Chapter 494 (2/2)

The implications weren't lost on Hank. This man had used brutal, physical force in order to crush the ram in a single strike, likely taking advantage of its blindness and wounds to finish it in a single blow. Some part of Hank was quite annoyed that someone else had swooped in on his kill, but the fact that the man could casually crush the ram's entire body... it seemed that these two were powerful enough to be confident walking around the border zone alone. What was more impressive was that they had crossed the entire distance between their Zone and Hank's Zone so quickly. They had a day's headstart, but... It also meant that the two were confident that they could travel quickly, as well as safely. And likely, these two men filled the same role that Hank and his group did.

After a few seconds of examination, the black man turned to the second man, his eyes flicking to the side, his mouth curled into a frown. Hank's eyes narrowed in response; so this second man was in charge.

The second man seemed to be of Indian descent, with dark hair and strong cheekbones. But where the black man was physically domineering, the Indian man slender and almost gangling. He obviously was in shape, but it was the shape of someone who jogged casually on the weekends, not of an athlete. Unlike his companion, the Indian man had no obvious weapon, but-

Hank's eyes widened in shock. He had been so focused on figuring these two figures out, that he had missed the largest and most obvious detail about them: they were dressed up as if they were heading to a renaissance fair. Both wore leather armor, with glints of light off of chainmail that they wore under it. Hank's first reaction to think it ludicrous, but then he realized that the leather likely wasn't taken from cows, but from monsters. Depending on the monster, the leather would likely be impossibly strong; there were some Level 40 monsters that could resist several direct blasts of plasma before they were wounded.

Such a thing was considered by Ghost, but ultimately, the difficulty of processing the bodies of monsters, combined with the reliability of the exosuits had invalidated that possibility.

Not in this Zone.

The silence between them had now stretched for 10 seconds or so. Hank was very away that the black man had held his giant ball aloft and still for the entire period, without even a hint of strain. That was Strength of 250, at least, but it would be easier to estimate if they had one of Ghost's cameras.

Now that was somewhat odd. Ghost hadn't insisted that they bring a camera with them.

Before he could follow that train of thought further, the Indian man cleared his throat. ”You are the group that cleared the Raid Dungeon first, yes? Congratulations, you are a credit to humanity. I am Dinesh, and this is Tykes. We hail from Zone 32.”

Coming from Dinesh's mouth, with the two of them standing over the corpse of the ram they had so struggled against, the compliment sounded incredibly hollow. Still, it was an opening, and they had to start somewhere. Hank responded, ”We are from Zone 1. We were... surprised how quickly another Zone beat the Raid Dungeon. But I suppose we can both benefit greatly from helping each other out. Do you-”

”That was our kill,” Ezekiel interrupted, his eyes bright and dangerous.

Tykes responded by showing his teeth. ”If it was your kill, you would have killed it.”

In the hand that wasn't holding onto the large metal ball, Tykes spun an object in his hand with obvious satisfaction; it was the intact golden horn from the ram. Ezekiel's eyes turned red. There was also something extremely strange in the air, a feeling of foreignness that was coming from Ezekiel that was disconcerting.

Both Hank and Dinesh started to speak at the same time.

”Now listen, y'all-”

”Perhaps we can-”

Ignoring them both, Ezekiel drew a plasma pistol and fired, aiming for Tykes.

”Shit,” Hank drew his repeater but didn't fire, feeling somewhat helpless. His bullets could pierce through the plasma if he used his Trick Shot, but that would only stop a small portion of the plasma. He simply didn't have enough time or the angle to destroy the projectile.

Dinesh frowned, and Hank saw a Mana Shield spring to life in the middle of the two groups. The plasma hit the shield and almost instantly ripped through the shield, but it lost a lot of its momentum, its arc pulling it directly to the ground where it sizzled and ate itself a sizable hole into the dirt.