Group of survivors
"Let's go, I will take you with the others," Josh told us after he made sure that the spiders stopped chasing us.
We looked at each other before nodding. Anyway, our goal was to find other survivors.
The place where Josh led us was a police station. The station was filled with traces of blood, but you couldn't see bodies of humans or spiders nearby. Most likely, they had been cleaned off.
At first sight, the police station seemed abandoned, but if you looked carefully, you could feel several well-hidden auras nearby.
In fact, I could feel more than one gaze on us since we started to approach the police station.
"Wait here a moment. I will explain the situation to my friends." Josh told us before entering the station alone.
I furrowed my brows and used my gaze to tell my friends to be on guard. I didn't think something bad was going to happen, but it would be troublesome if the people here are like the first group we met.
Fortunately, it seemed like my concerns were unfounded. Around one minute after Josh entered the station, a woman came out with him.
The woman was around thirty years old, with a well-toned body and visible muscles that showed that she was not a normal woman. She was holding a sword in her shoulder, and even when she was a few meters away from us, I could already feel an intimidating aura coming from her.
Just with a glance, I got the feeling that she was as strong as the leader of the robbers we met before.
"So you are the group that Josh met outside, huh. It's surprising to see so many young Awakened." The woman said with a smile.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Jane, and they are my friends Andrew, Katherine, and Jessica. The little girl is called Chelsea."
"Hello, you can call me Mary. I'm temporarily the leader of this group."
Mary was a beautiful woman with auburn hair and pitch-black eyes. She was a Tier 5 Awakened who specialized in close combat, and she was the one that gathered the group Awakened in the police station.
According to her, her house was in the area where the dungeon occurred. Thanks to that, the dungeon replicated her weapon, allowing her to use it inside the dungeon.
She then went around searching for other Awakened, finally gathering a group of ten Awakened.
Unfortunately, they did not know much about the spider monsters, so they killed them indiscriminately, angering the nest of spiders and causing the deaths of five Awakened.
They were lucky to meet another Awakened after that who knew about the features of the spider monsters. That Awakened warned them about the spiders' pheromones, helping them to escape the danger.
By the way, the other Awakened besides Mary and Josh were called Keltie, Eveline, Shamil, and Theodore.
All of them were Tier 3 and Tier 4 Awakened, including Josh. Mary was the only one at Tier 5.
After the group finished introducing each other, Mary looked at us.
"Then, how did you finish here? You must be pretty good to survive until now."
We smiled wryly as Andrew retold everything that happened until now.
But when he reached the part of the robbers, he hesitated slightly and looked at me.
I understood the meaning of his gaze immediately.
Should we tell them about it?
I thought about the pros and the cons briefly before coming to a choice.
"Actually, there is something we need to tell you."
"Huh?"
"You are not the first group of survivors we met."
They were startled.
I then told them about what happened when we met the robbers.
In the current circumstances, telling them about it is the best option. There is a high chance that we will meet the leader of the robbers again later, and if he decides to attack us, then it will raise this group's suspicions.
Plus, people instinctively believe the first version of any story they heard. Even if after this the leader tries to convince them that we are evil, the group will instinctively believe us.
Of course, I did not mention the fact that we killed one of them. It could make them wary of us, or even gain their hostility.
When I finished the story, the group was looking at us with solemn expressions.
I could see that several of them seemed unconvinced by my story. They were suspecting of us.
"How can we know that you are saying the truth?" One of them, a middle-aged man by the name of Shalim, asked us.
Fortunately, I had already prepared an answer for that.
"Do we seem like people that will attack others easily? We even protected this little girl after the dungeon appeared." I said while rubbing Chelsea's head
I could see that many of them seemed to agree with my words.
People instinctively believe what they see, and the four of us are considered handsome and pretty. Just our appearance alone is enough for other people to find us trustworthy.
Plus, there was a little girl with us, making us look even more trustworthy. I even increased the strength of [Confidence] intentionally to earn the trust of this group more easily.
And as expected, it seemed to work.
After I finished speaking, I could see that most of them believed my words.
Finally, I moved my gaze to Mary, the leader of the group.
She looked at me with narrowed eyes before looking at the rest of us.
"… You are right, you don't look like bad kids. Okay, I will believe you for now."
I sighed in relief.
"Thank you, Miss Mary."
"Don't thank me. Judging from your story, the four of you seem pretty strong. We will need your help to survive until the Awakened from the association come to clear the dungeon."
Karime put on a curious expression.
"Miss Mary, do you know how long they will take to come?"
Mary looked at us and sighed.
"This dungeon appeared without being detected and in the middle of the city. The government won't take any risk with it. They won't send any Awakened inside until they are completely sure they can clear it."
"And how long will that be?" Jessica asked.
"Tomorrow at the earliest."
Our expressions stiffened.
"Tomorrow? Then, does that mean that…"
"Yes, we will have to rely on ourselves to survive today."
...
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