Born in apocalypse

’So, they’ve got rules for this lawless place, Now That’s interesting,’ Dhruv smirked as he thought about this.

"First, don’t even think about trying to escape from the prison, or else..." the boss suddenly stopped midway and instead of elaborating on the remaining rule, he sent his men to apprehend Selena and Naira for some reason.

Dhruv didn’t do anything right away and calmly watched the whole situation, trying to figure out what the boss was trying to achieve by taking two women from their group.

He didn’t take any action on the surface, but secretly, he sent them a message through the mark.

[If you feel any danger, quickly let me know through the mark.]

[Yes, my lord,] they both replied in unison.

Dhruv watched as the entire scene unfolded right before his eyes. He noticed that after pulling both of them towards himself, the boss seemed to cast a spell. A pink mist escaped from his hand and covered the heads of Selena and Naira.

[Do you feel anything?] Although he had suspicions about what the boss was doing, he still asked them.

[We want to sleep, my lord,] both of them said the same thing.

After hearing their words, Dhruv was certain about what the boss was trying to achieve.

So, he didn’t want to harm them; he just wanted to keep them as leverage to blackmail us into doing his bidding. Now this makes sense, and if he didn’t do that, the hundreds of men he had kidnapped would surely oppose him. After all, he only had around 50 tier-2 men.

Dhruv considered what the boss was trying to achieve, but he still wasn’t sure. So, he planned to send Alaric to keep an eye on the duo when they got out of their sight.

After putting them to sleep, the boss signaled one of his men to take the duo elsewhere and then looked at the group once again.

"The second rule is that everything you own becomes mine here," he said with a smirk on his face.

Dhruv couldn’t grasp what the boss was trying to convey. Before he had a chance to decipher this rule, a man from the group approached and placed his hand on Dhruv’s hand. When he did that, Dhruv understood what he was trying to achieve.

"Ohhh! So they weren’t asking us to transfer all our coins, but jokes on them; we don’t have any coins either."

While he was laughing thinking about this the man told him to repeat this,

I want to transfer all my coins to him."

Dhruv did what he was told and transferred all his coins to the man, which amounted to a grand total of 500 CC.

The man was shocked at first, then he literally checked his status for another 30 seconds to confirm that what he was seeing was real or an illusion cast upon him by someone.

Dhruv didn’t have many coins on him because he had invested all his Coins into the tribe. It wasn’t just him; everyone in the group had only 100 to 1000 coins on them. The man was lucky that Dhruv had killed bears this morning otherwise he wouldn’t even be able to find that 500 CC.

After repeating the same process with everyone in the crew, the gang member looked at them and said in shock, "Just this much."

The crew nodded their heads as if their entire fortune had been taken.

"Boss, they’re totally broke," the member said to his boss, wearing a shocked expression on his face.

The boss didn’t believe him at first and called the man to come closer, asking how much he had gained from the crew. When he heard the result, a deep shade of red covered his face.

He was so furious that he didn’t bother explaining the remaining rules and ordered his members to push the group toward the hunting area.

As the order was given, the gang started leading the crew towards the hunting area. During the relocation, several gunmen were following the crew to ensure that they couldn’t escape the perimeter or wander into the areas they weren’t supposed to go.

After walking for a minute the gang led them to an area where the train tracks were. After arriving at the ’hunting area’ Dhruv glanced around and realized that it was the exact location from where he had been receiving the mana signals when he had opened the mana vision.

As Dhruv looked ahead, he noticed several people were facing the tracks, each holding a weapon in their hand. Their weapons consist of swords, bows, and magical staffs. There wasn’t anyone with guns in that group.

From his view, Dhruv realized that they were hunting some sort of monster, but he couldn’t know the exact monster type from his current position.

Dhruv started to walk towards the group, he suddenly felt a wave of weakness washed over him. The moment this sensation struck, he recognized its origin, as he had already dealt with it once before.

’Why is the mana level here is low?’ Dhruv wondered.

He recognized this sensation well because he had encountered it once before during the second quest. The mana here wasn’t so severe that he had to crush cores to fill his mana, but he could definitely sense the decrease in mana nonetheless.

He promptly established a telepathic connection with the trio and inquired, [Did you guys also sense the mana level decreasing?]

[Yes, master. I do sense a very slight decrease in mana in this area,] Alaric quickly replied, following him Vexar and Azarex said the same thing.

Dhruv was taken aback after hearing their response,

’Very slightly? It is indeed lower, but I wouldn’t describe it as ’very slightly.’ Does that mean we’re perceiving different things? But why is that when we all are at tier 3?’ Dhruv pondered.

To confirm his suspicions, he asked the same question to the rest of the crew, but the results once again took him by surprise.

’They didn’t sense any changes in the mana level at all. Why is that? Why does it vary from person to person?’ Dhruv wondered.

Before he could dwell on this problem any further, the man pushed him toward the line, signaling that he should begin his work instead of standing in the middle.