Chapter 720 Suspicions

Elion allowed himself another brief moment to appreciate the sight of Solara.

As usual, her loose robes concealed much of her figure, but they did little to disguise the glorious curves beneath them, and he silently considered himself rather fortunate to be standing before her again.

’Truly a blessed sight.’

Althea’s eyes narrowed, noticing where his perverted eyes had wandered, but he quickly moved his gaze to Solara’s veiled face before she could find a reason to gouge his eyeballs out.

"So, what are you guys doing here?" he asked, looking between the two women with a smile. "Missed me so much that you couldn’t bear being away for too long?"

Princess Isla giggled, while Solara maintained a rather blank expression beneath her veil. The brief moment of amusement didn’t last, however.

A moment later, the princess glanced toward the unfamiliar people standing behind her, and her expression grew grim.

"We were lied to."

Elion’s pleasant smile faded slightly.

"By whom?"

"Albert," she replied. "We believe he lied to us."

He frowned.

The others had begun to gather closer, their pleasant greetings set aside as they listened in curiously.

"About what exactly?"

"Most of what he told us appears to be true. The other settlements, the different regions, and the general layout of this world. But we don’t believe he was honest about having no desire to leave."

Elion rubbed his chin thoughtfully, remembering the conversation they had shared before his departure.

Albert hadn’t seemed particularly tempted by his description of the outside world, though looking back, he had hardly dismissed the possibility entirely.

"He said his people needed him," Elion replied. "And that this was their home."

"Yes, but don’t you find that curious?" Isla asked. "He speaks of his responsibility toward them and wanting what is best for them, yet he seems content to keep them in this place. Surely they haven’t all decided that they would rather remain here without even knowing what lies outside."

"Perhaps," Elion said slowly. "Though that alone doesn’t mean he was lying. What led you to believe otherwise?"

"The ruins."

His brows drew together.

"The abundance of ruins he told us about in the east," she explained. "The ones we were supposed to find so much to explore in. We found them, but every place we investigated had already been thoroughly cleaned out."

Elion glanced toward Maya again. She was frowning, one hand resting against her waist as she listened.

"That could have been the work of previous entrants," she pointed out.

"We considered that, but it looks as if it was cleaned out years ago. In some of them, yes, we could see that someone entered recently, but in most, it was easy to see that no one had ventured in here at all," Solara replied. "And if that had been all we found, we might have simply accepted that it was the entrants from previous expeditions."

Isla turned slightly, drawing their gazes toward the unfamiliar figures waiting behind her attendants.

"These people aren’t part of our original group, as you are aware," she said. "They’re the few survivors we managed to gather from the regions we scoured on the eastern landmass."

Elion studied them. He had noticed their unfamiliar faces without giving them much thought, but now that he was looking, they were a bit ruffled up.

Their equipment was battered, their clothes were stained and torn in several places.

One young man had a strip of cloth tied around a damaged piece of armor, while another stood with his arms folded tightly across his chest, his gaze moving restlessly between the people gathered around him.

They looked rough and ragged, though Elion suspected they must have been considerably worse when the princess found them.

With Solara and Althea present, whatever injuries they had suffered had probably already been treated.

"What happened to them?" he asked.

"They were attacked."

"By other entrants?"

Isla shook her head.

"By what they described as natives of this world. They were traveling in a group of roughly forty. Several smaller groups had joined together after encountering monsters they couldn’t handle alone."

"I’m sure you’ve noticed that the monsters here are unusually strong... far stronger than the accounts we were given led us to expect. For some reason, that seems to be a problem in more than one region."

Elion nodded slowly.

Mira and the others had certainly experienced their fair share of trouble, and even his own cohort had encountered creatures that most entrants would have had no hope of defeating.

Forty people traveling together should, however, have been a considerable force.

The fact that only this small number remained was troubling. About five hundred people had entered the legacy world, and the fact that so many had died in a single attack would not go down well with their respective wards.

"And you think Albert was involved?"

"We went back to his settlement. It was empty." She said.

A long silence ensued as each person drowned in their own thoughts. Behind them, the curtain of mana continued rising from the abyss, its pale light shifting across the broken ground.

"Empty?" Maya repeated.

Princess Isla nodded. "We found no one there; not just that, the whole place was cleaned out, as if the occupants had no intention of ever returning. That was all the proof we needed to speculate and draw up our theory."

Elion narrowed his eyes. Now he could see why they had reached such a conclusion.

Cleaned-out ruins alone could have been a coincidence, and an attack by natives didn’t necessarily implicate Albert, but returning to find his entire settlement deserted was another matter.

He had watched both groups leave. He knew where they intended to go, and he had been the one to provide the information guiding them.

’Things are starting to look rather unpleasant.’

There were still too many details missing, but Elion no longer felt quite so confident dismissing their suspicions. He looked toward the survivors again before another thought occurred to him.

"I’m curious, though. How did you manage to go all the way east and back so quickly?"

Isla gave him a small shrug.

"We have our means."

"Right," he replied, accepting that she had no intention of explaining further.

He could hardly complain about someone keeping a few useful abilities or artifacts to themselves.

If he had brought the Ark with him, he would probably have scoured this entire place within the first two weeks.

"So he lied about having no desire to leave, and as soon as we left, he cleared out his settlement for no clear reason," Elion said, rubbing his chin. "The only reasonable explanation you could come up with, being that he’s planning to leave this place, with all his people. And, he might, or might not have cleaned out the ruins for treasures and resources, in which case, he would have also lied about not being interested in such things."

"Yes," Isla replied. "And we ran into a few other groups who refused to come with us. We had no reason to force them, but I thought it would be a good idea to at least work together, since we might be up against a Saint and other unknown forces."

Her gaze moved briefly toward Kali before returning to him.

"And not to stroke your ego or anything, but you seem like a reliable, strong person. You were the first person we thought of approaching if we hoped to cooperate."

Elion’s lips curved slightly.

Under different circumstances, he would have certainly taken the opportunity to tease her about such a flattering admission, but the princess’s expression made it clear that she had little room for amusement.

"I’m honored," he said, giving her a small nod.

"This is still only speculation," Solara added. "We haven’t confirmed Albert’s involvement, nor do we know what happened to the people from his settlement."

"But we decided to prepare for the worst-case scenario. You asked Albert whether he wished to leave, and we believe he lied. Then some of our fellow entrants were attacked by natives. And that isn’t all. We found another empty settlement on our way east, before we even returned to Albert’s."

Maya’s brows drew together.

"Another one?"

Isla nodded. "It wasn’t as large as his, but there should have been people living there. We found no one."

One deserted settlement was strange enough, but two made it considerably harder to believe that Albert’s people had simply gone somewhere nearby for reasons unrelated to their arrival.

There was still no clear connection between the empty settlements and the attack, but he understood why the princess was reluctant to treat them as separate matters.

"Did the survivors recognize anyone?" he asked. "Someone from Albert’s settlement, perhaps?"

Isla shook her head. "Not anyone they could identify for us. That’s part of the problem. We know very little about the people living here, and we have no way of knowing how many might be involved."

Elion let out a quiet breath. Albert had spoken quite casually about the other settlements, their trade, and the occasions when they sought one another out.

If some of them had decided to act together, the entrants would have very little warning before encountering a force they couldn’t handle.

"I would call the attack clear aggression from the natives involved," Isla said, her gaze moving across the gathered cohorts. "And until we know how far this goes, I think we have to consider the possibility that we’re now enemies."

She finished with a slow breath.

Elion quietly considered everything she had told him before looking back at her.

"So, what was your plan going forward? Find us, and then what?"

Isla exchanged a brief glance with Solara... Judging by their expressions, it was a question they had already spent quite some time discussing.