The sun climbed over the horizon as light shined into the small camp Chibi and Sashimi made.

“Guh! So bright,” Sashimi said as he covered his face with his hands.

“Come on. Get up,” Chibi scolded as Sashimi just started rolling around to get away from the sun.

After getting out of their sleeping bags, they sauntered off to a nearby lake. They splashed their faces with water to wake up and then made breakfast. They ate some of the horse meat along with the last pieces of fresh fruits, so it didn't go to waste.

Then they brushed their horses’ hair and mane to remove tangles and dirt so the horses wouldn’t feel uncomfortable during the rest of the journey. They also picked and swept off small stones so they don't dig into the horses back under the saddles.

Packing up their camp and putting their stuff on the horses, they set out towards the new base.

“Hey Chibi, how long do we still have to walk?”

“We’ll be there by sundown, so let's just continue walking.”

“Alright Chibi, do you want something to drink?”

“No thanks, let's just keep going.”

The journey was rather peaceful going through the streets that were laid throughout the city. Sometimes, they encountered groups of goblins and hobgoblins, but it wasn't a problem for them anymore.

Occasionally, they even heard human screams but chose to ignore them as the survivors would be more of a burden than help. Also, they already delayed their journeys several times to take care of the weakened horses and more people would cause more delays to the new base.

As they walked through the streets, they saw many torn up human and monster corpses. The corpses were fresh or already decaying as intestines were spilled out in front of many of them. Some were missing limbs and there was an occasional head lying in their path. Surprisingly, Sashimi seemed relatively unfazed by all the gore.

Not letting themselves be shaken by such a sight, they continued on ahead and ignored the increasingly occasional corpse on the side of the road.

Finally, they arrived at their destination when it was almost sundown.

“Chibi, we’re finally here, but why this place?”

The two of them looked forward. They were at a place that was comparable to the size of 2 football fields. It stood near the north side of town and was quite empty. There were many reasons why Chibi chose this spot. They could see some skeletons nearby, even from where they stood. Luckily, they were the corpse of humans that weren’t turned into monsters by necromancers … yet. In the meantime, the skeletons were left at the spot they were killed.

“Sashimi, what do you see?” Chibi asked

“There are only 5 buildings in the middle of the area, a massive area of empty space to our right, and a large area surrounded by fences to our left. Other than that, I don’t see what’s so great about this place. Honestly, my room seems like a better option than this gigantic space filled with nothing to help defend ourselves other than the fences.”

Chibi sighed. Sashimi didn’t see the greatness of having a base on the north side. Of course, this was to be expected. Not many people had adapted to their current situation. With time and experience, Sashimi would come to be a reliable person in the future … or die and be eaten for survival in the case of harsh conditions.

“Alright, here’s the thing. This place is meant to be occupied by multiple people working together,” Chibi explained

“If that’s true, why didn’t we bring people with us? They could be made to do some labor instead of us!” Sashimi explained

“They probably wouldn’t be any good. In my plan, there is no circumstance that will allow me to teach and train people. Eventually, we’ll find some capable people with the natural will to continue and quick-thinkers. Of course, no one does anything for anyone for free. After all, the situation became a dog eat dog world in the blink of an eye. We’ll offer them something … good in exchange, “ said Chibi

“Anyways, all the empty land to our right is empty for a reason. It was probably supposed to be used for farming. The north side of town is near a lake. This lake brings rain here, so the soil is fertile. We can also bring some worms and leave some goblin corpses here as nutrients for future vegetation,” Chibi explained while having an imaginary blackboard to his left while Sashimi was sitting on a desk with a notebook.

The farming potential of this place was definitely great. It was large as well. With time, they would be able to self-sustain themselves and possible other members of their groups.

“As for the left side, all the fences are meant to hold livestock and maybe even mounts. The-”

Before he could finish, Sashimi interrupted. “Then how come there’s none here. If this place is so great, why is it so empty? This doesn’t make any sense.”

Chibi already had a theory, so he proposed it. “Most likely, the owner was scared so he took all the vegetables and livestock with him. He could’ve easily reinforced this place, but he wasn’t smart enough to. After he left, goblins ransacked this place and now we’re here.”

Sashimi thought about it and it made sense. “I guess that would explain it. Does that mean we can actually build a town here?”

Without even a second thought, Chibi spoke. “Yeah, the two of us aren’t enough. Hell, why did you think I kept you alive? You were fighting a group of goblins with a broken gun. That shows potential when you have so little to work with. We’ll obviously get people to come with us.”

Sashimi smiled, “That’s great! I can’t stand being alone! One person isn’t enough. A new family is what I’m aiming for! But that’s too big of a goal right now. First off, I need to find a beautiful wife!”

Chibi couldn’t care less about the losers who died right away because they pretended to be the knight in shining armor. He too had a girl he liked, but she was probably dead by now, and he wasn’t afraid to enslave mankind to work for him if he was forced into a bad situation.

“Yeah, I’m sure we’ll get capable...workers in due time.”

Chibi picked the place because it had a ton of potential, but how he was going to use that potential was something he hadn’t decided yet.

Raising livestock would provide them with wool, food, and some horsepower. This would cost them though. The livestock would cost them food, water and needed shelter in the winter. This wasn’t even mentioning where they’d get live animals. Most had been killed by the mindless monsters in the places they traveled so far.

They could also grow food. With a farm, they could self sustain themselves without worrying about running out of food. There would be downsides though. This would take a lot of water and some plants needed more light than others. Chibi knew very little about agriculture, and it would take time for all the plants to grow.

Even the thought of protecting the base hurt Chibi’s brain. Getting rid of the goblins inside right now was easy, but making sure goblins didn’t get inside every second of his life was hard. Luckily, they could set up some barbed wire along the border. They could also create chimes attached to strings that would alert them to any intruders if they weren’t smart enough to notice the string. With this, they could continue to hunt and scavenge while setting a plan into motion. After conversing with Sashimi about it, the two decided on a plan.

Getting some plants

“Are you sure we’ll even find any?” Sashimi asked. They decided to search the backyards of the houses for vegetable gardens.

“Probably. You’d be surprised how many we’ll find. You just don’t look around too much,” Chibi replied

“Look around. Do you mean trespassing into private properties? This is wrong,” Sashimi remarked.

“Nothing is wrong with what we’re doing. If anything, they’d have probably let all these perfectly good crops die. At least their genes will be passed on and we can modify them to help resist monsters,” Chibi said rebutting every argument Sashimi threw forth.

After a few houses they trespassed, they finally found a backyard with a garden. It was quite a find as well. There were multiple vegetables here. Carrots, potatoes, watermelons, chibis and several other plants were lying on the floor, ripe for the pickings.

“Chibi, I don't even know which plants I should take, what if they’re not able to grow or something?”

“Unable to be grown? Someone grew this shit in their backyard. Farmable my ass. Just take everything you know from before this apocalypse, we’ll find out if these crops can grow through trial and error. Natural selection will decide the survivors anyways.” Chibi said.

“Alright Chibi, so you said we could put some barbed wire or something around the base, but where will we even find that?”

“... I don’t know. Why are you asking me?”

“Well I mean, we could build a fence with trees, we-”

“No Sashimi you fool, the trees will block the view. We won’t be able to spot anyone with all the branches in the way”

“I meant that we should take the logs and build a simple wooden fence. Maybe we could make them sharp on top and put them into the ground to make a simple wall.”

“Oh, I thought you wanted to just put trees on their sides in a pile. Yeah, that seems logical for now, but we’re gonna be improving it later.” Chibi approved as he nodded his head up and down slowly.

After uprooting dozens of vegetables, the sun was starting to set. They wanted to be able to see the goblins while killing them, so they had to do it before the sun went down. They headed north back to their base.

After an hour of walking, they got back to their new base. While the sun was still in the sky, they started killing goblins by the dozen. They started outside their future base. It seemed like the goblins were fortifying this place to make a base of their own. Sashimi shot them from their posts as Chibi continued forwards.

After going inside, they found an ambush prepared for them at the door. They decided to destroy the trap and proceeded to kill all the goblins around it. Eventually, they killed most of the goblins inside the base except the ones in the basement.

The stairs were quite a dangerous place. They could be jumped by the goblins if they weren’t careful enough. Surprisingly, all they heard was banging on metal. They rushed the goblins while they were still unprepared. After a couple minutes, they finally finished off the last goblin.

Ahead of them was a door. It was completely made out of metal and wasn’t even dented from the goblin’s previous attacks. Inside, they could hear screaming. It was quite strange. What could have been inside? Chibi chose to take a step forward.

With one strong breath, Chibi screamed, “HELLO, IS ANYONE THERE?”

Silence followed. The screaming had subsided and what came after was a voice.

“Yeah. Who the hell is on my property? I’ll kill all of’em!”

Chibi was dumbfounded since they were the ones who killed all the goblins and technically saved the man. He reigned in his short burst of anger before firing back a reply.

“They’re dead. Ain’t nothing around to kill you excluding us, sir.”

“And who’re you?” the voice asked

“We’re just 2 guys trying to survive this mess. Can you come out?”

“Lemme take a look at’ya first.”

Slowly, the metal screeched as a gap as small as a key opened. Inside, they saw an eyeball taking a quick peek at them.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Y'all really are human,”

The door fully opened after some clicks and a few grunts from the man.

Chibi decided to speak first. “Name’s Chibaku Tensei of House Corona. This is my friend Sashimi.”

The man blinked his eyes as if to remember their names before he spoke back. “And my name is Potatis.”

“What a weird name.” Chibi thought.

“So what do you do?” Sashimi inquired as he stared at the gruff looking man while Chibi pondered in his thoughts

“Well, I’m a farmer who owns this land.”

They found a specialist. Without much knowledge in the field of agriculture, Chibi had decided to test everything out to find the most suitable agricultural methods. Unexpectedly, the one who owned this land was still alive. Now, they could come to a compromise with this man and hopefully have him grow all the vegetables for the residents and future teammates.

“Potatis, I have a proposition. We’re planning to stay on this land and inhabit it during and possibly after the apocalypse. We’d be willing to protect you as long as you share your yield with us. Don’t worry, we’re not the mafia. The goblins will probably kill you before we can if you don’t compromise,“ Chibi said with great confidence.

Silence surrounded the room after Chibi’s claim. This was a great deal for Chibi and Sashimi, but not so good for Potatis. After all, he would be at a disadvantage since there was one of him vs the 2 who were making the proposition. He’d probably have to forfeit the majority of his potatoes for some safety that he could have gotten if he worked hard enough for. Potatis was about to reject them when Sashimi spoke.

“Potatis, we don’t want to harm you. In fact, we want to rebuild civilization. We can’t achieve much by ourselves, but by helping each other, we can grow stronger and live well. We-”

Potatis interrupted Sashimi in the middle of his speech and spoke with an annoyed tone, “Alright that's enough. You really are annoying, you know that? If you promise to protect me from danger and wont abuse your power, then I’m okay with that.”

“Very well, we were actually planning to grow some food ourselves, but now we have you. We have some carrots and watermelons on us right now. Ya think you could grow some for us?” Chibi asked.

Potatis was happy. He was afraid he wouldn’t have enough yield after the goblins had ravaged through his garden above. “Sure. I’ll do it since I don’t have a lot to work with myself. I’ll gladly take these off your hands,“ he said cheerfully swiping the said produce.

“I actually have a third type of fruit.” Chibi took a fruit out of his pocket. It was completely black with white stripes. It kinda looked like a strange and mutated watermelon. Even while it was in his pocket, Chibi could smell it. “ I don’t know what it is though. Not sure if it’s poisonous or a good herb, “ Chibi explained.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fruit like that either. Gimme a sec to see if it’s in my encyclopedia,” he replied, pulling the thickest book Chibi had ever seen out of his pocket. After a couple of minutes of searching through it, Potatis replied that he couldn’t find any fruit in his encyclopedia that matched the description. “Sorry. Never seen this before. Must be a new fruit or foreign fruit. For now, we’ll just call it ‘Chibi Fruit’,” Potatis said.

“Thanks. We’re gonna fortify this place now. Thanks for the help,” Chibi said with a smile. With this, their food supply had been secured. Now they could work on other more important tasks.