Quinn was actually planning to head to the other faction in the first place before Blip had asked him. He wanted to see if they were willing to trade his advanced tier and intermediate tier crystals for Glathrium. He just wanted to hunt beasts first and then do the annoying tasks later.
Judging by the way others spoke about the faction, Quinn wasn’t looking forward to this interaction. He grew tired of the people who had a superiority complex just for being a higher rank or claiming to have stronger powers.
The fact that the faction was taking advantage because they thought they were a weak rank, was already annoying him. At the same time, he didn’t want to cause any meaningless deaths, on either side.
The travel was quicker then the group had thought; this was because Quinn had used his shadow travel to place everyone inside, and head over to where the Parasite Shelter was. Many of the vehicles they did have at the Shelter were destroyed, and they were unable to purchase new ones. All the funds they did have went to rebuilding.
“This is a really handy ability you have, boy,” Dennis said.
“Yeah, we’re going past beasts, and they aren’t doing anything,” Nate added looking up. When in the shadow, they could still see the outside terrain.
As the shadow went past the beasts, they could see they chose to ignore it. The shadow was also quicker than moving on foot. However, it did use up MC points, so Quinn did need to be careful about using it freely.
With the shadow, the journey that would have taken them around half a day, was done in around half an hour. Most of their time was cut out due to them avoiding useless confrontation with weak beasts.
Jumping out of the shadow, they approached the outer Shelter walls. Standing at the gate, there was a group of around five people who looked like Travelers dressed head to toe in beast gear. Quinn approaching them first had nothing.
“Stop, do you have permission to enter?” One of the guards asked.
“Permission to enter?” Quinn replied. “This is our planet that we fought for.”
Quinn was struggling with the way the Parasites were thinking. On the surface, it was meant to be two factions sharing a planet and working together, but they seemed to be already claiming parts. These words rubbed him the wrong way.
Dennis and Nate had a smile on their faces, it looked like Quinn wasn’t going to be the pushover like Blip had been.
“Wait, Quinn,” Linda went to call out.
“Move,” Quinn said ,with his eyes glowing red and the first man had stepped aside. Not in control of his own body.
“Open the door.” Quinn said to another, and the man started to input the codes to open the large shelter gate.
“Hey, what are you doing, why are you listening to him.” Another replied.
‘Is this another power of a vampire’s have? I still have a lot to learn,’ Linda thought.
Placing his hand on Quinn’s shoulder, Fex went to give him a little whisper.
“Quinn, I know these people are annoying, but you have to be careful about your influence skill. Remember, Dennis and Nate don’t know what you are. They know you have the shadow ability and your soul weapon, but nothing else.
“If you keep using it like this, they will know you have another power and start to ask questions. They start to ask questions, and Kazz starts to ask questions, which leads to the council asking questions, and even more questions!” Fex said.
It was a roundabout way of saying things, but Quinn understood.
“Sorry, I was just impatient. We don’t know when the vampires will ask us to come back. I need to get stronger before then.”
Once again, Quinn was planning to get stronger, what for, Fex didn’t know, but he did know that there were plenty of vampire leaders against his existence in the first place. So it couldn’t hurt to be prepared.
When entering the Shelter, it wasn’t as well built as the Crows base, and one could see that they were still in the middle of construction. Yet, they were still housing around two thousand or so people. Half of them fighters belonging to the faction in one way or another, while the other Half family members living there.
There were also a few of the Crow’s members here as well. The advantage of having multiple shelters on one planet was allowing people to rest and gather resources. Safe routes could be created between two shelters, and it could be used as a stopping station.
At the moment, many of the Crows that were hunting out here were using it for that exact reason.
Quinn, then looked at some kids playing and laughing, a mother buying food perhaps to cook for that night.
“This is why we can’t just go for an outright fight with them,” Linda said. “It’s not like when the Sunshields were attacking us, and we were just defending ourselves. If we can, it would be better to recruit this faction under our own, and grow The Cursed faction.”
Quinn knew this, no matter how much he would dislike certain individuals ruling with an iron fist was not the answer. The military tried that.
“So please, let’s try not to cause a fight,” Linda said.
“I will always try,” Quinn replied.
Looking around, Quinn was trying to spot something else, that’s when his ears picked up the sound of clanging, and then he spotted it. There was a forging area, which meant they most likely had Glathrium, something they really needed at the moment.
However, before Quinn could even go over to try and strike a deal, a group of people were already walking over towards them. There were ten in total, and standing at the back of the group one of them stood out in particular.
It was a middle aged man who had messy green hair, and dark eyebrows. On his back, something that looked like a giant slingshot only made from a mixture of metals and beast gear rather than wood.
[Inspect]
Using his inspect skill, he didn’t get much information. The man’s ability had come up as question marks, but it was clear that these people were stronger than all the other Travellers they had seen. Although not strong enough to give him an instant level up quest.
“That damn cocky brat!” Dennis said.
“Im guessing that’s the leader then.” Said Nate.
“Damn right, look at his narrow eyes, I would claw them out if I could,” Dennis said again.
“Dennis!” Linda snapped at him like a wild dog, trying to get him to calm down.
“Are you the ones that barged through the front gate?!” A man next to the green-haired one spoke. He was near enough bald and had two large circular eyes. It looked like the man was in permanent shock. His eyes were so big.
“Woah, now tell me that guy doesn’t have a girlfriend?” Nate said.
“Hey, you know, have you ever tried not looking for one?” Fex replied. “Maybe that would work out better; works out for me.”
Nate then looked Fex up and down. Although he had a bad attitude, he had seen how the girls at the ship looked at Fex. He didn’t have a problem getting girls. He wouldn’t understand the pain Nate went through.
“We’re here to solve a dispute my brother, Blip sent us saying something happened between a group of ours and a group of yours,” Linda said.
“Oh,” Stepping through his own people, the green-haired man came forwards and was staring hard at Linda. “You are as beautiful as your brother always claimed you were, the name’s Mantis. I hope we can resolve this matter in a civil way.”
Linda stepped back when Mantis held out his hand, she didn’t know why, but she was getting this strange feeling from him, perhaps it was the creepy smile.
At that point, someone else went to shake his hand.
“The name’s Quinn.” While doing so, Quinn did so with a firm grip.
“Who are you?” Mantis asked, with an annoyed look.
“Sorry, I didn’t get to introduce him, but he is the faction leader of the Cursed,” Linda replied.
“Him?” When looking at everyone there, Mantis had ignored Quinn out of everyone. Dennis, Nate and even Linda had this strong aura around them, but when looking at the other two. He felt nothing, yet they were saying he was the leader.
‘Is he really the leader or just a token?’
“Very well, Quinn, I hope the two of us can get along. Why don’t we head inside.”
The two groups started to walk inside the main shelter base, and while doing so, Mantis explained the situation.
“You see, a few of your people were complaining that our prices were too high, so at the time our merchants came up with a suggestion. Something to have a little fun. They suggested playing a game. The conditions were set out clearly before they agreed to play. If they won, then we would give a discount. If they lost, then they would have to buy the product at the price set. They couldn’t walk away.”
“Pft,” Dennis grunted. Hearing this story seemed to annoy him. It seemed like he had heard similar stories but on the Crow’s side.
“When your group lost fair and square, they claimed we cheated, but they were unable to say how or prove it. We took the allegations very seriously and now they refuse to pay, so that’s when I asked Blip to intervene.”
“Knowing you guys, you probably did cheat,” Dennis said.
“Now I can see where they get their bullish small brains from, when they have people like you leading them.” The big eyed, bald man said.
“If you really think we’re cheating, then you’re free to play the game yourself?” Mantis asked.
At that point, it looked like Dennis had suddenly backed down, the others didn’t know why but it was because Dennis had been stung by this game in the past as well. Losing each time.
“Sure, I’ll play your little game,” Quinn said. “But if I find out your cheating…”
“What?” The big eyed man said.
“We can leave that for after the game.” Quinn smiled.
Mantis hated this; whenever he looked at Quinn, he couldn’t read him. Why was this kid so confident?
*****
My werewolf system Exclusive on P.a.t.r.e.o.n its only $1 dollar a month. Cheaper than webnovel 🙂 and you get access to the MVS webtoon. (2 Chapters per month)
If you want to support you can on my P.A.T.R.E.O.N: jksmanga
For MVS artwork and updates follow on Instagram and Facebook: jksmanga
