Chapter 285: He’s A Mutant

All of us watched the guy who just burned a whole bunch of Anomalies turn to face us.

The first thing I noticed about the guy was he’s pretty well dressed for a place like this. Even the other survivors that we’ve met were dressed in patched up clothes that looked quite worn out.

He looked clean and his beard was neatly trimmed and his slightly messy hair looked like he had styled it before he had chosen to come out today.

His dark overcoat hung on his shoulders and reached almost to his ankles, his black dress shirt was left open at the top to show off a part of his toned chest and was tucked neatly into his trousers secured with a belt around his waist. Heck, he was even wearing dress shoes which made him look more like some eccentric businessman instead of a guy living in an apocalypse world.

He looked like a normal human at least and he seemed more amused than surprised to see us.

At least, that was until he noticed that a few of us didn’t look human.

His relaxed face turned into one of surprise as his gaze shifted between all of us, as though his head was having trouble trying to comprehend what he was looking at.

Nevertheless, we were all on guard since he clearly had powers and I assume he was one of the so called mutants of this World.

From what I have heard about this group of people, there’s nothing good about them so they might just attack us for no good reason on sight.

He straightened himself and schooled his expression before walking over to us, looking none too bothered by the makeup of our group.

He strolled over and cocked an eyebrow at us, "Huh... This is certainly an interesting group I’ve found. Mutants that are protecting non-mutants and also working together?"

Ah... He’s thinking that the three of us hiding behind our Guardians are normal humans without any powers.

He crossed his arms and looked at our Guardians with a slight tilt of his head, "Hmm... I’ve never seen mutations like these before. Are you from another region?"

All of them turned to look at the three of us, clearly waiting for our instruction.

For some reason, Diana and Siti turned to me... Which in hindsight, I guess it made sense because I should know the condition of this rift better than the two of them and should have a better idea on how to handle this than they do.

I cleared my throat, "Ahem... We are wande--"

He shot me a look, "I wasn’t talking to you, mongrel. Let the true rulers of this world speak."

Ah... I see why the people of this world would treat mutants like they do now...

Well... You know... There’s a reason why I had kept Olivia out of my interaction between the survivors in that camp.

I was very sure that she was already at the limits of her patience with how the people of this World were treating me and the only reason why she was still holding herself back was because she agreed with me that these people could still be useful to us with the information they possessed.

Even now... I could see her hands twitching and I think she would have already lunged towards him to break his neck if I hadn’t spoken up right after that.

"I speak for everyone here so if you want to talk, you talk to me."

The guy turned back to raise an eyebrow at me, "Oh? Is that so? You claim to speak to everyone here? Even the mutants? You really have the authority to do that?"

"Yes I do," I spoke with conviction.

He seemed more intrigued and amused than insulted as he turned to face me fully while smirking at me, "Oh? That is quite curious... I wonder what ability you have to claim authority over everyone here. But very well. I shall grant you leave to hear what you say."

Grant me leave? He’s speaking like he’s some kind of noble or something...

Judging by what we have found in this World, I don’t think their society operated on feudalism to begin with so it’s curious that he would speak like that.

Nevertheless, I just ignored him in favour of answering him because it really looked like Olivia was on the verge of punching him at this point.

"Ahem... As I was saying, we are just wanderers who have been moving from place to place and living off the land. We only just recently came to these parts."

"Wanderers eh?" The guy chuckled before turning to look at the scores of dead Anomalies that my group had killed before he got here.

Diana took advantage of his distraction to lean over to me and whisper, "What are you doing?"

"Just play along for now," I whispered back.

The guy turned back to smirk at me, "So... What are you, actually? I see three slaves hiding behind your masters and yet you claim to be the one who speaks for them. How curious. What are your goals here?"

Slaves? Masters? What is... Hmmm... Actually, maybe we can make use of this to our advantage.

I gestured in the direction of the place we had wanted to visit, "We heard that there was a place of interest in that direction down the road and we were planning to visit that place to see for ourselves."

The guy paused and I could see that his features darkened a little.

"A place of interest? Hmm... And I wonder who might have told you that?"

"We met some other people during our wanderings and they told us about it."

"Oh? And amongst those people... I don’t suppose they have a burn mark in the symbol of a triangle on their shoulders, do they?"

I blinked at him before shaking my head, a little glad that my mask was hiding my surprise, "I do not think so. We at least did not see any mark like that on them."

He hummed, "Interesting... Very interesting... Well, if you must know, the place you are thinking of visiting is a paradise. Not everyone can enter that place, you know? However... I can lead you in there if you are interested. After all, I have developed quite an interest in your little group here. It completely goes against what I know and perhaps... You might even bring us some interesting stories about the lands beyond this little area."

He didn’t wait for a response as he turned his back on us and started leading the way towards the road where he had appeared from.

All the Guardians returned to my side, my Guardians not surprised by what I’ve done but the others shooting me questioning glances.

Even Diana and Siti were looking at me weird, clearly wondering why I did what I did.

I cleared my throat, "Ahem... We now have a guide to the place we’re looking for and... We also get to see how their society functions up close. That’s a win, right?"

Diana scoffed, "We should just flood the entire place and call it a day. Why do we even need to put ourselves in this position?"

I shrugged, "Just play along. If they go too far, we can always just bust our way out right? I’m still trying to see if these people are worth saving..."

Siti huffed, "My vote is on no. I definitely don’t want to deal with these people walking around our World. They are obviously incompatible."

Diana nodded in agreement, "I think the same as well. This feels like a waste of time."

I shrugged, "Humour me."

"Fine... Only because you’re the one saying it."

I guess I’ll just have to be satisfied with that.

We gathered ourselves and followed behind that fire guy who had not slowed down nor looked back to see if we were even following him, opting to just stroll along the road like he was just out on a walk.

But when we caught up to him and made it clear that we were indeed following him, he slowed down until he was just slightly ahead of Olivia who was maintaining her place at the front of the group as our vanguard.

"Hey there. You’re quite special aren’t you? What kind of mutation did you get? Never seen one that changed the body like that before. Your group must have come from pretty far away huh?"

Olivia did not answer him and merely remained looking straight ahead, as though she had not heard him.

He simply grinned at her, "Ah, the cold aloof type I see. Hmm~ Hmm~ You are indeed someone with fire. I like that."

He’s seriously trying to flirt with her? Really? Excuse me, but she’s mine.

I’ll just say this first... If he even touches her, then I’m changing my stance on playing along with this immediately...