As the three turned to each other, Ms. Ng was the one who first looked at me and gave a reply:
"Very well, it's only proper for us to give you a general idea of the territories we occupy but do understand that even if we're in a would-be alliance, we can't just divulge everything. However, do know that we'll give our word that what we're telling you after this will be the absolute truth. Is that acceptable?"
On that note, not to copy what they did— no, we totally fucking did, the four of us looked at each other for a moment before I replied:
"Very acceptable."
"Then—"
"But do know our 'generous-ness' would greatly vary from the solid information we'd get."
Mr. Guzman asked, "What does that mean?"
"I'll tell you straight. We were generous enough to give this place a solid top-up and a mutually beneficial partnership that hopefully lasts a lifetime, but do know that as much as we love a harmonious relationship with our neighbors, it should be a give-and-take relationship, no?"
"We do understand that—"
"Then again, we'll give you some stuff we have in excess but we're wondering how we could mutually benefit each other. With this place, it's plenty obvious that having people in the medical field is indispensable—and don't get me wrong, a pair of hands is a pair of hands but what I'm asking is if you'd have anything else that might sweeten the deal for ya?"
"We..." Mr. Guzman paused for a moment before he turned to Ms. Ng, "Should we?"
Ms. Ng glanced at me before she took a few seconds to ponder while looking straight at the coffee table, "I... Hmm..." And after a few more seconds, she turned to me with a regretful smile as she opened her mouth:
"Unfortunately, don't take this as an offense and us a little mistrusting of your desire to obtain more valuable information from us— but as you've established yourselves as people, decent people, who had no ill intentions towards us or any other group who'd be willing to sit down and talk like civilized men and women, please do understand our intent to withhold such information to ourselves... as of this moment currently."
I let out a smile: Continue reading at m|v-l'e -novelhall.net
"So you're saying what you're keeping between yourselves is that important we need to show our hands first? Is that it?"
"That's..."
"That's what it sounded to me, no offense."
"I— N-None taken..."
"We're... We're not aware of that..."
I continued, "In any case, we'd like to ask for that same favor because if you have contact with more people further south or further north—anywhere along the coast, honestly—we'd like to know what were the exact descriptions of the people or the ship or vessels that did those things to them.
Because in a few days, the Admiral will go back to the US with a portion of their group and they could easily take care of them with their weapons. We just needed to know where should we direct their cannons, metaphorically speaking."
Oscar added, "Because honestly speaking, if WE were the ones who did it, there'd be no survivors. They'd all be sunk into the bottom of the ocean and there'd be no chance in hell they'd be able to safely dock somewhere else. It's a conspiracy against us if anything. Why'd they have to spread around? So we can't track them with our fighter jets? Please."
"That's... Alright, we'll get into contact with our allies and we'll inform you of what we uncover. Is there anything else?"
At that point, it looked like a huge rock was taken off their boots as they were able to converse more freely but yeah, their living situation was the same as everyone else that was surviving currently.
And with how we dealt with the most populated area of this region, we basically saved them a ton of bullets and solved a lot of their problems because their focus would fall on rebuilding and making connections with more people or further solidifying them.
And to my fucking surprise, they had some unconventional protein source that they've been taking advantage of—which was totally not human meat, by the way—and let's just say that it came from the zoo only a few miles south of their main base location.
Quinn exclaimed, "Crocodiles?!"
I chuckled, "You haven't had them yet?"
"Only alligators."
I chuckled, "Tastes the same, honestly. Leaner meat too, I might add..."
Tatiana turned to Mr. Blanco with a sparkle in her eye, "W-What else do you have in stock?!"
Mr. Blanco scratched the back of his head as he looked down then back at us, "Of course... We also had alligators, ostriches, frogs, possums, kangaroos, the list goes on... The caretakers of the zoo did try to keep them alive as much as possible but we're now only left with ostriches, crocs, and frogs because those were the only ones that caretaker could confidently, you know, take care of."
Mr. Guzman chuckled, completely surprised about our reactions, "We did capture a few pheasants and some quail for their eggs but crocodile eggs are too weird for me, texture-wise."
As this was happening, I failed to notice the eerie smile Mrs. Dewey was wearing and we realized too late when Mr. Dewey cleared his throat to bring attention to it. But yeah, it seemed like they were trading way back then and they didn't know the kind of meat they were receiving in exchange.
I chuckled, "Oh, you guys are fucked."
Mrs. Dewey turned to her daughter's prospective husband, "Care to explain more?"