Even though night had fallen, we pushed onwards in midst of the darkness. Thankfully, the moon was out in force today so the mountain road wasn"t as difficult as I had initially thought it would be. With no time to spare, we ate a simple meal of dried rations while we pressed on. Roughly 9 pm in the night, we finally reached our final destination.

In order to avoid any potential accident, I abstained from eating dried rations while we walked. However, in order to avoid any suspicion I cleverly made use of the darkness to fake the eating motion.

Caution was the name of the game after all. If my crimson skin were to ever get discovered, that would cause a stir among the villagers. More importantly, there was no guarantee that I would be able to convince them that I wasn"t a devil…especially given that stump on my forehead.

In the midst of my acting, George suddenly turned around and looked in my direction, attracted by the sound of me tossing away the dried rations. I immediately turned around as well and faked a wary look while looking around. Thankfully, the ruse worked.

All this while, that brat Dioh would sneak a few glances in my direction. I don"t know what he"s up to but I"m sure it"s nothing good.

The village was called East Plateau Village, formerly known as Plateau Village back when the four villages were still combined together.

Being a peasant in the Western Human Realms, one didn"t have too many leisure activities to pursue, especially at night. Thus, there weren"t too many villagers out and about when we arrived. Those who witnessed our arrival chose to turn a blind eye to us. In all likelihood, the darkness of night had prevented them from seeing George"s face.

Thankfully, George knew his way around the village and was able to lead us through a maze of well-lit houses, bringing us to our destination in a mere three minutes.

If my memory serves me right, our last target was a person called Eddison. According to Kevin, he was the one who suffered the least under the Wolf"s Fang. Compared to having a parent killed or a fiancee that betrayed him, the loss of material wealth and beating he suffered was negligible and made him the luckiest of the three. Of course, luckiest was a relative term. If he was truly lucky, he wouldn"t have gotten beaten up to begin with.

However, with the lack of such a deep hatred, that meant that he had no real reason to duke it out with the bandits either. Thus before coming here, I mentally prepared myself for a verbal slog. As for Dioh, he was raring to show off his almighty cannon of a mouth in order to clinch us a victory. Even before seeing the man, his ammo was already primed and loaded.

George stepped up and gave the door a hard knock. Without having to wait long, the door opened-up unleashing a torrent of incandescent light out into the darkness; which made the person who opened it seem that much taller. It was a fatty standing at the doorway, roughly 180 cm in height, who flashed us a jubilant smile the moment he saw George.

“Yo, isn"t that George, what are you doing here in the dead of night?”

“Naturally because we have something to discuss with you.” In the face of his jovial smile, George"s expression became noticeably stiffer. “Don"t just stand there, let us in.”

“Alright, everyone please make yourselves at home.”

Eddison looked to be roughly the same age as George. He had a rounded face with cheeks tinged a healthy red flanking an ever present smile. Looking at his neatly combed head of short chestnut hair and his immaculate style of dress, my impression of him was one of a wealthy businessman. In short, this potato didn"t seem like a fighter.

Before meeting him, I had wondered what kind of person he would be. Would he be a drunkard like Io or a loser like Moranthal? In the end, what greeted us was an amiable looking businessman.

Stepping through the doorway, we came into a relatively large parlor which was at least a 100 square meters large. A beautiful lady of roughly 20 years of age came up to us with a tea set in hand and set it down gently onto the large table in front of us.

Without seeking any prior approval, George led us to the table and sat down. Not paying this action any heed, Eddison instructed the lady to bring us some hot water and tea leaves before signalling for her to leave.

Tea leaves. The Western Human Realms did in fact possess such a product, although it was not a popular one it was not a cheap either. After all, growing tea leaves in such a backward society still required a decent amount of effort, and thus it was a luxury that the common folk couldn"t afford.

Roscar didn"t have a habit of drinking tea. In fact, he barely had money for his own equipment let alone such luxuries after toiling day and night for our tuition fees. The weapons he used were at least several years old and yet he couldn"t bring himself to spend the money required to renew them. This was the first time I had smelt a cup of tea ever since I reincarnated into this world. This smell…it doesn"t seem as fragrant as I remembered…

Picking up the piping hot cup of tea, my nose and mouth began twitching from the irresistible white wisps that wafted from its watery surface. I paused for a second, and deliberated on the potential consequences of what I was about to do. In the end, I gave into temptation, carefully removing my mask as I lowered my head gently into the cup and giving the tea a good sniff. It was slightly sour with an overpowering bitterness that lacked a certain dryness.

As expected, this didn"t even come close to the authentic Chinese tea from China. However, this familiar fragrance was enough to stir up a sense of nostalgia in a lone reincarnator like me.

Due to my obsession with this cup of tea, I was basically oblivious to how the negotiations were proceeding. By the time I was brought back to my senses, George and Eddison were engaged in a heated argument.

“Why must I help you defeat Dawson?”

Even though it was a question, the smile on Eddison"s face was definitely a derisive one.

“If we don"t make use of this opportunity to wipe out those curs, they"ll never let us off. If Dawson"s able to wipe out our villages today, he"ll be able to wipe out yours tomorrow. Don"t you know that if the lips are gone, the teeth are cold?!”

“I know that, but what does that have to do with me?” He answered with a nonchalant look on his face.

“What do you mean by that, aren"t you a part of Plateau Village as well?”

“Nope.” He said without any hesitation. “Our village is now East Plateau Village and have long since separated from Plateau Original Village. After several decades of being separated, our relationship is at best cordial. I"m well aware of how Dawson works, he wouldn"t mind.”

“If we combine our forces together, our military might is more than enough to wipe out those bandits. Only by doing so will we enjoy peace.”

“Just forget it, if you really want my support, go defeat Dawson first.” Eddison took a drawn out sip of his tea as he said that. “I know you managed to defeat him before, I"m sure you"ll be able to do so again.”

Easy for you to say…by the time Dawson shows himself, the battle will almost be over. By that time, if George was able to defeat Dawson, their morale would be crushed in an instant. At that point, all we needed was the might of the three villages to finish them off. Whether or not he took part wouldn"t matter at all. On the flip side…we runned the risk of being wiped out.

The whole point of this journey was to rope in the other three-stars in order to overwhelm Dawson. George said so already, he wasn"t a match for Dawson and that"s precisely why we needed more three-stars in order to win. In a fight between life and death, fairness could take a backseat.

Seeing my confusion, Ancarin promptly stepped forward to explain the situation to me. Apparently, Eddison didn"t have much of a grudge against Dawson and thus didn"t care too much about defeating him. Furthermore, he didn"t look too favorably upon George either. He felt that even with our combined forces, we would still lose to their overwhelming numbers.

More importantly, these bandits not only had wolves backing them up, they had horses as well. As for their four villages, not a single one of them had horses; all the horses had already been confiscated by Dawson. This was precisely why we had to make this trip on foot. As for my carriage, that wasn"t an option either thanks to a certain tied up potato.

So exactly what did it mean to not have horses? It meant that we had no means of communicating with the outside world to trade. Previously, it was mentioned that the Wolf"s Fang had sealed off all trade routes leading to and from the villages. The most direct way to achieve this was to stop any merchants from making the trip. Another way was to take away any horses that could potentially serve as a transportation tool.

On top of that, not having horses meant that none of the villagers could escape from any potential blockade. Well they still could…in a bodybag. These were after all, ordinary villagers; there was no way they could outrun a horse without any martial training.

In short, any resistance would be met with b.l.o.o.d.y consequences and with the lack of any viable escape methods, only a madman or someone with a blood feud would tangle with these bandits. Normal people would rather steer clear of this entire mess.

His leeriness was understandable, if it was me, I would be wary about tying the fate of my entire village to a bandwagon with such a bleak future.

However, then came the question of what were we to do. Without Eddison"s cooperation, our plan was doomed before it even started; which meant we had to rope him in no matter the cost, even if it meant using force. At least that was how I felt.

“So you"re willing to be a punching bag for them?!”

“It"s still better than losing my life!”

“We won"t die, with the combined might of the four of us, we will definitely be able to suppress Dawson. Furthermore, I"ve already killed Doran so their side has lost an expert even before the fight has started. After all this, are you still unwilling to lend us your aid?”

“Hmph, so you killed Doran. Now I get it, so that"s why you"re so anxious to recruit me.” Eddison laughed coldly and said: “Don"t even think about dragging me into this mess. If you want to fight the Wolf"s Fang, go find Io and Moranthal instead. I"m sure those two will be more than happy to support you. After all, one of them lost a father while the other lost a fiancee.”

“They"ve already agreed to help me.”

“Well isn"t that great. Once you all are dead, I can swallow up the rest of the villages.”

“Even then, you"ll still be exploited by the Wolf"s Fang.”

“That"s my business, a dead man like you shouldn"t care so much about it.”

George: “…”

Eddison: “…”

The two glared wordlessly at each other. Thus, their heated argument drew to a natural close without any resolution.