End Times, Surviving with My Beastly Army novel Chapter 348

Chapter 348 Sacks of Grain

A hundred sacks of grain.

The representatives from the other bases all started doing the math in their heads.

Finished

Compared to the total haul they’d each walked away with, a hundred sacks wasn’t actually that significant. If Robin agreed to those terms…

But Robin simply said, “Two hundred.”

Martin’s brow furrowed. “Two hundred feels steep.”

“That’s the price,” Robin said. “Two hundred sacks, flat. You can walk away from the deal if you want. Any base that wants the service pays two hundred. Moving all of this on human legs alone would take forever, and everyone here knows it. Your call.”

Martin made a great show of wrestling with the decision, but one look at the mountain of grain stacked behind him settled it. “Deal.”

2

The moment Redwood locked in without a second of hesitation, the representatives from the other bases realized they’d completely lost their window.

They’d been planning to push back a little, try to shave the price down by negotiating.

But Redwood had already closed it.

There was nothing left to negotiate.

Not that it mattered, because this was exactly what Robin had been engineering from the start.

She turned her gaze toward the remaining bases with an easy, unhurried smile. “The spiders are numerous, but they’re not infinite. If the terms work for everyone, we’re more than willing to help.”

The other bases had been hovering on the edge of hesitation over the 200–sack price. The moment those words landed, the hesitation evaporated. “Ms. Neel, count us in!”

“We’re in too!”

“Yes, us as well!”

r

Watching the other three bases commit one after another, Jack felt the pull of indecision work at him.

Two hundred sacks was a heavy toll.

But without another way to move the grain, they’d be hauling it by hand until the end of days.

He threw a glance back at Artemisia. She read it instantly and said, her tone carefully neutral. “Ms. Neel, our base would also like to offer two hundred sacks.”

Robin gave her one brief, disinterested look. “Declined. We don’t work with Vernon Base.”

11:31 am

PPP.

Chapter 348 Sacks of Grain

Artemisia hadn’t expected a refusal that clean and total. Her expression shifted. “Ms. Neel, are you targeting us?”

Robin let out a short, dismissive scoff. “Don’t flatter yourself. I just don’t like you. There’s nothing deliberate about it.”

Jack’s face turned the color of cold iron. Robin!

Finished

“Don’t think your strength gives you the right to do whatever you want! Don’t forget whose name you carry!

“The Neels raised you, and now you turn around and act like we don’t exist? Can you really live with yourself knowing what Grandpa would think?”

Something in Robin’s eyes went very still and very quiet.

She turned her gaze to Jack without a word. For reasons he couldn’t entirely explain, having her look at him like that made Jack’s breath stall in his chest. He found he couldn’t quite hold her stare.

“Jack.”

Her voice was calm and level. “Yes, I carry that name, not because of your family, but because of Eric. And let’s be clear about something else while we’re at it. The person who raised me was Eric. Not your family.

“And now you want to claim family? You were the ones who told me, straight to my face, that I’d always be an outsider. Now I’m suddenly one of you?”

Jack’s mouth tightened.

Because they had said it. Every word of it.

Robin was only a year or two older than the Neel cousins, but because of Eric, she technically outranked them by a full generation.

And the Neels had never been a warm one. The brothers had spent years clawing at each other over inheritance, too consumed by internal rivalry to show any real affection even among themselves, let alone toward Robin, an outsider who might one day have a claim on what they considered theirs

r

The years under the Neel roof had been cold ones for Robin. Everyone except Eric had made sure of that.

“And furthermore,” Robin said, a slight smile crossing her face. “Jack, if you really want to pull the family card, then by the generational structure of this family, you’d be calling me your aunt.

“Is this how you talk to your aunt?”

“You…”

Jack couldn’t find a single word to throw back at her.

Because the history, when laid out plainly, didn’t favor him. Not even a little.

But still…

11:31 amp pp.

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