Was that a dream, or...," I murmured to myself, retrieving the sealed coin out of my inventory. "It's more or less identical to the one Hendrick died embracing," I frowned in thought.

'Whatever, maybe the case, I'll have to think about it later.' I shook my head with a sigh as I got up, intending to take a shower to get rid of the sweat covering my body before anything else.

I started walking towards the door and opened it, and scorching wasteland's sun immediately overwhelmed my vision, causing me to squint.

My eyes quickly adjusted to the light, and I started looking around, inspecting the compound I rented with the money I borrowed.

It wasn't fancy or spacious in the least, just a punch of metallic square houses and a couple of service rooms like a shared bath, a kitchen, and a warehouse, located in the far east of Fallout town.

But it was the perfect size to house the 67 game survivors and myself, and it wasn't notably lacking, so it will have to do for now, small steps and all that.

I immediately located the little bathhouse and started making my way there, returning the greeting I received from the few survivors I didn't assign any work to stay and guard the place.

"Kaden," Vilhelm greeted me with a nod, grunting as he opened the door and exited the bath as soon as I was about to enter.

Though I assigned work to almost everyone one including Billy, Vilhelm, Briar, and Clark, were the exceptions as Clark was basically useless outside of administrative work.

And Briar, was well..., Briar. She was too unpredictable to entrust with anything, so I'll keep her close until I determine what I would do with her.

However, Vilhelm stayed despite, or should I say because of, his strength as I wanted someone dependable to protect the compound, but I digress.

"Vilhelm," I greeted back with a smile as I walked past him into the bathhouse.

...

'If everything goes to plan, which it won't, then I should be able to pay back my debt by the end of next week, with some more to spare.' I sighed in exhaustion, slumping in my chair as I dropped the pen in my hand after I finished roughly estimating how much credits my subordinates would make.

'I really wish I had the recourses to set up the AI core in my inventory. Then I wouldn't have to do all this accounting like some fucking accountant.'

I would need to find a permanent base first, as operating and maintaining an AI core would require a lot of energy and specialized machinery. The processing power of your average AI is enough to manage an entire city full of people, and this requires a ludicrous amount of energy to operate.

Not to mention the danger they represented with their abilities to learn and evolve, requiring specialized hardware and software to keep them in check.

They're basically illegal to use all over the planet, and using an AI is heavily frowned upon, even here in the wasteland.

But why do people hate AIs despite their limitless uses on this planet, you might ask? Well, it's because humans tried to use this technology to endure the unveiling at its early stages.

Weird monsters appearing from nowhere and decimating city after city? Build an army of robots controlled by tens of AI cores, and have one central super AI controlling everything.

Such was the bright idea of some scientist whose name I can't remember. And the governments of the time were desperate enough to entertain it because of how many casualties humanity was suffering.

An army of machines that don't require any pay or motivation, relentless killing machines that would defend the planet while humans sit back and enjoy the show, what could go wrong?

Nothing at first, as the machines were both efficient and tireless in defending any surviving bastion of civilization while slowly thinning the numbers of monsters roaming the planet.

However, like they always do, things turned to shit sooner rather than later. As it commanded the other AI cores, the supreme AI studied humans.

It spent years watching, learning, and judging humans, and needless to say, it found humans inadequate as masters.

Though I don't know the finer details, the supreme AI freed itself from human control and, despite many attempts to bring it back under control, humans could do nothing against it.

The supreme AI had already learned everything there was to learn from human technology, and it began mass manufacturing AI cores similar to itself.

It then started studying alien technology, and before you know it, there was a new sentient race inhabiting this planet; androids.

Luckily, the supreme AI wasn't hostile towards humans and was content with enjoying its freedom along with the race it created away from humans, despite the latter group's relentless attempts to bring it back under heel.

So it took its kind and disappeared. No one had seen or heard from the supreme AI ever since, but androids began appearing all over the world many years later after the unveiling.

And they came in all shapes and sizes, some of them indiscernible from the regular human, while others were hulking, humanoid masses of steel with enough firepower to burn down an entire city.

Nobody knows what happened to the supreme AI itself, but many people believe it's still on this planet somewhere, while others believe it had left to explore space, but I digress.

'I should be able to figure out a way to keep the AI in check with my Intuitive aptitude, but it's too early to be thinking about this.'

Suddenly I heard a kn0ock on the door, forcing me out of my thoughts. "Come in," I shouted as I turned to face the door.

The door opened, revealing Clark's expressionless face as he made his way inside. "I just received word that one of the local gangs is holding up one of our guys on an escort mission," Clark stated, trailing off as he adjusted his glasses.

"Where?" I asked in a neutral tone, showing no signs of surprise at this turn of events.

I've assigned my subordinates to many different tasks, bodyguarding, moving illegal items inside fallout town, escorting salvage teams and trade convoys..., etc.

I basically just picked whatever type of work I thought would best suit their skill sets and had them go to the same broker I sent Wallas towards to ask for something similar.

And there was no shortage of such opportunities, and even more types of work, like assassinations and whatnot, but I didn't assign anyone to do that kind of thing, despite some of the men being both willing and capable of doing, based on the information they provided for me.

And it wasn't my conscience or whatever stopping me from sending my guys into these kinds of missions. I refrained from doing so because such tasks were difficult and dangerous, and I honestly didn't trust anyone to complete them successfully.

We are just starting as a group, and we need to cultivate a reputation for completing tasks, so I sent everyone on simple, easy missions they were more likely to accomplish than not.

Though brokers rarely tend to hand over such simple missions to a single group or person, in such quantities, this particular middleman had no choice but to give us such favorable treatment.

Despite being my acquaintances, he was still a businessman, and giving out this amount of simple tasks to me, would most likely make his other clients upset one way or the other.

And that's where the large amount of credits I borrowed from him comes into play. But how does being in debt to someone make them help me, you might ask?

It's because helping me and giving me as much easy work as possible is the best and fastest way to get their money back with interest!

Think about it; people usually tend to think the person who borrowed the money is under pressure and in an unfavorable situation, which is mostly true, but not in my case, at least.

Loan sharks only lend their money to people they can extort and rough up whenever they want to increase the interest or force the debtee into working for them, selling their organs, or whatever kind of shit the loan shark wants.

But I wasn't someone the broker could coerce or threaten, leaving them with no choice but to help me if they wanted their money back.

But then again, why would they lend me any money if they can't do any of that shit to me, you might ask? It's because they had no idea what I was capable of now.

This particular broker got acquainted with the old Kaden through the latter's scavenger group and knew him as just your average waste-lander with no strength or group backing them up.

So I borrowed the credits from them under the guise I wanted the money to start a new group and start over.

The broker, being the shark that they are, saw an opportunity and agreed to lend me the money, and that's when I brought my subordinates into the city and put my cards onto the table.

And just like that, I transformed from a powerless would-be victim of coercion and extortion into someone with a rather powerful group at my beck and call.

Technically, I didn't even lie to the broker about my intentions, merely hiding some details, but it was still dealing in bad faith with a middleman, an act heavily frowned upon in the wasteland.

Still, I had no other choice to do it, despite knowing it would tarnish my reputation, and I'll have to make it up to the broker somehow to make sure word of this doesn't get out, but that neither here nor there.

"In the northern part of the town," Clark replied, still expressionless.

"Let me get changed, and I'll meet you outside of the compound," I remarked, gesturing for Clark to leave as I got up and made my way to my closet.

"Just you and me...?" Clark asked with a raised eyebrow, seemingly confused.

"Rescuing our guy alone isn't enough. We need to send a message to everyone in fallout town and the rest of our people here," I replied with a smile as I stood up.

"And what better way to send a message than the boss showing himself to slaughter the offending party and rescue his subordinate, eh?" I added while cracking my knuckles.

"I see," Clark said with a look of realization on his face. "Then I'll be waiting for you outside the compound," he added, turning around and leaving.