Chapter 149: Back to the Graveyard

I prefer to follow Leva to the graveyard. Well, if I want to see the striptease show again, I'll just use the replay feature.

What's more important is seeing my colonist's mental state.

"Hey, Pac. Cheer up." Leva patted the bald man's shoulder. "Tosa must be planning to have that festival every year, right? You can come next year."

Pac, who had been pouting ever since we left the striptease arena, snorted in annoyance. "Well, that means I have to wait another year. I'm fine with not attending the festival. But why do I have to get a shift when the most exciting show is going on?"

Leva laughed. "Then find a wife who can dance! You can see her dancing naked every night!"

"It's not that easy." Pac snorted again, then looked closely at Leva's face.

"What?" Leva raised an eyebrow.

"No." Pac looked ahead again. "You have indeed changed, Leva. I can say that you are... Maybe you are not as annoying as you used to be. It turns out that your new tribe has really influenced you, huh?"

"That and many other things." The red-haired woman shrugged.

It reminded me that Leva used to yell at my colonists, who had obviously helped her.

As soon as I arrived at the cemetery, I saw a teenage boy kneeling between two graves. At first, I did not recognize the boy because his hair was short, and his body was so skinny. But, after I looked again, I realized that it was Sena, the psychic.

"This place looks a lot bigger than when I was here last time." Leva narrowed her eyes, surveying the place.

There are more graves there than before, the result of a bloody coup.

"Ah, sorry. But I don't know where your mother and father are." Pac scratched his bald head. "Maybe you can ask Sena who is here often."

"Thank you, Pac." Leva continued on her way while the bald man stopped. Eric just nodded slightly to the man and continued to follow Leva.

"Hey, you really thank people." Pac chuckled with his hands on his hips.

At Pac's suggestion, my two colonists walked over to Sena, who just sat and looked down in silence.

"Good afternoon, Sena." Leva greeted with a bow and smiled at the boy. "Do you know where my parents are?"

Sena raised his face, looked at Leva with a blank expression. I was reminded of Eric's condition some time ago, after losing Emma. Sena seemed to have no zest for life anymore.

A few moments passed, but Sena was silent. This made Leva look confused. The teenage boy was just pointing to a corner of the cemetery when Leva was about to speak again.

"Thank you very much, Sena." Leva widened her smile, then started to leave the boy. However, after only a few steps, she stopped, turning her head back to the psychic boy. "I know, this might not be appropriate for me to ask you. But, I just want to know, Sena. You can still see the spirits, right? What about the spirits from my parents...."

"I can't do it anymore," Sena replied in a cold tone.

"Oh, I see." Leva rubbed his face. "Once again, thank you."

Then my two colonists continued their journey.

"He can only see me now."

I turned my head to the side, finding Red, the guardian spirit of the Redtooth tribe. The figure was walking towards me.

"Even then, he can't hear me. He can't hear us." Red sighed, folded her arms across her chest, staring at the boy. "I suspect it was due to his mental breakdown. His psychic abilities were hampered."

Well, not surprising. The boy only has his father. And now, he couldn't meet his father at all, not even in spirit form.

"Thank you for accepting my people." I sighed. "And, if you don't mind, I have a question. Well, after what happened to your tribe...."

"You wonder why I let you and your people in here again?" Red shrugged, then looked at Leva, who was now kneeling in front of her parents' graves. "If you came here, it's most likely for the survival of your people. As I said, they're innocent. I can't just let them die."

I could faintly hear Leva's muffled cry.

***

My two colonists were already sitting in a plain room, decorated only with carpet, a medium-sized table, and a few chairs. This surprised me quite a bit because the room was inside the palace. When Suja was still in power, the palace was quite luxurious. However, since I entered here earlier, I only found mediocre decorations.

Where did the luxuries go?

"Well, I haven't eaten anything like this in a long time." Eric opened the conversation after a long silence. He had already finished half of a round bread filled with pieces of dried fruit. "The last time I ate something similar to this was in my original world."

Leva lifted her face, wiped the tears from her puffy eyes, then took a piece from the pile of bread that was served on a clay tray. "Well, Suja hid this for himself. The reason is that, because the ingredients to make this are limited, he can't share it fairly."

"Really, huh?" Eric took a sip of wine from a clay glass.

Leva then ate the bread. "Fuck, it's delicious. It's the freedom that allows us to eat this. But freedom comes at a price."

Exactly.

The door to the room creaked open. Tosa entered the room, accompanied by a woman with brown hair and a bun. Eric hastily stood up and gave a respectful gesture with a slight bow while Leva was still enjoying her bread as if she didn't care about the existence of the tribe leader.

"You don't have to be like that." Tosa smiled while gesturing for Eric to stop the gesture. "We are in the same position."

If you look at Tosa's clothes, which have the same model as the residents, he does look on par with the others. However, I'm sure he doesn't really think like that. All of this is just a mask.

"Just a moment, sir." The woman beside Tosa frowned. Her sharp eyes looked at Leva and Eric in turn. "I feel there are traces of explosive material on their bodies."

Leva stopped eating right away.

This is a crucial moment. I hope that Eric can speak well. Tosa must not suspect that my colony has firearms. Things like that can be troublesome. Redtooth already knows my small number of colonists, so they won't hesitate to attack us under the pretext that we are dangerous because we have those weapons.

With the Congraylham, Redtooth did not know how strong the colony was, so Tosa did not dare to do anything at that time.

Not to mention the possibility that Tosa could force us to tell stories about producing these deadly weapons.

"Well, I'm from Congraylham, the colony that owns the firearms. I heard my comrades had visited the residents here." Eric explained with a friendly smile. "However, due to lack of food, we couldn't survive the winter. I was the only one alive. Luckily, I was rescued by a member of the Leva colony when I fainted in the snow on my way to find a new place."

"You're telling me that maybe there's still some explosive material stuck to your clothes?" The bun woman tilted her head. " You said you passed out in the snow, and they helped you? That means it's been a while, right? It's spring now. Haven't you been washing your clothes all this time?"

"Looks like the traces of the gunpowder are hard to remove, indeed..." Eric massaged the nape of his neck. "I've heard about you, lady. A person with high mineral detection abilities like you can still feel it, even if it's only a small amount of minerals, right?"

Suddenly Leva got up. "The mineral detectors other than me and my mother in this tribe should be male."

"Formerly." The woman beside Tosa slightly lifted her chin.

Leva looked at that woman, gulped. "Bryan?"