a day passed and I arrived just outside the port where the Indian country should be located, there's around five hundred people and most of them are in groups. there's also a line of high ranked adventurers, the survivors on the front and... I'm with them...
"hey Ron, you alright?"
"Philia... I'm not alright at all... why am I over here anyway?"
I should be along with the others... not in the middle of the greatest adventurers here...
"well... I heard from Pheonix that he'll find a group for you, seems like he knew that you were uncomfortable forming a team by yourself so he asked the Chinese ace Op for the assistance"
well... I heard they can talk English so that's all fine by me
"I'll be hosting as an operator in the sidelines as backup, more information will be said once about an hour passes"
she said her part and waved goodbye to me... from what I know, only two operators will be managing these groups, our ace and their ace, miss Philia isn't meant to be here in the first place, she just checked up on the people as per Pheonix asked
. . .
. .
.
I wait for a few more minutes and the Chinese adventurers finally arrived, a few looked at me and waved, assuming that they were my team, I waved back
"from the picture... you're Ron?"
"yes, that's right, it's a pleasure to meet you"
he talks so fluently... if not for the face, his voice could be passed as something normal... I wish I could talk bilingual
"pleasure's all ours. since we know you, we might as well introduce ourselves. I'm Moon, Ye Xiu's apprentice. the girl on my left is Lana and the guy on my right is Ren. we're using our nicknames so it would be easier for you to know us"
"Thanks for the thought"
I feel like I should bow but... I don't even know what's racist or not...
the girl he said, Lana, is wearing a huge sniper... her lightweight equipment is something too... it's not all too revealing like the others have and Ren's bow looks so realistic...
"those... equipment looks way too expensive..."
"ahh! if it makes you feel better, we could wear our casual since we don't really mind if we change our equipment"
"ahh! no, no. I don't mean it like that, I was just wondering how you guys got that equipment..."
"about these? please don't mind it, if you're curious I could explain how"
I nod and he sighed... was there something that I said?
"Lana's sniper is Iron and that's about it, it's main purpose is just being an aim while the real one is Ren's. his bow is genuine since his family came from a company so he could practically buy everything he needs though I was wondering why he doesn't use the money of his parents..."
he puts a mischievous smile and they started arguing at each other, well... at least it's as friends...
"sir Ron, would you like for me to manage with our movements?"
"m-movements!?"
the two stopped bickering and gazed suddenly at her
"L-Lana! don't say something like that!... haahhh... what she meant was for positioning, we may be one of the weakest in terms of raw power but our teamwork is top in the rankings, Lana's our strategist and she can create a plan with the help of our operators"
"I-I see... then... please feel free to create a pathway and do what you always do, I don't have any redeeming qualities when it comes to this"
"that's alright! as long as you can fight then we'll be fine. by the way, I haven't explained my fighting style, I'm a boxer, mainly something like a monk, what about you?"
"I'm just starting but I do know how to wield a knife, I can imbue it with any type of elemental magic so I'm fine with fighting but I don't know how to move properly with this so I might be dead weight"
"no worries, we can manage. we've faced even the most annoying people so we're fine"
after our conversation, Pheonix and the other op stood in the front. everyone seems to know everything we need to do now. our strategy has been explained upfront and each group will be dispersed appropriately. we'll be starting our outpost right in the center nearby a city of some sort
"Alright then, Lana, you know what to do, Ren, your staying nearby. Ron, I'd like you to be our head for the time being"
"what!? well... I trust you"
he nods and we entered the portal. a moment later, our environment turned into an abandoned village
"wh-... what happened here?"
the trees look like it's burnt, the houses is in shambles... Ren and Moon emerged from the portal and the portal disappeared... I feel trapped...
"woah... 「something Chinese, I don't like to use Gtranslate for this」"
「-------」
"uhh... guys, care to translate?"
"a-ahh, right, sorry. I was surprised that the rumors were true..."
Moon explained everything that happened where we were spawned at. Diskit was a mountainous place, I felt nauseous at first so that's probably why. after the world epidemic since 2020, Diskit Village turned into a bustling place until at some point destroyed itself... that was 10 years ago... and now this place turned into a den of lowlifes...
Moon looked at his phone and was speechless for a minute...
「...-----.」
「---.... ----!」
"uhh... I can't tell from the scream, what happened?"
"I just got a call from both Lana and sir Pheonix... we seemed to be translocated somewhere else..."
"huh?" I look at my phone and he was right, we're at the north of India
"this... might be even more dangerous than we thought..."
"huh? why's that?"
"well... New Delhi is safe and we can walk all the way there, we can't fly like Lana so we'll be at a normal pace. the problem is we'll be on a mountainside... Pheonix's call was that there were multiple readings nearby and we didn't have any intel on them..."
and... is that dangerous? I disregard it and continue with the track downward. it seems like there were some recent activities here so we could assume that they're really here...
after a while, we heard a gunshot and-
"nice shot Lana, Ron, just let her do her thing, we can track here without any problem"
"huh? what about her?"
"you might not have noticed, Lana's equipment skill is sound. granted she's still practicing with it, she can still hit them at abnormal distances"
equipment skill... I never heard anything like that...
「------」
"gotcha. Ron, stay extra vigilant right now, Lana will be following us from here on out, we'll need to create our stand here"
"alright"
with that, Ren took on position in our middle and in a proper 5-meter gap distance, walked along the mountainside with caution
as soon as we took that role, we were immediately ambushed by some ruffians
"Ren! 6!"
with a sudden call, Ren shot just shy by my head and took out a person...
"he's dead..." 「---」
"is... that some sort of prayer?"
"he's just following his religion, don't bother too much"
well... I don't really care either way. I didn't believe in gods in the first place anyway
we follow through the mountainside and 12 hours passed with continuous ambush and attacks... our kill count turned into 30 in a matter of hours and...
"I... don't think I can handle this anymore..."
"fine... Ren, kindly pack up and prepare for camp"
it's around 5 right now and we're still nowhere near the center. Ren unfolds everything in his bag along with Moon and started a campfire
. . .
Lana is still nowhere to be seen
"Ron, stop looking around and eat up, we don't want a member fainting alright?"
"ahh- yes, right... about Lana"
"don't worry about her, it's best if she's not found out or we could lose our trump card"
trump card? well, it's best not to question it, they seem to be more experienced than me in this kind of situation so it's probably best not to... that aside, the place seems to be less dangerous... probably Lana's doing but I'm not entirely sure...
"we can still track the night, it's probably best if so but are you alright with it Ron?"
"I... don't know, I haven't took a sleepless night since..."
I don't really know what to do right now but to follow his orders... I just started training right after our break but I quickly stopped since I was still quite exhausted from all the walking for 12 hours...
Night struck and we began our expedition once again. it's around 12 in the midnight right now but it looks like most of them are asleep, but me... I feel especially tired...
"hey, Ron, how's your body clock?"
"I... feel groggy... but I can still manage"
"huh... then it's best if we let you sleep today... it's like as we thought... you're American right?"
"huh? ahh- yeah..."
"it's still around 7 for us and we don't need to trouble ourselves since we took coffee from our break, it should be the next day for you Ron or probably around 6 or so? although..."
"huh? but I'm fine..."
"no, we'll take a rest right now. Ren 「-------」
「-------」
"ahh... fine... I'll take a rest, probably best since I didn't have a proper sleep cycle since a week ago..."
"good, I'll go call Lana- 「--」
I prepare the sleeping bag that was given to us and I took a small nap
resting's fun...