Chapter 77: The Day

With tears in her eyes, Lin ran out of the cave. "Heeellllpppp!!!"

However, she saw no one in the flower-filled area.

What are you doing, Red? You ask your tribe members to run first and leave the ones still in the cave?

Lin continued to run, but the giant stump scorpion from the cave caught her quickly. The woman suddenly fell down and checked her feet.

Her right leg was oozing fresh blood from where her knee should have been. The rest of her legs lay a few feet from him. "Kyaaaaa!!!"

The woman's tears flowed harder. She desperately crawled away, leaving a long trail of red liquid.

The giant stump scorpion just froze in place. Then, from within the cave, stump scorpions of various sizes emerged. They crawled in groups like ants.

And in no time, some of them had already surrounded Lin, whose screams grew louder. "Let go of me!!! Help!!! It's hurts!!! It's hurts!!! Help!!!"

Of course, the beasts didn't care. They kept cutting the woman's body with their pincers.

I turned around, unable to see the scene anymore.

Is this the price I paid to keep my colonists safe?

Seeing that some of the stump scorpions had started creeping into the crack on the cliff, I used warp to return to the basecamp of the Redtooth tribe member group. There, I found people already gathered around Lara and Tosa, who were standing face to face with tense faces.

"We have to save those who are still inside! They are part of us!" Lara snapped in a voice like she wanted to cry. "We can't just abandon them!"

"We have agreed that if there are suspicious voices, we will immediately run." Tosa growled. "Sorry if I say this, but the two of them didn't do that."

"That doesn't mean we can't help them!"

"I can't leave the others in danger, damn it!" Finally, Tosa snapped. "We don't know what we're getting into! These people still have families, children, husbands, wives, and so on! They are not expendables!"

Even at a time like this, I'm not sure if Tosa's words came from his heart or not. He might have taken advantage of this incident to attract support from others.

Lara's face grew even tenser. She approached Tosa with such a sharp gaze. "And those who are still inside also have loved ones, people waiting in their homes."

"If you want to save them, do it yourself!" Suddenly a woman from the group shouted. "I still want to go home safely!"

"Hey, you, shut up!" Lara pointed at the woman. "Don't make this situation worse!"

However, the other members had ignored the blonde woman. They were talking among themselves. In essence, they agreed that they had better get out of there right away.

"Come on, guys," Lara looked around in disbelief. "There are still people in there! You guys really don't want to save them!? Please, I beg you! I …."

"Enough!" Tosa raised one hand, causing Lara and the others to fall silent. "There's no point in arguing anymore. If you want to be safe, come with me to get out of here, prepare only the important things to bring. If you want to kill yourself, please follow this bitch."

And after that, the group dispersed to prepare to go home. Lara looked at them with wide, teary eyes. Then, she chuckled bitterly. "It turns out that this is the true nature of all of you."

"Remember, Lara." Tosa said in a flat tone. "You also came with us after hearing that suspicious voice. If you wanted to help Lin, why didn't you do it earlier?"

Lara's eyes widened even more. She choked and couldn't speak at all, while Tosa walking away from her.

Then, the blonde-haired woman lowered her head and clenched her fists. She looked like she was desperately holding back her sobs.

"Hey, are you okay, Lara?"

Lara turned to her side. Anne just tapped her on the shoulder.

"There's nothing we can do." Anne continued her words with trembling lips.

From Anne's tone of voice, choice of words, and expression, I couldn't tell if she was trying to calm Lara down or not.

"Just leave me alone." Lara said flatly, then left Anne alone.

Weird.

No. I don't mean the interactions between humans that just happened.

Their bickering and chatter had already taken a few minutes, so where are the monsters? Hadn't they already entered the crack on the cliff? Could it be that they decided not to attack and retreated?

Anne shook her head and walked towards the location of her sack of goods. However, only taking a few steps forward, she froze and widened her eyes, then shouted in a frightened tone. "Kyaaaaa!!!"

So shocked, Anne took a step back and almost fell over. All the attention of the tribe members was on her.

Then, with trembling hand, the girl pointed at the crack. At the corner of the crack's lips, there was a stump scorpion the size of an adult's head who just stood there, not doing anything. It positioned itself close to the cliff wall so it was difficult for people to notice.

"Let me kill it." One of the archers immediately took aim with his bow.

"Don't!!!" Yogi and Tosa, a few meters away from where the archer was, shouted in unison.

It was too late. The arrow from the archer had been shot, directly stabbed into the stump scorpion who immediately fell, twitched a little, then died.

Tosa pushed the archer's chest. "Have you forgotten!? It's a scout scorpion! It could send a signal to its comrades! And now you're killing it!"

"Shit, shit, shit!!!" Yogi squeezed his head with a frustrated face. 'We're screwed!!! They will come us now!!!"

Then, auto-pause was triggered, a sign that my colonists were also in danger.

And a text appeared in front of me.

[When the stump scorpions are out of their nest, the leader will send some scouts to check on the situation. Basically, they wouldn't attack outside the cave if they weren't disturbed first. If even one of the scouts dies, then they consider that a sign of threat]

Oh, Fuck.