The convoy of vehicles came to halt before Michael and the others, and passengers armed with various kinds of weapons got down from them and eyed Michael and the others like they were prey.
If it wasn't for their leader stopping them, they would have attacked Michael and the others by now.
The leader of this group of survivors, a man sporting a ponytail, took a couple of steps forward. "Were you the ones wh–"
"Are you the fuckers behind those horrible things inside?"
Michael didn't even let the man finish before he quickly cut him off. He does not have the time to entertain their talk and just wants to get this one over with so they can finally move on.
Ponytailed man was amused as he even let out a chuckle as he shared a glance with a couple of his companions. "Now, now, no need to be so hostile towards us. We're not bad people, you know."
"Yeah, we're not bad people! We helped a lot of people like you before! It's better to be friends, right?!" The crazy looking guy from earlier suddenly chortled after him and laughed, which unfortunately sounded like mocking to the ears of Michael and the others.
Michael snickered as he slowly raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
Snap!
The moment the snap happened, Lucky, who had been standing behind the truck suddenly pulled out a rocket launcher from down below him and aimed it towards the cluster of people laughing at them with disgusting expressions.
"O-oh shit."
These group of disgusting men had quickly noticed the rocket launcher being aimed towards them and their laughter slowly died down., which was followed by a curse from the ponytail-haired man.
"Sayonara, you fucktards!"
Lucky yelled with laughter as he enjoyed the expressions on the faces of everyone before pulling the trigger.
Swoosh!
"R-run!"
"NOOOO!"
The men tried to escape on every direction while wishing they had another set of extra legs. Unfortunately for them, Angels don't look too kindly on bastards like them and the rocket landed right in the middle of the pack.
BOOM!
The explosion blasted most of them to pieces, while a few lucky ones, if we can still call them that in their current state, managed to survive while only losing a limb or two.
On the other hand, Hans had long retreated behind the truck as bloodied debris caused by the explosion flew past all over the place and hit everything around them.
Boom!
Shortly following that, one of the cars caught in the explosion also exploded and it raised another blast of hot air.
Michael was the only that remained standing on his spot and witnessed everything while only squinting his eyes.
Pweee!
Lucky slowly raised his head from behind the truck and saw the destruction he had caused and let out a whistle. "Dang, blowing things up really does feel kind of different than shooting at someone."
Michael dusted himself off before he started moving towards the wreckage and saw someone still alive.
"Uggh."
Surprisingly, the crazy looking man from earlier is actually still alive with half of his body missing. He was looking at Michael with a horrified expression and full of unwillingness while blood flowed out of his lips.
Michael pulled his gun out from its holster and aimed at the man. "Please..don't rest in peace."
Bang!
With an additional hole on his head, the man died with his eyes wide open, staring at the empty blue skies.
Michael stood on that same spot for a good while as he gazed at the bloodied mess before him with a grave expression.
Roxy and Joel had already returned and joined with the others. They had been watching him since.
"Does Michael actually know them and have some kind of history between them?"
"The fuck would I know? We barely know the guy."
"He must have some kind of a story behind him."
While the three guys were having their own little chat, Roxy was busy sharpening her tools while from time to time, glancing Michael with curiosity.
Putuey!
A short while later, Michaels seems to have finally rearranged his thoughts and spat on the ground, and through gritted teeth.
"Disgusting animals."
Turning around, Michael walked back towards the truck where the others were.
Joel and the others suddenly stood in attention when they felt the heavy air emanating from Michael.
'This guy..Is he a monster in human skin?' Joel didn't know why he suddenly had that absurd thought when he felt the energy coming from Michael but somehow associated his presence to some of the ferocious animals he had faced before.
'This presence, there's no doubt about it. This is the reason why he can survive all alone out here. He's no ordinary guy.' Roxy thought as she's also feeling the pressure coming from him.
Unfortunately for her, she still hadn't met the man who will go by the name Morgan, who also traveled solo and even crossed states all by himself.
Since most people are still afraid of going through the dangers outside all alone, it's understandable that someone going solo is already her highest evaluation of anyone during times like these.
"Come on. Let's set off." Michael arrived and immediately addressed them.
Hans and Joel exchanged glances before the former immediately responded with a slight stutter. "R-right!"
Michael went back to his bike with Roxy who quickly rode behind him.
"Hey, do you know those guys?"
Leaving the unpleasant events behind, the group continued on their way.
"No, why do you ask?"
Roxy hesitated for a moment. "Well, you were standing over them for quite a while. So, we all thought you knew them from way back."
Michael didn't give any response to that and just focused on driving. Receiving only silence from him, Roxy took that as a sign and refrained from asking further.
In reality, Michael didn't mean to do that and was actually contemplating about something during that time and the others had just misunderstood it.
During that time, Michael had a realization that there would be more people bound to be like the previous group they left behind, who would result in cannibalism. So, he became deep in thoughts before arriving at the conclusion that he has to wipe out any group that devolved back to their primitive ways of eating their own.
'It's better to get rid of them while my plans have just started taking off since it will be harder to filter these kinds of people out when the communities become larger.'
The plan was to stay at Iota for the day, but since plans are bound to be not able to keep up with sudden changes, and to not be reminded of what they saw down there, Michael and the others just decided to leave the small town and continued on the road towards the next destination.
Only several minutes later after they had left, a small group of eight survivors arrived before the carnage that Michael and the others had left behind.
"What the heck happened here?"
"This was no battle, but a one-sided slaughter."
The survivors had their opinions. A couple of them had only taken a glance at the sight of destruction before them, and their stomach quickly turned, and they started retching.
"This kind of thing can only be achieved by a few things, but the most reasonable weapon that people can have right now, that can produce this kind of result is possibly...from a rocket launcher."
A man that almost has the same build and facial features including the same hairstyle and beard like the TV series Reacher, stood before the remains of the wreckage with a grave expression on his face.
"What about a tank, Joe? Is it possible that whoever is responsible for this shit has a tank?"
Joe scrunched up his face and looked towards the speaker. "A tank? Do you have eyes? Do you see any tank tracks around us? If they have one, then we would have heard of it from miles away."
"So, the explosion from earlier was the result of a rocket launcher then?"
Joe had to grit his teeth to stop himself from lashing out to them. He feels frustrated at the stupidity of these people. The only good thing about staying with them is that they listen to him well.
"Yes, a rocket launcher. Forget about them, we should be happy since these bastards are finally dead." He does not care what took place here, what he cared and worried the most is if those people had decided to stay here for good.
And from the lack of their presence, this somewhat relieved him of his worries.
'I was worried if we'd have a more dangerous neighbor than these disgusting man-eaters. Good thing they left.'
"Come on, let's go and get the others to move here."
"Good, we're finally leaving that depressing cabin and cave. I'm sick of staying in those places."
"The others will be thrilled when they hear we're moving, and that this group of bastards are finally dead." We had lost too much many to those people.
The survivors had cheerful looks on their faces as they boarded their vehicles and drove back towards where they came from.
'Whoever you people are. I hope you don't come back.'
*****
"Do you think there are others living in that town aside from those people?" Roxy suddenly couldn't help becoming curious. It couldn't be help, it has been a while since the last time she went back to that place and was suddenly being hit with that feeling of nostalgia when returning home.
"It's highly likely since we're not the only ones capable of surviving during these dark times."