"Take it easy, Sengrar, it's okay, it happens; he didn't mean to hurt us," Rargnes said soothingly.
"But do you think I don't know he didn't mean to hurt us?" Sengrar asked despairingly. "But it's our world! Our country! I have... I have family still there! I want to see them at least once!"
He was on the verge of tears. Curious for a man who had no trouble treating his own kind as property.
Perhaps it would have struck Rargnes more if he, too, had to lose his memory.
"What do you want, huh?!" Sengrar grabbed the goblin by the collar, cutting off his breath. As he screamed, blue magic materialized beside him.
"Oh! Sengrar! Don't touch our group! You should have asked him first! He's not obligated to tell you everything!"
Sengrar grimaced in pain and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
"Where are you going?"
"I need to cool off!"
Rargnes looked at RedStar, who was trembling and kneeling before the energy. Rargnes helped him up as Yurs watched the scene, as usual, without much emotion.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes," RedStar said, still trembling. "That he can emit magic directly at that level... and even his energy is impressive. It's as if he spent years working, or even more."
Rargnes remembered the words of the policeman he had taken - for what they were probably - as an excuse to attack Sengrar and obtain his magic.
"And are there portals or paths that lead to our world before the apocalypse?" "None that I know of."
"Let's just give him time. We'd have reacted the same as him."
Rargnes, RedStar, and Yurs stayed in their room before heading to the portals.
They searched with the radar for hours, switching in teams, radios to communicate, but even after hours of searching, they found no living humans.
"Let's take a car," said Noah. "Will be faster that way."
"Won't they hide at the sight?"
"As if native could drive."
The hunting resumed without having seized any prey. They strangely preferred that term over humans or compatriots.
They went in several days without hunting prey, making their stack of silver lower and lower, reaching their ground-bottom morale.
Sitting in a car, watching through the windows with stress, was truly boring and exhausting.
Thus, as they came back to the inn, they headed to a different approach.
Sengrar shared meals with different groups. By paying for one or two meals, tongues loosened quite quickly. They laughed together, alcohol aiding.
A trace of the solution was found.
"Look!" one of the goblins said. A group entered, led by a masked man with earthling corpulence and followed by both natives and earthlings.
Discussions halted to whispering.
"Be careful with them. I heard they hunt more than the earthlings." said the goblin.
"Who do they hunt?" RedStar wanted confirmation.
"Most of the incoming groups... That's why there are so few people... many disappear. It can't be the work of earthlings; all of them are weak, and this group always brings back strong people like us."
"But their attire... they look like earthlings..."
"The men of the border are naturally stronger as they head to the wastelands and fight," said the man next to him, his eyes never leaving the group. "Short rhyme with cowards."
The man wore a magnificent three-piece suit. A mask hid his face. As he passed, he looked everyone in the eyes as if to say, "Look at me!"
A goblin followed him constantly and seemed to assist in translating quests. He grabbed one and went into the portal.
"Many now like to take the energy of others..." the man to his right sighed. "The king has abandoned us."
After inquiring, at night, the group voted to fight other natives. As he resumed his discussion in the room where the eight now shared:
"The danger will be higher," said Jean "they got armor and swords, and their energy might be stronger than us, not to mention we are 8, and more like 7." he glanced at RedStar. "anyways, only Sengrar is up to standard, maybe Rargnes too, but I'm personally too weak."
"I agree its too dangerous," said Rargnes
Fighting that noble seemed like a dumb dream. They didn't even manage to live properly nor repay their debt while the noble was getting stronger and stronger.
"There's ain't many ways to make money..." said Sengrar. "unless Mr goblin doesn't tell us all."
He remained silent.
"What? Do you hide something from us?"
"Nothing about ways to make money."
"Strange, I heard them goblins love money the most."
"The thing is." said Noah, "We have to repay that debt; the rest is a bonus."
"Not so much." cut Jean, "If the noble returns from his trip to our world, he will begin to make preparations, and he wouldn't mind some slaves. I say we gotta do it like Sengrar said. At least till we all got our citizenship."
"There might be death..." said Rargnes
"How does the contract work? Can he really bind us?" asked Reaos. "If there's no proof, let's just head down to our world; we join the military, get ourselves some firearms, and do shit. Heck, even if the contract is real, if we can leave for a good period of time, we take them, we get energy by killing them from a distance, and then we can manage that goblin that steals us and all."
Thus, they entered the portals again.