Ceo


    07:10 Hours, August 4th


    Banks of the River


    The frozen river was for the time being going to be our lifeline.


    Several dozen engineers were busy hitting the ice with shovels trying to break it up. I looked at the engineers who tried their hardest not to slip, even then I wasn’t exactly sure if fishing would be able to feed us especially in the short term.


    One of the engineers stopped hitting the ice, and approached me. He was clearly tired. “Ma’am this is going to take too long. We are already exhausted from digging ourselves out of the bunkers, could we use a grenade or an AT gun to break the ice like you did to get out.” He said.


    “Alright, go ahead.” I said.


    The engineer nodded, and called the others, moments later they activated a grenade and placed it on the ice. Quickly ran or really slid away as fast as they could, then the grenade detonated the second explosion of the day.


    There was a hole in the ice, the engineers moved back over the hole. Carefully trying not to slip, they got down and looked into the water. Then the next one got up.


    “Colonel!” The engineer yelled to me from the ice.


    “Yes?” I responded equally loud from the banks of the river.


    “We see fish in the river!” They reported, the engineers came over to the banks and several slipped on the ice.


    “Good, do y’all know how to fish?” I asked as they arrived.


    “No, I’ve never gone fishing for real and I don''t think we have the equipment for it either.” The engineer said.


    I gave a big sigh, “Guess it''s time for plan b then.” I said.


    “Plan b?” The engineer asked.


    “Yes, give me your shovel. You won’t need it if you stick with fishing.” I said.


    “Um… sure.” The engineer said, handing me his shovel.


    “Alright, you can either get back to figure out how to fish or come with me.”


    I looked around, I saw the dips in the snow where the trenches were, following a central trench line led me to the foot of the hill the main bunker was located on. There sat a smaller bunker, and what I was looking for. The spot where a lot of bodies had gathered during my last spell. I passed several fires that were set up in the last hour, and I approached the bunker. Snow had built up against the bunker wall, but it also covered something else.


    Looking around I found the sleeve of a trench coat with a frozen blue hand sticking out with it, snow covered whatever else was below it. I put down the shovel and grabbed the hand, pulling the dead Noxu out of the snow.


    “Ma’am what are you doing?” The engineer asked, others were starting to gather around me.


    I didn’t respond, the body was covered in ice, and was frozen. There weren’t any holes in the uniform or body. But the Noxu was dead, moving the body revealed more dead bodies. It was the spot where the bodies had gathered from the shockwave.


    The dead body appeared to be in good condition. Frozen but in edible condition once defrosted and properly prepared, we would have to eat human flesh.


    I finally addressed the growing crowd around me, “We can not catch enough fish, and likely will never be able to in 3 days. So this is what we are all going to eat in the meantime until we can get more.” I pulled it over towards a nearby fire and began to remove its clothing. I tore the pants into pieces of cloth. “Dead bodies.” I said as I waited for the body to defrost for cutting.


    “Begin gathering dead bodies, cut out the muscles, and crack the bones for the marrow. After that, cut out the organs, except for the brain, do not eat the brain.” I said, the body had quickly defrosted next to the fire.


    I got to work cutting the Kidneys out, it was one of the easiest organs to get to when compared to the amount of work it takes for an arm or leg.


    I saw the others looking around uncomfortably, towards each other and then to me.


    I continued talking despite their reactions. “If you wish to take your chances with finding fish or berries, go ahead but I cannot guarantee you’ll be able to find or catch enough for everybody here. But there are around seventy five hundred bodies, enough for the 1000 mouths we have to feed. With each body being enough to feed 25 people with the minimum suggested daily caloric intake of around 2000 calories.” I said, placing the knife over the left kidney.


    I cut a tiny hole over where the left kidney should be, I felt for the bean shape and found it. I then cut a larger area and pulled out the bean shaped slab of meat. My hand was covered in guts and blood.


    I then cut out the other kidney, with two kidneys in hand I moved to the river, and began to rinse off the kidneys in the water.


    The water drained out the blood and any potential contaminants, I wrapped the kidney in the cloth and moved back to the fire.


    Everybody still looked at me, in shock. Fishman was the only major here with the crowd, equally as surprised. This isn’t the worst I’ve done, nor would it likely be the last.


    “I am going to need some help, we can’t let this body go to waste.” I said, no one had moved just looking at each other.


    Then a Noxu player had stepped forward with an engineer, who I recognised to be the one who was a part of the team that tried to dig us out of the bunker. The player said something in Japanese, in which I knew it was the kid from before. He bowed and pulled out a knife. He was in a Noxu flamethrower''s uniform, heavy fire proof trench coat and clothing although he wasn’t wearing his gas mask or the heavy gas tank on his back.


    “So a foreigner beats you guys in the willingness to feed yourself?” I asked the large crowd who all didn’t respond.


    Noxu got down on his knees and began to cut at the hip bone slowly trying to cut through the bones. The female Kyntari engineer with him, talked to him in Japanese.


    “If you are willing to dig up, cut, preserve or cook bodies for food, step forward, if not you can go back to trying to spear fish.” Several dozen stepped forward, “but be warned you may not be privileged to eat, unless you help. If you fail to get food then you’ll go hungry.” More than half of the crowd stepped forward joining the previous few dozen. Leaving a minority of 30 people who haven’t stepped forward.


    “Good, look for bodies and when you do remove all the clothing, armor, weapons and whatever else that isn’t flesh. Then wait for orders from your majors, we do not want a mess.” I brought out my clipboard and sent out orders to the rest of the battalion.


    “Find dead bodies and gather them at the first flag, await for more specific orders from your Major’s.” Orders from CEOofMacNCheese.


    I soon got up, leaving the Japanese kid and his friend to cut the body by themself. I then made my way to the first flag with Fishman behind me.


    Fishman didn’t say a thing as he followed me. We arrived at the first flag and I approached the nine men of varying ages, who were all confused at the orders.


    Sharks’ mouth opened, but I didn’t let him talk. “Each of your companies will be assigned a job. Body finding, Butchers, Preservers, builders and cooks. 4 companies will be assigned to body finding, 2 companies will be assigned to butcher the bodies, 1 company will build fireplaces and maintain them, 1 company will preserve the meats and 1 company will cook the butchered body meat.” I looked around at the confused Majors. “Any questions?” I asked.


    They all spoke at once, but all stopped with Fishman taking the spotlight. “What? Find bodies, butcher them? Preserve them? Cook them? What are we doing exactly?”


    “Getting food of course, you haven’t had the desperation to resort to cannibalism. Or is that a thing people off-world do on long term missions, when you run out of supplies?” I said, it wasn’t a question despite the way I worded it.


    Fishman remained unresponsive.


    Sharkface then spoke in Fishmans place, “Why?”


    I quickly answered. “I realized there''s probably not enough food to go around. Ignoring dead bodies of course, we also have around several million calories to eat, assuming these bodies are healthy adults, and it would take days for us to gather the necessary amount of food for everybody as a non-significant amount of us would’ve starved in several days time. So we resort to cannibalism now, when the bodies are fresh and we have somewhat full stomachs and fat.” I explained.


    Shark remained quiet.


    “Any more questions?” I asked.


    Punisher stepped forward “Ma’am I thought we were originally assigned to find food.”


    “We have found food, now we just need to prepare it for human consumption or preserve it for future consumption.” I said.


    Punisher didn’t respond.


    “Any more questions, if not we are moving onto assignments.” I said, no one stepped forward or said anything.


    “Alright then here are the assignments. Lolz, Ripper, Shark, and Silenz your men will search for the bodies and bring them to storage or to the butchers. Village your company will build fireplaces for the food and keep them supplied. Punisher, and Shadow your men will butcher the bodies for meat. Buzz your men will preserve the meat however you can for long term supplies, preferably keep them cold. Memez your men will cook the food you are given. Butchers only will need to give 50 bodies to the cooks to feed everybody here.” I said, everybody was nodding now and brought out their clipboards.


    Ten papers appeared in front of me all at once, and they left without further words. The orders were what I expected, with everybody giving out the correct orders. After that I left the flag to check on the kid and the Engineer.


    When I got there they were still cutting the body fats and muscles off. But the limbs were gone and the head was cut off, it was a brutal scene that''s for sure.


    I crouched down next to the kid and the Engineer “So what''s y’alls name?” I asked him. He stopped cutting the ankle.


    The Engineer stood up, “Private E3 Crumpet Ma’am.” The girl was Kyntari, short about 5 ''1, blonde hair, hazel eyes. Wearing a trench coat, with numerous pouches holding her tools and ammo.


    Crumpet turned to the Japanese kid and likely translated what I said.


    “Ronin.” He said.


    “He is Private E2 Ronin. Ma’am.” Crumpet added.


    “Colonel Ceo.” I responded.


    “Nice to meet you Colonel. If you haven’t noticed, Ronin doesn’t know English very well.” Crumpet said.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    “I am well aware of the language barrier, Private. I was with him when the game had shut down.” I said.


    “Are you looking for a progress report ma’am?” Crumpet asked.


    “No, I am here to simply finish cooking my breakfast.” I said, the two kidneys were still by the fire grabbing it. It felt warm to the touch on one side and the other was cold as hell.


    “Got it, is there anything else you need us to do?”


    “Well you could look for something that will allow us to cook these food items. Like an armor plate from a tank.” I said.


    “An armor plate that shouldn’t be too hard to find. I think several dozen were blown up right around here throughout the battle.” Crumpet said looking around, then she looked at an abandoned blown up tank on its side.


    She said something to Ronin in Japanese and the two began heading towards the abandoned tank. I looked back at the kidneys, careful not to set the cloth on fire while I waited for the two to return.


    Several minutes later the two came back, with a small plate of stainless steel armor from a tank.


    “Ma’am will this work?” Crumpet asked.


    I looked at the plate, it was as wide and long as my chest. “Yes, it will but I’ll need some more metal. Similar dimensions to this one, get four more.” I said.


    Crumpet nodded and the two left back to the tank, after that they came back with four more metal plates after ten minutes.


    ……


    Ceo


    11:43


    Banks of the river


    After we finished assembling a simple steel stove, it was possibly one of the worst designs I’ve probably ever seen. We were ready to cook our food, and quite a few ingredients were now cut out of the human body.


    I placed the two kidneys on the plate which began to sizzle satisfyingly. Crumpet and Ronin watched me as a lieutenant came by.


    “Crumpet what are you doing?” The lieutenant asked.


    “Oh, Lieutenant Raspberry. Just helping the Colonel, that''s all.”


    “You helped her build that?” Raspberry asked, I flipped the kidneys to the other side with a knife.


    “Yep! Ronin and I gathered the materials. The Colonel put it all together.” Crumpet answered.


    “Well you could help make more, if that''s fine with you.” Raspberry said.


    “Sure, ma’am.” Crumpet said, who then turned to Ronin. Then to me, “I asked Ronin to stay with you, while I go and help the others build more of these.” Crumpet said.


    “The kidneys are about to be done, are you sure you want to leave yet?” I asked.


    “I’ll cook some for myself, even then I think Ronin could use food more than I do.” Crumpet said.


    “Alright, get to work.” I said.


    Crumpet nodded then left, leaving just the two of us. The sizzling of the kidney stopped, signaling me to take the kidneys off and placed it on two smaller metal plates that Ronin gathered earlier.


    “Here.” I handed him the right Kidney which had just cooled off.


    “Thank you.” Ronin said in Japanese, it was one of the few words I understood.


    I responded with the Japanese word for “Your Welcome.”


    I took a bite into the Kidney, it wasn’t that hard to bite into. I didn’t think much of the cooked kidney, it was a kidney. Something I had to do over a dozen times on the failed manned Pluto Mission. Traumatizing the first time when I killed someone and turned every single body part into food, then it became almost routine by the third person that died.


    Ronin took a bite into his cooked kidney and his eyes seemed to light up the second he started to chew, and he quickly took another bite into it.


    “Is it that good?” I asked him, a little worried he might become a cannibal.


    Ronin ignored me and quickly finished his cooked kidney, despite his ravenous eating there was very little mess left over.


    I quickly finished my kidney, looking around I saw Crumpet and several other engineers busy tearing apart a heavily damaged light tank for scrap and parts.


    “Let''s get going.” I told Ronin, I stood up. Ronin seemed to understand what I was saying.


    The two of us got going, I needed to check if every job being done was actually being done. Off at the river bank, the thirty people who refused to help were busily trying to spear fish and I couldn’t tell if they were successful or not. By this point in time more of the ice that covered the river was blown up and the Noxu were on the other side of the river looking at what we were doing and seemingly copying us. As several dead bodies were being scalped, it sounded like someone had spread the word of our plan.


    I started heading towards the main bunker, where people were busily working at butchering the bodies, limbs were cut off from the torso and the bowels were removed, the limbs were cut down into even smaller pieces.


    The Noxu meat looked indistinguishable from other meats like pork and steak. But when you are hungry with no food anywhere, but you are on top of hundreds of bodies you’ll eat the bodies.


    I continued on and it was more of the same, totaled tanks and vehicles being scrapped for metal and parts, camp fires being made and meats were smoked. That''s what we only did, butcher dead bodies, and preserve or cook them.


    The next order of business I had to deal with was the Wall. All I knew was that it surrounded us, I just needed to know where the broken part of it was.


    “Ronin.” I said to the kid “get your flamethrower we''re going to find the Broken Wall.” I told him.


    He looked at me confused, I brought out my clipboard and sent an order directly to him, hoping it got translated. Ronin looked intently at the invisible piece of paper in front of him and nodded, then pointed to the main bunker.


    I nodded and we went up the hill and we arrived at the west entrance which wasn’t the one I left through but it was unblocked. There was however more snow here, it seemed like they didn’t use explosives to get out this time. However it was cleared of snow, the entrance was open and several engineers were busy clearing out the surrounding trench, though it was very much likely everybody was working on gathering food and not here.


    Ronin went inside the bunker, I followed, he went to the general quarters. Dozens of bunk beds in rows and columns were in this room. He went inside the maze of bunk beds, I went to my room and grabbed a few things for one my SMG, Sword, and spellbook. I left it here when I woke up and I never bothered to grab it till now.


    After making sure all my pouches were secured with their items I quickly headed back to the general quarter area. When I arrived I noticed Ronin wasn’t done yet, a few more minutes had passed and Ronin came out.


    Ronin was in a completed flamethrower uniform weapon and all. Gas mask, connected to an air tank, on his back was a fuel tank, it glowed blue from windows on the side. A hose led from the bottom of the tank towards the back of the gun, several more pieces glowed blue on the side of the flamethrower. His gas mask was lifted up off his face on his hair.


    “Good?” I asked, holding up a thumbs up.


    Ronin gave me a thumbs up.


    I nodded, “Let''s go.” I said pointing to the exit. Ronin nodded once more and we exited the bunker. After that we headed to the back line, there was the Evergreen forest from before. Off in the distance was the wall, barely visible over the tree line even on the hill.


    Then we made our way down the hill in the opposite direction of the river, it was also in the direction of the sun. So we were headed east. When we arrived at the start of the forest, it felt artificial like someone purposely had cut down the trees to make room for us, or the opposite the trees were planted for us. The trees were somewhat thick, not thin like a new tree, but also not massive like an old one. They were thick enough to where you could climb it, but thin enough to where you couldn’t make a home in it. Likely only a decade or so old.


    We entered the forest, and it was dark in it. Ronin’s equipment provided light for us to see, acting essentially like a lamp. I pulled out my SMG as we entered it, the ground was covered in a deep layer of snow, my legs sunk to their shins in my boots. The trees glowed blue from Ronin, and brightened against due to being reflected by the snow.


    I looked from left to right, seeing only trees and their snow covered branches. There wasn’t a clear path, all except the fact that the trees had a clearing between them, that was straight towards the east.


    ……


    Ceo


    12:48


    We walked for half an hour at a brisk pace, until we reached the wall and the opening that was called the Broken Wall.


    The trenches, sandbags, barbed wire, and grenade boxes that were built over those two hours were still there, moved. The trenches however were shallow, and unmaintained, even then they were filled with snow. Hundreds of buried bodies were thrown to the side, leaning up against the closest pillboxes that flanked at an angle of the opening approaching the pillbox. There were dozens of dead bodies, I saw something odd, there seemed to be bodies missing, clothing laid around torn to shreds not covered by the snow but on top of the snow. I didn’t know what it was but I’ll investigate it later, all I knew was that it could be some wild life.


    Turning from the pillbox I saw hundreds of weapons lying around of varying types. Some were with dead bodies, others on the ground in trench lines barely sticking out. After looking around I found a dead body, a Kyntari Soldier still holding their weapon, a carbine. Pulling the body out I grabbed the carbine and looted the magazine from its pouches, a red light emanated from their left pouch, two grenades. I put up my SMG on my side, I checked the ammo on the carbine, there were three rounds left. I removed the magazine and replaced it.


    Ronin came up to me, he was holding a shotgun with a bayonet attached to the end.


    “A shotgun fits you well.” I said giving him a thumbs up.


    Ronin nodded, and I moved my attention to the Broken Wall, after I finished my looting. The Broken Wall was now a gate, no longer just an opening but it had room on the top. The crumbling sides of the rebar concrete wall that was the openings were now straightened out, and a cover was on the top. Though it was a wide open gate.


    I sighed, and turned to Ronin who was also looking at the gate. He muttered something in Japanese, muffled by his mask.


    I approached the gate cautiously with my SMG out, with Ronin getting in front of me. On the other side wasn’t more forest but a lightly forested hills that went on for miles. It was very green for some reason, not covered in snow as one would expect from snow but green grassy hills.


    It was cold that''s for sure, that was the only correlation the inside and outside the walls had. It confused me, so I turned to Ronin and asked him, “are you seeing this?”


    Yet Ronin didn’t respond, he took off his gas mask, his blue skin and long ears glistened in the sunlight. He seemed to be awed by the greenery, as he was just staring out towards the hill.


    Although I too was entranced by its beauty, however I shook my head and brought out my Clipboard and sent out a report:


    “Found the Broken Wall, it leads towards lots of greenery with green hills going as far as the eye can see. To get to it, go directly East from the Main Bunker.”


    I moved back inside the wall.


    “Come on, let''s go to the top of the forts, we could see more there.” I told Ronin, he still didn’t respond so I snapped in his face which seemed to get him out of it. The kid looked at me and I pointed to the forts.


    He nodded, and we entered the forts. It was the same exact layout as a newly generated fort would be. Concrete walls on the inside forming a hexagon giving protection on the inside, with shooting holes, and on the outer wall were holes for shooting out of them.


    To the side were boxes filled with supplies such as ammo, and other items like binoculars.


    I grabbed the binoculars as did Ronin, then I climbed to the top. At that moment I was bombarded with a dozen plus reports all confused from what I meant by that. I could see every single order given by lieutenants and up. Which they took advantage of for communication purposes.


    I ignored them for a short second as I climbed to the top, Ronin also received one of those messages, and just looked at me.


    I sent another message saying “Follow the road you’ll see what I’m talking about.”


    I then brought out my binoculars and looked around the hills from a different vantage point. All I saw were hills and somewhat jagged terrain that went on for miles. I didn’t look through my binoculars for long as I was being bombarded with 10 different orders telling everyone to continue doing what they are doing. The Majors were going to check it out.


    I wouldn’t be surprised if some ignored those orders.


    “Colonel Ceo, where the hell are you?!” I heard Shark yell from a distance in the forest.


    “In the fort! Just follow the road!” I yelled back, and went back to my binoculars scouting out the surrounding area. I saw what I expected, a lot of greenery, and nothing else. When I looked to the left and right and saw the wall go into a circle, a perfect circle surrounding the entire area almost like a medieval wall.


    It was still made out of concrete like before, just in a perfect circle.


    “Alright!” He yelled back, he didn’t yell again as I was looking around.


    Shark yelled again this time his voice was much closer, but not towards me. “So this is where the Broken wall was?” He asked.


    Looking behind the fort I saw Shark just arriving being escorted by several more soldiers.


    I jumped down onto the boxes and left the fort, seeing Shark who was surprised by my sudden appearance.


    “Yep, just to the east of us. I think, instead of being the center protecting just Vost Dor. Now it''s protecting Noxuia and Vost Dor.” I said, looking at the entrance.


    “The gate being open like that is not good.” Shark said.


    “Yes it is not, can you get a few dozen of your men over here to guard it?” I asked.


    “I could, just that they are busy butchering dead bodies to be smoked.” Shark said.


    I looked at him, and said, “Get your men over here, your entire company as well. Have them build walls and a gate to block it, place landmines outside it to discourage any intruders assuming we have anything nearby that''s a threat.”


    Shark nodded, “I’ll send the order out right now.”


    “We’ll wait for your reinforcements to come before we leave.” I said.


    Shark nodded “Alright, it’ll be at least an entire hour if not more before my company gets here.”