Amazon Apocalypse 2: Chapter 75 (Patreon)

Going through my notifications, the level turned out to be from Caesar's death rather than Knuckles. That gave me a little hope for getting a proper answer out of Knuckles. But try as I might to nudge him, he wouldn't wake up.

Knuckles should have had quite a bit more life in him. Slicing off both his hands was a grievous injury, but for a man of his strength and vitality, it should have been survivable. The fact that he was down meant something more was going on.

Perhaps my quest updates and notifications would reveal the answer.

You have claimed Crownhill County Prison, a major fortress on this shard.

As the victor, the fate of the defeated is yours to determine.

As before, the System ran me through several policy choices. My selection would inform the quests given to everyone in Crownhill when it came to interacting with the survivors from Crownhill County Prison. I could put a bounty on their heads, like I had for the Wolfmen. I could subjugate them completely and force them to work for me, like I had the goblins. Or any number of things in between.

I ended up doing a combination of the two. So long as they cooperated with Terrance and the justice system we were putting together, they wouldn't have a bounty on their heads. Nor would they be killed out of hand. But if that ever changed, so would their status in Crownhill.

They’d used up their only second chance and would have no one to blame but themselves for their fate.

When I finished going through my victory notification, I was surprised that was it. I kept looking for, but couldn’t find, a notification about uniting the shard and completing the System's main quest. I looked through my windows to find my quest page and looked for a status update on the quest.

You now control more of this shard than any other leader.

All but one major leader has submitted to your rule!

Assert your dominance by consolidating power across this shard to complete this quest and crown yourself and your followers as the leader of this shard!

One more foe, huh?

I shot a glance at Knuckles.

I hadn't needed to actually slay every single ogre, goblin, or wolfman in order to claim my victory over them. I just needed to destroy their forces beyond any obvious capacity to contend for the shard. I was pretty sure I'd already achieved that.

So why hadn't I completed the System's quest? The thought nagged at me. As did Caesar's remains. I'd killed him twice now. Would I have to kill him a third time? And how many times after that?

I shot a glance at Knuckles. He was the only one who might know Caesar's secrets. But at the same time, he was just as likely to be the person I needed to kill to finish this quest. I rubbed my temples. Not long ago I'd been an ordinary office worker. Increasingly, I'd found myself having to decide who to kill and then both when and how to do it.

I decided to wait on Knuckles. If he woke up, then I'd be able to ask him questions about Caesar. If I still needed to, I'd just kill him after that.

All the abilities he'd used against me had involved his fists. I couldn't imagine a pugilist class would be particularly useful without their hands, so he'd likely be safe to handle—despite his high level. Decision made, I jumped up through the man-sized hole we’d punched in the wall to reunite with my allies.

As I entered the room, I got a chance to examine it a little closer than I had when we'd first arrived. Someone had turned the guards’ break room into a well-furnished living room. Off to one side, a bedroom was sectioned off—complete with more pink curtains and decorative pillows spread in all directions. The bedroom had a massive bed in it, too.

The bed was large enough that Bridget, Sakura, Myrina, and I could all sleep in it at the same time and be comfortable—assuming I had a room back at the farmhouse big enough to contain it.

There was one other person who was of particular interest to me. Both Kyle and Marcus loomed over her while she held a blanket tight around herself, looking nervous. She looked exactly like I imagined a terrified survivor would look. The brief glimpse I’d had of the confident and in-control woman who had marched into the room was so thoroughly gone, that I worried I'd imagined it.

"Guys, give her some space. I want to talk to her," I told them.

Marcus and Kyle both seemed eager to comfort the scantily clad woman. I suppose that it was only natural, considering how young they were. But the two of them were behaving a bit like creepers. Having Bridget or Margaret here would have been nice.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Lisette," she replied in a soft, quiet voice. "I... I..." She choked back a sobbing cry, like she was on the verge of tears. Despite her apparent state, her eyes were completely dry.

"Hey there, Lisette, mind if I ask you a few questions?" I asked as gently as I could.

"Sorry, I'd rather not talk. I am emotionally traumatized by—b-by recent events," she stammered.

I blinked in surprise. I had not been expecting that response. "I suppose that's reasonable. I will keep the questions brief, then."

She eyed me from over the edge of a blanket. "So that wasn't really a question, was it? You were going to interrogate me anyway." Her voice returned to normal without so much as a sniffle.

"There are things I need to know, namely if there are others like you and where I might find them,” I explained. “Their lives are at risk."

"There's nobody here,” she replied. “I... ah... that is, Caesar had all the captured women the prisoners brought in moved into nearby apartments. I'm the only one left because I stayed in Caesar's private quarters."

She shifted the blanket she was holding a little lower, revealing quite a bit of bare skin. Though, to be honest, not revealing herself would have been difficult, considering the skimpy outfit she was wearing.

"And where might we find this apartment complex?" I asked.

"Leave the building. Two turns to the right, away from the center of town. There might be some of Knuckles’ people there. You should go there with all your men. Those women need help. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine on my own. " Suddenly, she was sitting straighter.

"I'm not sure about that. This place is dangerous, and who knows when former agents of the Three Kings might return? Odds are they've gotten some sort of notification that their bosses were defeated and they might return here hoping to loot the place before forging out on their own. No. You need protection."

"I'll be fine," she insisted.

As she spoke, she nudged closer toward me, placing a hand on my leg. I shook my head adamantly, and pulled my leg free of her grasp.

Kyle cleared his throat. "Um, Carter, Sir. I volunteer to watch over her. I’ll keep her safe, and all that."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "Had enough of fighting for the day, have you?"

"Me, too, Carter! I'll stay behind and help Kyle guard Miss Lisette," Marcus chimed in.

For the second time in as many minutes, I blinked in surprise. The two of them looked fresh-faced and young, but they'd seen and shed more blood than most of the rest of my militia. I didn't expect the two of them to back down—especially from a rescue mission. I thought the two of them liked playing the hero, especially to damsels in distress.

I shot a glance at Lisette lying on the bed. She'd made herself comfortable and thrown the blanket she'd been hiding under off completely. In doing so, she revealed an astonishing number of supple feminine curves. She had an hourglass figure that would have landed her on the cover of her choice of men’s magazines.

No wonder the various Caesars of the prison had passed her down as a prize every bit as valuable as the crown—assuming they were different people. She made an excellent sultry princess, locked away like this, just waiting to be rescued. I shook my head.

No wonder Kyle and Marcus were smitten. The way she batted her eyelashes at me was enough to make most men’s hearts race. But these days, my tastes bent more toward warrior princesses than sultry, captive princess. After all, that was how Myrina had once described herself.

I kept a healthy distance, returning none of her subtle advances. “Alright, Lisette, you’ll be in Kyle and Marcus’ care. You two… be gentlemen.”

“Understood, Sir!” Kyle replied.

“Everybody else, we’ve got a rescue operation! Oh, and tell Terrance that Knuckles, one of the remaining members of the Three Kings, is in the other room. Arrest him and bring him back to Crownhill for questioning.”

“Uh… Carter, isn’t he super dangerous and really high leveled? Can Terrance and his people handle someone like that?” Frank asked.

I chuckled. “Don’t worry, he’s been disarmed.”

***

We found the building full of women exactly where Lisette said it would be. The women inside were surprisingly comfortable where they were—as Cromwell’s better-off captives had been.

The stories of how a bunch of prisoners starved for feminine attention had busted down their prison cells and gone raiding and pillaging as soon as the integration hit made me fear the worst. But it seemed most of the women were either living in a large bunkhouse, or in their own private—if tiny—rooms. Someone had even gotten the plumbing back online, and a generator ran the in background [C1] providing limited power.

The delineation between the women who got their own rooms and those who were forced to bunk with others was pretty obvious, just from asking a few questions. It was very similar to the model used by Cromwell’s men. The women either doing a job for Caesar or Knuckles, or attached to a man who was doing a job for them, received their own accommodations. The ones bunking together were all single.

“To be honest, I figured we’d find something more like a brothel with unwilling participants tied to their beds. This all seems a bit…” Frank waggled his hand back and forth uncertainly.

“Too… fair?” I offered.

“When we saw it in Cromwell’s place,” he continued, “I was surprised. But Caesar didn’t seem the kind of guy to care about treating women ethically. He had that Lisette woman, his own personal slave girl! I don’t get it.”

“It seems like every man who mattered back at the prison had his own woman he could come visit, even if they weren’t paired up before the integration. It’s strange.”

“Very strange,” Kerrie agreed. “The women I spoke to all said when the guys visited, they were surprisingly gentle—although they all had the same lines to comfort those who grieved the loss of a husband or boyfriend. It’s like all three of them were getting advice on what to do with women from the same source.”

I shook my head in wonder. Whoever was giving the orders had to have been very high up in the prison—considering all three of the Three Kings’ men had been listening to them. Heck, it might have come from one of the Three Kings, themselves, though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out who.

Maybe Knuckles would turn out to be a staunch feminist when I finally had the chance to interrogate him. Somehow, I doubted the answer was that simple. No, there was still something I didn’t understand going on here.

Still, the women were very grateful to be rescued. Though things had gone far better for them than I would have guessed, they were still locked up in an apartment complex against their will. At least they were happier to be rescued than some of Cromwell’s kept women had been.

“We’re saved? We’re saved!” a woman said, smile spreading wide across her face.

She might have been in her late thirties, but the physical enhancements everyone received from the free stats the System gave us made it hard to tell. Everyone was in the best shape of their lives.

“Yes, that’s right, you’re saved. Though, to be honest, this apartment complex is nicer than the one we’ve got set up for you back in the center of town.” I gave them a shrug. “But you’re certainly not under guard or house arrest anymore. You are free to leave whenever you wish.”

Several of them paused at the news that freedom might bring with it a lower quality of life.

“I recommend you pack up your things,” I continued, “and head toward the large black obelisk downtown. Business is booming, and if you set yourself up with a trade or a job, you should be able to regain some semblance of your old life.”

The women talked it out amongst themselves. In the end, some would be staying and some would be going. It was mostly those who’d all been thrown together in a few big bunk rooms who would be leaving for greener pastures, whereas those with private rooms who appeared to have settled in here would be staying—albeit with greatly expanded freedom to roam outside of their current living quarters.

I bid them farewell so they could pack and sort things out. Kerrie stayed behind, along with a few other officers in the militia, to help them while the rest of us returned to the prison complex.

Terrance waved me over as he struggled to handcuff Knuckles’ still sleeping form.

“You alright there, Terrance?” I asked.

“Maybe.” Terrance grunted. “Next time you disarm someone, maybe be a little less thorough?” He ended up snapping a set of cuffs around Knuckles’ ankles. They were more symbolic than anything.

Frank, Rick, and the others helped Terrance haul Knuckles back to the settlement on a makeshift stretcher. He was big enough that it took all three of them. Something about him was exceptionally dense, so even heightened strength wasn’t sufficient to haul him off.

The rest of our wounded would return with them and we’d gather back at the settlement in Crownhill to celebrate our victory. I had a few loose ends to tie off before following them. I ducked back into the building to fetch Kyle, Marcus, and Lisette. I had a lot of questions, and she still seemed like the best person to ask. Traumatized or not, I would get my answers out of her.

“Kyle! Marcus! Get your rears in gear… we’re headed back,” I called out. “The rescue mission was a success.”

I received no answer.

“Kyle? Marcus?”

My voice echoed throughout the empty building. Rounding the corner and entering Caesar’s room, I found the three of them had left. They were nowhere to be found.