“- Haven’t returned yet,” said one of the scavengers, as he stepped out of the dorm room. His six compassion followed him as he continued speaking. “I’m starting to think sothing might have happened to them. Otherwise, they should have returned by now. They can’t last that long without a Mark to keep their bodies together.”
“They might have run into a monster. We cleared out all of the ones in this section of the academy, but that doesn’t an that new ones won’t appear,” said one of the two won in the group. She sounded nervous. “If they don’t return quickly enough, we should probably assu that they fell - and worse, that we have new enemies to deal with once we finish clearing out the dorms.”
I realized that this group was probably talking about the two scavengers we had dealt with. Sure enough, the scavengers we had already dealt with and the enemies in front of us were from the sa group - and they had an organized enough command structure to know when mbers of their group was missing. The scavengers would catch on to our presence quite quickly, if they hadn’t already caught on.
“They should be able to survive a few hours without being in range of the Mark. Calm down. We don’t know for sure that sothing has happened to them,” said the other girl in the group. She sounded quite a bit more pleasant to the ears - her voice was lodic, in the sa way so of the elves from our fourth world had sounded when they were singing. “We should probably go check on them soon, though. If another thirty minutes passes without them showing up, it might be a good idea to head over and see what’s going on. I don’t want to lose anyone else. We already lost three people so far.”
“Coming here with our power level was risky to begin with,” said one of the n in the group. He sounded gruff, and his voice made think of iron that had been hardened in a forge through repeated hamr strikes. “Even if we can handle the monsters, the laws of reality are simply not friendly towards us. Losing a few people is natural. Besides, the ones that died were all new recruits. Since they’re the weakest of us, it’s natural for them to be more vulnerable to mistakes.”
“If they don’t return, I say we should flee,” said another team mber. “The mont the main expedition force returns, we could just run from the Market. We already have a good haul. That splinter is almost certainly a fragnt of bark from one of the innermost branches of the Universal Tree. It should fetch a massive amount of money if we sell it to any of the major multiversal powers. There’s no reason to risk our lives for a few new mbers, especially since those two only joined a month before we set off for the Market.”
“I agree with rric,” said one of the other mbers. “We already saw that giant monster eat the billboard. We should get out fast. This nursery is becoming way more dangerous by the hour. I don’t want to get caught up in whatever will happen when that worm finishes evolving. It sucks for those two, but if they took this long to return, they’re probably already dead.”
“We should at least wait until the main group ets up with us. The leader has a Heroic grade shooting skill, so the external laws of reality have way less impact on him than the rest of us. His laser pistol should still be sufficient to handle most threats in this area,” said the strongest mber of their group. “When the main expedition returns, as long as the leader is willing, we’ll do one more search. If we can rescue those two, we’ll do what we can. If we can’t, we’ll run out of here before the danger gets worse.”
asked Sallia.
I nodded. I said. ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by novel•fire
said Sallia.
I thought about Sallia’s estimate, before I nodded. Her guess sounded reasonable to , at least based on the information we had right now.
said Anise.
I hesitated, before I nodded. Anise’s words made sense. Fighting a large group of enemies with a few heavy-hitters mixed into their numbers was the real danger. I didn’t want to lose any lives in this encounter.
I continued to listen in on the group of scavengers, who had stopped entering new dorm rooms and were now sitting outside in the hallway. It looked like they were taking a break - which was a relief, because it gave more chances to listen in on their conversation.
A few minutes passed, as the group of scavengers continued to debate whether they should try to rescue their missing mbers or not. Finally, one of them said sothing else that caused to pay attention.
“In any case, I don’t think we’ll be exploring the other two branches of the school,” said the female scavenger. “We got a big enough haul already. No need to risk it.”
I didn’t hear any of the other scavengers say anything in response, but with my soul-sight I could see their heads bob up and down in agreent.
I hesitated, before I turned towards my friends.
I asked.
said Felix.
I fell into thought. Felix’s words were ruthless - after all, we had only fought with one mber of their group so far, and there was a small chance that we could find so sort of reasonable accommodation with the rest of them. They didn’t seem like completely evil thugs - though they were likely willing to do ruthless things as well, I still didn’t know how I felt about attacking another group of people.
It was also true that they had clearly attacked us first, and would likely do so again if they knew we were here.
I sighed.
I said.
asked Sallia.
I froze, and then looked at Sallia in thought. She grinned at .
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