BXBX NOVEL Chapter 384 Caliber
Right now, Mathew\'s group needed the cores. It was the only factor that limited their ability to grow, be it their economy, forces, or the level of their settlements.
And while storming the castle was the end goal of Mathew\'s plans, the road to that goal would be long and arduous… and physically demanding at every step.
"Oh, Mathew!" one of the survivors whose name Mathew couldn\'t be bothered to remember jumped from their seat and greeted him.
"Yeah, it\'s me," Mathew replied before looking over the young man\'s arm to the room he was guarding.
Even in a tight group like theirs, there were some things that not everyone could have access to.
The cores Mathew could take care of himself by storing them in the merchant\'s storage. But weapons were a whole different story.
"I need all the shotguns and pistols that we have," Mathew announced his request without stalling.
"A big expedition?" the other party replied, turning around to release the primitive yet complicated lock that kept the weapon\'s storage room from the unauthorized survivors.
"You could call it like that," Mathew replied while trying not to roll his eyes.
In a sense, he envied the guy.
He appeared to be around the same age as Mat, and Mathew could even vaguely recall knowing him from back before the zombie apocalypse. Now, however, after less than a single month packed full of adrenaline-inducing events, Mathew could hardly even recall a single memory that involved him.
Still, even though they were both thrown into this apocalyptic hell at the same time, while Mathew kept on running around doing everything to stay on the right side of the flow of the events… the guy guarding the \'armory\' simply sat down in place and ensured no one attempted to breach the lock.
\'Knowing my luck, he only needs to sit here for eight hours before someone takes over,\' Mathew thought, gritting his teeth to quell the jealousy that sparked up in his soul.
Eight hours and his shift would be over. Just like a job in the old world.
A dream that Mathew had no hope of ever making a reality.
"We don\'t have any shotguns, I have no idea where that request came from," the guard reported once he returned from the room with a small, makeshift bag. He then got down to his knees and opened up the cloth he used to bring all the weapons Mathew requested.
"Twenty-three pistols, two automatic ones," the survivor reported as he displayed everything that he brought out. "We hold the magazines separately… but there is only one mag for each of the guns," he added.
"Then cut down the number of pistols to fourteen and add one spare mag to the seven of them," Mathew quickly changed his request. He leaned down and picked up one of the guns, inspecting it for a while before turning his eyes back to the guard. "How do we stand on ammo?"
The guard looked away, his cheeks turned red.
"Actually…" he hesitated, pulling his eyes away even further. "We have more ammo than we could use," he then added, turning his eyes back to face Mathew before breathing a long sigh. "But with only so many magazines, you will have to refill them on your own after every fight."
\'Well, that makes sense…\' Mathew thought. He then pulled his eyebrows together. \'And that means, I will have to adjust the strategy to keep the reloading time in mind.\'
"Do they all use the same type of ammunition?" Mathew then asked as he looked down at the weapons displayed on the cloth that the guard used as a makeshift bag.
They all looked more or less the same, but without a doubt, were not identical.
\'Most of them are looted, so it\'s no wonder they are not all the same,\' he thought. Then, he raised his eye back on the guard.
"And how the hell would I know that?" the guy only shook his shoulder with a baffled expression on his face. "I\'m here to guard them, that doesn\'t make me qualified to even hold one," he added.
"A fair point," Mathew admitted only to unleash another sigh and watch how the guard retreated back into the room. He came back a mere moment later, holding another bag, this time a proper one, with something clearly weighty inside.
"There should be a few hundred rounds in here," the guard said before placing the bag next to the guns on display. "I guess that you could take one shot and try to fit it into all the mags available," he suggested. "If a single round fits into all the mags, they are likely using the same caliber," he added with a shake of his shoulders.
\'I wonder if that\'s true,\' Mathew thought. \'But I guess I can just Norbert about it.\'
Mathew wasn\'t delusional enough to pretend to know something that he did not. Especially when there was a firearm expert in his group that could answer all his doubts, saving him the need of risking someone\'s health and safety by making them follow up with the guard\'s suggestion of testing the ammunition.
"So, you are cooking a big expedition, are you not?" the guard asked, clearly unwilling to drop the topic, even after Mathew thought they moved on from it.
"More or less," Mathew nodded his head, eager to cut the chatter, grab the stuff he came here to get, and move on to the next part of the preparations. "We spent all the cores and we can\'t do shit without more of them," he pointed out while shaking his shoulders.
Then, Mathew reached down and grabbed both of the bags before straightening himself up and giving the guard a funny look.
"Additionally, we only need a single person to be on the lookout to ensure no zombies will approach the compound," he pointed out.
It was a utility the fortress gained back when it was first established. Yet, after cleaning all the zombies from within the range of its surveillance, Mathew came to pretty much ignore and even forget about its existence.
But right now, once his plan would be set in motion, this utility would prove to be invaluable.
"What about it?" the guard asked, perplexed by Mathew\'s strange choice of topic.
"If we only need one person to keep watch on our barrier, don\'t you think it\'s high time to move the hunters from the guard duty and make them actually prove to be useful?"