Ken's Bloodlust Sense picked up another presence nearing them. In fact, it was five presences, moving as a group two kilometers behind Maria.
'I guess I wasn't worried for nothing. Let's see what's going on,' Ken pondered curiously while following the former bandit. Maria stopped 20 kilometers away from the meeting spot and waited for the group to catch up.
When the group of five noticed her halt, three of them followed her example and the remaining two, assumingly the scouts, split up and circled around her carefully in a radius of 2 kilometers in two different directions until they met each other. They both nodded to confirm there was nothing to worry about and returned to Maria.
The group of five surrounded the former bandit and the scouts gave their reports, "I've found no humans in a radius of 5 kilometers," "Same here," one scout declared his findings, and the other confirmed.