Chapter 169: Pressing negotiations (1/2)

”Boss, they are here,” a man suddenly walked up to Markus and reported in a silent voice.

”Right on time,” Markus muttered before moving his hand up and patting the man on the back. ”Good job. Continue the investigation,” he praised the man before giving him the next orders.

'You shouldn't have tested me back then,' he thought as the massive crowd of people continued to walk towards the outer gate of the camp. Looking around, he could see the few expensive mercenaries that he hired personally after the recommendation from the local mercenary guild.

In the crowd consisting mostly of opportunists and fortune-finders, there was only a handful of truly valuable people. Between roughly a thousand-strong group, there were only seven craftsmen, fifteen mercenary warriors, and roughly fifty of Al's clansmen.

”So you are Marcus,” one of the forementioned people approached the saint. ”I have a letter from Antion to you and one to Al that I will need to pass on directly. I hope that won't be a problem,” the middle-aged man said in a perfectly neutral tone as if he was commenting on the weather.

”You can pass it to me once we take the corner ahead,” Markus looked up and to the left before giving his reply.

There were people watching every single step of theirs. As such, even something as simple as talking with each other had to be a precisely thought-out operation.

”Are you foreseeing any problems to arise?” the man asked, not daring to as much as look at Markus' face.

”Something hangs in the air,” the former saint replied ambiguously, unwilling to share the details of something so vital out in the open. ”It will be for the best if you guys were to be prepared for the fight,” he added before biting on his bottom lip.

'While I hope it will all go smoothly, I'm not some kind of naive idiot to blindly believe in it,' Markus thought, watching the side-streets his crowd passed as they moved forward.

And soon, his guess proved to be correct.

As soon as the front of the group reached the perimeter of the gate that separated the warcamp from the actual desert, they stopped.

People moving in the middle and back part of the crowd have yet to see that a problem arose, so they ended up pushing forward, squeezing those in between.

And as Markus reached the very corner that he mentioned a moment earlier, he saw what the reason for the sudden halt was.

”The leader of the group, step forward!” An officer from the military part of the camp stood ahead of a massive troop. The troop that blocked the exit from the camp from the crowd that Markus gathered.

”What are we going to do?” One of the mercenaries approached Markus, openly asking him the question.

After all, now that the confrontation came to be, the number of things they need to keep hidden greatly decreased.

”For now, just keep still. Don't do shit unless they openly attack,” Markus ordered before making his way towards the front of the crowd.

Given how everyone was squeezed up, this task was a challenge on its own. Which in turn made the whole matter slightly problematic with how there was a limit to the patience that the soldiers had.

'I know I can get through them way faster,' Markus thought, already able to see the faces of the military ahead, 'but let's see whether they will make any mistakes,' he summed up his plan and even slowed down his pace of squeezing through the people.

”I'm asking one last time,” the officer spoke up as he laid his hand at the handle of the sword by his waist. ”The leader of this group, step forward!”

Markus reached the very end of the crowd... And he stopped there. Given how he was the mastermind of the entire event, he even had the magical energy he managed to obtain from loosely crushed magic stones just to prevent anyone from recognizing him.

”And why should we give you our leader?” He shouted, acting as a random person in the crowd. ”This gate only serves to prevent invasion. There is no law that you can use to forbid us to venture to the desert!” he shouted again, trying to see how far the other party was willing to go to stop them.

But rather than shouting anything back, the officer simply smiled before turning around and putting two of his fingers into his mouth.

”WHEEZ!” the high sound of whistling seemed to penetrate everyone's ears in an unpleasant fashion.

And nothing happened.