__________ POV Narration__________
Ashton didn't do much while walking the streets of the third city. He just looked at how the people all went about their days.
Well, at least that was his plan. But some people ended up recognizing him on the streets.
"Hey, isn't that one of the hunters that hung around the leader of the expedition?" The civilians weren't quite pleased with the quarantine of the people that were said to be infected with a disease.
Many rumours were circulating about this disease not even existing, which had lead to some protests, and people even claimed the leaders of the expedition were using this 'pandemic' to get rid of misbehaving citizens.
Therefore, when someone remarked on Ashton's affiliation with the leaders of the expedition(the Zodiacs), they all gathered around him and looked at him weirdly.
Ashton didn't really pay them any mind at first, he didn't find any of them to be of any threat to him. And he also could tell that none of them was infected.
"You! Don't just ignore us!" The one that had instigated all of it shouted as he looked at Ashton.
The old scientist just sighed. He had met his fair share of unreasonable people in his life. And this man was sounding like one of those types.
"What do you want exactly?" He asked as he sat looked the man in the eyes.
"I want answers! We want answers! What's happening to the people you guys have taken away?" The man's way of speech seemed to somewhat rile up the others around Ashton.
"Pretty sure those things were explained properly, they are to not come in contact with other healthy people until we find a way to combat the disease that has spurred up," Ashton spoke calmly.
His apparent lack of care seemed to make the man angrier though, that and the fact that he refused to believe Ashton.
"Don't give us that! It's all you and your people have been feeding us since all of this started! Where are our families? Where are they?!" The man's anger would've been justified, had Ashton just not told him exactly what he wanted to know.
"Stop being silly. They are kept in an undisclosed location, but it will actually become a new city after the danger that this pandemic poses disappears. Your loved ones need to be temporarily separated for your own good." Ashton's response was, once again, correct.
But he had made a mistake, he forgot that he looked young to others. And he was currently speaking to a middle-aged man. It didn't matter what he said, his arguing with that man had made him look disrespectful.
And the crowd didn't take kindly to that. They were already all hearing rumours of conspiracies, and they were all heavily against any type of rulership.
"Hey! What's with that answer?! I bet all of us will 'become infected' after this huh?!" Another person in the crowd shouted, but the old scientist could see a few people nodding with him.
Which further helped him validate his own beliefs. Ashton had almost rolled his eyes to the back of his head at that point.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose for a bit as he looked at the people around him. This situation made him realise how important controlling the flow of information for the masses truly was.
Cheadle and the rest were all preoccupied with other pressing matters, so this was left undone. And now people all came up with stupid conspiracies and built their own misguided beliefs.
And humans rarely liked admitting that they were wrong in their ways.
"You do realise that we don't gain anything from reducing our workforce, do you? I fail to see how any of your claims make sense."
The man that had spoken up first was about to open his mouth and spout more misinformation for the others to feast on, but Ashton interrupted him before a word had even left his mouth.
"Hunters are all strong, if we wanted to get rid of people, we wouldn't have to go in such roundabout ways, we'd just let the beasts overrun the cities and be done with it." Ashton's words did manage to put fear into the hearts of these people.
He could see some of the people in the crowd backing off. It wasn't Ashton's intention to intimidate them into submission, he was just pointing out the obvious.
The civilians were mostly helpless, the hunters, the Nen users, were the ones tasked with keeping them safe. And they all were needed to make their colony flourish.
After Ashton said his piece, he just walked away from the group. No one even tried to stop him, maybe they were intimidated, maybe they were thinking about what he had said. Regardless, rumours of this incident would spread.
But Ashton wasn't about to let things go on like this, not after having this 'pleasant' experience. He would immediately need to come up with a plan to control what information was being spread by the masses.
But, for now, he had someone to greet. Pitou was just making her way out of the forest, Ashton could feel her getting closer and closer to the city walls.
He flew his way towards them in order to greet her. It wasn't that he had missed her or anything... Yeah, he simply didn't have anything better to do...
He flew and stood on top of the 10-meter tall walls, looking down at her approaching figure. We smiled a bit at her appearance.
Her hair was raised in all directions, her clothes were all torn and dirty, her body also had a noticeable scar on her stomach. It seemed that her fight with the Land Lizard hadn't been quite as uneventful as Ashton had thought it would be.
But it seemed that the beast had still managed to somewhat injure Pitou. The reason that Ashton was pleased by her appearance was simple... 'She worked hard, huh?'
If Ashton was to compare her current strength with someone else, then he'd be able to confidently say that she had reached the same level that Meruem had when he had left to fight Netero.
But that was only in the amount of Nen in her body, the strength of her physical body was still unknown to Ashton. He also didn't know how much she had progressed in training her Hatsu, so her actual strength was difficult to determine.
Still, she was somewhere around that ballpark. And Ashton was pleased with the results of her training. All that was left was to greet her.
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