Demon Lord's Reincarnation

If it wasn't already obvious, I came from a family with borderline mental disorders that would make one question how we were functioning on a daily basis. Growing up, it took me a while to understand that normal families do talk in a very different way compared to ours but I just left it at that and proceeded as is.

Moving forward, let me give a short description of what it was like in General Luna, Quezon— the small rural town where my Unc Junior was rooted in.

Well… it is a small rural town by the coast… indeed a short description of the place.

'Heh…'

If anything, the only difference between Unc's place and mine was that theirs was in the provincial side of the country while mine was smack dab in the most populated areas of the city.

In addition, while theirs had plenty of space to grow everything themselves and avoid hearing the neighbors' drama because of the ample spacing between properties, mine had plenty of areas to loot and figure out if Old Joe was already about to sniff coke from his hooker's butthole.

But yeah, despite the location advantage of having a low zombie population and basically zero pollution from where we came from, they still need to secure their homes and protect their families—from let's just say with fewer tools and resources to work with.

One prime example was that Aunt Michelle was close to giving birth as per our last discussion— and the best place they could have a doctor look at her was a few towns away.

I could list all sorts of disadvantages and advantages this location had but one of the trump cards Unc could use from such a location was already in full effect once we came close to docking by the old fish market which surprisingly turned to a small trading hub by people who had access to small to medium-sized boats made of wood.

Obviously, a vessel like ours almost made the ones not in the know jump into arms or paddle away—but most of the panic was because Unc fucking forgot to tell the person "in-charge" that we were about to come and pay my Unc a visit.

The fucking look of this 50-year-old dude, Captain Malapitan, sweat permeating through his shirt and white hairs on his head almost visibly forming was fucking priceless.

Still, he kept a mostly straight face with a dignified expression as he offered a handshake.

"W-Welcome, sir— huh— Kid?! I-It's you, right?! How—" then he suddenly turned to Unc who was wearing a smirk, "YOU! YOU REALLY COULD'VE TOLD ME!"

Unc Junior just shrugged his shoulders, "I did!"

"JUST A FEW SECONDS AGO!"

"It counts!"

"NO, IT DOESN'T!"

"Well, my bad!"

"YOU—"

I cut them off, "Captain Malapitan, I'm sorry for the disturbance but before I try to meddle in your business here, I'd like to catch up with family and friends first. Would that be okay?"

He shook his head with a smile, "Of course! We're all included, right?! My niece is itching to meet you!"

Quinn suddenly cut in, "Hope it's a different kind of itch to what I'm thinking~"

"OH GOD— I THOUGHT YOU WERE A—"

"FINISH THAT FUCKING SENTENCE AND I'LL FIST YOUR ASS IN FRONT OF YOUR WIFE!!!"

"...! APOLOGIES!"

In any case, Captain Malapitan wasn't entirely wrong because as small as a town we were in, everyone knew everybody and we were more or less friends or acquaintances. But first things first, I had my group settle in different parts of the town before we drove over to Unc's ranch.

I had a cluster of our soldiers with our skilled workers stay within our shipping vessel—wherein Jose was in charge of—yes, he also came with us, had JP roam around the whole town with his team, had Marvin explore a few or so miles outside with his, and had Artem supplement everyone else while having some of the inbetweeners explore freely.

But yeah, Unc's ranch was actually a few miles outside the main town but we did have a smaller house we still maintain up to this day—because it was their old house with our late grandparents when they were still kids. I still have fond memories of them and how I wish I could've shared more stories with my grandma and shared a drink or two with my grandpa on my mother's side.

It didn't take long before we had a smaller convoy leave the main town and Marvin and his crew couldn't believe the "walls" they were using to keep the dead at bay.

"That's… Bamboo?!"

"Yep."

"ALL BAMBOO?!"

I chuckled, "Fastest growing bamboo species in the world. It grows an inch or so every hour."

"WHAT?!"

"I mean, look at it. That's as natural as you can get, no? Unc has the same setup at the ranch but it's a pain in the ass to maintain if you don't know what you're fucking doing."

Kaley cut in, "June and her family could make good use of this, no?"

"Right. They have ample space, remind me before we leave to grab some for them."

Quinn asked, "So we just plant it and let them grow?"

I nodded, "Yep. Just have to use a solution to keep it from growing in areas you want to keep but it's a good replacement if you don't have solid-ass walls like we do. One other caveat of them is that the dead could get snared from the little branches sticking out but yeah almost infinite source of burning wood too—or whatever you may want to create out of them. But yeah, have to remind you all that it's a fucking pain to maintain once it goes out of hand."

"Huh… I mean… We can see that…"

As Tatiana tried to look over the window, I bet all she could see was a forest of this type of bamboo that had grown for more than a year without anyone stopping them.

Then again, I can still see two glaring weaknesses with this setup and it's the funnel created by the bamboo not growing on the road—or almost closing down the ones that aren't solid—and the most obvious one, fire.

The phrase, "Too much of a good thing…" applies to this situation but my main concern at the moment was the small bead of sweat on Unc's face.

He's one of the chillest, most unhinged dude in my family and he rarely shows distress unless it involves Aunt Michelle. He might look like he's cool on the outside but I guarantee you, he's been waiting impatiently to get our asses to his rance because usually, he wouldn't even drive a few miles to greet us like he did earlier.

This should be a story for another day but this would be their first child.

I could only imagine how he felt right about now but we were just hoping we could replace that bead of sweat with a sigh of relief.

But yeah, the trip to Unc's ranch using the main road wasn't that long—probably 5 minutes away from the main town—though here comes the tricky part.

Unc had a few vehicles that were on a narrower side and the one he used to get to the main town to meet us was his motorcycle. And with how we had to modify our vehicles to face out ongoing crisis, let's just say everything had started to get wider and bulkier.

He just had this realization when we started going off-road and into the small path towards his ranch—and the look we gave each other was one of those times you bid your friend goodbye and you both used the same way home.

'Shit, had to start this early, eh?'

I turned to Kaley, "Hey, bring everything you can and hop onto Unc's bike."

"Hmm? Why—"

"We'd have to cut through some of the bamboo here since our vehicles wouldn't fit."

"Oh— O-Okay, just a sec. Let me find them…"

After a while, Unc just gave me a nod before bringing Kaley with him while I had my group fly a couple of drones above to have a better picture of the bamboo forest situation he created.

'Now this… This is what June's parents should've done…'

Jared just nudged me, "Just tell them where to cut, bro… Even I can't— I can't do this shit this early…"

"Heh, just keep the drones flying— I'll handle it."

In any case, just to preserve what Unc did to this pubic hair-like forest, instead of cutting through to have the easiest way in, I asked everyone to cut around a wavy-like pattern to get to the ranch—and it actually took us a couple or so hours.

Even Ariel—my worker who left pretty early on got to meet with us and helped us situate where we'd put the bamboo we cut down.

He was in a mix of emotions when he saw me, "Boss, I—"

I chuckled, "Vacation for a year, huh? I'll have to write you up and I'm docking it on your next paycheck…"

"..."

"..."

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"