The four seniors were stunned when they heard Leonel's words. Mention of the Oryx was guaranteed to cause such a reaction. After all, there were very few who could reach white belt without having heard at least one horrific story about that race of people. It was safe to say that they wanted absolutely nothing to do with this matter.
After the initial surprise, though, one of them frowned.
"What proof do you have of this? Why haven't we heard anything?"
The question made sense. After all, they were about 35 or so kilometers from the mountain pass. That region had a strong concentration of Valiant Heart Mountain elites, so it was relatively safe. In fact, it was due to this that Oryx Tribe attacks so close to the heart of their organization were so rare. They usually wouldn't dare travel this close.
Though the scuffles at the border between their territories was growing by the day, normally those were trouble only blue belts and above had to deal with. Even white belts like them weren't even qualified to worry about those matters. So, how could they so easily believe Leonel's words.
Now that they thought about it, they felt ridiculous for the way the acted and were even somewhat embarrassed.
Leonel hesitated when he heard these words.
Proof? He didn't have any. He had turned the skeleton of both Titan Hyena's into hundreds of arrow heads. As for their bodies, their stench had been distributed in directions opposing to their own thanks to the help of Little Blackstar, so they obviously didn't have any pieces of it remaining.
Leonel decided to quickly explain all of this.
"… So the only thing we have left that might be of some proof are the kidneys of the Titan Hyena's. Those are the only parts of them that I kept for myself."
The four white belts looked at the large hand sized kidney in Leonel's hands then looked at him as though he was an idiot.
"So what you're saying is that you have no proof whatsoever. But, somehow you expect us to believe that the Oryx Tribe is stupid enough to attack so close to the mountain pass? Do you take us for fools?"
Leonel frowned. "…. Listen, we--"
"No. You listen. Do you think we can't recognize you? This is the last chance we'll give you to scram, or else don't blame us for being impolite.
"If you think you can overwhelm us with numbers, think again. Not to mention the fact that we'd never lose to a pack of trash like you freshmen, do you really think that there's only the four of us here?"
The four card playing seniors stood.
Leonel inwardly shook his head. It seemed that these four had no idea what happened to Nigmir and the others. But, this was fine too. In fact, this was even better.
"If it's about me, then fine." Leonel said resolutely. "I won't enter the mine, but can you at least allow them to?"
"Leonel!" Ingkath was the first to step forward.
Ingkath had already done too many things he was ashamed of himself for. The guilt of what his teammates had done still lingered over his head even to this very moment. Hearing Leonel want to make such a sacrifice, he couldn't stand idly by anymore.
Leonel smiled lightly and patted Ingkath's shoulder. Even though the two of them were about the same height, at that moment, Ingkath somehow still felt that he was looking up at Leonel.
Leonel was actually quite confident that he could survive alone, not that this was what he was aiming for right now. He was quite certain by the display these four seniors had put up to this point that they wouldn't disappoint him.
And indeed…
"We're not here to negotiate with you! Since we said to scram, scram!"
Seeing Leonel's willingness to take a step back, instead of compromising, the four seniors only became bolder. This was the true way of the world. Sympathy was something reserved for the strong. And, often times, the strong wouldn't bother to hold onto such a virtue.
The more they thought about it, the more they realized they had to chase these bunch of freshmen away.
By now, they didn't believe that Leonel could really be lying. Considering his status, convincing a hundred freshmen without proof of what had happened was impossible. Most of them wouldn't want anything to do with him for fear of offending those they couldn't afford to offend.
But, even in the case that they weren't lying, they still needed to be chased away.
There was a reason only the strong factions could hold onto mines. This wasn't only because they had to defend them from other factions, but also because mines weren't exactly safe. There were all sorts of creatures that lived in the underground networks.
As a result of this, there were only a few 'safe' regions that could be used to hide away in. But, even all these regions added up together couldn't possibly house all these freshmen along with all the seniors that were currently already at work below whether that be in mining or in clearing new paths to be mined.
The short of it was that they had to thank these freshmen for giving them such a warning, but if they actually expected to get any help out of them… Well, they could wake up from their pitiful dreaming right now.
Hearing such words, Leonel hid smile behind a cold mask.
"You really want to turn us away?"
His voice was frosty, even to the point the seniors didn't even respond immediately. But, this didn't last long. It wasn't even a moment later their expressions were overtaken with rage.
"Are we not speaking in a language you can understand?!"
Leonel's gaze narrowed, his palm flipping over to reveal three arrows as he slid his bow off his back.
The four seniors were stunned. He actually dared to attack?! How could they not be infuriated?!
"Wait!"
The sudden voice stopped the sequence of events.
Leonel frowned, watching Jaelis and Senior Lu push their way through the crowd.