Even then, Luke was still confident he could kill this second group of Predators, including the one in the cloak.
But this sort of risky action wouldn’t have been worth it.
Some of the equipment on the Predators didn’t look like cold weapons; there was no telling how powerful their firearms were.
The bomb which that cloaked Predator threw out at the end was proof of this point.
That tiny bomb was portable and easy to activate, yet it was as powerful as a nuclear weapon.
The other Predators had similar bombs on their wrists as well, which meant that it was very likely a regular weapon for them.
Earth’s technology clearly hadn’t reached that level yet. If Luke had really fought those Predators, they might have detonated the bombs on the spot. He could’ve really been killed.
He would have thus missed out on a pretty good harvest! Luke subconsciously took stock of the items in his inventory.
Two hours later, the snowmobiles returned to the icebreaker. The people on the boat picked up the snowmobiles and got the team settled.
They were treated or got some rest or food.
Luke didn’t get a cabin, but sat down in a corner of a large lounge on the icebreaker with a big plate of food from the kitchen.
The crew on the icebreaker was feeling uneasy given the deaths among the exploration team. They were also swamped with work, so Luke didn’t bother to look for someone to assign him a cabin.
This trip to the ruins had been completely worth it.
Apart from amassing more than ten thousand credit points, which was so-so, he had harvested a bumper crop of abilities and items.
From the Aliens, he obtained: highly corrosive body fluid, a hard skull, and a sharp tail blade.
From the Predators, he gained: two extensible double-headed spears, a six-clawed disc, and two unknown items which he suspected that the Predators used when they were hunting. These unknown items were two of the three objects which the exploration team had taken from an underground sarcophagus.
Weyland had brought one back with him, and Luke had found the other two in the backpack of a team member in the monsters’ nest.
This was an indescribably invaluable harvest; the important thing was that none of the survivors knew anything about it. Even if the FBI’s 17th Division caught wind of something, it was Weyland whom they would harass since the survivors knew that it was their boss who had brought an unknown item back, while they all saw Luke run out of the ruins empty-handed. He rated the operation in his heart: Perfect!
He wasn’t referring to his gains, but to the clean-up. That should’ve been his responsibility, but it was the high-tech Predators who blew up the ruins with a super bomb in the end.
While that last madcap escape had been a little difficult, everything had still turned out well.
He cheerfully finished his plate of food. Putting the plate down, he then looked at the person standing in front of him. “Can I help you?”
It was Lex, the African American woman who was an extreme sports expert.
She glared at Luke. “Why didn’t you warn us when you knew that the ruins were dangerous?” Luke looked around. This was a cabin which had been modified into a lounge, and people would pass by occasionally, but they were very busy and didn’t pay attention to the two of them.
He heaved a sigh. “If I knew it was dangerous, why would I go down? If I hadn’t gone down, how would I warn everybody? Or should I have said, ‘You’re dead for sure, stop trying’?”
Lex choked for a moment, but then continued arguing. “You could’ve saved more people, but you had ulterior motives. Every time you went out, you came back empty-handed. Do the lives of the team mean nothing to you?”
Luke searched his pocket and found a cream chocolate lollipop. He unwrapped it unhurriedly and put it in his mouth.
Seeing what he was doing, Lex was about to flare up again. Luke, however, said, “At least I saved twelve people, including you. How many people did you save?”
Lex flushed and fell silent. After a long while, she finally said, “Why didn’t you save the others?”
Luke rolled the candy around in his mouth while he twisted with the wrapper in his hand. “How do you know that I didn’t go to save them?”
Lex: “But you…” Her words abruptly cut off, as if she had thought of something.
Luke heaved a sigh. “I’m only human, I’m not a god. I can’t bring the dead back to life.”
Lex’s expression was awful. “…Were they all…” Luke nodded lightly. “They were all in the black monsters’ nest. I checked all of them; there was no one alive.” Lex opened and closed her mouth, but her throat was dry.
She wasn’t genuinely stupid.
Luke had shown that he was a man with boundaries. In the face of danger, he had stepped forward voluntarily many times to defeat monsters and rescue the team.
She didn’t really believe that he hadn’t saved the others because he was scared of death.
She was only saying all that because she couldn’t let go of the dozens of members who were missing, and just wanted an answer from him.
Now, Luke had given her the answer, but she would rather not have known.
As the safety instructor for the exploration team, her biggest wish was to bring those people back safely. Now that they were dead, she was overwhelmed with guilt.
Luke glanced at her and didn’t say anything else.
This woman clearly was too much of a saint.
He didn’t plan to interact with her again after this, so there was no need for him to be chatty.
He had only explained this much because he didn’t want the woman to make things up about what he had been up to on his own.
She would be a real pain in the ass if she deluded herself into thinking that he was some big boss behind the curtain, and went doggedly after him.
That was why Luke liked to deal with people who were smart and had boundaries; the sanctimonious ones who took the moral high ground and didn’t see reason were a pain.
As for those with black hearts? He could use his bullets to deal with them.
That was what he was best at.
At that moment, the voice of an old man came from the top of some stairs. “Alright, Miss Woods, I’ll handle the aftermath of this expedition. Luke is my personal bodyguard; he’s not responsible for anything else to do with the exploration team.”
Lex turned around and saw Weyland.
She exploded with anger. “It’s all your fault! I said before we left that being hasty would be a mistake!”
Luke scoffed. What bullsh*t! That place was a playground set up by the Predators. Unless somebody else got in first, the exploration team would be killed all the same, however much she trained them.
After all, everybody had gone into the ruins to explore them, not to fight.
If Weyland had known that such a fierce battle would take place, he would never have entered the ruins himself.
Wouldn’t it have been much safer for him to hire several hundred mercenaries to clear up the ruins first?
Luke didn’t say anything.
But Weyland was a wily old fox, and in just a few minutes, was able to appease Lex. Of all the things he said to comfort her, money definitely helped the most.
