"… I can"t sense anything inside Mana Dominion… so, whatever is observing me is a good hunter… a survivor of this planet."Leon couldn"t help but sigh… it looked like Gurr didn"t learn his lesson and sent someone to keep an eye on Leon. Maybe he wanted to learn more about Leon could do and create a plan to kill him… that was a bit too extreme considering that Leon certainly wasn"t the source of his misfortune. Still, Leon was aware that sentient living beings tend to avoid being reasonable at the necessary moments.
Anyway, Leon could only wait until Gurr and his warriors do whatever they want. Although he could try to attack whoever was watching him, Leon was pretty sure he wouldn"t succeed. He wasn"t fast enough, not even when flying. So, Leon just continued to do his own thing.
However, much to his surprise, after a few minutes, Leon felt the presence of five people approaching. Leon prepared himself to fight, but those people were approaching as if they weren"t wary of Leon. Soon, he saw them, and their weapons were on their backs, not on their hands.
"Greetings traveler," A random redhead warrior said. "My name is Eadmund, and I wish to talk with you."
"… If Gurr sent you, you should go away. I don"t have time to waste with you guys." Leon said.
Leon frowned when he heard the guy called Eadmund. His courteous demeanor was way too suspicious. He had to reason to be so polite when Leon cut off the feet of the village leader and other warriors.
"You already met Gurr?" Eadmund frowned. "I can imagine he treated you pretty badly… We are from different villages, so we have different beliefs. It looks like you don"t want to meet him ever again, but I a.s.sure you that we mean no harm and only wish to negotiate."
"You wanted to negotiate now because you already know a few things I can do?" Leon asked.
"Sorry, it is not an everyday occurrence to find a traveler from another world." Eadmund slightly bowed his head. "I"m sure you can understand why we were cautious."
"Yeah, I can… but what I don"t understand is why you guys want to negotiate with me." Leon said. "I"m a mage, I"m not from the city above, but I"m certainly the type of person who made people like you suffer a lot."
"So, you heard about Gurr"s story…" Eadmund looked sharply at Leon. "Although I do hate the people living above us, I don"t have any reason to hate you. Unlike Gurr, I don"t think that the use of mana is a bad thing per se."
"How can you think that after decided to follow the path where you don"t have to rely on mana all that much?" Leon frowned.
"Even if we have different preferences in terms of fighting style, it doesn"t mean we have to become enemies." Eadmund said. "Unlike Gurr, I"m not of the belief that mages only bring chaos and death… do you know why?"
"How am I supposed to know?" Leon shrugged.
"You should know because you are part of the reason."Eadmund said.
Leon frowned… it looked like that guy was trying to mess with him and make Leon drop his guard saying random and convenient things. Still, Leon couldn"t see any malice in his brown eyes, not even in the eyes of the other warriors. It was a bit too early to trust in his instincts blindly, but Leon decided to trust them at that moment… mostly because his Mana s.h.i.+eld was activated and ready to be used.
"You look confused, but once you think about it, you will understand my reasoning," Eadmund said. "You know why you are here, right? Your presence was inconvenient in your world, at least to the being who brought you here. If you are a mage, I can imagine that you have been brought here because you spread your knowledge… don"t you think that is weird? Why would the being who summoned you to this place act like that when you did such a convenient thing for him?"
Leon opened his eyes widely because, just like Gurr"s words, that guy"s explanation also made sense. By spreading the knowledge of how to use mana, Leon would accelerate the process of a.s.similation of Earth… eventually, that would give the chances to the harvesters to go to Earth. So, why that lizard brought him to another world… Leon already knew that answer. It was because his actions were unfavorable to him. The question was… were his actions unfavorable to harvesters?
"Do you think the people in the city above don"t deserve to pay for their actions?" Leon asked.
"I believe they deserve to pay for locking us down here because we wanted to do things in a different way." Eadmund answered. "I don"t think they deserve the blame of causing our planet to reach the second stage of a.s.similation. At this very moment, they are fighting against the harvesters, after all. We lost many of our people when the second stage began, but even if that happened a few years later, nothing would have changed. The event itself didn"t cause the deaths. Many died because we didn"t consider that new monsters could appear.��
Leon nodded, they lowered their guard after they become used to the dangers of the new world… their lack of preparation was what caused the deaths. Still, despite everything, Leon didn"t feel all that surprised that someone would think differently of Gurr. By the look of things, Eadmund was the leader of another village and wanted to make use of Leon"s skills, unlike Gurr, who didn"t want to see even his shadow.
Although Leon didn"t thank him, Leon felt for a while the need to thank Eadmund. There was a chance that he was lying, but he got rid of the weight that Leon had on his shoulders. Nothing could confirm that his actions didn"t doom Earth, but now Leon at least wasn"t sure that he condemned his planet.