Chapter 244: negotiation

After getting out of their settlement, the Spartan/Daland soldiers walked for 5 minutes before they reached the location of the main hall. It was a building isolated at a corner of the shelter.

As soon as they got close to the main hall of the shelter for the first time, the first thing that became apparent to them was the dressing code here.

Unlike them that were still dressed in thick climbing uniforms, all of the people that they met dressed more casually. The warmth of the shelter brought a lot of conveniences which some people eagerly took advantage of.

Some of the mercenaries here shamelessly opened stalls where they sold light and stylish clothes, the female guide already showed them this when she led them on the short tour.

As they were drawing too much attention with such clothes on, Diana finally decided that they should also get the trending clothes here for themselves.

After getting the light clothes on, they finally blended with the others here for the first time. The shelter was boisterous as people walked about doing their own thing.

They joined the cue as they quickly located the main hall of the shelter again, they went inside after dividing themselves into groups.

As Clark and Dickson did not join the group on the lookout, Diana was the default leader while Benny and Anna were her assistants. With their combination, they smoothly entered the hall without drawing too much attention.

Unlike what their guide told them; the shelter’s main hall was unusually boisterous today which left them thinking of the reason.

The hall was shaped just like a football stadium, with thousands of chairs neatly arranged around it to form a circular shape. A podium was erected in the middle of the stadium.

After locating seats to sit down, Diana finally deduced why a podium was erected here. A projection suddenly flickered to life as 2 men who were obviously gladiators were projected.

Seeing this, she observed silently while making conclusions on her head. It was already apparent to her that this hall was mainly constructed to provide a source of entertainment to the people here.

She could see some of the mercenaries going to various booths around the stadium. After asking, she found out that the booths were used as betting sites.

Even if the hall was made for entertainment, she found it hard to convince herself that all these people came here for this alone.

After thinking more about it, she concluded that they converged here probably to meet the king of demolition that was rumored to be coming here today.

She stayed alert for 2 hours watching sharply, but her concentration started waning after this as she followed the other people around to watch the ongoing virtual gladiator tournament.

3 hours later, she forgot her objective and focused completely on the projection. She even started yelling with the other spectators.

30 minutes later, a change finally came in the shelter.

It started from outside as a large number of people started cheering loudly all of a sudden. Hearing the noise, the ones in the hall were aroused as they also started cheering excitedly.

Diana was jolted by the noise as her brain quickly cleared the next moment. Her eyes grew sharp again, she squinted them while looking outside to see what was happening.

Her efforts proved to be useless. She was speechless as the projection quickly switched views, projecting what was happening outside to the people in the hall.

King!! King!! The people started cheering excitedly.

Seeing this, she was stunned. It seems that they didn’t even need to be alert in the first place, the shelter announced this guy’s arrival even before they could react.

“How popular is he really?” She questioned herself doubtfully.

From the projection, she could see that the king of demolition had white hair with sharp facial features. She didn’t know if he dyed the hair or if it was natural, but it looked good on him.

A multitude of people stood around him, cheering excitedly as they escorted him to the direction of the shelter’s main hall.

His attire from head to toe was all black, with black eyeglasses even on his eyes, which stood as a sharp contrast against his pure white hair.

“Is Major Clark seeing this?” Anna’s voice suddenly sounded through her comm.

Anna’s voice jolted her as she was getting engrossed in this sight, she quickly reacted. She smoothly placed a hand on her chest, adjusted her button which in the same process switched on the camera that was there.

At the same time that she did this, Clark and the other soldiers who were in their settlement received the feedback.

Because of the multitude that was surrounding him, the king of demolition took a long time to take a single step forward. Despite this, he still smiled brightly while waving at the people.

The atmosphere seemed harmonious just a moment ago, but a change suddenly came into the background.

A group of 20+ soldiers suddenly rushed forward from the multitude of people with sharp weapons on their hands. Their target was clear, the king of demolition was the target.

Diana was surprised as most of the people around did not have much of a reaction to this, even the target himself.

She was surprised, but it soon turned to astonishment. Before the group of 20+ mercenaries could rush forward 10 steps, fire erupted from the towers around the shelter as the sound of gunshots followed.

The snipers stationed there were frighteningly accurate. A bullet to a corpse and all the attackers were wiped out in a moment.

A blue solid suddenly fell from the top of the shelter on the corpses as in a moment, the blood, body parts, and corpse were quickly removed like everything that just happened was just an illusion.

None of the people reacted to this, they were still cheering enthusiastically.

Seeing this, Clark was stunned. “I expected this as no matter how popular you are, not everybody will like you, but such an efficient reaction is baffling. Why does it feel like the shelter is fawning on him?”

“I feel so too, this guy is not simple. I already heard of him before, but seeing him now is different. I think he is a 3rd rank high-grade soldier, but even this does not warrant such treatment”. Josh commented.

All the soldiers grew serious on hearing this. This person was crucial to their mission, his being troublesome was detrimental to their goal.

It took some more time, but the focus of attention of the day finally entered the main hall of the shelter.

He was led to the best seat in the hall by the guards of the shelter. After this, the shelter delivered refreshments to everyone like they were celebrating something worth being proud of.

As soon as he sat down, most of the more noteworthy mercenaries that the allied squad’s female guide showed to them started standing up to go meet him for idle talks.

Despite these movements, Clark was patient as he decided to wait a few more minutes. He wanted to know the motive of this guy coming here before he would move out.

From minutes, it soon turned to over an hour. During all this time, it became apparent to him that this guy probably had no specific motive for coming here.

From the beginning, he never focused on anything nor anyone. He always had a smile on his face when talking to the people that came to visit him.

Clark felt that instead of a soldier he felt more like a shrewd businessman. Seeing the smile always gave him goosebumps.

Another thing that became apparent to him was that this man came with no follower or mercenary, this meant that he was a lone ranger and probably didn’t have a mercenary group.

“Then how did he become so famous? Is it because of the legend that Jason told us? That’s nonsense, mercenaries can not like someone so much just because of a random legend”.

He had a lot of doubts after watching this man for the past hour, his personality was far from the king of demolition that he envisioned in his mind.

Well, he could not know more if he didn’t get close. He made his decision.

“Diana, engage”.

“Yes, Major”.

Diana suddenly stood up from her seat as she started wriggling herself down the column of seats. At the same time that she moved, Benny also stood up from his seat and moved.

They both quickly came to the foot of the hall again. They converged, nodded at each other before moving together to the location where the focal attention of this celebration sat.

As almost all of the mercenaries sat down, their movements immediately elicited a reaction from almost everyone. Thousands of eyes converged on them, watching them with interest.

Seeing them coming closer, the well-known mercenaries that were conversing with the king of demolition narrowed their eyes to look at them.

Some of them expertly whispered something to their subordinates, who left immediately in acknowledgment of the order.

Though she could not hear what they said, Diana still made out from the mouth movements that some of them said- go check, find their identity, and bring me a detailed report.

As she walked forward with Benny beside her confidently, some of the mercenary subordinates suddenly blocked their path. They obviously harbored evil intentions but she was too lazy to spank their butts.

Benny smoothly walked ahead of her, continuing forward without pause as she glared at the mercenaries.

This staring contest only lasted for 10 seconds before the frightened mercenaries scrambled from the way.

This made some of the well-known mercenaries raise their heads in interest, these people were not some cheap scammers trying their luck. This made it more interesting as they’ve never heard of them.

After intimidating the mercenaries, Diana had uninterrupted passage straight to the king of demolition’s seat.

The latter swirled the glass on his hand playfully, downed it in one gulp, belched before inclining his head to look at her. “Are you here for me…? Or you’re against me?”

Diana took a deep breath before speaking out.

“My name is Staff Sergeant Diana. I came to solicit your help after hearing about your legend, I believe that you have what it takes to render me the help that I want”.

“Oh…” The latter smiled.

“Don’t worry, money is not my problem”. Diana quickly added with a poker look on her face.

“When you hear our terms and offer, I believe that you will be interested. What do you think? Let’s find a place to talk, right?”

“I like your confidence. It makes me want to accept immediately, but I don’t think that you are the right person to be speaking to me”. He smiled wider while gulping down another glass of alcohol.

“Bring me your leader”.

[Thank you for reading this chapter, I really appreciate it. Please, leave your power stones behind to support the book. Purchase privilege for The Conspiracy Of The Elites and read a varying amount of chapters ahead of regular readers.]