After hearing another proposal of taking another person under my wing, I decided to not give a definite answer at the moment. But after 30 minutes or so, we still found ourselves in their large mess hall that definitely followed a set of strict rules to either make everyone work extra hard or just straight-up know who was fucking in charge.

Our group was seated on an extra table provided for us—which was right next to the Baron’s table—and the first thing I noticed was that not everyone was eating the same meal.

The high-ranking officers had something more than decent but the ones further down, especially the cadets’ meals had something that barely fulfilled one’s caloric and nutritional intake.

With that said, our group had a generous serving of rice, a slice of what appeared to be beef in crispy breading, some nice hot soup, mixed vegetables, coffee, and a small piece of dessert to keep everything rounded.

But since I was ‘that’ kid and I have something that the General wanted, I had this extra thick slice of meat that everyone else in my group didn’t have in their trays.

Furthermore, the only one that had something better than I did was the General’s son and when I found where Seb and his team were sitting, I discovered that they had a slightly better meal—which was the ‘extra’ cup of coffee they had—than the ones sitting further back.

Because the ones further back only had a cup of rice, a small chunk of meat which I assumed to be those rigid cube steaks, the same soup but not as much, and the same serving of mixed vegetables with no coffee or dessert to wash it down right after.

‘These people…’

In my place, I do give special rewards for people that gave a little extra or that can do something other people can’t, but as much as possible… when everyone was eating together, I’d make it so that everyone was eating the same thing.

Even before the world ended, when I buy some takeout, it was a given to buy EVERYONE living in the same house the same thing so you all could enjoy that meal together, and in turn, they’ll do the same when they buy food from outside. There were some exceptions sometimes like when someone else didn’t have the budget or the money for it but this place sure as hell wasn’t lacking in that regard.

But yeah, we were living in different times right now, and doing this could be the only thing they could do… but this didn’t sit well with me.

Right after one of their officers said a lame excuse for “grace”, I quickly divvied up the extra slice of beef cutlet that was given to me before equally distributing it on our table. Tatiana easily tried to pick out the biggest piece while Quinn tried to take my own separate slice for her protein needs, but Jesus and his crew just said thanks as Kaley and the rest did the same.

Doing that instantly garnered the attention of a few others—especially JP—and I saw him shake his head before eating his food without a care for the ones at the back who looked sick eating the same shit over and over.

‘I’m pretty sure that this place isn’t short of supplies especially since they’re working closely with my university but doing this type of shit is fucking nuts…’

And yeah, seeing Lopez happily engorging on his mountain of a meal fucking pissed me off but I couldn’t believe my eyes when Jesus stood up and handed over his portion of meat to the ones in the back wearing bitter expressions—not because he did such a thing but because the people he tried to give them to flat-out rejected him.

Jesus tried for a second time, “Hey. This comes with no strings attached, alright? Just take it, we have some food anyway—”

One of the thinner-looking cadets replied, “Thank you, but we can’t. It’s the rule here.”

Another one of them added, “We eat what we contributed, it’s the law. Aren’t you familiar with that already?”

Jesus shook his head, “I’m not bound by this place’s rules. What if I accidentally drop these pieces on your plates and you somehow didn’t want to waste some good fucking food?”

“Umm… what?”

“I’m serious, alright?”

One of the cadets who I assumed was a leader of their squad interjected, “I know you mean well, Jesus… but we earn our keep. We barely got our quotas in and this is the result. We’ll be sure to do better tomorrow and make up for the loss of two of our members.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

As soon as that cadet mentioned the loss of two of their members, their side of the table instantly got quiet but he continued to eat his food, eventually making others to take a deep breath and do the same.

It seemed like a lot was going on in this “fortress” Mr. Cuervo didn’t dare screw over but to me, even if it looked impenetrable from the outside, it looked fragile on the inside. There were a lot of things I could as easily use to bring this place to its knees but my main goal was these separate camps working together.

Building or creating something was fucking hard than just destroying it but let’s just say that I’d like a challenge.

With that said, Jesus could only shake his head and go back to his seat but hell almost broke loose when he discovered that not only did Tatiana take a portion of his meal, Quinn was already digesting a large portion of his food as well.

In any case, we did bring some food for ourselves so it wasn’t an issue and it only took everyone in this place 10 minutes to finish their meals, leaving the lowest-contributing cadets to clean up after them.

But much to my surprise, not only did JP stay behind but Seb also let the group he was leading to move on ahead and waited patiently for us to finish eating.