He withdrew his gaze.
Guillermo's face held a hint of disbelief.
"Wait, let me get this straight again. Are you saying all these people are from our Camp?"
Guillermo was already using the phrase 'our Camp' at this point.
"That's right. Including the people from the Hospital, there are probably over a thousand."
Shawn's gaze swept across the main road.
Unlike the Hospital members, the Zealots were all young and strong, no older than 40, making them excellent laborers.
The reason was quite simple: under the Zealots' previous internal rules, older The Cult members simply didn't have the conditions to survive.
They had been eliminated.
By the The Cult Master, by the scriptures, by this cruel apocalyptic world.
"Shit!"
"These people of yours could crush the former Hospital a hundred times over!"
Guillermo let out a laugh, unable to suppress his excitement.
Shawn didn't answer directly, only patted Guillermo's shoulder.
"Follow me, and not just you, but even those people from the Hospital can live well."
With that, Shawn turned around.
"Let's go. Pack up the Hospital's equipment, take everyone, it's time for us to go home."
"Home."
Guillermo swallowed, then quickly turned and followed behind Shawn.
When Shawn arrived at the Hospital in the fire truck, it was almost noon.
And by the time they had finished packing everything, it was already around three in the afternoon.
The sun above the clouds had already passed its highest point and hottest period, beginning to slowly descend.
Even before reaching the Prison, the convoy had already consumed over a dozen truckloads of food supplies.
However, this was just right, as these empty trucks were all assigned to the people from the Hospital.
The entire Hospital.
Whether it was medical supplies, medical equipment, or even the sets of Hospital beds, patient gowns, and even pots and pans, nothing was left behind.
With the assistance of the Zealots, by the time the last truck started, the entire Hospital building was empty.
Not even a packet of glucose or a surgical clamp was left.
Having taken the people who needed to be taken and the supplies that needed to be taken, Shawn's convoy once again embarked on their journey.
This was already Atlanta. If the Zealots and survivors continuously took turns driving, they could reach the Prison in less than 24 hours.
Fortunately, the tanks and armored vehicles were not slow; some models were even faster than trucks when loaded.
Shawn estimated they would arrive in about a dozen hours.
As the long convoy traveled, Shawn brought all the core members he had recruited to the back of the fire truck.
They sat facing each other, their faces showing no awkwardness, but rather a kind of familiarity, as if they had 'known each other for a long time.'
"My name is Diana, and I'm from Alexandria."
Diana had given speeches to thousands, even tens of thousands of people before, so how could she be timid?
Seeing that everyone was curiously sizing each other up without speaking, she was the first to step forward and set an example.
Her words were crisp and direct, open and generous. Despite her age, she possessed a unique aura and demeanor.
"Tarah. This coward next to me is Columbus. You can just call him Coward."
Tarah's casual introduction made Columbus angry. He elbowed him in the side, then turned back to the group and reintroduced himself.
"You can call me Columbus. Yes, the Columbus from Columbus City… I guess you can tell it's not my real name, but you know, a name is just a code, you…"
Seeing Columbus starting to ramble again, Shawn directly waved his hand to interrupt him, then looked at Guillermo.
"People close to me call me Guillermo. We're all from the same Camp now, so you can call me that too."
"I wasn't originally from the Hospital. I was initially in a Nursing Home, living with a group of elderly people."
A month had passed, and Guillermo seemed to have moved on.
When he mentioned those old people again, he no longer showed obvious signs of sadness.
It wasn't until Guillermo finished his self-introduction that everyone looked at the last person—Elynn.
He seemed to be an exception among this group. As everyone looked at him, his face constantly flickered with hesitation and struggle.
Truthfully, there wasn't much to say about his identity.
He was different from the The Cult Master. The existence of the The Cult and his identity as the 'The Cult Master's stand-in' made him feel suffocated.
Facing companions he might spend time with in the future, he couldn't very well just say: "Hello everyone, I'm a The Cult Master who's been practicing brainwashing for two and a half years," could he?
But if he didn't say that, Elynn felt like he had nothing to say.
Everything before the apocalypse felt like something that happened in a past life, and after the apocalypse, he had only been trapped within the The Cult.
Perhaps sensing Elynn's awkwardness, Shawn proactively spoke up to help him out.
"Elynn, when I found him, he was with those people."
"We went through some unpleasant things before, which I think don't need to be mentioned again."
"You just need to know that from now on, Elynn is a member of the Prison, and that's enough."
Shawn spoke very sincerely.
After all, who hasn't encountered some unpleasant things after the apocalypse? And who doesn't have a few unspeakable pasts?
Shawn made his point clearly, and they understood.
The curiosity in everyone's eyes when they looked at Elynn was replaced by a bit more concern.
This concern was different from the empty gazes of the Zealots. Being looked at like this by everyone, Elynn's face, on the contrary, showed a bit more awkwardness.
"You can just call me Elynn."
Elynn, who had once managed thousands of people, now seemed as shy as a newcomer just starting a job.
The back of the truck was lively.
From Diana and the others talking about things in the Community where they used to live, the conversation gradually evolved into interesting anecdotes from Shawn's journey.
Then Elynn gradually opened up, but he avoided talking about anything after the apocalypse, only reminiscing about his days as a butcher.
Once the topic of being a butcher came up, Shawn was no longer sleepy.
For the latter half of the conversation, Shawn did most of the talking, recounting his entire journey and the Prison's rise to prominence.
Everyone listened with amazement.
"You only had a dozen combatants, and you managed to take down the entire Prison?"
"More than that!"
Shawn then exaggeratedly recounted the incident where he was surrounded by two Walker hordes in the Prison's passage.
Of course, those embarrassing details were only for Shawn to know, and no second, third… person could ever know them.
Shawn 'slightly' embellished the process of him attacking the Prison.
Not much, just… a tiny bit.
"You weren't there, you didn't see how dangerous it was that day!"
"…I was just about to get away, and then the Walkers actually overlapped! Who knew those beasts would transform?!"
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