Abner had long since noticed other people approaching, so he wasn't surprised by the sudden shout. As he had Fors deal with the materials from the Three-Eyed Thunderbird, he adjusted the Five Fireballs to illuminate the direction the voices had come from.
Then, under the firelight, three gaunt figures appeared before Abner and Fors.
Their clothes were ragged, their faces haggard. Their faces and bodies were covered in filthy mud, and they gave off waves of stench, as though they hadn't washed for a very, very long time.
After studying them for quite a while, Abner could barely make out that there were two men and one woman. On their tattered clothing, which could barely cover their bodies, he spotted incomplete holy emblems of the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun.
Beyonders from the Church? Abner gestured for them to keep their distance and not come too close before asking, "Purifying Light?"
The Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun's official Beyonder teams were known as Purifying Light.
"Yes, sir. Dorn and I are from Purifying Light." The leading man pointed at himself and the relatively younger man beside him before continuing, "But Darcy isn't. She's a member of Machinery Hivemind..."
At that point, he paused, then politely asked, "My name is Difo. I'm the captain of this Purifying Light team... May I ask how to address you?"
A Machinery Hivemind member wearing Purifying Light clothing? Then again, supplies in these ruins were probably extremely scarce. It was already good enough to have intact clothes to wear when going out; who would fuss over such things?
Still, this showed that the uniforms issued by the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun were of better quality!
While letting his thoughts wander, Abner didn't conceal his identity. He simply said, "You can call