Being suddenly burdened by the man standing so near to him, possessing those same colored eyes as the people who had killed his father four years ago, made the child tremble, struggling to speak.
"I see," Ryuk seems to expect too much from this child who appeared to him as the only courageous one here, prompting him to turn to leave.
"No! I want food!" Seeing how that man was leaving, the kid cried out instantly, clenching the edge of man's coat with his dirtied hands, caused by his attempts to dig roots of some plants to feed himself since, unlike adults, he wasn't able to harvest.
"How could that kid?"
"Hey, did you forget he is a Devereaux?!"
One after another, those people started to condemn that small child, causing him to look in their direction in fear, seeing all of them now uniting against him for asking for food, when they were the ones who had told him to search for food by himself.
WHOOOOSH
CRACKK!
Even before the child could process his thoughts, a sudden soft warmth shrouded his body, prompting his eyes to lift to the man in front of him. Looking upward, he saw that man's body shrouded in a deep orange glow.
It was soothing and warm for him until his ears caught a voice.
"Kugh? — STOP IT, They will die!" Valhale cried out, his feet dug an inch into the stone pathway, his arms crossed and eyes widened as he looked towards the individuals, more than dozens of Dariants pressed into the ground with small craters digging even deeper with each moment, proving the force falling on their bodies was enormous.
"H...elp," one of the men pressed on the ground, which was breaking with each moment, his body moving deeper into it as if pressing into the dense soil with every inch of his body, bearing enormous pain.
Not only him, but even women and other people around the whole town, with a population of 135 individuals, were feeling the pressure, which was slowly forming cracks in the walls of the remaining architecture, some of which were now falling down.
CRUMBLE
The whole land was trembling with clear intensity, as if it would soon be torn in half.
With each passing moment, the area of shockwaves was increasing, instilling horror in the hearts of each of those individuals.
They were firsthand feeling the strength of an Early LEGENDARY Ranker.
The mana around that place was rampaging enough to draw the attention of all the Devereaux members present in Titanora, recognizing the pressure which seemed slightly different from that caused simply by that ranked individual.
After all, the mana around that place was rampaging because the Ether produced from Ryuk's body was throwing the whole balance of that place into dismay, vigorously reacting with mana and causing each Dariant present to feel their breath stuck and mana completely cut off.
"What do you see here?" Ryuk asked again, looking down at the child due to his height, wanting to hear a satisfactory answer from him.
Technically, yes, he was slightly sympathetic towards the child and even everyone present who had lost their home due to battles involving others, but he wasn't solely responsible for all this.
So, he wasn't going to take responsibility for all of them but provide them with the opportunity to take care of themselves because he needed labour.
"Hm, what is it?" Drishti, though tempted to outright reject Ryuk's request, remained calm, aware of the tragedy that had unfolded here and having witnessed the murder of this child's father.
Indeed, due to the actions of an Apex Ranked individual, particularly Esme's battle with one of the heads of the Devereaux minor families, Drishti had taken interest in that conflict at that time.
With her exceptional memory, she could vividly recall every detail from death of each individuals of this place.
Not that she was going to do anything about it—after all, it was just death of someone.
Her main reason for listening was the young man's behavior today.
Drishti had seen how he had performed on Ardoros—cruel, merciless, doing everything to win. Yet right now, she had observed him handling things in a particular manner.
Maybe he have a kind heart within him.
"Lady Drishti, how many slave seals can you arrange?" Ryuk, lacking trust in these people, casually proposed involving them in assisting the Savants he planned to bring from Ardoros.
Savants were unique, and if these Dariants killed them, he would incur losses.
In fact, he had already planned and sent messages to the Crawford family to start transporting everything from that place to here.
'Huh?, did I really except kindness from him' Drishti, expecting the man to show some sympathy for these people, was taken aback when he expressed intentions of using them as slaves. She reluctantly nodded in defeat, "Yes, I will establish a lower-grade slave seal manufacturing facility here. Since this continent is so vast..."
'...Huh.' Ryuk, who had expected to negotiate for a few hundred seals, found himself momentarily speechless, realizing he had underestimated the woman's capabilities.
"But we'll need minerals and transportation across the entire area to scale up—" Ryuk aimed to establish a robust system for efficient resource utilization within a few years, necessary for weapon support before the Heir Battle's end, but he was cut off before he could finish.
"Will 5000 tons of gold do the trick?" Drishti raised an eyebrow, her tone blank, not particularly bothered by the substantial amount she had just mentioned, despite it being a considerable sum even for her.
It represented her savings over 5000 years, including from her previous lives.
Her wealth was dispersed in various forms—gold, platinum, precious artifacts, and minerals—from all her incarnations.
'Did she just flex her wealth?' Ryuk pondered deeply, recalling how he had barely accumulated 300 tons of gold in his previous life, even after being declared a tyrant.
"By the way, Lady Drishti, how much wealth do you possess?" Although a personal question and somewhat impolite to ask about someone's finances, Ryuk was genuinely curious about what he could expect from her.
"Hmm." Drishti narrowed her gaze at his question, not because she found it invasive, but because she genuinely didn't know the total, making it challenging to quantify. She offered a real-life comparison, "I am wealthier than those from Fyrinthea."
'Why does that name sound familiar?' Ryuk racked his brain as Drishti turned to leave, recalling having heard the name somewhere before.
'?!'
Suddenly, the memory clicked into place as he watched the faint shards of energy left behind by Drishti's vanished figure. 'Wasn't that where Wang belonged?'