Emery told Micah and the rest of his group to stay outside while he entered the settlement with Klea, Annara and Arcana. A young man accompanied by two beautiful girls and a kid should look less intimidating to these natives. Hopefully, the impression would be able to lessen the tension between the two sides.
As he walked through the settlement following the person who led them, Emery looked around and realized the people here were mostly fighters and soldiers. Everyone they walked past was keenly observing their group with an apparent vigilance. There were many war machines and vehicles parked all over the place.
A few minutes later, the four of them finally arrived in front of the eye-catching dome building in the middle of the settlement. They had to wait for quite some time before being asked to enter the building, which turned out to be filled by dozens of heavily armed fighters inside and outside.
Most of them had strength and battle power as strong as rank 3 acolytes, several dozen were equivalent to rank 4 acolytes, and about ten people were comparable to rank 5 and rank 6 acolytes.
Emery calmly walked forward and stopped a few meters in front of these people. He then turned his head towards the small group of people comparable to rank 5 and rank 6 acolytes and asked in a calm tone, "Which of you is in charge here?"
A middle-aged man with white hair who was standing in the middle of the group opened his mouth to answer Emery's question. "Me, I am the leader of this settlement. Who are you people!? Why are you here?!"
Emery didn't mind the other party's aggressive tone. In a brief and concise manner, he proceeded to explain that he and his friends came from beyond the stars. "We are from Magus Alliance. We have come to evacuate all survivors from this planet to safety!"
Many were shocked by the news after seeing their expression. Some were even putting their hands together and praying. Most of their responses Emery saw were similar to those of the other settlements.
However, the middle-aged man quickly voiced his opinion.
"You may indeed come from beyond the stars, but how would we know that you came to save us? As far as we know, it was you people who brought the wrath of our gods and led this madness!"
Emery noticed how the anger-filled words the white-haired man spoke made some people anxious once again. It was at this moment that Arcana approached him from behind and whispered, "Should I control their mind? I promise I won't hurt them."
"No, don't," said Emery in a firm tone. This idea was of course rejected without a second thought, as he believed one should never use underhanded methods, especially in building trust.
Annoyed, Annara stepped forward and glared at these people. "If we really wanted to hurt you, all of you would easily die with a snap!" While saying those words, she snapped her finger and a dark flame immediately sparked into existence, scaring them all.
With a snort, she turned around and returned to where she had been standing before. As she passed by Emery, she whispered, "There you go. Fear always works well."
Emery inwardly sighed, but did not scold the girl. He just tried to calm the agitated crowd as well as the tense situation with a smile on his face.
Afterward, Klea stepped in and said, "We have transports ready to take you all out of here. Thousands of your people have been gathered by us, we have no reason to lie to all of you!"
Emery personally thought their words so far were enough to convince these people. However, his expectation was once again shattered, as the leader of the settlement exclaimed loudly, a hostile expression on his face.
"No! Do you think we are stupid? You're all here for the power stone, aren't you?! Leave us alone, we can survive without your help!"
Emery was caught off guard by the mentioning of a power stone, so he asked for clarification.
The man was stopped for a second by disagreements from his peers and one of them took out the so-called power stone, of course still warily looking at Emery as if he would steal it.
To Emery's surprise, what they meant by power stone was actually a spirit stone.
He fell into deep thought, as a familiar white and yellow stone could be seen in the man's hand.
On the other hand, Emery's confusion only made these people even more suspicious.
These people believed the power stone was a gift from their gods, as consuming it would give them extraordinary power, they were convinced that Emery came to take what was rightfully theirs and once again told him to leave them alone.
"We are capable enough to defend ourselves! Just go back to wherever you came from!"
Seeing the increasingly unfavorable situation, Emery decided to take a step back, "I believe this calamitous situation will only get worse. Please consider our offer, for the safety of your people."
Emery's words bring whispers among them apparently some wish to believe in him. These people have gone through such death and destruction in the past year that killed 90% of their population, they were all filled with fear and distrust.
He then gave the white-haired man the location of the two bases and reminded them they would be leaving the planet in a week.
Emery had no plan to force these people if they didn't want to leave. At least not now. Being told against their wishes would only bring more chaos that would endanger the other survivors. Perhaps he would return a few days later, but for now, he would give them time to think about his offer.
After that, Emery signaled to the others and they left the place.
As they walked out, Emery asked the others the question he had been thinking about.
"I thought those Abyss creatures didn't drop spirit stones when killed. What did I miss?"
Annara was the one to explain. "You just realized this? Where do you think our points come from?" The red-haired girl raised her hand where the device the staff gave her was visible there and then pointed her finger at the small ones on their combat suit.
"This suit of ours is a new invention, but there are actually a lot of devices that can perform a similar function."
"What do you mean? What function?" Emery asked, both confused and curious. ᴀʟ ʟ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ full.com
"It automatically draws the energy that makes up the spirit stone from the creature you kill and transforms it into another form. In our case, it turns them into points."
Even Arcana knew about this, it was evident from his words. "This device is really handy indeed! You don't expect us to pick up thousands of spirit stones one by one, right?"
Emery continued to walk with a thoughtful expression on his face. If this really was the case then wouldn't what the white haired man said before be true?
Despite the fact they came for the midtest, the device on his body proved they came here for the stones as well.
This line of thought gave him much to contemplate.
When they finally saw Micah and his group, Emery told them to ignore this settlement and continue to look for other survivors' settlements.
Emery decided to return back to the previous settlement to build the base as planned before survivors started to gather.
Klea and Annara, both of them were going to continue their Abyss nest hunt, hence Emery created 30 Mineralized Warriors for them and told Klea to be safe, before leaving.
"What about me?! "When are we going to hunt?!" " Arcana shouted, still desperate for more points.