"M-My lord... I'm just a traveling merchant doing business. Is there some misunderstanding between us?"
Staring at the pitch-black muzzle before him, Jep sat collapsed on the ground, hardly daring to breathe as he trembled and begged.
However, the stern-faced man standing before him remained unmoved.
Toying with the Pu-9 submachine gun he had picked up, the man spoke in an interrogative tone.
"Where did this gun come from?"
Hearing that question, Jep groaned inwardly. But he did not dare conceal anything and could only honestly tell the truth.
He had already guessed these people's identities.
Like the men in black from that morning, they had come from that absurdly enormous airship. They were all from that damned Legion!
"I-I picked it up."
"Where?"
"To the east. Five or six kilometers east, along the edge of the forest, there's a place called Kating Post... This morning, a group dressed similarly to you had a conflict with some people, and then they started fighting... Oh, right, I heard other mercenaries say they seemed to be from The Alliance."
Jep spoke tremblingly, while the stern-faced man standing before him gradually darkened.
"...The Alliance."
Having only recently arrived in River Valley Province, he had never heard that name before. It was likely some local power that had risen in the surrounding area in recent years.
Such things were not uncommon.
Humans were animals that liked to huddle together for warmth.
But whatever The Alliance was, it had not only provoked the Legion, but also killed crew members aboard the Heart of Steel.
The last survivor settlement that had done such a thing had seen not only its leader hung from the Heart of Steel's pitot tube, but its men, women, old, and young dragged onto the airship as slaves.
When the airship finally