Awakening a 10,000x Skill Proficiency Multiplier in the Apocalypse-Chapter 52: []: The Refugee Crisis, Hive Mind

The standoff with the National Guard ended silently. Colonel Vance was thoroughly traumatized by the pixelation of his tank shell.

He ordered his men to pull back and set up a loose perimeter a mile away. They didn’t attack but they didn’t leave. They just watched the glowing dome of Sanctuary like terrified mortals staring at a god.

But the light of the Citadel did not just attract the military and monsters. It attracted the desperate.

By mid-morning, the smog parted slightly and the real horror arrived at their gates.

Sebastian and Valerie stood on the ramparts. They looked down at the absolute misery flooding into the five-kilometer safe zone.

The golden barrier was set to repel hostile entities. However, it allowed non-combatant humans to pass through the outer edge and stop just short of the heavy titanium doors of the inner fortress.

Thousands of surviving civilians had flocked to the light. It was a sea of broken humanity.

These weren’t clean heroes. They were people covered in dirt and shivering in torn clothes.

"Help us! Please!" a woman sobbed. She pressed her hands against the hard titanium doors. She was cradling a limp child.

The air was thick with the sounds of weeping and coughing. People were collapsing on the marble courtyard.

Their limbs sported grotesque rotting bite marks where the corruption was slowly eating its way into their bloodstreams.

"Fuck." Valerie whispered. She gripped her carved oak staff so hard her knuckles turned white.

Her composed facade cracked as she stared at the suffering.

"Sebastian, look at them. They’re dying right on our doorstep."

Sebastian leaned against the stone. His expression was completely blank. His dark eyes scanned the crowd.

He didn’t see mothers or fathers. He saw resource drains. He saw potential infection vectors.

"We can’t save everyone." Sebastian said coldly. "We have enough food and water for a small army. But if we let five thousand panicking infected civilians into the bunker, they will riot."

"They will eat through our stores in a month. And the infected ones will turn into monsters while we sleep and slaughter the rest."

Valerie snapped her head toward him. Her blue eyes flashed with sudden fierce anger.

"We are not just going to let them rot outside! We have a safe zone! We have medicine!"

"We have a fortress, not a charity." Sebastian countered. His voice was hard.

"If you open those doors right now, they will trample you. Empathy gets you killed in this world."

Valerie stared at him. She saw the absolute pragmatism in his eyes. He wasn’t being cruel just to be cruel. He had survived this before and knew the math.

But Valerie wasn’t a follower. She was a leader.

"Fine." Valerie said. Her voice dropped into a harsh commanding tone.

"You don’t want to play savior. I get it. But we need a workforce. We need people to haul scrap, man the walls, and clean up the gore."

"We can’t build an empire with just two people."

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. "I’m listening."

"We don’t give them charity. We give them jobs." Valerie stated.

"I am setting up a Contribution Point System. Nobody gets food or water unless they earn it. Work or starve. Useful skills get you inside. Dead weight stays out."

"I will manage the humanity you threw away. You just keep the monsters off our backs."

Sebastian looked at her. A genuine respectful smile touched the corner of his lips.

’There she is.’ he thought. ’The Empress.’

"It’s a deal." Sebastian agreed. "But interviewing five thousand hysterical people is going to take weeks. We don’t have weeks. We need this sorted in five minutes."

"How the hell are we going to do that?" Valerie demanded.

Sebastian didn’t answer. He turned his attention back to the massive crowd below.

He opened his digital interface and navigated to the basic guild management tab.

He found a pathetic Tier 0 passive skill called [Basic Roster]. It was a tool meant for guild leaders to see the names and levels of players in their party.

He didn’t buy a book this time. He just activated the skill through the system menu.

[Action Registered: Activate Basic Roster.]

[Nexus Glitch Activated: Proficiency x10,000.]

The beautiful system logic tore through his eyes.

[Basic Roster leveled up to 10/10! Max Level Reached!]

[Evolution Requirement Met. Basic Roster evolves to Tier 1: Guild Master’s Eye!]

[Proficiency Overflow Detected! Guild Master’s Eye leveled up to 10/10!]

[Evolution Requirement Met. Guild Master’s Eye evolves to Tier 3: Omniscient Ledger!]

[Proficiency Overflow Detected! Omniscient Ledger leveled up to 10/10!]

[WARNING: Concept Threshold Breached. Administrative Law Unlocked.]

[Omniscient Ledger evolves to Conceptual Law: Hive Mind Command.]

Sebastian gasped. He clutched his head as a spike of pure raw data forcefully injected itself into his brain.

When he opened his eyes, the world had fundamentally shifted. He didn’t just see a crowd of crying civilians anymore.

He saw the matrix of their existence.

Floating above every single person’s head was a massive translucent data sheet. He could see their names. He could see their hidden classes.

He saw their exact health pools. He saw their stamina, their real-world skills, and a glowing red timer.

The timer indicated exactly how many hours they had left before the corruption turned them into monsters.

It was absolute terrifying omniscience.

"Sebastian? What’s wrong?" Valerie asked as she saw his eyes flare with a bright silver light.

"I am organizing the chaos." Sebastian whispered. His voice vibrated with administrative authority.

He didn’t yell. He simply projected his will through the Hive Mind Command. He forcefully hijacked the minimal UI that every human had received.

BING!

Simultaneously, all five thousand people in the courtyard flinched as a system prompt forcefully popped up in their vision.

"Listen to me." Sebastian’s voice echoed directly inside their minds. It was calm, cold, and absolute.

"You are currently standing in Sanctuary. If you want to live, you will follow the glowing lines on the ground."

With a thought, Sebastian painted the courtyard with his UI.

"Those of you with a medical background, high intelligence stats, or the Cleric class, follow the blue line to the left. You are now the medical division. You will receive immediate rations."

A chaotic murmur rippled through the crowd as a glowing blue path materialized on the stone.

Roughly three hundred people hesitantly stepped out of the mob.

"Those of you with high strength, construction experience, or the Warrior class, follow the yellow line to the right. You are the labor division. You will build our defenses. You will be fed."

Another thousand people scrambled toward the yellow path.

"If you have a red timer above your head, you are infected." Sebastian’s voice grew colder.

"Follow the red line to the quarantine zone by the outer wall. Do not resist. We have a cure, but if you break formation, the automated turrets will vaporize you."

The crowd segregated itself with terrifying unnatural efficiency. The panic was overridden by the sheer imposing structure of the system law.

Valerie watched in stunned silence as the impossible logistical nightmare was neatly categorized in less than sixty seconds.

"What about the rest?" she asked. She looked at the remaining three thousand people huddled in the center.

"They are the fodder." Sebastian said bluntly. "They carry rocks. They scrub the floors. They earn their keep, or they get pushed back outside the dome."

Sebastian reached out and slammed his hand against a glowing console on the wall.

HISSSSSS.

The massive titanium gates of the inner Citadel slowly ground open.

"Take the medics and the laborers, Valerie." Sebastian ordered as he turned away from the wall.

"Set up the Contribution Point boards. Sterilize the wounded. I need to go make a phone call."

"A phone call? To who?" Valerie asked, utterly bewildered.

"To the only guy crazy enough to build guns that shoot magic." Sebastian smirked. "We have the manpower. Now we need the firepower."