To be honest, Hao Ren had thumped his chest and made a grand show of confidence before coming, but once he stood in front of Hilda, he still felt a little embarrassed bringing it up—because he hadn't come for rent or land payments. He had come for an army.
Although he felt that if everything went smoothly, this armed escort wouldn't be too dangerous after all—very few of the various races in Izax's homeland could engage in aerial combat, and those capable of fighting in space were rarer still—it was still a matter of asking someone to send their own people to risk their lives in another world. It was easy to talk about, but hard to accomplish. Besides, on the way here, Hao Ren had seen the situation on New Erem Star: this was a crucial period when their ruined homeland was being rebuilt from the ground up. The elves were busy putting down roots and surviving on this unfamiliar planet. At such a critical moment, how much spare manpower could they really pull out to be spent on outsiders?
Before coming, Hao Ren had only thought about having a billion tenants under his command. Only now did he realize that those billion tenants were refugees too...
The light around Hilda flickered. When she first heard that Hao Ren wanted to borrow some people for an armed escort, she hadn't thought much of it. But when she heard the words "eight hundred thousand," her soul nearly vanished on the spot. "What did you poke?"
Hao Ren sighed. "I didn't poke anything—it was the Old King. You know, that human-shaped wrecking ball who helped you move house, the one who bumped his head everywhere he went. He poked the entire world. These two beside me are his subordinates. The Old