Chapter 84 Groups, Platoons And Divisions

Chloe and sat inside as the food finished cooking.

"Dinner's done, it's the same as yesterday."

"Ah~ I'm hungry."

I served the food in two big bowls and handed one to Chloe. The steam from the just-done meat stew filled the hut. I grabbed some utensils and began eating. It was nice to be able to have a calm meal at the end of the day. I would've never thought about such small things as pleasures before I came here.

It wouldn't be long before the zombies arrived. In fact, there were probably approaching right now.

It didn't really matter that much though, I was pretty confident in the strength of my Minions. I had been making some pretty rapid progress the last few days. I should be able to pass the night without too much trouble.

I looked at my Minions army.

-

<Advanced System Controls>

~

[Resource Division] (115 Minions)

- 3x Woodcutter Minion

- 11x Miner Minion

- 35x Scout Minion (Farming)

- 26x Scout Minion (Mining)

- 34x Scout Minion (Woodcutting)

- 6x Scout Minion (Hunting)

~

[Combat Division - Standard] (138 Minions)

- 1x Advanced Warrior Minion

- 1x Warrior Minion

? - 43x Scout Minion (Swordplay)

- 57x Scout Minion (Archery)

- 36x Scout Minion

~

[Combat Divison - Magic] (41 Minions)

- 2x Scout Minion (Fire Magic - Residential Heater)

- 1x Scout Minion (Water Magic - Ice Warrior)

- 1x Scout Minion (Water Magic - Arctic Wind)

- 2x Scout Minion (Wind Magic - Defensive Wind)

- 2x Scout Minion (Earth Magic - Brute)

- 10x Scout Minion (Fire Magic)

- 9x Scout Minion (Water Magic)

- 9x Scout Minion (Wind Magic)

- 9x Scout Minion (Earth Magic)

~

[Utility Division] (26 Minions)

- 13x Builder Minion

- 12x Scout Minion (Utility)

- 1x Minion Manager

!

~

With a total of 320 Minions, I was living pretty lavishly. As I slowly finished eating my dinner, I placed everything back into my inventory and had a look outside. From what I could see, fighting had already begun, but there wasn't really much urgency. Hundreds of zombies were pouring toward the border but for the most part, my Minions were taking care of them.

My Minions were going to alert me if anything major happened anyways, so I decided to get some sleep. I wanted to fix up my sleep cycle to some extent, but at the moment, I had a tendency of waking up around midday, which meant I had less time during the day to get things done.

"Chloe, I'm going to sleep now."

"Ah, already? Are your Minions enough to take care of the zombies?"

"Yeah, at least I think so."

"Alright~ I get some sleep as well, let's sleep together~"

There was a brief moment of silence.

"Hehe, I was just kidding~"

Well, that was a little awkward.

I guess Chloe had mostly returned to her old self.

The two of us went to bed (separately) and slept until morning.

*

I was woken up by the sound of trees falling over outside.

What on earth?

I stretched my arms and slowly got up from my bed.

I looked over and saw that Chloe was still sleeping.

I checked my Minions again.

-

<Advanced System Controls>

~

[Resource Division] (115 Minions)

- 3x Woodcutter Minion

- 11x Miner Minion

- 35x Scout Minion (Farming)

- 26x Scout Minion (Mining)

- 34x Scout Minion (Woodcutting)

- 6x Scout Minion (Hunting)

~

[Combat Division - Standard] (133 Minions)

- 1x Advanced Warrior Minion

- 1x Warrior Minion

- 38x Scout Minion (Swordplay)

- 57x Scout Minion (Archery)

- 36x Scout Minion

~

[Combat Divison - Magic] (39 Minions)

- 2x Scout Minion (Fire Magic - Residential Heater)

- 1x Scout Minion (Water Magic - Ice Warrior)

- 1x Scout Minion (Water Magic - Arctic Wind)

- 2x Scout Minion (Wind Magic - Defensive Wind)

- 2x Scout Minion (Earth Magic - Brute)

- 10x Scout Minion (Fire Magic)

- 9x Scout Minion (Water Magic)

- 7x Scout Minion (Wind Magic)

- 9x Scout Minion (Earth Magic)

~

[Utility Division] (26 Minions)

- 13x Builder Minion

- 12x Scout Minion (Utility)

- 1x Minion Manager

!

~

From the looks of things, I lost seven Minions in total, 5 Sword Scout Minions and 2 Earth Magic Minions. It was pretty negligible in terms of losses. I decided to start distributing some of the Scout Minions I crafted the previous night in various different Minions.

I also wanted to look at what specialisations some of my other Minions had, although I did want to send some Minions out on expeditions.

I called my Minion Manager over as I decided on how I'd organise everything.

After a little bit of thinking, I decided to split my Minions into little groups.

I needed to give all of the resource-gathering Minions some combat Minions to escort them around as they collected resources. My idea was to make groups of five, with 3 combat Minions and 2 resource-gathering Minions. I started to split them into groups.

-

[Group 1]

- 1x Warrior Minion

- 1x Scout Minion (Swordplay)

- 2x Scout Minion (Woodcutting)

- 1x Scout Minion (Archery)

- 1x Scout Minion (Earth Magic)

~

With these small groups, I then formed bigger platoons by merging several groups together.

My idea was that these small groups would allow for easy manoeuvring around, so there wasn't too much issue in terms of having to constantly have Minions of different resource-gathering skills constantly waste time moving around. However, I made sure that the Minions of a platoon would generally stay near each other.

When a zombie is spotted I set a few commands in order to determine the decision-making of the group.

-

ON.

when, zombie detected, then

alert nearby groups and [group]

-

This way, nearby groups can work together to take of zombies, while still maximising the mobility of any specific group. With this, I hoped that expeditions can go smoothly without too many losses in terms of Minions.

I still wasn't exactly sure how effective this was. I wouldn't be able to find out until tonight when I see the number of losses and the number of resources I've collected. However, hopefully, this was going to be better than simply keeping all of my Minions on the settlement at all times.

I kept my two Residential Heater Scout Minions on the camp alongside my Elites for safety and so I could still move around. With this new setup, I was hoping that I'd be able to rapidly increase my progression speed.

Most other humans likely were hunkering down, waiting for Killer Winter to end.

Let's see if this works.