All Together in the Water - 4
"Now that it's tidied up, it looks way better than when we first saw it..."
Inside what looked like a pretty solid building, the debris we'd scavenged from ruined structures everywhere was neatly organized.
"Must've been tough work."
Of course, demolishing the buildings and hauling the wreckage here had all been my doing. But even if there wasn't a ton of waste, sorting it wasn't easy. Separating concrete from rebar, stripping off the half-rotted wood, and washing it all—that took serious effort.
For some reason, it feels like our production's been ramping up lately—
I'd started easing restrictions on the prisoners recently, thinking maybe I was hitting overload. It wasn't anything major. They were still prisoners, confined to those tiny cells. But they were grateful for the short outdoor exercise time and the slightly better meals.
"Thank you!"
The prisoners bowed to me. Good to see them settling into life here.
"Alright, this shouldn't take too long now."
I stacked stones neatly into a box at one corner of the waste facility. Right now, it was just a rough pile of rocks, but give it a little time, and it'd become proper building stone. And that was just the start. Empty pipes and walls scavenged from demolished buildings could now be recycled too.
Time to kick off construction again.
I staked out the site based on the status window's info and compacted the ground.
"Making it this big?"
"Might as well go huge while we're at it."
Maybe because it was a facility boosted by the status window, the bathhouse came with bonuses too. Naturally, the bigger the facility, the more bonuses and capacity it offered.
"Feels a bit excessive..."
My base didn't have a ton of facilities to begin with. Slapping a massive bathhouse into the mix looked kinda unbalanced on the surface. Still, better to build it big from the get-go than make a small one and expand later.
We had plenty of materials. Stone, clean water, pipes—all in good supply. The process was just complicated; no real issues till completion.
Construction continued. Cutting stone, installing extra water pumps to secure supply, prepping for the next phase.
"Maaaster!!!"
After a full day of work, I looked up at Sua calling me.
"Oh, sorry. Got lost in it. Ready to head out?"
"Yup! Oh, wanna check out the third floor before we go?"
"Third floor?"
Besides the bathhouse, work to carve out living quarters inside the base HQ was going smoothly too. I followed Sua back to the main building at an easy pace.
"Hmm..."
What lay inside was a sight any Korean guy from my era would've seen at least once.
"Integrated sleeping platforms. Nice and long."
"Not as comfy as beds, but it's still solid."
It had rows of lockers for clothes and personal stuff.
"Still a bit sparse."
"You think?"
Part of me wondered if we could just keep living in the apartments like this. Leaving the prisoners to fend for themselves didn't feel too bad—they weren't exactly sympathetic figures—but these folks were the ones who'd trusted and followed me.
Couldn't do that, though. Population wasn't growing yet, but dozens could show up any day now. Expanding apartment rooms was inefficient; eventually, we'd house people here in the HQ. If that wasn't enough, we'd bunk folks outside like other groups did.
"Yeah? They said they'd start sleeping here tonight..."
"Why?"
No matter how I sliced it, apartment life had to beat this rough HQ.
"Gotta pull night watch."
"Oh... right."
After that one arson incident, the settlement women had volunteered for sentry duty. They'd poured heart into building that structure and stockpiling supplies—losing it all in a flash hit hard. To me, it was just "gather more stuff," so I shrugged it off easier. But to them, the supplies burning mattered more than the fences.
"Hope it's not too rough on them."
"Aww, that again? Don't worry so much, Master. You're the boss here!"
Pure efficiency-wise, I'd be better off standing watch solo. I could skip sleep for days without messing up work, and I'd handle any incident first and fastest. Even if raiders or zombies hit, one sentry couldn't do much anyway—they'd just radio me, which was inefficient.
"Gotta rest sometime. All this is for making life easier, right?"
"...True enough."
My girls resting easy mattered, but so did my time. Back in the day, a roof overhead was luxury. But after slaying the demon king and returning to Earth, I wasn't roughing it like that anymore.
"Let's head back."
"Okay!"
Sua looked extra cute today. As a little show of affection, I gave her ass a light squeeze before heading down the stairs to the first floor.
"Keep the extras here... And the ones with phones—got the hang of using them?"
"Yes!"
"If alarms go off like last time and buzz nonstop, the prison girls'll complain, so be careful. You know how to check batteries now, so even if you're gaming, do it smart."
"Got it!"
Night watch could be boring as hell, but the woman's eyes assigned to it sparkled.
A game, huh...
I'd figured the women staying behind needed a way to reach me, so instead of taking the phones, I left them with her. It was a small sacrifice on my end, but she beamed ear-to-ear. These women had long lives in the organization, so they had zilch experience with electronics. A non-essential gadget just for games? It blew their minds.
"Jeez... Already that hooked."
One of the older ones sighed deeply. But even she couldn't do much about it. Watch duty was dull no matter how comfy things got. Deny them a quick break, and morale would tank.
"Speaking of, heard he's building a bathhouse this time?"
"Yeah. Sua pushed for it, I think."
"If it turns out good, we could use it too, right?"
"Dream on."
A proper bathhouse—not some tiny tub—meant more than Sunwoo realized. To women in this world, it evoked a ton: a building for pleasure over survival, a man inside served by hordes of women.
Women devoting themselves to a man's pleasure felt different but shared traits with hunters. Traditionally, warriors. Specialists.
Dangerous. Might bleed, might die anytime. Like hunters dying to feistier zombies, these women could die if their man was in a foul mood.
But risks aside, they had elite skills no one could fake. Looks and technique for the pleasure girls; combat experience, skills, levels for fighters.
And in peacetime, both got perks and respect. Better clothes, weapons, food, beds.
Feared, envied. So naturally, their bathhouse drew massive interest.
"This place is comfy enough. Don't push it. Probably just for the boss and his girls."
"Then we just gotta... heh heh."
Relaxed, the women leered, picturing Sunwoo's body. If the bathhouse was for him and his women, they just needed to become "his women" too.
"Quit with the nonsense."
"Why? Soi did it!"
"Well... she's important. Or maybe she's his type."
"Get real."
"We're not that ugly. Can't we at least dream?"
Until recently, the "boss" was untouchable sky-high. Haena was iffy, but Sua, Roa, and Seohee were leagues above them. Soi? Strong, sure, but she hadn't met him first or been nicer. Some eyes here glittered.