May Peace Grace Us

Chapter 58: Future Plans

Winter was expected to be cold and difficult. But everyone was clearly not too informed that it would be this hard.

The first snow that befell upon their lands turned out to be a blizzard. And for three days straight, the world became a white ball of snow and ice. Making those who worked on the greenhouse worry about the plants that were yet to be harvested.

Fire ability users were the only ones who were able to get out during this period of time. Everyone had to trouble them to do the checking of their plants and to see if there were any problems with the equipment there. Emphasizing that their base depended on their produce and the loss of any of them is tantamount to lessening their livelihood and food supplies.

Well, in the cold and almost unforgiving temperatures, at least for this year, only the fire supernaturalist has enough resistance to get out and do things. Though those with abilities of Ice and Water could go out and help, they don't want to risk killing their source of food. Most of them are not so proficient at controlling their powers that more than a mere incident of turning things into a popsicle happened on a regular basis.

Fire supernaturalists have their own troubles when it comes to their control. But due to the cold weather, their damage was greatly minimized. A win-win situation that Aila was not sure she should be happy about had to learn about what everyone else had labeled their episodes of mishaps.

During this time, everyone does everything inside their houses. And when the blizzard finally calms down, everyone immediately does some follow-up work outside and catches up with other things that cannot be done in the houses they are in. Though it has to be said that those in charge of clearing the snow were the most miserable.

Never did they see snow almost a first floor deep. The fire supernaturalists have their work cut out for them and they are the ones who have to overdraft their abilities the most in this period of time. With a blast of fire, the road was cleared up by them. Water supernaturalists were behind them to manipulate the water to be thrown out of their base boundary so as to not flood their roads and homes.

“The snow here is worse than the snow in the city.” Bella off-handedly said as she used her shovel to remove some snow off of the walls they were on. “This is just for the first year of the apocalypse. I wonder how deep the snow will be next year. After all, the climate will be increasingly extreme and this is no doubt only an appetizer.”

They are currently on the walls to clear out the snow as much as they can. Originally there was a fire supernaturalist helping them out, but you made the snow much harder to deal with on the roads below? That person has to get down and help on the road clearing operations first before he can help out here.

With the fire supernaturalist away, most of the people who are left were ordinary people or supernaturalists whose abilities are not much help on the task at hand. Like Bella here, who cannot use her lighting ability without harming people.

“....we might need to find a way to increase the height of the houses or do something to not let the snow fall onto the base at all.” Aila said as she remembered another note she made when she was writing this world’s story. Due to the fact that it seemed out of place and that humanity in that period of time she loosely based their story on, she scrapped that idea after she looked for a suitable place to insert it.

The idea was simple. She researched a few articles about old myths about elements that came to her mind. Using the traditional elements of fire, water, air, and earth, they could theoretically make a stable place temporarily. The crystals could be used in this theory as a power source, but the cost of this was undoubtedly enormous to support them in the long run.

Supposedly they should build pillars for this to work. Calculate the range the pillars can cover before setting them on the points they should be placed. Ideally, this will make a protective cover for the whole base while maintaining the temperature and ecosystem within its reach. So, even if the whole base is covered in snow, they will not be affected at all.

“You have an idea?” Bella pointedly said as she seemed to be looking straight at Aila’s soul.

“...I have.” Aila felt weak as she said this.

It was not Aila’s imagination that Bella was strangely keen on catching them off guard ever since she experienced rebirth. Jerome, who was already notoriously sensitive to her attention, had grown even more fearful of her whenever she appeared in his field of vision. The others also took note of this change, but did not mind it. Instead, they only attribute it to her being shocked at how willful and unruly her cousin was. Although it was well-known that most of them are not close to their relatives, they are indeed close to some, like Bella was to Gerald at some point.

“If you have some, why not say it or implement it earlier?” Bella said as she took off her eyes from Aila and continued shoving the snow in front of her.

“Because it is simply unrealistic and not to mention unscientific.” Aila grumbled as she also did her own part of this task.

“We’re already in a world that fuses scifi and fantasy, what else do we dare not believe?” Bella hummed as she said this.

“....right.” Forgive Aila for not remembering this fact.

“I’ll consult Jerome about it later.” Aila only sighed as she sped up her work.

After almost a whole morning spent clearing out a decent portion of snow on the walls, everyone continued their day doing various things at once. Those who are in charge of the plants spent the rest of their time in the greenhouses, those who are in charge with the indoor husbandry and fisheries dealt with the insufficient feed and others, others on different task forces raced against time to finish everything they could do.

The sky outside was dark and gloomy. It was a great thing that they had all saved enough power to light up many light sources in advance. Else they might need to resort to using torches, which they are lacking in resources to make. Not all of them are comfortable in the dark after all.

Though even with the excess energy they had, they cannot afford to waste the electricity supply they had. Solar panels are useless without the sun charging them, so they had to remove them to avoid damage. Generators do their work on equipment of theirs that needs electricity, otherwise the batteries they had cannot support. Though using these generators in return has greatly dented their supply of gas. But for survival, Aila has learned to not pay attention to them so that she will not feel so hurt by the large consumption they are making.

As the day approaches, everyone has a collective dinner together in the enclosed hall of the community. It was like a huge gymnasium that could host some big events, but only for their private use back before the world went into horror and thriller mode. It could host approximately around 1000-1500 people at a time, there is plenty of space for everyone as their numbers did not even reach that high. A huge place that was made purely for someone in the past in the family likes to have parties and invite people all over to their home.

Aila was the one who proposed this gathering for the sake of building good relationships within their small population. She remembered some activities that are said to be effective in making a great sense of belonging and these are the closest and the easiest to implement. Group activities are good ways to build comradery.

As the promoter, Aila did her best to make the whole thing as pleasant as it could be. She arranged a huge table where the food was served and various refreshments were placed. She arranged no seats or tables for everyone to use, wanting to eat while sitting on the ground like a camp-style dining.

Everyone liked her arrangements somehow and all of them enjoyed a small window of time for them to relax and get merry. As the day next is sure to be filled with so many things to do, they particularly appreciate these activities. The whole time they were trapped in their respective community homes was depressing enough. Although they have some people to talk with and interact with, it cannot beat the joy of socializing outside the four walls of their homes.

Aila took this as a chance to whisker Jerome to the side to talk business. As expected, he was indignant about being pulled out. He did not voice it in fear of being beaten. Aila looked terrified at him recently that he dared not to do anything to make her target him. Aila is scary when she vents the things she bottled up inside and Jerome would like to see Aila wrecking people during those times. But having himself as the end point of Aila's venting, let him go out and face those monsters outside their home instead. Going out there gives him a much better chance of living and actually surviving the whole ordeal.

“What did you pull me here for?” Jerome timidly asked.

“I need your help to do something.” Aila said as she gave the guy vague concepts of the project she and Bella had discussed. Jerome listened attentively and spoke out his thoughts and where they needed to spend their manpower on if this were to be done. Not a trace of questioning is seen in his eyes and his whole being is showing his trust in their plans and ideals. That no matter how impossible it is, as long as his friends have shown him the way, he will support them and will do his best to make it reality.

“...the amount of energy required to make this is too large to be sustainable.” Jerome was concerned about the issue of energy rather than the absurdity of Aila’s idea. From a scientific perspective, thinking of the source of energy is necessary to support the idea and make the percentage of making a theory possible. Similar to how the atmosphere exists due to the presence of tectonic plates, surrounding gases, etc., they can make a cheap imitation of it as long as they have the right conditions as well as materials to make it possible.

“The crystals can provide a large amount of energy when they are used as they are.” Aila stated the fact she knew too well, but everyone else is ignorant currently. “We just lack the right conductor to make them usable without making them unstable when using them.”

“We’ll need Harry’s input on this if what you say is true,” Jerome replied as he thought of the feasibility of the plan. “Better yet drag in Travis too. That guy is more or less very familiar with crystals and he knows best what we can do to at least make the risks lower as much as possible.”

“For now let’s not say anything about this to them.” Aila said, after she then thought that even if they succeed in doing this, the current level of the crystals available really cannot support it. Give it a year or two, the zombies will be strong enough to produce better crystals for them to use.

“If you say so,” Jerome only said before he suddenly changed the topic. “I just remembered, Alexa is looking for you this morning. I wasn’t able to tell you earlier as I was busy with the power lines problems just now.”

“What is she looking at me for?” Aila asked, as Jerome only shook his head, saying he did not know. So, after they exchanged a few more words, Aila went and looked for Alexa.

Aila then spotted Alexa in the corner. She was watching the liveliness on the sidelines with no intention of joining in the fun.

“‘Hey.” Aila said as she joined her friend in her corner. “Heard you are looking for me, what is up?”

“There was a message from the city that came this morning,” Alexa reported. As each and everyone of them has found where they belong to, Alexa sinks into the digital side of things. Spending her days hacking and gathering information from other bases was her greatest joy, and as a pastime she managed all sorts of messages heading their way to those they left some contact with.

“Who?” Aila asked, as Jemma and Honeylet were the first ones to come to her mind. “Was it from Honeylet or Jemma?”

Alexa shook her head and said, “Neither of those two.”

“Then who might they be? I did not leave any contacts other than those two.” Aila was puzzled, as Alexa looked complicated.

“It was Felix’s dear uncle,” Alexa said weakly. “We really did not let others find out a way to communicate with us, but as long as this relative of Felix wanted to, it is always possible for him to find a way. Among all his relatives, that lieutenant is always sharp as a sniffing dog on finding what he wants.”

“I forgot about him.” Aila simply said as she finally remembered this person. He was the one who spoiled and loved Felix among all his relatives. And as Alexa describes, he really has the ability to find a way to communicate with them one way or another, with or without any hints. The man is high on the list who could find them should he be given time to look for them.

In their past life, the guy did not survive long enough for them to take shelter in him, thus making her forget the existence of this guy. If the man has survived long enough, perhaps they would not live the way they did.