Within this enormous, shaded crater, besides the people from Chaldea, there were also many refugees who had escaped together from the gates of the Holy City.
There had been roughly seven or eight hundred refugees at the gates of the Holy City that day. Even though Mash, Anno, and the others had done everything they could to protect them, at least two hundred refugees had still died beneath the Purging Knights' swords. Some of the survivors had fled blindly into the wasteland, while the vast majority had gathered here.
The Chaldeans had not called for them. They had followed of their own accord. Yet although they remained near Chaldea, most of the refugees shrank back, unwilling to make contact with them.
"Tch. This is giving me a seriously irritating feeling for no reason." Hans Christian Andersen sat on a rock, his childlike face wearing an expression of worldly displeasure as he bit at a fingernail and watched the refugees keeping their distance from Chaldea.
"Ahaha, well, it can't really be helped." Mash laughed awkwardly, her brows drawn together. "Everyone was terrified back at the gates of the Holy City."
"Can a writer who sees through people's hearts really fail to see something like this? Aren't humans simply like this?" Leonardo da Vinci sounded neither surprised nor disturbed. She merely continued tinkering with some small object, apparently a new prosthetic limb.
"It's precisely because I understand that it irritates me even more." Hans Christian Andersen rested his chin in his hand. "We saved them, yet they're too afraid of power to even speak to us. And even under that fear, they greedily cling to our vicinity, hoping to receive even more protection from people they don't trust."
"Humans. Tch."
"You'll get used to it. Then smile, because you possess strength." Artoria