked areas on the blueprint. "Thanks to Lucian, the canyon path has become nearly impossible to navigate without a map of the area.

"However, over time, people may learn the route, and it would be a real pain to change the canyon layout every time," Medeia said. "That’s why I suggest we install hidden weapons along the canyon walls."

"We can drill into the canyon walls and create concealed compartments. These will house crossbows, turrets, or even flamethrowers. Once triggered, the weapons will activate and catch intruders completely off guard."

Richard furrowed his brow. "Why not just use bullets? They’re more efficient and deadly."

"The primary goal of this system isn’t to kill outright," Medeia explained. "It’s to buy time and create chaos. Using bullets is effective, but they’re noisy and will reveal the exact location of our defenses."

"Besides, we can’t rule out the possibility of someone careless suddenly activating the weapons."

Medeia didn’t want to accidentally kill innocent people and cause the system to deduct her points.

"If we have to kill the invaders, we will." Medeia pointed to the other side of the section of the blueprint. "We’ll make hidden access points for our people to gather lethal weapons in case of emergency, like guns, grenades, or whatever."

"These places will be really, really hidden and only approved hunters will know these places."

Medeia couldn’t just trust everyone, especially when it came to deadly weapons. Chances are, she only told those hidden places to no more than 10 people.

Lucian nodded in understanding. "And if someone manages to disable the traps?"

"They can try." Medeia shrugged. "But they’ll trigger secondary defenses, pitfalls, collapsing walls, or smoke traps ... we can ask the doctors to make smoke poison to make them hallucinate or die."

Richard let out a low whistle. "Now I’m starting to be afraid of you."

"Oh, please don’t be." Medeia replied casually. "I’ll never kill my husband’s family."

Medeia was taken aback for a second for using the word ’husband’ casually right in front of Lucian, but he didn’t give her any particular response, so she thought he didn’t really care.

"I should probably stay here to survey the location as a whole and mark the places that will be used as traps," said Richard.

Lucian, "You can stay here as long as you need. It just so happens that Medeia and I will go to the Warstock base tonight and will be back tomorrow, maybe you can let your men guard this place for a while."

"Fine by me."

With that, Medeia and Lucian were able to leave the base in peace. They brought Nico along with them to create the shield around the Warstock base.

"Wow, I can really go with you?" Nico said excitedly.

"Yeah, but please, don’t be noisy in the car," reminded Medeia.

Nico nodded quickly. "Can Bear also come with us?"

Medeia turned her head toward the large black wolf. Bear lowered its head and gently booped its nose against Lucian’s hand, as if silently begging him to bring it along too.

"Oh, I’m sorry, Bear. Your body is too big for the jeep," Lucian said while petting its head. "Maybe next time."

"Woof ...." Bear let out a low bark and whimpered softly, making Medeia couldn’t help but hug it. "My sweet boy, it’s such a pity you can’t shrink your body."

Suddenly, a soft glow surrounded Bear, and before Medeia could say anything, the massive black wolf shrank down into a much smaller size, about the size of a normal dog.

Now he looked more like a husky rather than a wolf.

Bear wagged its tail happily, looking up at Medeia with bright eyes, and placed its paws on her body, as if asking for her praise.

Medeia blinked in surprise, her arms still wrapped around the now smaller Bear. "Wait... what just happened?" She looked at Lucian, who seemed just as surprised.

"That wasn’t me," Lucian said, clearly taken aback. "Since when can you do that, boy?"

"Wow, that’s cool!" exclaimed Nico.

[Hidden Ability Detected: Shrink]

[Bear can shrink in size at will when the command word "Shrink" is spoken and will get bigger in the command "Grow"]

’How is that possible?’ asked Medeia to the system in her mind.

[Bear could have done that from the beginning. That’s why it grew so big, but it couldn’t shrink its size because no one gave the command.]

"I guess he can do this from the start," Medeia pretended to guess. "Maybe I accidentally triggered his ability by saying ’shrink’, so maybe... his other command is ’grow’."

Within a second, Bear’s body started to grow, and Medeia wasn’t able to wrap its neck in her arms anymore. Bear howled and nudged Medeia’s arms gently, as if asking her to shrink its body back.

"Okay, that’s new." Lucian felt a little jealous as he watched Bear favor her more than him. "Bear, shrink."

The moment Lucian spoke the command, Bear began to shrink and it spun around Medeia in playful circles. Bear then ran towards the jeep, clearly excited to get in.

Medeia laughed, reaching down to stroke its fluffy fur. "Alright, alright. You can come with us."

"Woof!" Bear barked once, its tail wagging furiously.

Lucian couldn’t help but chuckle. "I bet he wants to follow us everywhere now."

As the car left the canyon, Bear took his head out of the open window and stuck out his tongue as he enjoyed the breeze.

Nico also couldn’t take his eyes off the street. The last time he was in the car was when he came to Red Canyon from the village. Back then, he was in the back of a truck, so he couldn’t enjoy the experience of riding in a car comfortably.

They left the base in the middle of the night and arrived at Warstock just as the sun was rising. Nico and Bear eventually slept during the journey, hugging each other in the back seat, and only opened their eyes when Lucian patted their heads.

"Are we there yet?" Nico rubbed his eyes, but immediately widened them as he saw the base, which looked a bit intimidating for kids because it surrounded by sharp wire and massive rusty iron walls. "Wh-where it is?"

"This is the Warstock base. You said you couldn’t wait to see it," Medeia said.

"But this place looks scary..."

"Did I forget to tell you something?" Medeia lifted the corner of her mouth and scared the boy. "So many people have died here, and I think their souls don’t want to leave because they died in unnatural ways."

"Ghosts don’t exist!" Nico shouted.

"We used to think mutants weren’t real either," Medeia replied with a mischievous smile. "So who knows what’s real and what’s not?"

"But—"

The gate suddenly opened with a loud creak, making Nico jump to the front seat and hug Medeia so tightly that she could barely breathe.

"Nico! Get off me!" Medeia tried to wriggle out of his grip, but Nico refused to release his hug and hid his head on her chest. She looked at Lucian, "Lucian, help me."

"You started it." Lucian laughed at her, ignoring her plea. "Then, you must take responsibility."

Medeia shot him a glare and swore she would ban Lucian from sleeping in the room for a day.

When they got out of the car, Nico was still clinging to Medeia and walking right behind her.

"What’s wrong with that boy?" Tian creased his forehead as he walked out of the base.

Medeia sighed. "He’s afraid of ghosts."

"What ghosts?" Tian scoffed, "There are many things scarier than ghosts, but he chooses to fear something we can’t see? What a joke."

"What’s wrong with that?" Simon defended Nico. "I was scared to go to the bathroom when I was a kid."

"Alright, enough with ghosts. Just hurry up c0vered this place with a shield, so we can leave quickly." Tian continued, "This place makes me uncomfortable."

"It must be because of the ghost!" Nico exclaimed, his voice shaking. "I... I don’t want to go inside."

"Don’t be ridiculous." Medeia rolled her eyes, grabbing his arm and dragging him toward the gate. "The garage needs extra protection, so you have to come inside."

At the end, Medeia had to let the boy hold her hands while they were at the Warstock base. Since that day, she reminded herself not to scare kids with ghost stories anymore.