Chapter 271: You Heard Of Other Survivors Around Here?

They had to pull open a part of the barricade before we could step past the giant walls.

As I walked past, I noted most of the survivors behind the wall were giving us looks of distrust and some looked outright hostile as well.

Well... Now that I know about the mutant thing, I can at least kind of understand why they look so hostile at least...

The woman I saw earlier watched me drag that guy in with narrowed eyes, her gaze switching between my face, the floating arms above me, and the guy I was still holding in my hand by his neck.

She sighed, "Could you let him go, please?"

"I’ll hang onto him for now, otherwise I wouldn’t know if you guys would suddenly start shooting at us again."

She doesn’t look offended and, instead, even lowered her head slightly, "I apologise on his behalf... If I had known you were mutants, I would not have asked him to talk to you... He is... A little rash."

"Just a little?"

She did not answer that question and instead, tried to change the topic.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, moving herself in front of the other survivors.

I took that as her trying to put herself as a wall but I couldn’t tell if she was trying to block me from getting to the other survivors or it was the other way around.

I jerked my thumb behind me, "Didn’t I already tell you? We were sent here to look for survivors by the people from Gorald Estate."

She raised an eyebrow at me, suggesting she did not believe my story one bit.

"Let’s just say that I believe you... What are you going to do now that you’ve found us?"

I eyed the other survivors that were behind her, all of them also armed but only a few of them had that laser weapon this guy had while the others were armed with makeshift weapons like broken metal rods and sticks.

I idly wondered if that laser weapon was effective against the Anomalies, which I think I might be able to find out later since Maylene had taken the first opportunity she had to ’confiscate’ the weapon from the guy. No doubt she was definitely planning on bringing it back to the tower to learn how to make it.

I shifted my gaze back to her, "We were only asked to come here to check if the group of survivors here are still alive because apparently someone there has a friend holed up in a shelter here that they recently lost contact with. We figured we would just come here to check if there were actually anyone still around before we returned to tell them that you guys are still alive."

"Who are you looking for? If you can give me a name..."

"He did not give me a name that I should look for specifically since he obviously didn’t trust us. The only thing was that he told us there was supposed to be an underground shelter here... And you guys are obviously not underground so if you have any information in regards to that..."

The survivors behind her looked at each other, some of them whispering amongst themselves.

"An underground shelter?"

"Could she be talking about..."

"But the last time we saw..."

"Shhh..."

The woman frowned and shifted her gaze to my Guardians, her face inscrutable as she took a moment to inspect them.

"You said that you cleared out the monsters in the mall?" She asked, still eyeing my Guardians.

"We cleared out the town," I corrected her.

"With just this group of you?"

"With just this group of us."

"How many of those monsters were there?"

I shrugged, "I dunno. A few hundred maybe?"

"And you expect us to believe that you managed to kill so many of them with just a small group of you?"

"If you don’t believe me, you can just take a look around outside, the streets are already filled with their corpses, as I said. In the first place, did you think we snuck through the town to get here? I’m pretty sure you heard us shouting out loud while we were downstairs right?"

Someone in the crowd whispered something about a "Duke class" or something which I didn’t understand what that was about.

She paused for a moment before nodding at me, "Fine... You’re looking for the underground shelter, right? There’s a blue house behind the mall with a red roof. It has an underground shelter that the former owner built and the group you were looking for settled in there a few weeks ago. We haven’t really been keeping tabs on them but I suspect they are already dead. The town was overrun by those monsters last week."

I frowned slightly, "Only last week? You’re telling me the monsters didn’t attack this town before?"

"No, they have came through here once. We managed to kill several of them and created a safe zone around the mall. After that, there would be a few stragglers that show up from time to time but... Last week an entire horde of them came down on our town and devastated it. We could not hold the outer walls and had to retreat up here. Thankfully, they seemed to have left us alone and did not climb all the way up here, otherwise we would be dead too."

"How many survivors do you have here?"

"There’s about a few dozen of us."

"What about food and water?"

"We were already using the roof and upper floors as our plantation and storage areas so we can get through. However... If you have more supplies... No, I propose a trade."

Oh? That’s interesting.

I nodded at her, "What trade?"

"I can send someone along with you to guide you to the shelter you’re looking for... They can also serve as your spokesperson to help you talk to them so a... Misunderstanding... Like earlier doesn’t happen with that group. But in return, you will protect them from the monsters while they are out on a scavenge run."

Well... It was kind of obvious what she was trying to do here...

She already told us where the hideout was supposed to be so we technically didn’t really need a guide but I guess it would be better that they have someone whom they at least were acquainted with talk to them first or we might end up killing them if they tried to attack us.

Those people she was sending out for a ’scavenge run’ were obviously also meant to scout the town to see if what I said about the Anomalies being cleared out was also true.

I don’t see a reason to reject the offer since it would be beneficial to us so I nodded, "Very well. We will accept the trade. But be warned... If those people you send to guide us were to try and attack us..."

She shook her head, "You have my word that they will not."

"No offense but your word means nothing to me right now."

She didn’t try to protest against that claim but merely turned back to the survivors to bark out a few orders.

"Otis, Jhou’tiv. You two will accompany them."

That’s some weird sounding names... Even though they look human, that really reminded me that these people were essentially still aliens to us.

One guy immediately stepped forward, looking like a relatively buff dude with an impressive beard and a bald head.

The other guy who stepped forward was of medium build and a little on the thin side and he had kept his hair long to tie up in a ponytail just like the guy I was still holding in my hand.

The ponytail guy let out a groan, "Do I have to? Just let Jhou’tiv go on his own. He’ll be fine, right?"

The woman scowled at him, "I said you’re going so that’s final."

The ponytail guy grumbled but chose not to say anything else, opting to just glare at us instead as if he felt like we were the ones responsible for putting him in this position.

The woman then turned to me and gestured towards the guy I was still holding, "Could we get him back now?"

I let him go and the guy quickly scrambled back towards the other survivors, hugging his broken wrist to his chest.

The two men then walked over to me and I noted the buff guy was quite equipped with a metal rod as a melee weapon slung at his waist while one of those laser scanner guns was strapped to his chest.

He was also carrying a backpack that I assumed held essential field supplies while also serving as a container for him to carry back any scavenged loot he might find.

In contrast, the ponytail guy literally had nothing on him.

Yeah... I can tell that the ponytail guy was a non-essential member of this community. She might even be sending him out hoping that he dies to lessen their burden or something...

Alright then, lead the way you two.