Chapter 270: They Shot First

We stepped up to the wall, trying to look for a way in.

As I was still trying to figure that out, I heard the sound of movement coming from behind the wall which was followed by what sounded like something heavy being dragged across the floor.

I’m assuming they were trying to move parts of the barricade away to make space or something, probably because they never expected there would be anyone but Anomalies standing on the other side of the wall.

We waited until the top part of a section of the barricade was pulled down and a head peeked out from behind it.

It was a guy with a rather trimmed beard on his face with his hair tied up in a ponytail. All things considered, he actually looked pretty clean for a place like this.

He first narrowed his eyes at me, most likely feeling suspicious because of the mask, then he shifted his gaze to Dan where his expression changed into one of confusion as he beheld the guy wearing plate armour like he stepped out from some mediaeval time period.

His gaze then moved to the people behind me and he was understandably shocked at what he saw.

From the previous interaction with the other group of survivors, this planet probably never saw other worlders like Olivia, Maylene or Liliac. So to them, they might as well be another mutated form of those Anomalies.

Coupled with the fact that the only visibly human person in our group was Dan who was also dressed weirdly, I don’t doubt that their first instinct upon seeing us was to think that we were all Anomalies or maybe some alien that walked in from another world.

Which... Ironically... We technically are.

Before the guy could duck back down and announce we were not human, I raised my hand in greeting, "Hello. We helped clear out the monsters around the area. The mall is safe now."

The guy dipped his head a few inches before pausing and slowly rose back up again, his eyes looking at me with an incredulous expression on his face.

"You... What?" He asked, looking like I just told him that we were aliens from another world.

Instead of repeating myself, I gestured towards the direction of the estate vaguely, "Do you know Gorald Estate? We came from there. The people there sent us here to check if there were any survivors here."

The guy continued looking at me with the same look, his mouth hanging open slightly in surprise.

I heard some whispers coming from behind him which meant that there were other survivors that were also present and they most likely heard my words as well.

The guy finally managed to recover after a while and narrowed his eyes at me, "The Gorald Estate you say... I don’t recognise you... Who is the leader in that hideout?"

I shook my head, "I’m not from there, if that’s what you’re asking. We are also survivors and we picked up a radio transmission that told us about a hideout in that estate so we made our way there. That’s where we found the underground bunker and the other survivors. They didn’t trust us and pointed us to this town asking us to check for survivors since they wanted to know whether the survivors here are still alive. Apparently because you’ve gone radio silent or something?"

More murmurs came from behind the wall and the ponytailed guy looked like he was going to say something again when someone seemed to pull at him from behind, prompting him to turn around to look at the person in question.

There were more whispers before he turned back to me, "You said they don’t trust you but yet they trusted you with telling where we are? That doesn’t make any sense."

"That’s because my party can deal with the Ano-- The monsters that are prowling above ground. Like I said, we already dealt with all the monsters that are inside the mall. In fact, we cleared out the town while we were making our way here too."

There was another pause and the guy turned back again, making me believe that the leader of this group of survivors was most likely behind him and this guy is just acting as their mouthpiece.

He turned back to me once again, "You... You claim you can deal with those monsters outside?"

"Yeah. We already killed them. You can see their corpses outside the mall. The streets of the town are practically littered with them."

"I don’t see any weapons on you. Except for that weird outfit this guy is wearing... And what the fuck are those things behind you? Are they mutants? Are you a mutant?!"

Err... Please don’t tell me it has this setting but...

"What’s a mutant?"

He furrowed his brows at me, "What the? What even is that question? Freaks who have gained powers from those monsters of course!"

Ah... So it was really what I thought... Just to check...

"Don’t you have powers? How did you survive?"

The guy immediately scowled at me, "So you really are a mutant! Fuck you! Fuck off!!"

He then lifted up his hand and pulled out something that looked similar to the scanner the guy had in the other hideout.

He then pulled the trigger and I realised it’s some kind of laser gun because a red beam of light was shot out towards me.

Dan, who had his shield raised the entire time, was already moving in front of me when the guy started cussing, his shield raising up to make sure that it was in the path of the laser beam.

I actually felt my heart stop as I was worried that laser beam will pierce through the shield and his armour, then somehow render his abilities useless and pierce through his body as well.

But I heard the metallic ping coming from his shield as the laser was stopped by the shield, though Dan did stumble back a step as though he was struck by a giant Anomaly instead of just being shot by a simple laser beam.

Damn... That thing must have packed a pretty big punch.

But this bastard... You really dare...

I materialised my floating arm and thrust it forward, grabbing the guy by the head and pulling him out from behind the barricade and bringing him towards me.

I then grabbed his wrist that was holding the laser gun with my real hand, twisting it to the side with a loud crack and breaking his bone.

The guy let out a shriek of pain as he dropped his gun and I was just about to break his other arm as well when another face popped out from the gap on the barricade.

"Wait! Stop!!"

I stopped myself from breaking his other wrist, looking up to see a middle aged woman with greying hair standing there with a look of desperation on her face.

I did not say anything and just held the guy’s wrist in my grip, waiting to see what the woman had to say while the guy continued to groan pathetically in my grip.

"Don’t... Don’t kill him, please... We... We mean no harm," She muttered, though it was clear she found her words to be completely without merit considering the fact that the guy did shoot at us first.

Olivia stepped up beside me, electricity sparking off her arms, "Give us one good reason why we shouldn’t kill him."

The older woman eyed the sparks around Olivia and shuddered slightly but she managed to straighten herself, "We... We were attacked by people like you before. Mutants... They came and used their powers to kill several of our own... He... He lost his wife and kids to a mutant who killed them in front of him. I’m not saying that’s alright for him to attack you like this but please... Please forgive him."

Huh... Well I guess I can understand why he did what he did... But still... This guy could have killed Dan for some misunderstanding.

I let him go and used my floating arm to hold him, though I wasn’t returning him to them yet.

"Let us in. We want to have a talk," I demanded.

The woman hesitated and she was probably wondering if it would be a good idea to let someone like us into their hideout but most likely decided that there was no point in saying no because if we were to force our way in, they wouldn’t be able to stop me, anyway.

She turned back to bark something at the people behind her and there were some people who obviously tried to object to it but she silenced them with a shout before the sound of things being moved could be heard behind the barricade.

I figured that we should still talk to them at the very least and figure out if they are worth saving at this point.