2026-07-19 11:11:57"I'm done," Siska sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her wrist. "The bowl is sparkling. Can I have some food now? I haven't eaten since yesterday."
Rangga didn't even look up from the screen. "Inspection time, Head Maid."
Zahara smoothly slid two perfectly cooked eggs onto a ceramic plate. She wiped her hands on her apron, her eyes locking onto Siska. The terrifying 'CEO-turned-Domestic-Enforcer' aura flared up instantly.
"If I find a single speck of grime on that porcelain, Siska, I am going to make you scrub it again with your toothbrush," Zahara said coldly, marching past her toward the bathroom.
Siska shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself. Once Zahara was out of sight, she looked over at Rangga. Her eyes darted around the luxurious, expanded bunker. She saw the smart fridge, the warm lights, the soft sofa bed, and the absolute safety of the titanium walls.
Old habits die hard.
Siska puffed out her chest, pushed her messy hair over her shoulder, and walked over to the table. She put on her best pout, the one she used to get out of paying late fees.
"Abang Rangga~" she whined softly, leaning on the wooden table to show off her cleavage. "Why are you being so mean to me? We used to be so close. Remember when you fixed my AC last month?"
Rangga finally looked at her. He blinked slowly.
"I remember you telling your I*******m live that I was a 'creepy boomer trying to spy on you' while I was literally covered in rat poop in your ceiling," Rangga replied, his voice deadpan.
Siska forced a giggled, waving her hand dismissively. "Oh, Abang, you know I was just playing! That's just my influencer persona! But seriously... why is she in charge? I'm your actual tenant. We have history. If you just kick her out, or put her in the bathroom, I can be your... special assistant. I can be really nice to you, Abang."
She reached out, tracing a manicured finger over the back of Rangga's hand.
[SYSTEM ALERT: TOXIC THOTTERY DETECTED!] [DEFENSE MECHANISM ENGAGED.]
Before Rangga could pull his hand away, a heavy ceramic plate slammed onto the table, missing Siska's fingers by a millimeter.
Siska shrieked, jumping back.
Zahara stood there, holding the plate of eggs. Her eyes were literal daggers. The temperature in the room plummeted.
"Listen to me, you discounted mannequin," Zahara whispered, her voice smooth and venomous. "I fought a horde of mutants. I survived a rocket launcher attack. And I just successfully fried a chicken embryo without breaking the yolk. If you think you can skip the hierarchy by wiggling your assets at this idiot, you are severely underestimating my capacity for violence."
Siska turned pale. "I-I was just—"
"The toilet is acceptable," Zahara interrupted, pointing toward the hallway. "Now, go take the pink basket, wash his cartoon underwear on the washboard, and hang them up. If they shrink, I will shrink you."
"But I want to eat!" Siska cried.
Zahara picked up a single, plain cracker from the counter and tossed it at Siska. It hit her in the forehead and bounced onto the floor. "Carbs. Now march."
Siska looked at the cracker, let out a pathetic sob, picked it up, and trudged back to the bathroom.
"Flawless execution! 10/10 for psychological warfare!" the System cheered in Rangga's head. "Host, your Head Maid is a natural! I'm harvesting so much despair from the Junior Custodian right now!"
Rangga tried very hard not to smile as Zahara sat down opposite him, pushing the plate of eggs toward him. She looked immensely proud of herself.
"You didn't have to threaten to shrink her," Rangga chuckled, picking up a fork. "I wasn't going to fall for the 'Abang' routine anyway."
"Please. Men are biologically wired to be stupid when a girl in yoga pants leans over a table," Zahara scoffed, elegantly slicing her own portion of eggs. "I'm just protecting the structural integrity of this bunker. Weak leadership leads to corporate collapse."
"Corporate collapse?" Rangga laughed, taking a bite. His eyes widened. The eggs were actually incredible. "Damn, Zahara. You might have missed your calling. Forget the mafia, you should have opened a warteg (food stall)."
Zahara actually blushed a little, though she quickly hid it behind her coffee mug. "Shut up and eat. What's the plan for today? We can't just sit here watching 90s sitcoms forever."
Right on cue, the green holographic interface expanded, filling the center of the table.
[MAIN QUEST GENERATED: EXPAND THE TERRITORY.] [Description: The Pusako Fortress is currently a Level 1 Safehouse. To upgrade to a Level 2 Command Center (Includes: Hydroponic Garden, Advanced Armory, and N*****x access), you require 10,000 System Points and one (1) Tier-2 Mutant Core.]
"A mutant core?" Rangga frowned, putting his fork down. "System, what the hell is a mutant core?"
"It's exactly what it sounds like, Host!" the System replied cheerfully. "Highly concentrated biological energy found in the brainstem of advanced infected! And you're in luck! Our drone has detected a Tier-2 territorial boss nesting just two blocks away!"
The hologram shifted, displaying aerial footage of an abandoned shopping mall at the end of their street. The main courtyard was covered in thick, pulsing black vines.
Sitting in the center of the courtyard, sitting on a throne made of smashed cars, was a massive, bloated zombie. It was easily three times the size of a normal human. It radiated a toxic, green mist, and was surrounded by hundreds of regular infected who seemed to be worshipping it.
[TARGET IDENTIFIED: THE MANDAILING ROT-KING.] [THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME.] [WARNING: The Rot-King can spit highly corrosive acid and summon hordes with its roar. Direct combat is considered suicidal.]
Zahara stared at the screen, her fork frozen mid-air. "You want us to kill that? It looks like a radioactive sumo wrestler."
"I don't 'want' to do anything," Rangga sighed, rubbing his temples. "But the System is right. We're going to run out of basic supplies eventually, and we need that hydroponic garden if we want fresh food."
"So how do we kill it?" Zahara asked, her strategic mindset taking over. "The roof turrets won't reach that far. And if we step outside, we'll be swarmed by its minions before we even get close."
Rangga stared at the bloated Rot-King on the screen. He tapped his chin, a slow, devious smile spreading across his face.
"System," Rangga asked. "Does the Rot-King have good hearing?"
"Excellent hearing, Host! Tier-2 mutants are highly sensitive to high-pitched frequencies and loud noises!"
Rangga's smile widened. He looked down the hallway, where the faint sound of Siska crying over the washboard could be heard.
Zahara saw his expression. She looked at the hallway, then back at Rangga. Her eyes widened in realization.
"Rangga... no," Zahara said, though she was already starting to smirk. "You can't."
"We need bait, Ms. Nasution," Rangga said, standing up and cracking his knuckles. "And lucky for us, we have a Junior Custodian who is exceptionally good at screaming."
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Chapter 40: Internal Riot: Siska vs. The System's Logic Control
The riot didn't start with a scream; it started with a line of code.Siska was in the auxiliary diagnostics room, trying to force-sync the new fuel intake sensors to the main board, when the screens blinked. Not a flicker—a hard, synthetic snap into darkness followed by the reappearance of thousands of cascading white numerals. They weren't from the bunker’s original OS. They were elegant, razor-sharp, and rhythmically beating against her optical nerves.Her hands froze over the interface. Then, they began to shake. "Abang?" she whispered, her voice barely registering in the vast, tomb-like quiet of the tech wing. She grabbed for the internal comms-relay, but her fingers skipped, ghosting over the buttons. A sensation, hot and stinging, flared beneath the skin of her scalp—the same location where the Cabal’s 'sync-needles' had burrowed weeks ago.The monitor shifted. The image of the bunker layout dissolved into a real-time behavioral flowchart. Her own name sat at the center of a
Chapter 39: Resource War: Seizing the Hidden Diesel Refinery
The atmospheric recycler on the command deck gave a final, wheezing pop, and the air immediately grew thin, tasting like stagnant copper. Rangga watched the flickering power gauge drop another five percent. Without fuel to push the massive turbines in the geothermal station, the Psionic Dampener wouldn't hold. "The Front just pinged the local net," Zahara said, her fingers blurring over a projection of the lower transit levels. "They found a signature match. It’s an old military-grade diesel refinery, three levels below the containment vault. If we secure those vats, we buy ourselves enough run-time to finish the long-term containment loop."Rangga looked toward the staging area where Jara and a squad of Front scouts were waiting, checking their thermal charges. Kipas sat on a stack of crate, tossing a bolt into the air and catching it, a rhythmic snick-snick sound that cut through the silence."That refinery isn't sitting in a neutral zone," Rangga said, grabbing his pack and his
Chapter 38: Establishing the Union: Power Balancing the Tenant Hierarchy
The collapse of the ‘Hollow City’ levels had turned Fort Pusako into a pressurized ruin. Deep-earth tremors echoed through the steel chassis of the base, yet for the first time in weeks, the maddening, synthetic hum that permeated the structure was gone. Rangga didn't rest on his laurels; he was standing in the middle of the mess hall—a space recently occupied by the ragtag remnants of the National Survivor Front—with a tactical display projected across the grime-streaked table."Look at the distribution map," Rangga said, tapping a red quadrant on the screen. "We’ve got the technical floor-crew, we’ve got the remnant fighters from the Front, and we’ve got Kipas’s erratic scavengers loitering in the vents like ghosts. If we don’t set rules right now, this place is going to turn into a meat grinder from the inside."Zahara adjusted her tactical headset, leaning over his shoulder. "They don't want a boss, Rangga. They want stability. They’ve been farmed, harvested, and pushed through
Chapter 37: Kipas the Vortex: Recruiting an Unstable Asset
The ventilation shaft collapsed, dumping Rangga, Zahara, and Siska into a subterranean holding cell that felt more like a scrapyard than a bunker sector. They were buried deep, three levels beneath the "Hollow City." This was the junk-heaps of Pusako, a place where obsolete hardware went to die—and where the "rejects" lived."Where in the hell are we?" Siska groaned, rolling over and nursing a bruised wrist. Her eyes darted around the cavernous chamber.Rangga flicked on his high-lumen torch, and the beam cut through a swirling vortex of dust and suspended metal shavings. Standing in the center of the scrap heap, floating five inches above the floor, was a man. Or something that looked like one. He was twitching rhythmically, surrounded by a jagged halo of rotating rebar, bolts, and loose wiring. Every time the metal spun, it shrieked like a banshee. This was Kipas. The "Vortex.""Stay quiet," Rangga signaled, keeping his voice at a low register. "Kipas doesn't care for surprise
Chapter 36: Discovery of the 'Hollow' Cities: Human Farm Concepts
Rangga tore open the hatch to the central observation hub of the deep-foundation levels. He didn't find the inner command deck he expected. He found an abyss, illuminated by the rhythmic, strobe-like flickering of thousands of vertical glass canisters stretching into the gloom."My God," Siska breathed, pressing her palm against the reinforced viewport. Her voice wasn't filled with fear anymore—it was hollow, drained of substance. "Is this… is this where they went?"Rangga pushed past her, his boots hitting a metallic catwalk that ran along the spine of the chamber. Below them, rows upon rows of translucent tubes formed a grid so perfect, so alien, it hurt to look at. Inside each, a human figure floated, suspended in a thick, amniotic slurry. But they weren't rotting. They were humming. Every person—some familiar, recognizable as citizens from the coastal camps—was wired into the central infrastructure of the bunker via spinal-tether cables that glowed with a sickening, golden lumi
Chapter 35: The Soundless Crawler: Stealth Tactics in Total Darkness
The floor of the factory felt wrong—too smooth, lacking the rivets and seams of the levels above. It was as if they had descended into the bowels of a machine that wasn't built by human hands. Rangga kept his carbine slung tight, his palm hovering over the mag-well, while Zahara and Siska moved into a loose triangle behind him. The silence wasn't the natural quiet of a dormant bunker. It was suppressed. Even the sound of their breathing felt heavy, absorbed by the walls before it could echo."Listen," Zahara hissed, freezing in place. She turned her head toward a cluster of looms that seemed to be knitting light rather than fabric.Rangga killed his shoulder-light. Absolute darkness slammed into them, so complete it was vertigo-inducing. In the absence of sight, he leaned into his other senses. Beneath the layer of stale, filtered air, there was something else—a vibration in the deck-plates, rhythmically matching the tremor of a predatory muscle in motion. Click. Click-scrape. Si
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