Ginny Jarvis was incredibly thankful that her father had worked so hard to build such a massive family fortune.
It allowed them to stockpile supplies in advance.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t have even had the channels to source them, let alone the means to gather everything.
After all, she had always coasted through life doing absolutely nothing.
Because these orders were placed under the Kane Group, no one was overly strict about the settlement deadlines for deposits and final payments.
After all, the Kane Group’s market value exceeded twenty billion!
After finishing her calculations, Ginny realized they had over three billion in outstanding payments that they wouldn’t even need to settle.
Once the apocalypse arrived, no one would care if you had paid your balance or not.
By then, money would be the most worthless thing in the world.
After ordering the supplies, the two headed to the suburbs and rented an entire complex of warehouses.
They signed a one-year lease, paying month by month.
They told the security guards at the gate to return to work in two months, explaining that the warehouses were undergoing renovations.
The two months off would be fully paid.
The rental complex consisted of ten warehouses.
Each was the size of two football fields, and about a third of the space in every warehouse was equipped with cold storage.
When the warehouse manager heard that the Kane Group was renting the place, he didn’t hesitate.
He immediately terminated the leases of several small companies and had the entire complex cleared out in just four days.
Following that, they hired specialists to rush-install bank-vault-grade outer doors.
They also brought in a construction crew to reinforce the structures.
Because they were in a hurry, they hired a massive team of a thousand workers, getting the job done in just two days.
That single project cost a hundred and eighty million.
Ginny was worried about unexpected accidents, so she felt the reinforcements were absolutely necessary.
With the warehouses ready, the pair began driving to various factories to haul their goods back.
To ensure they had a place to live during the apocalypse, they also planned to set up a temporary shelter.
Since Ginny wouldn’t awaken her Space Ability for another day, they initially tried looking around the warehouse district.
However, they found that all the buildings there were constructed with prefabricated panels—even with reinforcements, they wouldn’t hold up.
“Sean, let’s buy a heavy-duty truck and modify it,” Ginny said.
“We’ll reinforce it everywhere.
Once we finish collecting the supplies, we’ll go home.
As for a temporary shelter…
didn’t the Lawson family just build a new residential complex?”
Sean Kane thought for a moment.
“Right, I even went to the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
It’s a nice place.
I remember there’s a large park nearby, and no other residential communities around it.
It’s a great choice.
I’ll go buy a place there right now.”
“Okay.
I’ll contact the construction and renovation teams.
Luckily, the apartments come fully furnished.
We just need to add soundproofing panels, reinforce the walls, and replace the windows with bulletproof glass.
We’ll also need solar panels, a water reservoir, a sewage treatment tank, and—oh—most importantly, a vegetable garden.
That way, we won’t have to expose my Space Ability in the beginning.
We’ll wait until everyone figures out what’s going on before we reveal anything.”
“Agreed,” Sean replied.
“The less said, the better.
After all, human nature is unpredictable.”
Ginny nodded, and the two went their separate ways to handle their tasks.
They were incredibly thankful that their photos had never been leaked to the public.
Otherwise, their plan to disguise themselves as truck drivers wouldn’t have worked.
Whenever they went to pick up goods, they drove two semi-trailers.
They could usually haul everything back in a single trip, saving them precious travel time.
Two-thirds of their supplies had to be transported from out of town, meaning they had to drive across provincial borders.
Whenever they encountered highway checkpoints, they simply claimed the goods belonged to the Kane Group, produced the supplier contracts, and easily resolved any issues.
October 15th.
Ginny traveled alone to Sheridan, a city adjacent to Breven.
“Miss, the mountains aren’t safe at night,” the honest-looking cab driver warned.
“You’d better head back down early!”
Ginny smiled at him.
“It’s fine, my friends are camping up there.
You don’t need to worry.
By the way, sir, you should stockpile some daily necessities.
I heard from a friend at the hospital that the flu has been really severe lately.
If you have elderly family members or children at home, it’s best to keep them indoors.”
The reason she said this was because she had noticed a family photo in the car.
There were four people in it, and based on their ages, Ginny guessed it was the driver, his wife, their young child, and his mother.
In households like that, it was usually the elderly grandparents who looked after the kids.
The driver chuckled.
“Alright!
I’ll buy a few extra things on my way home later.
Be careful up there, young lady.”
Watching the taxi drive away, Ginny shook her head.
She wasn’t some bleeding heart, especially not after surviving five years of the apocalypse in her previous life.
She only hoped the driver would heed her advice and hoard enough supplies to last until the government established settlement camps.
In her past life, it took half a month after the initial zombie virus outbreak for those camps and shelters to be built.
It would likely take just as long this time around.
As she climbed the mountain, Ginny found her thoughts drifting back to her previous life.
She crossed the mountain ridge and headed toward the peaks in the back.
The path was lined with towering trees that reached several meters, or even tens of meters, into the sky, with wild grass and blooming flowers carpeting the ground below.
Two hours later, she arrived at a valley.
“So this is what it used to look like.
It’s completely different,” she murmured to herself as she ventured deeper into the valley, relying on her memories to guide her.
Beneath an ancient tree, she found an inconspicuous stone toad and slowly twisted it.
A hidden door rose from the ground in front of the massive trunk, which was so thick it would take four or five people to encircle it.
“Looks like I found the right place!” Adjusting her backpack, she slowly stepped inside.
Beneath the ancient tree lay a hidden research lab.
As soon as Ginny descended, a disheveled man appeared in front of her, pointing a fruit knife directly at her.
“Who are you?
How did you find this place?”
Looking at the man, Ginny felt a sudden urge to cry.
He had been one of her few close friends in her past life—in fact, he had probably been her best friend.
Unfortunately, she had been a blind fool back then.
“I know your name is Caleb Grant,” she said softly.
“You’re a weapons research expert.
Your mentor stole your research, and out of anger, you hit him.
Afterward, he pulled strings to get you dishonorably discharged from the military district.
You took all your savings, hid deep in the mountains, and started your own research.
Also, your family…”
Ginny rattled off every piece of information she knew about Caleb in one breath.
Staring at the young woman who had just exposed his entire life story, Caleb’s eyes turned sharp.
He pressed the knife closer to her.
“Tell me.
Who sent you?”
“Relax.
Listen to me.
In eight days, a zombie virus is going to erupt across the entire world…”
After Ginny finished her explanation, Caleb slowly lowered his knife.
Her eyes filled with a gentle smile as she sidestepped him and walked into his lab.
“So…
you’re saying…
I awakened three Abilities?” Caleb asked, clearly stunned.
“And I led you all in clearing out zombies, settling survivors, and so on?
Then…
what happened to the me in that world?”
Seeing the slight anticipation on his face, Ginny felt a sharp prickling in her throat.
She simply couldn’t bring herself to say that he had died protecting her—that Gideon Lynch had plundered his Abilities before throwing him to a horde of zombies.
“I don’t know,” she lied.
“I went out on a mission, and when I came back, I heard you had died.”
She quickly looked away, pointing instead at the room full of research equipment.
“These things will be perfectly safe here.
In my past life, we came back for them two years later and they were still untouched.
Right now, we’re short on weapons.
Do you have any channels to get some?”
The reason Ginny hadn’t tried sourcing weapons on her own was because she knew several of Caleb’s close friends were in the military.
In her previous life, she hadn’t joined his squad until a year into the apocalypse, and three of his team members were active-duty soldiers.
They had never lacked firepower.
But in the end, they had all met a tragic death at the hands of Gideon Lynch.
And it had all been because of her.
In this life, she swore to protect them.